Tag: hope

How Big is Your God? pt-5

 

How is your experience of God?  Has it been awhile?  If your finding that God has begun to get smaller and the size of your problems have been growing then maybe it is time for a fresh experience of Him.  Jesus said “It is written,“It takes more than bread to stay alive. It takes a steady stream of words from God’s mouth.” Matthew 4:4 MSG.  He also said “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.” John 6:51 GNT.  He was comparing himself to the manna that the Jews ate in the wilderness when they were freed from Egypt.  And they had to collect manna each day for the day.  Yesterdays manna would be no good today, and today’s manna would be no good for tomorrow.  There is a principle in there.  Yesterdays experience of God was wonderful, but it wasn’t supposed to be an anchor point in your life.  We need to experience God afresh and to grow in our understanding of Him daily, and as we experience and know Him more we can begin to see Him and know Him as He is.

But it takes more than just an experiences.  We also need to get outside out comfort zones.  One thing I have learned over the years is the size of your God is proportional to the size of your comfort zone.  Israel had a comfort zone which allowed them to see God as able to defeat an army, but Goliath was outside their comfort zone and therefore outside the ability of their God.  David’s comfort zone was God, and so it didn’t matter what he encountered or what difficulty he faced.  He knew his God well enough to rest completely in Him and face whatever came at him.

How big is your God?

God calls us to step outside our limitations into the limitlessness of Him.  If all we are hanging on to is what we know and are comfortable with then we are only experiencing a little bit of God, and then like Israel our God is very small.  Every person used by God through time has experienced Him and His greatness to the degree they yielded to His hand in their life, And stepped out into the life God had for them.  Our experience of God is dependent upon our willingness to let go of what we know and are comfortable with.  With God there can be no comfort zone.  God is our comfort zone, and as we let go of ourselves and step out into Him we can be ones who turn the world upside down.

We also need to give God opportunities to do something.  If we refuse to get involved then we will not see God move.  Israel had the same opportunity to see God move powerfully against Goliath as David did.  David was the only one who was willing to step out and give God an opportunity to move.  How many situations do we encounter in a day where God could do something?  How many lives do you know that could be forever changed if God touched them?  How many opportunities do we have to see God move every day of our lives?

  • The elderly gentleman on the bus with the oxygen tank
  • The coworker struggling with family problems
  • The friend overcome by debt
  • The person beside us in the hospital
  • The person we meet in the grocery line who simply needs to know that they matter

We live in a time where God is ready to move powerfully if we are willing.  Will we give God the opportunity to move or will we hide in our self-imposed comfort zones.  If we will experience God and get outside ourselves and allow God to move we can see God do great things in our lives and in the lives of the people we meet.

The question we have to answer is how big is your God?

God is moving in our world today.  Stories abound of the hand of God touching people and transforming lives.  And it is always with people who are simply following Him, allowing Him to touch their lives and doing the things He says to do.  All God needs to move powerfully is people who will come to know Him, step outside themselves and their comfort zone and follow where He leads

God isn’t looking for people of great faith, but for individuals ready to follow Him –Hudson Taylor

What’s Going On God? – pt. 5

Confrontation and Transformation.  Two extremely important components to God’s plan in our lives.  God always reveals His plans for us to bring us to the place where we are willing to see ourselves for who we are, including all the parts we don’t want to see, so that He can transform us into the image of Jesus and accomplish His purposes through us.   Things happen TO me, So that things can happen IN me, so that things can happen THROUGH me.

Our circumstance that each one of us face are tools which God uses to draw out of us the areas in our lives that need to be shown to us, and so that He can change us.  If we are unwilling to see ourselves as we are, we won’t change because we won’t see the need to.  People all around the world have the same response when confronted with change.  “Well I’m a good person…”  If we don’t see the need for change, we cannot make the changes necessary, and if we don’t make the changes or allow God to make the changes in us we will miss out on the purpose we were created to fulfill.  So God allows circumstances in our lives to draw out of us the things we are often so good at hiding.

There are two things necessary in our lives for this process to accomplish what God desires in us.  We each face different circumstances, and many of them can be extremely difficult to deal with, but we all need two things if God is going to be able to use the circumstances to accomplish His purpose.

The first is a humble heart.  Without humility we will be unwilling to see the areas of our lives that need to be addressed.  Without humility we will be focused completely on getting what we feel we deserve.  Humility allows us to see things differently and be willing to set aside our plans and purposes.  Humility allows us to be willing to see the need for change and to accept the work of God in our lives, even when we are not always able to comprehend or understand what He is doing.   It is a humble heart that will allow God to confront us and change us.  Saul was proud and didn’t respond to the dealings of God, but every time God dealt with David he responded with humility and God was able to do amazing things in and through him.

If you think you know better than God you will won’t respond to His work in your life.  Denying the changes in your life does not make them any less important or necessary to our growth.  Denial is not a river in Egypt. If we insist on denying the reality of our lives we will never see the possibility of our future. 

Humility also releases the hand of God in our lives.  If we want to struggle and fight on our own God is willing to let us, but He would prefer if we allowed Him to mold and form us.  James 4:6 NKJV“God resists the proud,  But gives grace to the humble.”  God offers us His grace if we are willing to be humble.  Grace is “the transforming power of God, doing in you what you cannot do for yourself.”  God’s power working in your life, accomplishing God’s plan.  Without grace we would all be lost.  If we are willing to humble our hearts, God is able to accomplish great things in our lives, and through our lives.

Second we need a close relationship with God.  It is our relationship with Jesus that draws us into God’s plan for our lives, and it is what sustains us as we move forward into God’s purposes.  It is our relationship  with God that allows us to

  • feel and be secure in the love and safety of the hands of God regardless of our circumstances
  • allow God to deal with us knowing He is doing it for our benefit and not His.
  • allow God the freedom to work out the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.

     

     

No relationship = No change

Are we keeping our relationship with God current?  Jesus said in John 15:5 NLV “I am the Vine and you are the branches. Get your life from Me. Then I will live in you and you will give much fruit. You can do nothing without Me.”  It is our relationship with God that allows His life to flow in us, and it is His life in us that allows the changes to happen. 

Every move and promise of God in our lives always leads us to the cross of Calvary.

We always return to face our reality and our choice is whether we take up our cross and follow or turn away to our own path.

  • God always brings confrontation for a season to bring transformation for a reason.
  • Things happen TO me, So that things can happen IN me, so that things can happen THROUGH me

There is always a divine purpose to the struggles we have.

What will make the difference will be our focus.

Are we looking at our circumstances or the One who will see us through our circumstances.   It is a humble heart and a relationship with God that allows us to focus not on the problem but on the one who will see us past the problems.

“Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God.”  Hebrews 12:2 MSG