HOW GREAT IS YOUR GOD?

How big is your God? There are ways to answer that question. 

Where do you turn when you have problems, what gives you the most pleasure in your life? Where do you turn when you feel guilty and shame? When you hear reports of problems in the world, what is your reaction? When people wrong to you or treat you unjustly what is your response? When you feel lonely and have lost hope where do you turn? Is God big enough for your problems? Is he big enough for your circumstances? Is he big enough to free you from your sins and weaknesses? Is he big enough to heal your sicknesses? Is he big enough to provide for your needs? Is he big enough to free you from your guilt and your shame? Is this a God you can hope in? Is this a God you can sing about on Sunday? Is this a God who give you a reason not to sin on Monday?  

In a world where God has been shrunk to a small size. In a world where God is been minimalized and marginalized, if not out right ignored, we need to reinvigorate our hearts with a fresh vision of the magnitude and beauty of God's divine power and greatness. The testimony of God and his word is unmistakable.

He is mighty and strength parenthesis (Job 9:4). Our God is the Lord strong and mighty (psalm 24:8). Our God is in our midst, A great and awesome God (Deuteronomy 7:21).

He is the Lord of hosts, the mighty one of Israel (Isaiah 1:24). Jeremiah said this of God in celebration:

'Ah, Lord GOD! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you. You show steadfast love to thousands, but you repay the guilt of fathers to their children after them, O great and mighty God, whose name is the LORD of hosts,Great in counsel and deed(Jeremiah 32:17-19).

Creation is a testimony to the greatness of his might (Isaiah 40:26).

He is lord, owner, ruler, and king of all creation home none can resist or over power (Matthew 11:25; Revelation 1:8; Psalm 29:10; Jeremiah 10:7, 10).

He is the Lord Almighty (2 Corinthians 6:18; Revelation 4:8;11:17).

He is the blessed and only sovereign, the king of kings and Lord of lords (1 Timothy 6:15).

Nothing is too difficult for him; all things are within his power (Genesis 18:14; Zechariah 8:6; Jeremiah 32:27)

The angel Gabriel told the Virgin Mary that she could conceive a child without the involvement of a man and said, nothing will be impossible with God." (Luke 1:37)

After contemplating the difficulty of a rich man getting into heaven, Jesus said:

"With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." - Matthew 19:38

Be still dear reader and that you're mine Basque on these incredible declarations about our God: 

Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.  - Psalm 115:3

Whatever the LORD pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps.  - Psalm 135:6

For the LORD of hosts has purposed, and who will annul it? His hand is stretched out, and who will turn it back?  - Isaiah 14:27

I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,'  - Isaiah 46:9-10

Then Job answered the LORD and said: "I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.  - Job 42:1-2

All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, "What have you done?"  - Daniel 4:35

So again I asked the question, does God have the power to break the stranglehold that sin has on our hearts? YES!

Does God have the power to strengthen us, to energize us, and to enable us to persevere with every fiber of being cries out to quit and give up? YES!

Does God have the power to defeat Satan,his temptations, his torments, his continuous accusations, and his lies?YES HE DOES! Does God have the power to heal our inner wounds, our brokenness, and years of bitterness in our souls? YES! Does God have the power to break any habits and bondages in our minds and life? YES!

This is a point in which we should all stop and pause to a door, honor, and praise our God. 

I close with with Steven Charnick said: 

"Wisdom and power of the ground of the respect we give to men; they being both infinite in God, are the foundation of a solemn honor to be returned to him by his creatures. If a man make a curious engine, we honor him for his skill; if another vanquish a vigorous enemy, we admire him for his strength; and shall not the efficacy of God's power and creation, government, redemption, inflame us with a sense of the honor of his name and perfections! We admire those princes that have fast empires, numerous armies, that have a power to conquer their enemies, and preserve their own people in peace; how much more ground have weed to pay a mighty reference to God, who, without trouble and weariness, made and manages this fest empire of the world by a word and back! What sensible thoughts have we of the noise of thunder, the power of the sun, the storms of the sea! These things, that have no understanding, have struck man with such reference that many have a door them as gods. What reference in adoration this is mighty power, joined with an infinite wisdom and God, demand at our hands."

Basking in His greatness,

Pastor Bill

GODS FAVORITE AROMA

"And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints."

Revelation 5:8

"And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne."

Revelation 8:3

My mother was a fantastic cook. One of the favorite things that she would make would be chocolate chip cookies. I could remember being outside to play and as  I got close to the house when the windows were open I would begin to get a scent of my favorite aroma, fresh baked chocolate chip cookies! When I would open the door the entire house was filled with the fragrance of those cookies from the kitchen.

The scent reminds me of childhood, but it’s not just the aroma that I love; it’s everything that I associate with it: contentment, nostalgia, memories. How this particular aroma stirs me is beyond explanation. It runs deep.

It occurred to me that this must be how God feels when our godliness ascends to him. Pleased beyond explanation — a delightful aroma which he could breathe in all day long. In fact, all throughout the Bible, certain scents seem to hold specific meanings for God. While some delight him, others, unfortunately, cause him to recoil.

Did you know that God has a favorite scent that he delights in? 

When we pray, he smells the aroma from the kitchen as you prepare his special dish. What God delights to do more than anything else, Is the smell our prayers for him to answer. Our prayer is the sweet aroma from the kitchen sending up into the kings chamber's making him hungry for the meal. But the actual enjoyment of the meal is his own glorious work in answering our prayers. The food of God is the answer you get  in your prayers. 

The most wonderful thing about the Bible is that reveals a God who is a happy God who satisfies his own appetite for joy by answering the prayers of the Saints. God doesn't have any deficiency in himself that he needs to fill up, so he gets his great satisfaction by magnifying the glory of his riches by filling up the deficiencies of people who pray. 

No wonder why the Psalmist could cry out,

"Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice!"

Psalm 141:2

Because that is exactly what our prayers are to God

In the Old Testament, God commanded the priests of Israel to continually burn aromatic incense — made from a blend of five exotic spices — on the golden altar inside the Holy of Holies. But, like my moms chocolate chip cookies, it wasn’t simply the fragrance itself that pleased God, but what it represented: the constant prayers of his people.

In fact, the incense, associated with the people’s prayers, was so pure and sacredly sweet to God that any deviation from what God had explicitly commanded was met with swift death, as Nadab and Abihu found out (Leviticus 10:1–2)

Just as God prescribed a specific recipe for the incense, he also prescribes specific prayers for believers today — prayers of:

Thanksgiving (1 Timothy 2:1)

Forgiveness (1 John 1:9)

Intercession (1 Timothy 2:1)

Praise and adoration (Psalm 148:1–14)

Utter dependence (Matthew 7:7)

Seeking wisdom (James 1:5)

Petitions and supplications (1 Timothy 2:1; Philippians 4:6)

Seeking peace (Philippians 4:6–7) 

Salvation (Romans 10:9–10).                                  

These particular prayers, in fact, are so pleasant and precious to God that he lovingly collects them in “golden bowls” in heaven (Revelation 5:8). By keeping them close, he can continually enjoy their blessed bouquet.

Think about this God has designed prayer where God is both the source and the agent in doing good to his people. This is one of the reasons that twice that the book of Revelation describes the prayers of the Saints as golden bowls of incense before the throne of God. God delights in the aroma of his own glory as he smells it in the prayers of his people.

God loves to see us do it, which is probably why Revelation 5:8 describes the prayers in the golden bowls in the hands of the elders as incense before God. What does incense before God do? Well, it just fills his room with pleasant fragrance. That is what it does. And what a beautiful image to get down on your knees with and say: I am right now going to light a sweet smelling lamp or candle and it is going to fill the room of heaven with a fragrance this afternoon or this morning that God is going to be pleased by. 

Your prayers are the aroma of heaven, sweet smelling before the throne of God and before the Lamb. I am strengthened and encouraged to pray all the more often and all the more vigorously when I think that my prayers are being assembled and stored up in heaven and offered to Christ repeatedly in heavenly acts of worship.

Let’s all bless and honor and adore Christ here below with our prayers, and then doubly rejoice that the worship council of heaven offers them again to Christ as sweet smelling incense before the Lamb who was slain.

Thoughts on God, His Freedom, and Pleasure in What He Does

One of my all-time favorite books and most impactful on my life was a book that I read when I was a young Christian by JI Packer called simply Knowing God. One of my favorite sentences of the book that has stuck with me for over 40 years goes like this; "the people who know God think great thoughts about God". So today I wanted to write a simple blog just posting something thoughts about God, Why he does what he does, and the unconstrained freedom he has and what he does. 

One of the hardest things to comprehend and the greatest mystery of the universe is that from all eternity,before there was ever a creation, the one reality that has always existed is God. It is exceedingly difficult for us to think of God having absolutely no beginning and just being there for ever and ever and ever, without anything or anyone making him be there, just absolute reality that everyone of us has to reckon with whether we like it or not.

This is the only fountain of lasting joy, God. Without beginning and without ending, without source and without costs, without help or assistance, the spring is eternally self replenishing. From this unceasing fountain flows our being, our life, our existence,  and all the grace and joy and love in the universe.

All of us have an immense void inside us that craves satisfaction from people, pleasure, and powers outside of ourselves. Yearning, longing, hunger, thirst, and desire are the very essence of who we are. We are born deficient, needy, and perpetually dissatisfied, and truth be told these never go away do they?

Think about it we come into the world knowing almost nothing, and have to spend years upon years going to classes, or learning in the school of hard knocks, in order to in a very tiny way fill up a little of this deep void of ignorance inside of us. Parents and teachers tell us to things that we don't like to do because we need to do them to overcome some weakness in ourselves, to increase our knowledge, or strengthen our bodies, or refine our manners, or sharpen our intellect. 

But not God!

He has been complete and overflowing with satisfaction from all eternity. He needs no education. And no one can offer anything to him that doesn't already come from him. He is not constrained by any inner deficiency or unhappiness to do anything he does not want to do. If God wasn't happy, if he was in someway deficient, then he might indeed be constrained from outside in someway to do what he does not want to do, in order to make up his deficiency  and finally be happy. But, this what makes Him God! He is infinitely free, independent sovereign and happy.

Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.(Psalm 115:3)

I am God and there is no either, I am God, and there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done,saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my pleasure (Isaiah 46:9-10)

Psalm 135:6,“Whatever the LORD pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps. ” 

In reading these precious verses I discover a God who always acts according to and for His own “good pleasure,” following the dictates of his own delights. He never becomes the victim of circumstance, or Satan or human decision. He is never forced into a situation where he must do something in which he cannot rejoice. Everything he does he takes pleasure in. He cannot and will not be get back from doing what he delights most to do, and he will never be forced to do what he does not delight to do. And this is true everywhere in the universe

"For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever.

Amen"

(Romans 11:34-36)

hoping that you will begin thinking great thoughts about God for your faith, trust, and exceeding joy,

Pastor Bill

THE GODNESS OF GOD

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," says the LORD. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)

The longer I know Christ and the more that I understand His ways, the more  I realize how little I really know him and how much there is to learn. Last week I wrote a post about the revelation of God being a happy God.  This is one of the many things that makes God uniquely who He is. I call this the "Godness of God".  Today I want to reflect on another aspect of His uniqueness in how He thinks and feels and wills. 

God's heart is capable of complex combinations of emotions infinitely more remarkable that ours. 
 He is the supreme being who describes himself in infinitely unique categories. 

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," says the LORD. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)

Consider His unique emotional categories. 

For example, when Jesus entered into Jerusalem He knew what was about to happen. The Pharisees were going to get the upper hand. The people would be fickle and follow their leaders. And Jesus would be rejected and crucified. And within a generation the city would be obliterated. Look how Jesus says it in Luke 19 verses 43-44:

"For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation."

Yet Jesus’ is also tenderly moved. We read in the proceeding verses 41-42,

"And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, "Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.."

Jesus felt the sorrow of the situation. This doesn’t mean His sovereign plan has thwarted by human rebellion and will. It means that Jesus is more emotionally complex than we think he is. He really feels the sorrow of a situation. No doubt there was a deep inner peace that He was in control and that His wise purposes would come to pass. But that doesn’t mean He couldn't cry.

Another time we read that when Lazarus died, Jesus said,"for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe" (John 11:15). He promised to Martha in verse 23 "Your brother will rise again" and in verse 40 that they would "...see the glory of God". So Jesus had purposely planned to let Lazarus die and that his death was good and that in this death the glory of God would be made manifest.

Yet we also see Jesus' response to the sorrow and mourning of Mary, Martha, and the family in verse 33, "When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled"; verse 35, "Jesus wept"; and verse 38 "Then Jesus, deeply moved again." Jesus had planned the death and resurrection of Lazarus yet could feel deep sorrow and compassion over the situation.Amazing!

God's emotional life is infinitely complex beyond our ability to fully comprehend. That is what makes Him God. Oh the challenge to know a being who is and expresses Himself in categories beyond our logic, frame of references, experience, and comprehension!

Who can comprehend that the Lord hears in one moment of time the prayers of 10 million Christians around the world, and sympathizes with each one personally and individually as a caring father as Hebrews 4: 15 says, even though among those 10 million prayers some are brokenhearted and some are bursting with joy? How can God weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice when they are both coming to him at the same time, in fact, are always coming to him with absolutely no break at all? Who can comprehend that God is angry at the sin of the world every day (Psalm 7:11), and yet every day, every moment, he is rejoicing with tremendous joy because somewhere in the world a sinner is repenting (Luke 15:7,10,23)? Who can comprehend that God continually burns with hot anger at the rebellion of the wicked and grieves over the unholy speech of his people (Ephesians 4:29-30), yet takes pleasure in them daily (Psalm 149:4), and ceaselessly makes merry over repentent rebels who come back to Him?

Who of us could say what complex of emotions is not possible for God? All we have to go on here is what he has chosen to tell us in the Bible. God's heart is capable of complex combinations of emotions infinitely more remarkable that ours. 

Humbly basking in my limited understanding of the depths of God's nature and glory.

Pastor Bill

THE GLORY OF THE HAPPY GOD!

"...in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted."

1 Timothy 1:11

Do you think God is a happy being? Have you ever thought of Him in that way? Phillip Yancey writes in his book "The Jesus I Never Knew",
"What we think and believe about God matters-really matters-as much as anything in life matters.”

One of the most life changing moments in my life was when I read from the word with new eyes what the apostle Paul says in 1 Timothy 1:11, "in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed (happy) God."

I discovered that God is the happiest of beings. So often I used to think of God as non-enthusiastic or even gloomy. The god of religion is cold, calloused, cantankerous, mean-hearted – in a word he, is just plain unhappy – and he is out to make your life miserable. But the true God of Scripture is revealed as being “the happy God”! 

We desperately need a sharpened biblical focus of whom God is and what He is really like. Because, when we know the truth, the truth sets us free! One of the reasons our witness to God’s reality is minimal is because our understanding of God’s reality is minimal. Like J.B. Phillips said early last century,” Your God is to small.” Oh how diminished God can often be by our little or ignorant understanding of Him! What we need is a big picture of a great God who is the happiest of beings.

Unlike the religious views of God, our God is truly a God of joy. He is not an old angry man with a scowl upon His face. He actually is a happy God, and we have Scripture that teaches us this wonderful truth! He loves to be God, He takes great pleasure in all that He does, and He is enthusiastic about serving His people and working for their welfare. For example, God says in Jeremiah 32:41, "I will rejoice in doing them good." Jesus said in John 15:11, "These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you."  And Paul writes in 1 Timothy 1:11 of "the gospel of the glory of the blessed God." Blessed (makairos in Greek) can mean happy. So Paul is literally saying: "the good news of the glory of the happy God." 

When I say God is happy, I mean that He is supremely or infinitely happy. He is the happiest being in the universe. A great part of what makes God God is his happiness. To be infinite glorious is to be infinitely happy. He uses the phrase, the glory of the happy God, because it is a glorious thing for God to be as happy as he is. God's glory consist much in the fact that he is happy beyond our wildest imagination!

I love the way Jonathan Edwards put it, 

"part of gods fullness which she communicates, is his happiness. This happiness consist in enjoying and rejoicing in himself; so does also the creatures happiness."

And this is the gospel; "The gospel of the glory of the happy God." Isn't it just fantastic news that God is gloriously happy? Would you want to spend eternity with an unhappy God? If God isn't a happy God, than the goal the gospel is not a happy goal and that means it is not a gospel, i.e. "Good news" at all. But, the fact is, Jesus invites us to spend eternity with a happy God and enter into that happiness when he says, "enter into the joy of your master"(Matthew 25:23).

Jesus lived and died that his joy-God's joy-might be in us and our joy might be full (John 15:11;17:13). 

God's happiness spills over in mercy to us. Can you imagine what it would be like if the God who ruled the world were not happy? What if God were given to grumbling and pouting and depression like some Jack-and-the-beanstalk giant in the sky? What if God were despondent and gloomy and dismal and discontented and dejected and frustrated? Could we join David and say, "O God, thou art my God, I seek thee, my soul thirsts for thee; my flesh faints for thee, as in a dry and weary land where no water is" (Psalm 63:1)? No way!

Perhaps some of us relate to God like little children relate to a gloomy, dismal, discontented, frustrated father. They can't enjoy him. They can only try to avoid him and maybe try to work for him to make him feel better. Children cannot enjoy the company of their father if he is gloomy and dismal and frustrated. But not God, He's the happiest of all beings.

We have a God who is the opposite of the gloomy, dismal, disinterested father. Consider this encouragement from Jeremiah 9:24, "'I am the Lord who performs mercy and justice and righteousness in the earth, because in these things I delight' says the Lord." God shows mercy because it makes Him so very happy! 

Listen to the heartbeat of your happy God in Jeremiah 32:40-41,

I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them; and I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. I will rejoice in doing them good,and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul.

God does good to you because he enjoys it so much! He pursues the business of loving you with all his heart and with all his soul. 

"Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." (Luke 12:32)

Oh what a happy God you have! Listen to these words:Isaiah. 62:5, “as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.”Psalm 35:27, "The LORD be exalted, who delights in the well-being of his servant."Psalm 149:4, For the LORD takes delight in his people; he crowns the humble with salvation. ”

Psalm 147: 10-11, "His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse, nor his delight in the legs of a man; the LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love."

Zephaniah 3:17, "The LORD your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing." ".

So, enjoy life! Wake up every morning and bask in the goodness and grace of “the happy God” Who loves you and lives in you. Embrace His happiness throughout the day, regardless of the situation or circumstances in which we may find ourselves.

Whoever trusts in the Lord, happy is he (Proverbs 16:20).

Happy in His happiness,

Pastor Bill

WEAKNESS AND INABILITY:A LAUNCHPAD TO GODS POWER

I am turning 64 in a few weeks. As I evaluate my life O can honestly say I have never felt more inept,inadequate,  and impotent. Do any of you feel this way?  This is an all to familiar place for me in my life to be. I have developed an aversion to inadequacy and impotency. In the past I was a high achiever, a self sufficient loner, very self disciplined, focused, highly ambitious, in control, a planner, a success driven striver. I always made sure my ducks were lined up and that I had alternatives to my alternatives to fix and solve any problem that I had. But not any more. Too much failure, too much brokenness, to many broken dreams, too many bad decisions, too much humiliation. Today, after 43 years of being a Christian, I have truly learned that before God I am truly helpless.

The truth is that if we are really honest with ourselves,, we are always inadequate. Our Lord said so in John 15:6, "Apart from Me, you can do nothing." This statement and believing it are foundational to understanding the kind of person who will be most used by God. Life, in fact, is too much for us. This business of living in awareness and response to God, to live for His glory, to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, to live in caring attentive love to the people around us, and to do that for 70 to 80 years with joy and perseverance, utterly exceeds our capacities. We aren't smart enough; we don't have enough energy; we can't concentrate adequately. We are unbelieving, apathetic, fragile, weak, and fickle.

Not all the time, to be sure. We have spurts of love, passion, risks of faith, moments of heartfelt caring, and extraordinary courage; but invariably we slip back into laziness, dullness, fatigue, unbelief, selfishness, or greed. That is why a ruthless honesty before God and ourselves will always leave us shattered by our inadequacy.

There is an enormous gap between what we think we can do and what God calls us to do. As long as I think that God calls me to do only what I think I can do (i.e.control, manipulate, contain, play it within my own self made safety nets) I am fine. In short, as long as I live within the confines within my own self imposed limitations and abilities all is well. But what happens when your ideas of what we can do or want to do are small and trivial in comparison to God's idea of what He can do in and through us, whether you are 18 or 64?That is where we often times get afraid, doubting, discouraged, despair, and feel hopeless.

God does not call us to do only what we can do, He calls us to do what He can do! Christianity is supernatural or it is nothing!!!!! Jesus says in John 15:5-6, ""As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." Do you hear that? Do you believe that? It will either bring you down to utter discouragement in your pride or lift you up to draw you to his supernatural help.

I am motivated to come to God because of the reality and the deep conviction that I am completely helpless to do my life on my own. I have come to see that my impotency, my helplessness, my weakness, my brokenness, and my neediness is a precious gift from God, because this is the place that releases the true flow of God's omnipotent power, strength, and grace in my life and ministry and it will be the same for you. God knows where His power and glory thrive and where it is diminished

Oh the promises in the bible to what He wants to do to us, for us, in us, and through us! God's ideas for us are divine, supernatural, extraordinary, and utterly disproportionate to who we are! What God desires to do is to intersect divine omnipotence with our impotence and together produce extraordinary miraculous and supernatural lives.

Listen to these promises and reach out to believe them over your life!

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
Romans 8:31-32

For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory
2 Corinthians 1:20

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Hebrews 4:16

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us
Ephesians 3:20

"Nothing is impossible with God"
Luke 1:37

When you understand this extraordinary God and the extraordinary work that He desires to do through your working you can begin praying a bold prayer prayer like this:
“Lord, let me make a difference for you that is utterly disproportionate to who I am".

Bold prayers like this honor God, and God honors bold prayers. God is not offended by your biggest dreams and boldest prayers. He is offended by anything less. If your prayers are not impossible to you, they are insulting to God. Why? Because they don't require divine intervention.But ask God to do the miraculous and God is moved to omnipotent action. Ask God to move His omnipotence over your life. Ask God to do something utterly disproportionate to who you are. The greatest moments of your life are supernatural, miraculous moments.

There is nothing that our supernatural God likes more than keeping promises, answering prayers, helping his beloved children, and performing miracles. that is who He is and what He does.

So this is how I desire to pray each and every day of my life. This is a prayer that any one of you who feel passionless, loveless, weak, inadequate, can pray boldly without fear of presumption.The wording of the prayer contains a disclaimer:

"I am not great. But you, Lord, are very great. So in your astonishing sovereignty and glorious omnipotence and according to your mighty promises you can flood little, inadequate, impotent me with love, passion, and power and let my little life make a difference far beyond all my little powers. Let my little timid prayers be expanded into big sweeping prayers like these:

Lord, I have heard of your fame;I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord. Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known
Habakkuk 3:1-2

Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains would tremble before you! As when fire sets twigs ablaze and causes water to boil,come down to make your name known to your enemies and cause the nations to quake before you! For when you did awesome things that we did not expect, you came down, and the mountains trembled before you. Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him
Isaiah 64:1-4

O Lord, there is none like you to help, between the mighty and the weak. Help us, O Lord our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this multitude. O Lord, you are our God; let not man prevail against you.
2 Chronicles 14:11

Jesus is not asking you and me to do anything that He is not already doing and cannot do. He is inviting us into His life of helpless impotent dependence upon our heavenly Father. To become more like Jesus is to feel more and more that you cannot do life. The very thing we often times try to escape, our own helplessness, becomes the launch pad to prayer and then to God's omnipotent supernatural help and grace.

Calling for God to do things that only He can do!
Pastor Bill

 

Field Guide to Pride Part 3 HUMILITY, PRIDE’S PHOTO NEGATIVE

God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble"
James 4:6 ESV

For the past two blogs I've been talking about pride. In essence,  pride wants to be the center of attention: for good or for bad. Pride’s fixation with self can only be countered with one thing:
humility’s forgetfulness of self. Humility is the photo-negative of pride.

We will begin killing pride when we experience more and more of pride’s photo-negative: humility. If pride puts us in a position of opposition to God, then humility delights in taking a posture of dependence upon God. This posture of dependence puts us in a position to receive grace from God.

The apostle Peter expounds upon these points in illuminating ways in 1 Peter 5:5-7 (read also James 4:6), "Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you."

First Peter says,“God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (1 Pet. 5:5). This the promise of humility. God is personally and providentially- supportive of the humble. And the grace He extends to the humble is indescribably rich. Nothing could be better than to have an infinitely powerful and wise God treat us graciously. Grace is a wonderful word. It means we are recipients of the favor of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. When we are humble, we are in a place to receive His grace which He lavishes upon us. Isaiah 57:15 "For thus says the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones." Peters wording here again speaks of continual action. God has always and will forever continue to give grace to those who humble themselves before the Lord.

Next, he defines humility more spatially. Humility pitches its tent in a certain place: “under the mighty hand of God” (1 Pet. 5:6). The word “humble,” as it’s used in verse six, is not only a reference to an attitude, but to a position as well. God gives His grace to those who recognize their lowly position in the presence of a holy and righteous God by honestly assessing ourselves in light of God's holi­ness and our sinfulness. That is the twin reality that all genuine humility is rooted in: Gods holiness and our sinfulness.

Fenelon explained, "A peasant shut up in his village only partially knows his wretchedness, but let him see rich palaces, a superb court, and he will realize all the poverty of his village. He cannot endure its hovels after a sight of so much magnificence. It is thus that we see our ugliness and worthlessness in the beauty and infinite grandeur of God.” In the same way, it's easy for a man or woman to be proud until they catch a glimpse of God's holiness. John Piper says, “Humility can only survive in the presence of God. When God goes, humility goes. In fact, you might say that humility follows God like a shadow.”

John Calvin wrote, “It is evident that man never attains to a true self knowledge until he has previously contemplated the face of God, and come down after such contemplation to look at himself.” Without an honest awareness of the reality of God’s holiness and our sinfulness, all self-evaluation will be skewed and we'll fail to either understand or practice true humility: We'll miss out on experiencing the promise and the pleasures of grace that God offers to the humble. That is why I want to direct you to God's help for evalu­ating your life honestly, to understand whether you're growing in the humility that draws His gaze and attracts more of His grace.

Finally, Peter then answers the most obvious question: how can someone be humble? Answer: we humble ourselves by “casting all [our] anxieties on him” (1 Pet. 5:7). If pride stubbornly insists on carrying our own cares, then humility is quick to cast our cares on God. Humility even knows what to do when we don’t know what to do: keep looking to him!

When faced with impossible odds, king Jehoshaphat knows enough to look at the King Eternal and say,“we do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you” (2 Chron. 20:12).

In the quest for humility, we must be sure to avoid pride’s counterfeit version of humility: self-deprecation. What’s the discernable difference? Humility is not obsessed with tearing ourselves down. C. S. Lewis stated the distinction memorably: “Humility is not thinking less of ourselves, but thinking of ourselves less.” In other words, humility is fundamentally a form of self-forgetfulness as opposed to pride’s self-fixation. And humility’s self-forgetfulness has a certain flavor: joy. It’s not dour or sour. The joy of self-forgetfulness comes when a superior satisfaction in God overpowers our self-preoccupation.

Humility does not join pride in treating others with contempt. We are too busy looking up at God’s glory to look down on others or feel smug about ourselves. And unlike pride, humility does not have to be the center of attention. Humility is not self-promoting; it enjoys pointing out evidences of grace in others. It can celebrate their accomplishments.

What are you building with your life? A marriage? A family? A business? A church? A career? A ministry? A friendship? In all your ven­tures, are you aware of your need for God's grace to give your efforts lasting value? So many human ventures have failed because humility was lacking. Ultimately, there can be no effective expansion of your life’s mission and ministry, no growth and maturity, no fulfillment of the specific purpose that God has called you to, apart from the cultivation of humility in your heart and the weakening of pride in your life. But I don’t want you rooting out pride because of its perils and pitfalls. Our pursuit should be driven by the amazing promise Peter and James gives that humility holds out to us: God gives grace to the humble!

Do you long for God's providen­tial help and blessing? Then let's allow the promise of humility to shape our life and choices, so that your life will begin to be colored in every area by grace. God clearly states that He is drawn to the humble. He's also clear that He opposes the proud. These two, humility and pride, cannot coexist. Where one is fostered, the other is defeated. Which will you pursue? If you feel convicted of pride in any form, of failing to humble yourself or failing to glorify God, take the time right now to flee to the cross and receive the forgiveness for this sin of pride that God hates. Humble yourself before Him and confess it specifically to the one whom you have offended. And receive the grace of His forgiveness. Tell Him that you want to declare war upon pride in your life- that you want to declare war on this active, daily tendency towards self-sufficiency, this desire to live independently of Him when in truth we are dependent upon him for every breadth. Gladly announce make a declaration of dependency. Make this confession humbly and daily for the rest of your life. Hold on to the promise God gives to those who are humble before Him: GOD GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE!

Pastor Bill