It’s All His
Image via Wikipedia
Psalm 24
1 The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof,
the world and those who dwell therein
I’ve been meditating on this passage of scripture last night and this morning. If we don’t meditate on the scripture, we can lose a lot of meaning from God’s Word.
We say “Yeah, the Earth is the Lord’s. That’s kind of a given isn’t it”? Not really.
If we start looking at our lives in relation to the Gospel, we don’t live like the Earth is the Lord’s. If we are honest, we live like our lives our ours to choose to live how we want, we spend our money like it is ours and we can do what we want, and we pick scripture that we choose to follow and others we choose to “not listen to”.
That phrase “and the fullness thereof ” accentuates the fact that everything truly belongs to Him and Him alone. From the oxygen you breath, your family, to the things that you worship and give a greater place to than Him. It is all His!
Do we (includes me) act like our lives are truly His? Do our actions reflect a life submitted to Christ? I’m sure everyone can say there is something they are struggling to trust and give God control of. This is why we need His grace so terribly. Our need reflects our inadequacy. Our struggle for control reveals our powerlessness.
Jesus does allow us to experience failure, loss, hunger, frustration, poverty. It is not out of anger that God does this because has already paid the full penalty for our sins and transgressions. He took the consequenses for disobedience, the shame of our failures, and the punishment for our transgressions. What didn’t God do that allows me to go through these things? Why do we suffer? We suffer to bring Him glory, that in these weak, disobedient, wicked shells that will one day pass away, His glory can be made manifest. I am no longer being punished for my sin. I may be disciplined, but I am never rejected. We are His children, and the Father disciplines those He loves. I may go through difficult times but the Father will never leave or forsake us. EVER. We experience suffering because our hearts wander, we lack trust in Him, or we try to find our needs met outside of Christ.
Why do we struggle financially? It is because we do not trust God to provide so we strive, stress, and look for any other way under the sun to find security and sustenance. He will allow us to continue to struggle financially not as a punishment, but that we may through that suffering come to the understanding that He is our provider. Why do people struggle to find peace and turn to drugs and alcohol? It is because they do not find peace in the cross of Christ and do not allow God to bear the weight of our cares. God allows us to experience this lack of peace till we understand where we are to find true peace.
The Lord contends for our hearts. His Spirit works in our lives to make us aware of our need for Him, and reminds us that everything belongs to Him.
Kevin
Do You Think Your House in Order?
What a mess!! Right? Can you imagine someone coming into your house and completely trashing it? Can you imagine someone flipping tables over, ripping up your couch, and putting holes in your walls? Can you imagine someone taking your treasured photographs, gifts you received from your spouse, or awards for your achievements and tearing them up, mangling them, or smashing them to pieces? After all, why would anyone do that? Right? Well what if I told you God does this (in a manner of speaking)?
Well let’s take a look at some scripture:
1 Samuel 30:
1) Now when David and his men came to Ziklag on the third day, the Amalekites had made a raid against the Negeb and against Ziklag. They had overcome Ziklag and burned it with fire 2) and taken captive the women and all who were in it, both small and great. They killed no one, but carried them off and went their way. 3) And when David and his men came to the city, they found it burned with fire, and their wives and sons and daughters taken captive. 4) Then David and the people who were with him raised their voices and wept until they had no more strength to weep. 5) David’s two wives also had been taken captive, Ahinoam of Jezreel and Abigail the widow of Nabal of Carmel. 6) And David was greatly distressed, for the people spoke of stoning him, because all the people were bitter in soul, each for his sons and daughters.
This passage of scripture has lots of Gospel implications. I will try to stay on point here. Here is David, man after God’s own heart, chosen to be king of Israel after Saul, a man who could have killed Saul a number of times in his sleep, but chose to walk in integrity, for all intents and purposes, a man doing the right things with God’s protection and favor on his life. David comes back home only to find his home burned to the ground and his wife and the families of his men taken into captivity, and to top it off, his men are about ready to kill him because of all this. Doesn’t sound like a good situation for David does it? Obviously there was a lot of criticism of the way David ran things, since David decided to leave the city and their families unprotected while they went off to fight elsewhere. People would probably say that he didn’t have his ducks in a row.
In most circles today, people would say that “the devil must really hate David to attack him like this”. Or he would have faced a lot of bad media press and calls for David to be replaced with a more competent leader. A lot of times we see tragedy, trials, and tribulations as attacks of Satan or just stupidity on our part (and these do happen and the devil is real), but rarely do we see the hand of the Potter moving in our lives.
I was praying one day and I saw the inside of my house. It looked like someone had come in and flipped tables over and moved things around a bit. It was a mess. It took me a while, but I managed to clean up the mess and get everything put back in place and it even looked better than before the “vandals” got in and messed things up. I was very happy with the way it looked and I thought “man, I would love for people and come over and check out how nice it all looks”. Well, I was brought back to the doorway of my house again, and when I opened the door expecting to see the house looking pristine and orderly, I was in for a shock. Not only was furniture flipped, but the couches were ripped open and the stuffing was all over, pictures were smashed and ripped, chairs were broken beyond repair, holes in the walls, just like the picture above. It was ruined beyond my ability to clean or repair.
It was then I heard God speak to me: He showed me that the things I have tried so hard to fix in my life were not necessarily the things He wanted me to fix (not that I had the power to do so in the first place). The more I arranged my house the way I thought it should look, the more dramatic the destruction would be when He comes in and does what He wants to do in my life. He showed me my lack of faith and trust in Him to bring me where He wants me to be, not where I think I should be.
God is not asking us to fix ourselves. What He is asking is that we trust Him. He is asking that we go when He says to go. He is asking us to rest under the shadow of His wing and take refuge and find our strength in Him. Change will come, but change that will last will never come by the work of our hands. Only through the finished work that Jesus Christ did on the cross will we ever find security, hope, and our destiny.
Lots of Downloading Lately
Image via Wikipedia
Been soaking in a lot of gospel teaching lately. I can feel the things I was taught becoming clearer and more grounded than ever in my life.
I have found much more stability in my life as a Christ Follower, Husband, and Father.
Things that bothered me a lot about other people doesn’t do so as much as I remember the grace that has been and is continually poured out on me in my life.
Gospel perspective has helped me see my wickedness and how much I deserately need the power of the cross of Christ working in my life.
It fills me with peace that I am totally accepted and loved by Him before I was born.
My praise and worship is so much more deeper and richer and fulfilling as I think of His goodness.
My mind is still blown away by the fact that its not my good deeds or religious service that moves the hand of God but His undeserved favor and mercy.
Meditating on the gospel has been a life changing experience.
I will try to share more on these things soon. There are a lot of books and blogs that are sharing the gospel message. I am certainly not a pioneer. We are all commissioned by Christ to share the gospel, so I definitely want to do that through every medium He allows me use.
Let me leave this passage with you:
I Cor 15: 3-7
3) For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4) that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5) and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6) Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. 7) Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8) Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. 9) For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10) But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. 11) Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.
Kevin
The Most Important Thing
1 Corinthians 15 (English Standard Version)
1) Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2)and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you— unless you believed in vain.
3)For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,…….
We live in an information age. If you have a question on almost anything, you can plug it into Google or any other search engine and get an answer. In the Christian world, there are millions of sites and blogs (like this one) where you can find teaching on more topics than you could ever study out in a lifetime.
The issue with so much information available, it is so easy to get swept away by the deluge of information that we forget the most important thing.
When Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, he reminded them to hold fast to the things that Paul taught them. He knew that there were so many things people would be distracted by, that would draw their attention away from the most important thing.
“For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,…….”
The gospel is the most important thing! Paul didn’t say “that Christ died so I could speak in tongues” or “that Christ died that I may prophesy”. He said “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures…”. Prophesy and speaking in Tongues are not bad in and of themselves, but when they become the focus, we are no longer preaching the gospel.
John 3:16
16)“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
As a young person growing up in church, I heard many people say “that message wasn’t deep enough for me” and “we need to move on from the cross and get into deeper things.”
The Father showed His ultimate act of love by sending His only Son to die for us. His heart was revealed and displayed for the whole world to see. When we “move past the cross” we move away from His heart. When we move away from His heart, we are no longer preaching the gospel.
The gospel is what our lives should be centered around. It should be the determining factor that every decision should be based on. Imagine with me for one second, how the world and the church would look if we made every decision centered around the gospel of Jesus Christ? How would our workplaces, our families, or schools look? How would we look at our finances? The things we spend our money on? The things we do with our “free” time? Think about that.
Let’s not forget the most important thing.
Kevin
Are We Truly in the Last Days?
I’ve been looking at the news lately. Most of the stuff to see and read is just one sad story after another. I don’t pay attention to it much. News most of the time is kinda like a glass of water. You drink it in you feel the sensation as it enters your mouth and it is gone from your memory. Endless images of atrocity after atrocity flashes before our eyes to such a degree that we are not moved by most of what we see. Some of the things I have seen lately in the news have been sticking out more in my mind and making me think.
I have heard many proclaim that the return of Christ is upon us soon. I have heard it since I was a little kid crawling around my parents legs in church. I once saw a movie in church that scared me so bad, that I was afraid and had nightmares that someone was going to come into my room, stamp the mark of the beast on my forehead and I would go to hell. The fear-factor type evangelism of the 70′s and 80′s fizzled out but gave birth to the end-time prophesy guys. These dudes who could take the most abstract news article like a story about the Colonel’s secret recipe and tie it to the rise of the anti-christ and a one-world government. At the same time you had many men that were prophesying the world would end more than once in my lifetime. There are those who are still predicting and prophesying devastation and destruction. I remember standing outside once as a kid standing on one of those days waiting to see Him split the Eastern sky which never happened. So many people looked so rediculous trying to predict His coming when the scriptures explicitly say “that noone knows the day or the hour”(Matthew 24:36). Anyone who thinks that they can predict the hour, day, or year need to read the scripture and learn what the bible truly says.
Our mandate is preach the gospel to the uttermost parts of the Earth. We are to proclaim the gospel to the nations. He will not return until the world had heard the gospel (Matt 24:14). Our mandate is not to scour the newspaper to look for signs of His return. Our mandate is to read our bibles, find out what He is telling us to do to futher His kingdom and go do it! We are to reach those who do not know Christ personally and start new churches with the same mission, whether locally or in other nations! Anything that takes our focus off those things are dangerous distractions. I say this all the time but too much of any good thing is not a good thing.
Do I think we are in the last days before Christ’s return? Yes I do. How much more important is it to preach Christ crucified, risen, and returning again knowing this? Let His Word be our draw, not fear of a coming world dictator, or one world currency. Our time is short. His Word is more than enough. Let us focus on the work at hand and reach this world for Christ until He returns!
Kevin
This Video Messed Me Up Bad!
This just blew my freaking mind! Let me know what you think:
Wow!
Kevin
