Month: March 2017

How Big is Your God – Pt 4

God is truly amazing.  He is the beginning and the end, our faith started with Him, and He is going to see it to completion.  He is the bright and morning star.  He is our all sufficient one, which means He is everything we will ever need, and more than we can ever want.  He is our healer, He is our peace, He is our provider.  He goes before us to prepare our way, and stands behind us guarding our back.  He leads us beside still waters, He restores our soul.  He is infinitely accepting and His mercy never ends.  He called us by name before we were even born, and He knows all of the stars in the sky by name.  And yet He still knows how many hairs we each have on our heads.  God created everything we see with a word.

God is a God who defies description.  There are not enough words in any language to begin to adequately describe how awesome, mighty and powerful God is.  God is incredibly huge, awesomely powerful, without equal and without end.  At the sound of His voice all of creation trembles, and at His name every knee will bow.  How big is your God?  If your finding like me that your God isn’t big enough let me share with you three things that will help you change the size of your God.

First you need to experience God personally

It doesn’t really help you for me to tell you how great God is.  The Israelites only had a theoretical understanding of God’s greatness.  Which is why they ran and hid from Goliath.  They heard the stories of others, and the great stories of their history of when God moved in the past.  God was meant to be experienced.  God desired to make Himself know from the beginning of time.

He walked with Adam and Eve in the garden

He was called the friend of Abraham

Moses talked with Him face to face

Joshua met with Him personally

The disciples turned the world upside down because of their relationship with God, and the experience they had with Jesus which changed their lives forever and they said we have the opportunity to have the same

From the very first day, we were there, taking it all in—we heard it with our own ears, saw it with our own eyes, verified it with our own hands. The Word of Life appeared right before our eyes; we saw it happen! And now we’re telling you in most sober prose that what we witnessed was, incredibly, this: The infinite Life of God himself took shape before us.

We saw it, we heard it, and now we’re telling you so you can experience it along with us, this experience of communion with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. Our motive for writing is simply this: We want you to enjoy this, too. Your joy will double our joy! 1John 1:1-4

God desires to be experienced.  David experienced God.  He fellowshipped with God while looking after the sheep and he had a personal relationship where he got to know God deeply and personally.  God proved himself strong on his behalf many times.  David killed lions and bears who came to steal his sheep

34″I have been taking care of my father’s sheep,” he said. “When a lion or a bear comes to steal a lamb from the flock,  

35 I go after it with a club and take the lamb from its mouth. If the animal turns on me, I catch it by the jaw and club it to death.

36 I have done this to both lions and bears, and I’ll do it to this pagan Philistine, too, for he has defied the armies of the living God!

37 The LORD who saved me from the claws of the lion and the bear will save me from this Philistine!”  1 Samuel 17

David knew His God and God’s greatness was a personal experience for Him, and it resulted in David’s boldness and confidence.  And everyone of us has the opportunity to experience Him as He is and to know Him in all of His splendor.  We all need to experience God personally.  Without it we will have a god of our own understanding and that leaves us with a pretty small god.

How Big is Your God – Pt 3

When I thought about how big God was I found  I was no different that most other Christians.  My life certainly didn’t reflect the God of the scriptures.  When I prayed I didn’t really see much results.  People I prayed about didn’t get healed, didn’t get delivered or set free, didn’t get saved.  And to be honest I was getting frustrated

What about you?  Have you ever faced these situations?  How’s your frustration level in spiritual matters?  Just how big is Your God?  Think about the people you have given up hope on.  People whom you think are a lost cause, feel like their never going to change.  Or think about the times where we turn to the credit cards and bank loans or pawn shops because there are bills to pay, instead of allowing God to provide.

Do we stand in the face of opposition and difficulty confidently assured of our God who stands with us, or do we cower in fear of what people think or may say.  Do we accept all challenges boldly, jumping in with both feet because we know “God will provide”, or do we shy away from difficult situations.  Do we willing step out into the unknown simply because God said ‘go’, or do we try to figure out all the angles first.  These were all questions I asked myself.

Just how big is your God?

Enter David in our story found in 1 Samuel 17.

Davids brothers were part of Saul’s army facing the Philistines.  And as David was to young to enter the army he would travel back and forth with supplies for his brothers.

So David left the sheep with another shepherd and set out early the next morning with the gifts. He arrived at the outskirts of the camp just as the Israelite army was leaving for the battlefield with shouts and battle cries.

21 Soon the Israelite and Philistine forces stood facing each other, army against army.

22 David left his things with the keeper of supplies and hurried out to the ranks to greet his brothers.

23 As he was talking with them, he saw Goliath, the champion from Gath, come out from the Philistine ranks, shouting his challenge to the army of Israel.

24 As soon as the Israelite army saw him, they began to run away in fright.

What I found interesting is Davids response to Goliath wasn’t fear.

“Who is this pagan Philistine anyway, that he is allowed to defy the armies of the living God?“

David response wasn’t to cower and hide.  He saw and heard the same things his fellow Israelites were hearing.  He served the same God they did.  He had grown up hearing the same stories they did.  If you were to ask him how great God was he probably would have the same answer his countrymen had.  But something was different in David because he didn’t even hesitate in his response.  Instead of running away to hide like everyone else had he charged headlong down to meet the giant saying

“You come to me with sword, spear, and javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD Almighty – the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied”

David personally knew how great God was.  God’s greatness for him was not a theory talked about in church.  It was a confident assurance that gripped him in the center of his being  and it caused him to have great boldness.  He absolutely knew God was going to back him up and defeat this giant, and it was a boldness that none of his fellow countrymen had.

How big is your God?  Is it a theory?  Its a tough question isn’t it, and it is one each of us needs to ask ourselves, because God doesn’t want to remain a theory we simply talk about.