For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Memory of the Month:Proverbs 15:1-A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.
Today's reading: JEREMIAH 12-14 2 TIMOTHY 1
The Good That God Makes
We spend a lot of time in Christian circles talking about what God has done as we should. He created this entire cosmos for us out of His love. He singled out a people to be His own and delivered them through signs and wonders and great displays of His power. He sent His own son to the cross to die for all of us so we could be heirs of the promise He made to the children of Israel. He has delivered the people of faith down through the ages by being present with them through life and death. He has empowered His people to deliver His message throughout the world in spite of all the hardships and oppression and death. We praise Him in our meager ways from small home gatherings to giant church meetings.
But God has not stopped making good things happen. Everyday He heals and empowers and continues to lead the faithful in His holy endeavors.
I contend that the most precious and powerful thing God continues to do each moment of everyday is to remain patiently and gently in our lives. Yes, we disappoint Him and fail Him. But God remains faithful. He is relentless for our attention. His love endures all the sin we drag Him through as we continually turn our backs and reach for personal satisfaction and earthly fulfilment.
He continues to speak through ordinary men who stand in pulpits and trust Him but He also speaks through each believer who trusts Him no matter their station in life. He uses all the faithful.
God continues to create. God takes people who have been through the darkest sin and and uses it all to give insight and growth and strength. He uses what we have been through to create ways that we will be most useful to Him and His kingdom. This means that He opens up, to those whose eyes are open, glimpses of His glorious love and power.
He takes the broken hearted and heals them. He shows them that His presence is peace and strength. He creates in our minds ways of experiencing His presence and peace and mercy and shows us how to really walk in His humility. His light shows us colors of this existence we have not seen. He does all this and infinitely more while we step in and out of sin-and he continues to forgive when we are truly sorry and return to Him.
God has done great things that defy words or 'digital storage' or verbal explanation, yes-more than all the generations will ever know. But what He is doing now has to be seen as the most precious thing this side of our salvation in Christ-nothing is greater than that.
But God's passion for us each moment is as great as it was when Christ was on the cross-this is His love for us. This is why His word should be so precious to us. It tells of God's heart and mind for us. This is why Romans 8:28 is so precious to millions:
Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
But do all those millions understand why God does this?
Romans 8:29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.
2 Corinthians 3:18 says, "And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
God makes ways everyday for each of us to be further conformed, or changed into, the image of Jesus-into the very image of Jesus Christ Himself so that we could all be His brothers and sisters.
God makes ways everyday for us to grasp the very gravity of this truth. All the suffering we go through, whatever the form, God uses to change us into the image of Christ. God creates, moves, changes us all to be brothers and sisters of Christ!
I cannot in my weak words impress upon you the vast importance of seeking God with all your heart. We must set our faces like flint-like rock-we must grasp the resolve God desires for us to have-we must.
...because He loves us...
Father in Heaven,
Have mercy on me and my weak resolve. Whatever the cost, I want to be conformed into the image of Christ Jesus, my brother.
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