Author: admin

We tend to forget just how powerful God is. Oh, we know in our heads He is almighty, but our hearts inevitably fill with worry and distractions to the point that we forget how amazing the God is that we serve. One would think that it would be impossible to witness God part the Red Sea, then lead you across on dry land, then destroy the Egyptian army ruthlessly pursuing you, and not grow to believe that nothing was impossible for God. But the Israelites continually forgot the divine activity they had previously experienced. The next challenge they faced, they behaved as if God had never acted on their behalf before.

There are many divine attributes that can easily be forgotten: His love, joy, faithfulness, and holiness. But how could we forget His power? All we have to do is to look at the stars at night. A brief reflection on how God has intervened on our behalf previously ought to be sufficient to convince us that, with God, all things are possible. Yet we forget. Just like the Israelites.

Take time today to remember times when God answered your prayer, or when He demonstrated His awesome power in your life. Had you forgotten some of those moments? Are you presently living like someone who is absolutely convinced of God’s infinite power?

The possibilities for what the God who created the universe can do through your ordinary life are unimaginable. History brims with astounding accounts of how infinite God used fallible, mistake-prone people to accomplish His heavenly purposes. God used Moses, a shepherd for 40 years to deliver thousands of slaves out of the grasp of the powerful Egyptians. God used Joshua, a former slave, to bring the walls of Jericho tumbling down. God used Elijah to bring fire down from heaven on Mount Carmel in a fiery display of His power before a watching nation. God used Elisha to raise the dead. These were ordinary people who experienced God doing extraordinary things through them. The possibilities of what God could do through us are enormous.

But there is one way in which God’s power in our life is limited. The limits certainly do not lie with God. Satan and his evil hordes, despite their greatest efforts, cannot limit God. Neither can downturns in the economy, layoffs, critics, or unreasonable bosses prevent us from experiencing God’s will for our lives. The only ones who can hinder God’s work in us, is us. We can limit what almighty God does in our lives by our lack of belief.

The Israelites were unbeatable when God was their Champion. But when the Israelites refused to believe Him, they became vulnerable to any enemy that confronted them. Are you presently experiencing the maximum of what God intends to do through your life? Or, have you inadvertently been limiting God’s work through you?

Scripture is filled with examples of the challenges that frail creatures of dust face as they attempt to meet the exacting standards of their Creator. It is impossible. God is eternal. Our lives are like a vapor. God is all-powerful. We are weak. God keeps His purposes for thousands of years. We can fail to stick with a commitment for even a week. God is absolutely holy. We are inherently sinful.

What is miraculous is that almighty God chooses to work with humanity even when it constantly falls short of its noble calling. While God would be justified in obliterating His sin-plagued creatures, He chooses instead to continually forgive them and to draw them back to himself. God, more than anyone else, knows how frail we are.

Mankind likes to portray itself as a magnificent race, rivaling the gods of Olympus. People imagine themselves to be the masters of the earth and the determiners of their own destiny. But God knows better. Sin has so crippled and weakened us that we find ourselves repeatedly failing and falling short. How marvelous to know that our Creator knows, and loves us anyway. In thousands of years He has refused to give up on His creatures. And, neither will He forsake you, even when you are at your worst.

Promises to God are easy to make. They are not as simple to keep. Especially if we were not sincere when we made them! Our tendency is to cry out to God whenever our circumstances become too difficult for us. If only God will . . . give us that job we applied for . . . provide us that wife we are pursuing . . . make our investments multiply . . . get us that promotion . . . THEN we will . . . read our Bible more . . . spend more time in prayer . . . finally give up that bad habit . . . But, regardless of how sincere we are when making our pledge, we invariably fail to follow through with the commitments we hurriedly make to God.

We tend to view our failure to follow through as the result of our hectic schedule or tight finances or unforeseen circumstances. God declares that we lied to Him. He views it as a broken covenant. We cast blame on our circumstances. God blames our wavering heart. God knows that if we truly meant what we said, we would have followed through with our words.

Beware of being careless with your words. God will hold you to them. He despises being treated casually or indifferently. He will not allow that to happen without providing a divine response.

God’s preference in communicating with people is His still, small voice. He doesn’t typically raise His voice unless He has to. Unfortunately, for many people, nothing less than a heavenly shout will get their attention.

If God can woo us with His love and blessings, then He will reach out to us that way. Generally that is how God begins His overtures. Incredibly, frail humanity will often brazenly ignore the call of its Master and continue racing to its ruin.

So God will use harsher means to gain our attention and to turn us from our sin. Some will always ask why, if God is love, He allows people to suffer. The answer, in part, is that God loves us too much to neglect doing whatever is necessary for the good of His people. His goal for us is not comfort but godliness. His purpose is not our success but His glory.

Sadly, it often takes a crisis in our lives before we remember who God is and what role He intends to have in our lives. Does God have to deal with you forcibly before He can convince you to do what He asks? Or, is your heart so tender toward Him that the slightest divine whisper is sufficient to redirect you back to the purposes of heaven?

The tragic testimony of humanity is that we are doggedly determined to do things our own way, regardless of the consequences. Even when all of the evidence in our life cries out that the way we have chosen is not working, we tend to stubbornly cling to our methods anyway.

What is the result of doing things our way instead of God’s way? Futility and fear. God will not bless our disobedience, regardless of how hard we work and persevere. Yet, rather than surrendering to their Lord, people often merely hunker down and try even harder. Or, when their schemes end in ruin, they feverishly seek to develop a new plan, hoping to finally achieve the success that has thus far eluded them.

God will not allow us to enjoy unabated success while all the while thumbing our nose at His will. We cannot violate God’s laws with immunity. What we sow, we will reap. The reward for doing God’s will is joy, fulfillment, and satisfaction. The consequence for insisting on doing things our way is futility, fear, and dissatisfaction.

What are you currently experiencing?

At times the most severe punishment God can levy upon us is not to withhold what we want, but to grant it. We don’t generally know what is best for us, and we certainly do not always desire it. We fixate on what may harm us or sidetrack us instead of on what is crucial. We believe the world’s lies that we are incomplete without possessing what it offers. So we work to gain it and plead with God to provide it.

God will generally seek to raise the level of our aspirations to a higher plane. He will work to create within us a desire for what is good, and noble, and pure. But at times we insist that we must have something that we want, be it a position, a possession, or a person. We are convinced that if only we had that, our life would be content and full.

At times God’s discipline is to give us what we want, even though it is not what we need. Even as we savor our newly gained prize, it will turn sour. What glittered with false promise will be exposed as nothing but cheap tinsel. What was meant to give us pleasure will bring us pain. Don’t be too ecstatic when you gain what you craved. It might be the very instrument with which God dispenses His discipline upon you.

We have a tendency to focus on what we do not have rather than on what is at our fingertips. God had miraculously supplied the Israelites with sufficient food to live in the desert, yet they complained and longed for what had not been granted to them. No amount of divine provision could satisfy a people bent on craving what it did not have.

Unfortunately we often do not appreciate what God has given to us, until it is gone. That is why it is wise to daily thank Him for his gracious provision. Thanking God before every meal ought not to become a ritual, but an ongoing heartfelt response to God’s kindness to us. When we occupy ourselves with thanking God, we are less likely to be looking about for what we do not have.

It is an affront to almighty God to treat His provision carelessly or ungratefully. God will only tolerate such insolence for so long. Is there something in your life you have been taking for granted? Have you neglected to thank God for something He has been graciously providing for you?

It is an offense against holy God to choose not to trust Him. Ultimately there will be consequences for not believing Him.

We live in a society and an age when people have largely chosen not to place their trust in God. They have heard the Gospel. They know what God says. But they have refused to believe it. Instead, they have pursued their pleasures and trusted in themselves or in others in order to have their needs met. Some have brazenly mocked the claims of God and openly despised His word.

History is clear that God will only be patient so long with those who reject Him. Inevitably He will allow such people to reap what they have sown. Those who reject His salvation will eventually perish, even as they futilely grasp at their idols. A time eventually comes when God exposes us, and our pitiful beliefs, for what they are. If His loving provision and forbearance will not bring us to faith, then He will judge us and cause us to bear the full weight of our foolish choices. A day is coming when each person will experience the full consequences for having refused to trust in God.

When is God’s provision enough for you? At what point are you convinced that He loves you and you can trust Him?

No people in history enjoyed the provision of God like the Israelites did. Yet it was never enough. They always wanted more. They remained fundamentally unconvinced. God provided water, bursting out of a parched rock. He parted the sea and led His people to safety on dry land. He guided them by day and by night, right to their destination. Yet God’s people were continually clamoring for more, as if God had never done anything for them in the past.

Are you a whiner? Do you remain perennially dissatisfied or unconvinced after all God has done for you? What would God have to do on your behalf before you finally came to the point where you fully trusted Him? Could it be (and it is!) that God has already more than adequately demonstrated His trustworthiness to you? It is time to put aside any lingering doubts and to fully trust in the Lord who loves you and is faithfully guiding you to accomplish His purposes.