2024-11-23
Isaiah 55:9 NKJV
Your internal picture of God decides how you see everything else. The majority of our troubles are not circumstantial; they are perceptual. We can trace our biggest problems back to an insufficient understanding of who God is. God says, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”
A best-selling author informs us: “Astronomers have spied galaxies 12.3 billion light-years from earth. To put that distance into perspective, consider the fact that light traveling at 186,000 miles per second only takes eight minutes to travel the 93 million miles between the sun and planet earth. Sunlight is only eight minutes old. But light from the farthest galaxy takes 12.3 billion light-years to get here. That distance is virtually incomprehensible. And God says that is about the distance between His thoughts and our thoughts. Your best thought about God on your best day falls 12.3 billion light-years short of how great and how good God really is… Maybe it’s time to stop placing four-dimensional limits on God. Maybe it’s time to stop putting God in a box the size of your cerebral cortex. It’s time to stop creating God in your image and let Him create you in His.”
The more we grow, the bigger God should become. And the bigger God becomes, the smaller our troubles will become. The hymnist, Oscar C. Eliason wrote: “Got any rivers you think are uncrossable? Got any mountains you can’t tunnel Through? God specializes in things thought impossible. He can do just what none other can do.”
Soul food: Gen 4-6; John 12:20-36; Ps 102:12-17; Prov 30:21-23
2024-11-22
Psalm 139:16 NLT
Way before God set earth’s foundations, He had you in mind. He thought of all you could conceivably need. Mind-boggling, isn’t it? A respected author writes: “God planned for every contingency you might ever encounter, before the beginning of time… It is impossible for finite minds to comprehend the sovereignty of God, but let me put it in chess terms.
In 1997 a team of IBM engineers designed and developed Deep Blue, the computer that outmaneuvered chess grand master Garry Kasparov. Deep Blue was equipped with thirty-two processing engines that could calculate 200 million chess moves per second… I have a tough time with the fifty-fifty stuff. True or false. Right or left. Chocolate or vanilla. I can’t even imagine contemplating 200 million contingencies in a split second.
[That’s] laughable compared to the Omniscient One who took every contingency into consideration before a nanosecond had even ticked off the clock of time. Think of your life as a game of chess. You are the pawn and God is the Grand Master. You have no idea what your next move should be, but God already has the next 200 million moves planned out.”
God says, “I make known the end from the beginning” (Isa 46:10 NIV). Are you grappling with knowing God’s will for your life? Here is the simple truth: God wants you to arrive where He wants you to go more than you want to arrive where God wants you to go. And if you keep in step with the Spirit, God will make certain you arrive where He wants you to go.
Soul food: Gen 1-3; John 12:12-19; Ps 102:1-11; Prov 30:18-20
2024-11-21
Proverbs 4:18 NKJV
When it comes to growth, you never “arrive.” It’s not a place you reach; it’s a pathway you walk. “The path of the just is like the shining sun, that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day.”
A pastor writes: “Many people learn only from the school of hard knocks. Difficult experiences teach them lessons ‘the hard way,’ and they change – sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. The lessons are random and difficult. It’s much better to plan your growth intentionally. You decide where you need or want to grow, you choose what you will learn, and you follow through with discipline going at the pace you set. Think about what it is that you want to do. Whom do you want to be? Make a list of things that will help you reach that goal and be that person. Is there something on that list you can do now? Today? Do it. Whether you feel prompted to or not, now is the time to start growing… You will never get much done unless you go ahead and do it before you are ready.
If you’re not already intentionally growing, you need to get started today. If you don’t, you may reach some goals, which you can celebrate, but you will eventually plateau. But once you start growing intentionally, you can keep growing and keep asking, ‘What’s next?’ When you start working actively toward your goal, you will find that the door of personal growth opens a crack. Through that crack, you’ll begin to see more growth opportunities everywhere. Your world begins to open up. You accomplish more. You learn more. Other opportunities begin to present themselves.”
Soul food: Ecc 9-12; John 12:1-11; Ps 76; Prov 30:15-17
2024-11-20
1 Timothy 1:12 NLT
One of the greatest missionaries in the history of the church was Mary Slessor, although she started out as a most unlikely candidate. Because of her father’s drinking problem, eleven-year-old Mary was working twelve-hour shifts in the mills, assisting her family in paying their bills. She discovered she could prop books on her loom as she worked. While she read about the land of Calabar (modern Nigeria), Mary grew convinced she should go there as a missionary.
In 1876, she sailed for West Africa aboard the S.S. Ethiopia, which, ironically, was loaded with hundreds of barrels of whiskey. Remembering how alcohol had harmed her family, she said, “Scores of barrels of whiskey, and only one missionary.” But what a missionary! Mary was a combination of circuit preacher, nanny, nurse, village teacher, and negotiator who alone transformed three pagan regions by preaching the gospel. She deflected tribal wars and rescued women and children by the hundreds. For forty years she toiled as God enabled her.
God loves to use people the world overlooks or discards. Mary Slessor was one of them. So was Paul. “He… appointed me to serve him, even though I used to blaspheme the name of Christ. In my insolence, I persecuted his people. But God had mercy on me because I did it in ignorance and unbelief. Oh, how generous and gracious our Lord was! He filled me with the faith and love that come from Christ Jesus” (vv. 12-14 NLT). The God who used the apostle and Mary Slessor can use you too – if you surrender your life to Him.
Soul food: Ecc 5-8; John 11:38-57; Ps 81; Prov 30:11-14
2024-11-19
2 Timothy 4:3 NKJV
People who desire to beautify themselves with diamonds use the timeless counterfeit – cubic zirconia. But now, scientists can create real diamonds in a labouratory. And they are so good that gemologists have trouble recognizing labouratory diamonds from mined ones. To tell them apart, an expert’s checklist is used: weight, color, clarity, and brilliance. Without it, an imposter could pretend a two-day-old diamond is one that took thousands of years to develop.
The same is true with spiritual truth. If Christians don’t know their Bibles, spiritual imposters can pass off all manner of lies as truth. It’s not enough for someone to do miracles in Jesus’ name. “Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not… done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me'” (Matthew 7:22-23 NKJV).
The Bible says that even Satan can disguise himself as an angel of light. Paul warns: “For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. They will reject the truth and chase after myths” (2 Timothy 4:3-4 NLT).
The Bible uses the word “doctrine” fifty-five times. That’s how important it is. We need to have the desire of a diamond expert – a desire not to be deceived. If careful examination, study, and care are taken in determining the quality of a precious stone, how much more should the same effort be applied to the precious Word of God?
Soul food: Ecc 1-4; John 11:28-37; Ps 50; Prov 30:7-10
2024-11-18
John 12:46 NKJV
John Ortberg writes: “In 1780 a Jesus-follower in Great Britain named Robert Raikes could not stand the cycle of poverty and ignorance that was destroying little children, a whole generation. He said, ‘The world marches forward on the feet of little children.’ So he took children who had to work six days a week in squalor. Sunday was their free day. He said, ‘I’m going to start a school for free to teach them to read and write and learn about God.’ He did, and he called it Sunday school. Within fifty years, there were 1.5 million children being taught by 160,000 volunteer teachers who had a vision for the education of a generation. Sunday school was not a privatized, optional program for church kids. It was one of the great educational volunteer triumphs of the world.
The alphabet of the Slavic peoples is called Cyrillic. It was named for Saint Cyril, who was a missionary to the Slavs and discovered they had no written alphabet. Thus he created one for them so they would be able to read about Jesus in their own language…
A Methodist missionary, Frank Laubach, cited an extraordinary encounter with God about a century ago that put him on a mission to lift the world out of ignorance. He began a worldwide literacy movement. The phrase ‘Each one teach one’ flows out of the extraordinary life of this man. He travelled to more than a hundred countries and led to the development of primers in 313 languages. He became known as ‘the apostle to the illiterates.'”
Soul food: Rom 15-16; John 11:17-27; Ps 8; Prov 30:5-6
