"What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?" [1 Corinthians 4:7]
Jesus said, "I AM the door."
Tuesday, 29 July 2014
Back to the Basics
God is God. God is eternal. God is Three in One. God is good. God does good. God is holy. God is love. He is the Original. He is glorious. He made and owns and sustains everything in the entire universe. He is beautiful.
God breathed life into man and woman and called His creation very good. We enjoyed fellowship with the Best Being. We experienced His good gifts of life and love. It was bliss.
God gave humanity a free will, a choice to love Him by trusting and obeying Him. He desired lovers.
Adam and Eve chose wrongly. Humanity deliberately disobeyed. We did not have faith in His goodness and turned to our own foolish ways. "God created people to be virtuous, but they have each turned to follow their own downward path." We failed. It was bad.
Our failure reaped due consequences - death. Our disobedience deserves separation from our perfect Creator. Sometimes we think we are not that bad, but that's because we've forgotten that He is that good! His standard for communion is holiness. He must do what is right because He is just. He cannot and will not tolerate our evil. That's bad news for us. But let's keep in mind, our loss is our fault.
BUT there is the Gospel! In His great mercy, He entered the world He made to save His people from their sins. Jesus, God Incarnate, came and lived a perfect life and suffered a painful death in our place. He then rose again in victory, offering new life. He is called the Second Adam and through Him we have a second chance at life. That's good news for us! Our relationship is restored! And let's keep in mind, our gain is His grace!
Let us say with David, "I have no good apart from You, God." And we will be celebrating Him for eternity!
God breathed life into man and woman and called His creation very good. We enjoyed fellowship with the Best Being. We experienced His good gifts of life and love. It was bliss.
God gave humanity a free will, a choice to love Him by trusting and obeying Him. He desired lovers.
Adam and Eve chose wrongly. Humanity deliberately disobeyed. We did not have faith in His goodness and turned to our own foolish ways. "God created people to be virtuous, but they have each turned to follow their own downward path." We failed. It was bad.
Our failure reaped due consequences - death. Our disobedience deserves separation from our perfect Creator. Sometimes we think we are not that bad, but that's because we've forgotten that He is that good! His standard for communion is holiness. He must do what is right because He is just. He cannot and will not tolerate our evil. That's bad news for us. But let's keep in mind, our loss is our fault.
BUT there is the Gospel! In His great mercy, He entered the world He made to save His people from their sins. Jesus, God Incarnate, came and lived a perfect life and suffered a painful death in our place. He then rose again in victory, offering new life. He is called the Second Adam and through Him we have a second chance at life. That's good news for us! Our relationship is restored! And let's keep in mind, our gain is His grace!
Let us say with David, "I have no good apart from You, God." And we will be celebrating Him for eternity!
Monday, 21 July 2014
Life and Light from the Lord
"For with You is the fountain of life;
in Your light do we see light."
[Psalm 36:9]
[Psalm 36:9]
You are the God who illumines,
Who gives perfect light to the blind.
You are the full fountain of life,
Who delights the heart, soul and mind.
We receive life and light from the same Source - Jesus.
He made it all. He gives it all.
He made it all. He gives it all.
Thursday, 17 July 2014
Living on Borrowed Breath
There are two reasons why I enjoy this drink. For one, it's tasty, and for two, it contains a fun fact on the cap. This particular cap read "The average person has 23, 000 breaths a day."
Think of it - we inhale and exhale thousands of times a day. About 23,000 times. Wow! And most of this breathing is involuntary. We don't think about it. It just happens. In and out, in and out, and on and on we go.
But we should think about it. We should think about where our breath comes from and why we all have it.
God's Word tells us the answer to the where and why. "He himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything." [Acts 17:24-28] "Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD (of life)." [Psalm 150:6]
Let's remember - we walk and talk and work and play on borrowed breath.
Wednesday, 2 July 2014
believing the best about the Best!
Sometimes our doubts shout lies about God. Sometimes our minds find questions about His ways. Sometimes our hearts part from His truth. Sometimes our fears smear spiritual reality. And so, we find ourselves confused, careless and even callous, all because of a big misunderstanding on our part.
This is why it is always absolutely necessary to decide to believe the best about God. Why? Because He is the best of beings! [Jonathan Edwards]
Think about it. Even during the worst of times, we try to believe the best about certain people. Why? Because we remember the qualities in them that we love. We naturally appreciate and admire generosity, truth and goodness. If we do this with fallen human creatures (who show these qualities imperfectly), how much more should we do this with our holy Creator (Who possesses and proves these qualities perfectly)?
So, we must fight the night with the light, the dark with the spark of His truth! How? By considering His character! Here's just three to start a countless list of "His best" qualities -
He owes no man anything, but gives generously to all. He loves to share!
"Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?" Romans 11:35
"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights." James 1:17
He is always right, and He always does the right thing. He's always fair!
"Should not the Judge of all the earth do what is right?
"For the word of the LORD is right and true." Psalm 33:4
He is always good, and He is good to all. He loves to care!
"You are good, and what You do is good." Psalm 119:68
"The LORD is good to all, and His mercy is over all that He has made." Psalm 145:9Sunday, 23 March 2014
Someone to Sing About
I'm reading a book of meditations on the Psalms by Sam Storms, and he has this catchy quote that is helping me find freedom from my sin and joy in my God! He says that to resist the power of temptation, "simply saying 'No! No! No!' won't suffice. We must learn to say 'Oh! Oh! Oh!'" Delight beats duty in the fight for victory!
Oh! Oh! Oh! Indeed, the only right response before our oh-so-great-God!
Oh! Oh! Oh! Indeed, the only right response before our oh-so-great-God!
The bad news: We have a problem. A big problem that has made our world so small. A heart problem that has minimized the Magnificent and magnified the man. What is it? We play the fool by exalting ourselves, and instead of shutting up as the Proverbs advise, we allow for arrogance. Sure, we may not boast aloud, and we don't actually pat ourselves on the back or strut around with our chin out. But does not this peacock problem run wild in our minds at times? We indulge in our own ideas, congratulate our clever thoughts, laugh at our own jokes, compliment our accomplishments, even admire our acts of service and sing our own song. And this is wrong because we can't even make our own hearts beat. And though our physical hearts are beating, we are not truly alive. "She who is self-indulgent is dead even though she lives." (1 Timothy 5:6) So here we are drugged on self and dead.
The good news: This problem can be fixed. Our big God came to this world to give us a new heart, and by beholding Him we are changed. Only by beholding Him, we are changed. He selflessly laid down His life for our selfishness. He gloriously gave His life for our redemption. His death on the cross reversed the curse of sin and death for us! His resurrection sealed the deal! He is in the business of mending when we are in the habit of rending ourselves to Him. He has shown us His glory in the world, the Word, and the Word become flesh, and tHis glory opens our eyes to the One Who has won all things to Himself. "All is from Him, through Him, and to Him! To Him be the glory!" He is our Source, Saviour, and Sustainer. He is the exalted One! He is alive and to be adored!
So, enough of this undue worship of creation and creatures! Enough of this silly self-preoccupation! Enough of our dead-end dramas! Enough of our stupid egos and vain thoughts! Enough of this slavery to self! Enough of this small living! Enough of this claustrophobic individuality! Enough of this Reality reducing and self seducing lie that we are self-sufficient and worthy of praise. There is nothing farther from the truth.
It's time for a bigger, better, truer, sweeter celebration! It's time to worship the Creator! It's time for freedom and fullness! It's time to share a glory story that never ends! It's time for purpose and pleasure that continue forever! It's time to join hands in song and service with fellow creatures. It's time to acknowledge the only Original One. It's time to really live! It's time to give! Jesus is the truth that sets us free!
So how do we move from the dead-end of self to the unending, shared joy of God? How do we decrease? By increasingly beholding Him, and in so doing we find ourselves humbled and happy.
The totality of
His truth
The vitality of
His voice
The authority of
His authorship
The justice of
His jealously
The bigness of
His beauty
The entirety of
His eternity
The expanse of
His excellence
The pervasiveness
of His power
The persistence
of His patience
The span of His
splendor
The stretch of
His strength
The intricacies
of His imagination
The orbit of His originality
The thoroughness
of His thoughtfulness
The range of His
radiance
The weight of His
whispers
The height of His
holiness
The depth of His
delight
The breadth of
His breath in us
The craft of His
creativity with dust
The width of His
wisdom
The hugeness of
His humility
The magnitude of
His miracles
The wonder of His
ways
The supremacy of
His sacrifice
The completeness
of His cry
The reality of
His resurrection
The perfection of
His provision
The mystery of
His mercy
The greatness of
His grace
The largeness of
His love
The sufficiency
of His Scripture
The constancy of
His care
The reach of His
reign
The fullness of
His freedom
The song of His salvation!
So considering Who He is, let's be wise. Let's quit our silly songs about self and crank the volume of our voice to sing about Him! After all, this is the anthem hitherto and henceforth.
P.S. Yes, I am aware that I got carried away with some "alliterated" praise. And still these words are feeble offerings. He is beyond our ability to capture with the written letter, but we better do our best because He's worthy of WONDERful words. Yet, do we live wonder-filled lives?
P.S. Yes, I am aware that I got carried away with some "alliterated" praise. And still these words are feeble offerings. He is beyond our ability to capture with the written letter, but we better do our best because He's worthy of WONDERful words. Yet, do we live wonder-filled lives?
Saturday, 1 March 2014
rain/reign
We are experiencing our first real rainfall of the year. Hallelujah! Ah, the cloudy, dripping skies are wonderful for so many reasons; aren't they? Girls get to sport their patterned rain boots, children break out their quirky umbrellas, and we all get to puddle jump and pretend we're in the beloved musical, "Singin' in the Rain." We turn off the music to hear the raindrops tap dance on the roof, and we open the blinds to see the raindrops splatter across and streak down the window glass. We go outside to breathe in the fresh air and watch the ground drink up every drop. We laugh at our fellow West Coasters awkwardly handle these contraptions called umbrellas and do our best not to poke somebody's eye out. We frantically try to remember how to operate our windshield wipers and drive at granny-speeds. We even plan a day to enjoy a day at home, complete with cozy socks and vegetable soup.
What's not to love, right? But you know what we should love most of all? Hosea's ancient but true words - "He comes to us like rain!" So refreshing, so He is! And even when this rain storm passes through our state, He reigns over all still. So we really do have a reason to sing in the rain, sing under His reign!
What's not to love, right? But you know what we should love most of all? Hosea's ancient but true words - "He comes to us like rain!" So refreshing, so He is! And even when this rain storm passes through our state, He reigns over all still. So we really do have a reason to sing in the rain, sing under His reign!
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