How Great is Our God?

July 8, 2019 by Leave a Comment

How great is our God? It’s a question that I freely admit I do not have the capacity to answer. Even so, to ponder such a question can open our hearts and minds to God’s will for our lives and lead us to a better understanding of His character.

I also find it to be an exciting question. As one of the redeemed I belong to Him and my desire is to get to know Him better and to find out more about Him. I want to know about His works and His ways and I want to be able to more fully perceive Him in my daily life. By pondering His greatness I am increasing my focus on Him and using more of my imagination and intellect (of which He is the author and giver) in His direction.

And here is a very great truth about anything that we spend for God. Be it time, talents, energy, resources or whatever it might be; whatever we spend for God He gives us back to overflowing, far above what we could ever ask or imagine.

How great is our God? So great He spoke all of creation into existence with just the power of His words. So great that He who is the Word, Jesus Christ, became flesh and dwelt among us and in doing so broke the power of Sin and death so that we might be made free and alive to God. So great that even now He is preparing a perfect place for us to live with Him one day even as He provides power and strength for each present moment.

How great is our God? So great that I can only begin to describe it. So great that I look forward to spending all of eternity with anyone who might ever read this in finding out the answer to that question. Will you be there with me? Have you begun to answer that question in your own life? Are you, even now, starting to discover just how great is our God?

My prayer is that the answers to all of those question is “yes”. Because if you can’t answer “yes” to all of those questions then you need to stop, right now, and ask God to forgive you of all of your wrongs and for Jesus to come into your heart and be your Savior and best friend. That way, you too can begin to answer the question “How great is our God?”

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That Amazing Grace

April 22, 2019 by Leave a Comment

I am overwhelmed by the grace of God. I am astonished that God would come down to earth in the form of a man for the purpose of rescuing and redeeming His creation. I do not understand this but I do accept it and I rejoice in it.

The fact of the matter is I don’t deserve God’s grace and neither do you. No one who has ever lived or walked on the face of this earth is perfect and without sin except one man, Jesus Christ who was and is God in the flesh. Jesus paid the penalty for our sin and it is through His sacrifice that we can be made right with God. God’s grace provided the sacrifice for us but that is not end of it, not even close.

You see the most amazing thing to me about God’s grace is not that He still loved us and desired to save us even in our sin and disobedience. And truly, that would have been enough. But no, the most amazing thing to me is that He grants us His spirit and His nature at the time of salvation so that we become something entirely new.

The born again believer is a changed individual. God sees fit not only to give us a home in heaven with him (someday) but to remake us from the inside out with the very nature and the very spirit of the living God within us. With this we are free from the power of sin and death and are able to commune with God, as He always intended, for the very first time.

Because of this incredible gift not only do I have a friend in Jesus, I can be a friend to Jesus! We can walk together and talk together because my spiritual eyes have been opened and my heart is able to perceive that which it never could before. Peace with God brings overwhelming peace and joy in my heart and I am free to share that joy with others around me and to meet their needs with God’s strength and compassion.

That is what God’s amazing grace can do and it is in that grace that we can stand and in that grace that we can hold fast. He has promised to never leave or forsake us and all that He asks of us is to love Him and trust Him above all others.

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How Love is Learned

January 7, 2019 by Leave a Comment
How Love is Learned

The beginning of a new year is a natural time for reflection and for taking the time to look back and remember. And as I have done so over the past few days what has really stood out to me is the incredible love that I have been shown, not only in this past year but throughout my life.

To be sure, the pinnacle of love and the very way that love is defined is God himself. God is love and love is God and we will never know a stronger, more pure or more powerful love than the love we will experience in him. But before we can get to the place where we can understand God’s love it is enormously beneficial to have seen and experienced real love from those people who are most influential in our lives.

I know I would not be where I am today if it were not for my amazing parents. I surely did not understand or appreciate the value of their encouragement, protection, support, teaching and stability while I was being raised but I can feel it strongly now as an adult. They modeled an incredible, sacrificial love in how they brought up their two sons but they also set the pattern for how I would love my spouse in the way that they loved each other.

Besides my parents, I know I have been shown and taught love by various teachers, mentors and friends throughout my life. To be sure, they also had a large influence on who I am today and in teaching me what real love looks like.

I wonder how my life would be different and how my relationships would be different if I had not been so blessed. Who would I be today and how much worse off would I be if I had not been so loved? And most importantly, would I have been able to accept God’s love if I had never known real love before?

These are questions worth asking even if the only result is that my gratitude and appreciation is increased for the blessings that I have received. Even more so if they challenge me to take a look at my understanding of love and my relationship with God and with those people that God has placed into my life.

Because I have been so loved I have a strong and enduring responsibility to show love. Because I have been so blessed I have a responsibility to bless others. Because God’s love has been poured out in my heart I have a responsibility to pour that love on others and to consistently express my gratitude to my heavenly father.

And so do you. If you know God and have been so loved and so blessed then your responsibility is the same. God has called us to be ambassadors of his love and to teach it and model it with the things we do and the things we say. The same way that we have learned love we must teach to others, according to God’s word and the leading of his Holy Spirit.

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How Wonderful, How Marvelous

December 3, 2018 by Leave a Comment

1 Peter, faith, salvation, joyIt is my hope that the following is as uplifting and encouraging to you as it is to me.  No matter what we face or how dire our circumstances may seem these present times do not define us and they cannot defeat us.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead  1 Peter 1:3 (NIV)

Praise and thanksgiving to God is a natural result of realizing all that he has done for us.  Because he loves us he has mercifully granted us new a new birth into everlasting life and a present, living hope that does not fade.  That hope is so powerful and strong that no evil or darkness can ever snuff it out.  It is a hope based on the power and promise of God himself!

into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.  1 Peter 1:4-5 (NIV)

We have not yet attained all that God has planned for us.  But we do have an inheritance that is waiting for us in heaven and it is an inheritance that is assured.  Our faith in God allows him to shield us with his power and to be completely safe in him until such time as our final salvation is revealed.

In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.  1 Peter 1:6-7 (NIV)

Our journey through this life is not easy.  We reside in the territory of our enemy and he is doing everything he can to shake us, disrupt us, discourage us and nullify our joy and our testimony.  Though we are saved and our souls are safe for eternity we must still face dangers and grief while we reside here.  But even these things have a reason and will be used to the ultimate glory of God as they prove and refine our faith in him.  Hold fast for the fruit that we produce here will bring great joy in eternity!

Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.  1 Peter 1:8-9 (NIV)

Our salvation has a completion date and an endpoint.  But, it has already begun and is even now working in us.  And although we have not yet seen our savior face to face we love him and believe in him.  This faith allows God to channel blessings and joy into our lives and allows us to be conduits of his love and mercy to others.

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Where We Belong

June 25, 2018 by Leave a Comment

position, good works, Ephesians 2, blessings, salvationAll of us, I believe, have certain places that are special and memorable to us.  It might be a favorite vacation spot or restaurant or even the house we grew up in but, wherever it is, it is a place with meaning and significance.

And among places with meaning and significance, nowhere is more important or holds such power as our position in Christ Jesus.  For the time being it is not a physical location that we can see our touch with our senses but it is a held position nonetheless and it is vitally important that we understand it and take advantage of it.

God would not have us be ignorant of who we are and what we were created to be.  It is the enemies’ aim to keep us in the dark about our identities in Christ and about the power and privilege that he has bestowed upon us.  Consider Ephesians 2: 1-10.

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time,gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace,expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.  (Ephesians 2:1-10) NIV

Firstly we must acknowledge that we have been made spiritually alive if we have been born again and accepted God’s free gift of salvation through his son Jesus.  And not only have we been made alive and been granted pardon from all sin, we have also been given a seat with God’s precious son Jesus who is even now preparing a place for us in Heaven.  John Gill’s exposition has this to say about verse 6:

“Christ is entered into heaven as the forerunner, to take possession of it for his people, in their name; and to prepare mansions of glory for them, and in these they sit; which imports honour, pleasure, rest from labour and weariness, and safety and security: and what adds to the happiness of this is, that it is together with all the saints, and with Christ himself; and in these they are made to sit already; which is so said, because of the certainty of it, for the same glory Christ has, they shall have; and because of their right to such a blessing; and chiefly because Christ their head is set down therein, who sustains their persons, bears their names on his heart, and represents them.”

What a promise and what a thought!  Christ himself is waiting for us, preparing for us and has claimed his position as head of all things!  And while he waits, God the Father has made us joint heirs together with Jesus (the implications of this still stagger me) to partake in the same blessings and glory that has been conferred on his precious son.

This is our position in the heavenly kingdoms and it is fixed with certainty.  And because we are on the journey to that glorious place we must be about doing God’s work while we journey through this life.  Verse 10 makes it clear that God himself has prepared good works for us to find and discover in advance and as we set about that blessed work we know for sure that we are storing up for ourselves treasures in heaven and that our creator eagerly waits for our homecoming day.  Beyond a shadow of a doubt, this is where we belong.

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What It Takes To Be Filled

February 19, 2018 by Leave a Comment

Holy Spirit, filled with the Spirit, SalvationLet me ask you a question.  Have you ever wanted more of God?  Have you ever wanted to see Him more fully, know Him more intimately and love Him more deeply?  My belief is, if we are truly born again followers of Christ, then the Holy Spirit will place that desire within us and it will be up to us to nurture it.

David expressed this idea very well in Psalm 42.

As the deer pants for the water brooks,
So my soul pants for You, O God.
 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God;
When shall I come and appear before God?  Psalm 42:1-2 (NASB)

Here we are given a word picture of a deer who is so thirsty that it is literally gasping in anticipation of its next drink.  Then David says that his soul thirsts for God just like that deer who was desperately searching for water.  And just like the physical life of that deer depends on finding that water source so does our spiritual life depend on the presence and power of God.  Without Him and without His Spirit in us we are spiritually bereft.

I think it is important here to make a distinction between being given the gift of the Holy Spirit (which happens to every believer at the time of salvation) and being filled with the Spirit (which is an ongoing process that can ebb and flow depending on our walk with God).  My focus here is on the believer who already has the Holy Spirit living in their hearts because they are truly a born again child of God but wants to go further in their walk with the Lord and to seek Him ever more strongly.

If you have never made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ and you aren’t sure if you have the Holy Spirit living in you then I would encourage you to read this which explains very simply and very well what it takes to be truly born again and how the gift of the Holy Spirit is received.

For the rest of us, what must we do to be filled with the Spirit?  Before I answer that question let me confess to you that I am not wise or experienced enough to answer it without a lot of help.  I am still learning and growing and indeed the motivation for writing this is because of my own searching and questioning and wanting to be closer to the Lord.  And in that searching I found this wonderful piece by John Piper and this is just a small part of what he has to say on the subject:

And that leads us now to our final, all-important question of how we can obey this command to be filled with the Spirit. We are in the same predicament we were in last week. We are commanded to be full, and yet we are not the filler; the Spirit is. The answer to this predicament in the New Testament is that God has ordained to move into our lives with fullness through faith. The pathway that the Spirit cuts through the jungle of our anxieties into the clearing of joy is the pathway of faith. Luke says of Stephen in Acts 6:5, that he was “a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit,” and he says of Barnabas in Acts 11:24 that he was “a good man full of the Holy Spirit and of faith,” The two go together. If a person is filled with faith, he will be filled with the Spirit, the Spirit of joy and peace.

The complete article can be found here and I would highly encourage you to read it because it has been a very great help to me.  But I love the fact that Mr Piper distills the entire process down a very simple yet powerful truth, the truth of our faith.  When we take care to nurture and strengthen our faith and to act on it then we open ourselves up to being filled with the Spirit.  For new Christians the idea can sometimes seem mystical or magical but the actual truth of the matter is that a person with strong active faith is a person who will be filled with the Spirit and strong, active faith is dependent upon our knowing and obeying God’s word.

Once we realize that then we can see that the process goes like this: Read and study God’s word —–> Act on what we have studied by faith that what God’s word says is true and right —-> be filled with the Spirit and produce the fruits of the Spirit in our lives.  And isn’t that a wonderful thing to know and understand?!

 

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We Are Temporary, We Are Eternal

July 10, 2017 by 2 Comments

eternal, temporary, good worksAs I looked out the window this morning, the sky immediately caught my attention.  Higher up and farther in the distance I could see clear, blue sky with a few fluffy, white clouds.  As I focused on that which was far off, I noticed how beautiful a scene it was and that I was grateful for the coming day and for God’s creation.  Continuing in my study of the sky I could see that closer to me and lower in the sky, dark storm clouds had gathered and, depending on where I focused, they sometimes completely obscured the clear blue sky that was beyond.  And soon enough, the dark clouds opened and it began to rain.

As the rain started, everything turned grey and visibility out my window was quickly reduced.  Within moments I could no longer see the blue sky in the distance but only a hazy grey curtain of falling water.  My attention was now completely focused on the downpour and it didn’t take very long for me to completely forget about the beautiful picture I had witnessed earlier and the clear, blue sky and white fluffy clouds that awaited me in the distance.

And it’s only now, when I’ve had some time to sit down and think, that I realize the significance of what I saw.  God has given me eyes to see the multitude of blessings that He has bestowed upon me and upon this world.  He has given me physical eyes to see the beauty of his creation and spiritual eyes to perceive the eternity that waits for me.  I am so blessed; we are so blessed, to be called Children of God!

But, as I go, do I choose to focus on the circumstances and the storm that is close around me or do I choose to see that which lies beyond?  Am I a person of the here and now or a person who, by his actions, chooses to have eternal significance through the power of the Holy Spirit?  This is a choice that has to be made every day and, sometimes, on a moment by moment basis.

That which is eternal versus that which is temporary and the consequences to each is something that we all have to face.  This is the dichotomy (a big word that means a division or contrast between two things that are or are represented as being opposed or entirely different) of our existence; that we occupy a specific space and time within temporary bodies and have relatively short life-spans while also possessing eternal souls that will last forever.  We are temporary and transient yet we are also eternal.

How do we best reconcile those two, completely different natures?  How can we live as eternal beings while still residing in temporary bodies?  Is it even possible to do so?

Yes, it is possible and we have actually been given all of the tools that we need to do so if we will follow the instructions that God has given us in His word.  Only by living our lives in accordance with God’s word can we make a difference in this temporary world while also having eternal significance.  Although our residence here on earth is temporary, God asks us to be involved and to love His creation and to always, with everything that we do, acknowledge Him and give Him glory and honor.  If we do this then we take that which is temporary and we give it eternal significance by offering it up to the Father, in Jesus’ name.  A kindness that we bestow on someone today, although we may forget it by tomorrow, will be written in the annals of heaven and celebrated and we will be rewarded for those deeds by the Father, in due time.

 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne.  All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.  He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.  For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,  I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?  When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’  Matthew 25:31-40 (NIV)

 

 

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Worth Celebrating

May 29, 2017 by Leave a Comment

holiness, salvation, Exodus 19It always amazes me how God uses His Word to speak to us.  By reading about the events of the past and how God worked through His people to bring about great miracles it can encourage and teach us something in the present day.  The happenings recorded in God’s Word may all be historical in nature but God’s Word is always present tense in the sense that it is alive today.  It is powerful today.  And it is sufficient today, right now.

As I read Exodus Chapter 19 recently I was given a fresh picture of our Holy God and how awesome was the work that Jesus did on the cross through his death and resurrection.

8 Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire; and its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked violently. 19 When the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke and God answered him with thunder. 20 The Lord came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain; and the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up. 21 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, “Go down, warn the people, so that they do not break through to the Lord to gaze, and many of them perish. 22 Also let the priests who come near to the Lord consecrate themselves, or else the Lord will break out against them.” 23 Moses said to the Lord, “The people cannot come up to Mount Sinai, for You warned us, saying, ‘Set bounds about the mountain and consecrate it.’” 24 Then the Lord said to him, “Go down and come up again, you and Aaron with you; but do not let the priests and the people break through to come up to the Lord, or He will break forth upon them.” 25 So Moses went down to the people and told them.

 If you aren’t familiar with this passage of scripture then a little explanation is in order.  God is setting the stage for the giving of the ten commandments.  He’s preparing Moses, Aaron, the priests of Israel and all the people for the giving of His law.  The people have left Egypt and are on the way to the promised land and God is in the middle of establishing a special covenant relationship with them.

The first thing I noticed when I read this passage is that mighty Mount Sinai physically can’t handle God’s presence.  It rumbles and quakes violently and smoke pours out of it “like a furnace”.  In other verses it says that thunder and lightning accompanied the smoke and the shaking and in verse 19 when Moses spoke God answered Him with thunder.  How cool is that?

How awesome is our God that even the mountains quake and tremble in His presence?  His power can’t be contained by even the largest things on this earth and yet he chooses to love and to cherish the weakest things (us) as His very own.

The second thing I notice is His holiness.  God repeatedly tells Moses not to let the people gaze upon or come near the mountain lest they die.  The priests even have to go through a special consecration even to be able to serve in their normal capacity because God is so near.  God’s holiness and the people’s sinfulness are so incompatible that they can’t even approach God without fear of death.

Now contrast that picture with the state of the redeemed today.  We are just as sinful as the people in Exodus chapter 19.  Sin is sin and one sin or one thousand sins is more than enough to separate us from a Holy God and condemn us to death.  Yet Jesus Christ, God’s Son, came and lived a perfect life and died in our place satisfying our sin debt forever and making us clean before God.  We no longer have to fear for our lives in God’s presence because of the blood of Jesus Christ that washes away our sins.

Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:16 NKJV)

Unlike the Israelites in Exodus we need not fear coming before our God any longer.  God has not changed.  The mountains in our day still can’t handle his presence and nothing on heaven and earth can stand against Him.  His Holiness is still just as awesome today as it was on that day so many years ago.  So what changed?  Our status.  Praise God that we are raised to son and daughterhood by our belief and profession of faith in Jesus and that we may come boldly before God at any time.

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The Only Question That Really Matters

April 10, 2017 by Leave a Comment

sin, salvation, the gospel, faithI try not to pay much attention to politics or current events.  I have a friend at work who, I am fairly certain, thinks of me as either willfully ignorant or somewhat uncaring about the world at large.  Whenever he tells me about the latest plane crash, energy crisis or political scandal that is making the headlines my usual response is something like “hmm” or “oh, really?”

It’s not that I don’t care or that I am unconcerned about the world in which I live.  It’s simply a matter of perspective and the difference between mine and his.  He’s a professed atheist and I am not.  I love the Lord Jesus, read my Bible daily and I try to view him and the world around me through the lens of God’s grace and redemptive plan.

He knows that I am a believer in Christ and that I attend church weekly but as a non-believer without a strong biblical background he doesn’t really understand my point of view.  No one can, not unless they are first adopted into the family of God by faith and belief on the Lord Jesus Christ and the washing and remission of sins.

What I would really like to say to him is “God is in control, love and serve Him with all of your heart and leave the rest to Him” but as my desire is not to antagonize Him it comes out as “hmm” or “oh, really”.

I say all of that to say we need to be careful about not getting so caught up in lesser matters.  What exactly is a lesser matter, you might ask?  I leave the precise answer of that question up to your conscience and the leading of the Holy Spirit but for me a lesser matter is one that distracts from the message of the gospel and the good news that Jesus saves.

In terms of politics do I want a strong believer in the White House?  Absolutely, I do.  I pray for my country and its leadership often.  But I am not open to entering into political debate on my position because ultimately it is going to lead back to my belief in Jesus Christ and in God’s plan for this world and for His people.

In terms of social matters, do I support gay marriage?  Well, I believe the act of homosexuality is a sin and I also believe that marriage is defined by the Bible as the union between one man and one woman.  However, our lawmakers, the ones in charge, have decided to extend the same rights and privileges to same sex couples as heterosexual couples and now I, as a believer, have a choice in how I will respond.  Will it be a response that is filled with care and concern for the soul of each individual or will it be a bitter complaint against the sorry state of our world?

I will insert here C.S. Lewis’s response to a question about homosexuality just because it is such a good one:  “I take it for certain that the physical satisfaction of homosexual desires is sin. This leaves the homosexual no worse off than any normal person who is, for whatever reason, prevented from marrying. Second, our speculations on the cause of homosexuality are not what matters and we must be content with ignorance. The disciples were not told why the man was born blind (John 9:1-3): only the final cause: that the works of God should be made manifest in him.”  Notice how C.S. Lewis takes on the question of homosexuality?  By answering it in the context of scripture and bringing the discussion around to God’s plan.  And that is exactly how we should be striving to answer any and all questions about our society and our world.

In short, you can’t expect the unrighteous to live righteous lives and instead of focusing on the fruits of sin and the behaviors of the lost we should instead be focusing on God’s grace and doing everything in our power to point the lost to Him.  I’m not condemning those who get involved in good causes and spend their time and energy to make the world a better place but I am saying that if we lose the message of the gospel or if it gets somehow overshadowed by our cause then we have lost everything that this world really needs.  And at that point our cause amounts to very little.

The world we live in has issues but the reality is there is only one issue: Sin.  And that means that there is only one question that really matters.  Everything we do should lead up to and expand upon this one question.  “Do you love the Lord and live each day to serve Him?”

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Where True Beauty Resides

July 25, 2016 by Leave a Comment

salvation, redemption, creation, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Philippians 1:6I don’t often write about current events or popular culture.   They are here today and gone tomorrow and often not worth much in the grand scheme of God’s plan.  That being said, I’m going to use an example today that is drawn from a recently aired television show simply because it helps to make a useful point and because of how God used it to show me something that I want to share with you.

Over the past few years, my wife and I have enjoyed watching the BBC television show, Downton Abbey.  If you are familiar with it then you know it is a British period drama that takes place in the early part of the 1900’s and deals with the family of nobles that inhabit Downton Abbey, their staff and the way that the world began to change rapidly during that period of time.  We follow the lives of these aristocrats through war, modernization, the advent of the automobile and the telephone and many other changes all set against the backdrop of the marvelous house (actually, that word doesn’t do it justice, castle or estate are better descriptors) and grounds that make up Downton Abbey.

And even though we are watching the show to see what ultimately happens to these people, I can’t help but be impressed and sometimes even awestruck at how beautiful and grand the backdrop is for the show.  The architecture of the house, the rich woods, the marble, the paintings, the decor and even the clothes and finery are all fairly breathtaking.  I enjoy seeing these beautiful things and appreciate the craftsmanship and ingenuity that went in to their creation.

After watching a recent episode, I had the thought that seeing beauty on that scale was inspiring and that I appreciated being able to see it, even if it was just a television show.  And on the heels of that thought I thanked the Lord for beauty and my first instinct was to call to mind a sunset, a bird in flight, a night sky filled with stars and other images of God’s creation.  But immediately the Holy Spirit spoke to me and took me deeper.  He said “the most beautiful thing in all creation is that which I am creating in you”.  And as I pondered that thought, it took my breath away.

It’s difficult to put into words, but I know what the Holy Spirit spoke to me is the absolute truth even if I have very little knowledge of the specifics.  I know, from what the Bible says, that I am now a new creation.  I know that God’s Holy Spirit has come to reside in my heart (the center of my will) and that as I yield to Him and His teaching, He is changing me from what I was into what God intends for me to be.  And if you are a child of God, the same holds true for you.

Brothers and sisters, we have something to truly be excited about!  The work has begun but it is not yet finished.  I believe we’ve barely scratched the surface of what God intends to do with us and reveal to those whom He loves and calls His own.  True beauty, the purest and most lovely in existence, resides in the hearts of the redeemed.  And it’s only going to get better and better as we keep on following Him and keeping Him in the center of our lives.

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.  2 Corinthians 5:17 (NASB)

For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.  Philippians 1:6 (NASB)

 

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