Tag Archives: God

To the Thirsty

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Very few passages in the Bible start off, hey, those of you that are doing just great, I’ve got something to tell you. That’s not how most the Bible sounds. In fact, in the few cases are talking to the one’s that have pretty well off, the message is either this – be careful, don’t get confidant right now, or give God the praise for what’s going on.

But, that’s not most of scripture. Most of the Bible is like what we see here in Isaiah.  Listen to what the word says in Isaiah 55:1-3:

“Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.

To those of you that are are thirsty, come to the water. To those of you that have no money, come, buy and eat.

You are spending your time, your money, your effort on those things which do not satisfy. Come, find the things that do. Come, find the things that give life. Come, and on be thirsty.

Today, if you are thirsty, there is hope. Today, if your soul is parched, there is hope. Today, if you are hungry, if you are worn out, if you are tired, there is hope.

The Bible is a love story written to the weak, to the sinful, to the broken. It is God’s act to love to those that feel unlovable. It’s God’s sign of forgiveness to those that feel like they can’t be forgiven. It’s God’s mercy to those that feel like they don’t deserve God’s mercy.

Today, if you are thirsty, come. There is a God that longs to give you water and to give you life. If you are tired, come. There is a God that longs to give you rest. If you are broken, come. There is a God that longs to put you together.

Come and find what you soul needs. Today, if you are in need, there is a God who longs to meet that need. Today, to all the thirsty, come, and drink from God’s living water. Come and lay your burdens down before God. Come and receive His life. Come and live.

Today, to all that need. God is there.

Something Better

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One of the great things about the New Year and the starting over we get to do each year in this time is the chance to reaccess what is most important. What matters most. What are really living for?

There is something better than the 9-5 grind that many of experience each day. There is something more than the accumulation of more stuff. There is something more than our reputation, that our status, than the hobbies we seek after.

There is something more out there. There is something deeper out there. There is something so much better than anything this earth, our careers, our hobbies, our vices can give us.

There is something better. That’s what Peter is talking about today in this text.  Listen to 2 Peter 1:3-4:

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire.

Through the power of God, we have been invited to become “partakers in the divine nature.” That sounds big, and sounds powerful.

And it is. That means, through what God has done for us, we are able to experience God. To know God. To know His power. To know His love. To know His life. To know His purpose. To be in relation with Him, to be in communion with Him.

To know Him. Today. In this day. In this moment. The creator of all that is, both seen and unseen, desires to know, spend time with you, and transform you.

You, at this exact moment, have access to God. You, right now, no matter where you are, have access to the most powerful, amazing, loving force in the universe.

And as awesome as playing Angry Birds is (and I love Angry Birds!) this is better. This is better than anything in life. Anything you could attain. Anything you could know.

This is where life is found. In Him. In His power. In His life. In His strength.

Today, and in this new year, you were created for something better. To know God, and transformed by His power. Today, may we live with the power of something better!

What to do When Tempted

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There are some things that we are all going to face. There are certain things that every human that has ever lived throughout history has had to face or deal with.

Hunger. Exhaustion. Sadness. Joy. Pain. Wonder. Love. Anger. These are all human emotions, human experiences. Everyone reading this, no matter where you has felt, or will feel these things.

There is another thing that is common to humans. Temptation. Everyone of us in the world will face temptation. Each of us will. It is what it is. It is part of the human experience. We see today, in Matthew 3: 3-4, that even Jesus faced temptation.  Listen to what happened:

And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'”

We see the devil come to Him and tempt Him. This is one of the three temptations that Jesus faced in the wilderness.

So, if the devil tempted Jesus, who was, you know, the very son of God, do you thing we will face temptation? Of course we will. You will be tempted. It will happen.

So, what do we do? What do we do when we are tempted? Look what Jesus did. He quoted the Bible back to the devil. He had a firm foundation of scripture that He recite in the time of temptation.

What do we need to do when tempted? First, a verse of two either written down, or even better, committed to memory that you can call up in times of temptation.

For example – James 4:7 – Submit yourselves therefor to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Know that through the power of the Holy Spirit in your, when we stand upon faith, temptation will flee.

Hebrews 12:4 – In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your own blood.

These are just a few, and here is a list of some good verses that may be a help in times of temptation.

And second, pray. When you face temptation, pray. As God to help you. Strengthen you. Uphold you. Be with you. And He will. Turn to Him when you face temptation. And He will be there.

Today, temptation will come. What will you do about it?

A Few Thoughts on an Election Day

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I’m writing this on November 8, 2011. It’s an election day here in Mississippi. If you’re not in Mississippi reading this, sorry about it. But maybe these thoughts will be helpful the next time you get to vote!

Every election day brings a couple of thoughts to my mind. The first is that voting is a privilege. I think about what Paul writes in Romans 13:1-7:

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed

Paul writes to Christians at time when the Roman government was starting to persecute Christians for the fact that they would not worship Caesar as God. It was tough to be a Christian in the world they were in. The government was working against them to stop and, potentially kill them.

How does Paul respond to this? He tells them to be the best citizens. Respect the authorities placed above them. Do right. Trust in God, even when the authorities might not be the ones you’d like, trust in God and be a responsible citizen.

So, today, vote. Too many people have sacrificed too much for us to have this right and not use it. Today. Vote.

But my second thought comes from Psalm 2. Listent to Psalm 2:1-4:

Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying, “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.” He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.

This Psalm deals with the kings of earth making their plans. They are plotting and scheming. They have a plan. They are going to thwart God and His plan. They are going to win. They are going to stop God and they are going to prevail.

And how does the Lord respond to this? The Lord in heaven laughs.

Why? Because no human can stop the Lord’s plan.

They can’t stop the Lord’s plan. They can’t stop the Lord’s will. They can’t stop what the Lord is going to do.

God is God. He is in control. He has a plan and a way. No mater what happens in an election. No matter what happens in life. No matter how bad we think it may be.

God is in control. God wins. God is king.

So, do your duty. Vote. But more than voting, know that God is God, He is in control. He has a plan.

Do your duty. But trust in God more.

What is our Goal?

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Sometimes in our lives, we feel like changing ourselves and our actions can be a hopeless cause. What can we possibly do? What can we do to make ourselves better, or more holy, or more obedient?

When we try, we fail. We try to be good. We try to behave. We try to do right. And when we do, we find ourselves falling time after time after time.

As CS Lewis said – “No man knows how very bad he is until he has tried to be good.” The frustrating thing can be trying so very hard to do good, to do right, to get it right; and then we fall down

So we quit trying. What’s the point? We’ll never do it right. It will never happen. There’s no reason. We’ll never be good enough to get it right.

Strangely that’s what God is saying through Ezekiel 36:25-26.  Listen to what He says in this passage.

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh

Notice, God doesn’t say that you will do this, you will do that. God says, I will do it. I will sprinkle you clean with water. I will give you a new heart. I will remove your heart of stone.

God says I will do it. You can’t do it on your own. It’s not possible.

So, who does it? God does you.

You can’t change yourself. God can change you. So, today, you goal shouldn’t be to be a “better person.” Your goal should be to draw close to God.

If we draw close to God, He will do the rest. He will take care of the rest. He will clean and change us.

Being perfect a daunting goal. Drawing close to God, that’s a goal we can do today. He will clean us, He will change us.

Today, our goal is to draw close to God. May we do that will all that we have!

Where Is God?

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It really is hard for us as humans to wrap our minds around God. We really can’t understand who God is. He is other. He is different from us. We simply can’t fathom who He is us.

We know of God what God has revealed to us through Scripture, through tradition (the wise teachings of others), reason (our ability to think and understand) and experience (the things’s we’ve experienced). So, there are things that we know about God. But there’s lots of stuff that we don’t.

Listen to what Isaiah 57:15 says:

For thus says the One who is high and lifted up,
who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:
“I dwell in the high and holy place,
and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit,
to revive the spirit of the lowly,
and to revive the heart of the contrite.

In this verse, it says God inhabits eternity. His name is holy. To say that His name is holy is to say that He is Holy. In scripture, you name wasn’t just what you were called, it was who you. To say that God is holy is to say that this is who He is.

He is holy. He is other. He is different.

But look in this verse what else He is. He is with the lowly of spirit. He is with the ones that are contrite. He is with the ones that understand they are in need of His grace and salvation. He is with the broken, the needy, the hurt, the one’s that know that they need Him.

Today, if you know you aren’t what you need to be; if you understand that you’ve made mistakes; if you understand that you need God, guess what?

You are right where He wants you. You are in the place to know His grace. You are in the place where He can draw you near.

Today, in knowing that we need Him more and more and more, we find that at that exact moment and place, He is waiting on us.

Today, where is God? He is with us.

God Hears

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We see when looking at the story of the Israelites in Exodus a lot of things that can impact our lives and our walk with God.

We see God’s power. We see how strong He is. We see our powerful He is.

We see in Moses the power of good, Godly leadership. Leadership that seeks God before all else and that seeks to lead the people to be faithful to God in all things.

We see the power of God to lead His people through the wilderness.

We see so much.

But today in Exodus 3: 7-10, we see something else.  Listen to what it says:

Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”

We see in this passage something that need to always remember. God hears. God hears our concerns. He hears our fears. He hears our cries. God hears us. He does not turn a deaf ear to us.

No matter what we are going through. No matter what is happening. No matter what is going on.

God hears.

Even when it feels like He is not. Even we our lives feel like He is ignoring us. Even when we feel abandoned or alone.

Don’t worry. Don’t fear. Don’t forget. God hears.

He hears our cries. He does not forget us. He will not leave us. We are His. Rejoice. And remember. No matter what.

God hears.

God is Proud of You

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The best sermon I’ve heard in my life was taken from Hebrews 11:13-16.  It preached at  Presbyterian church in Jackson, MS, I think roughly in 1997.  I was visiting this church with a friend that worshiped there.  And I’ll never forget the sermon that was preached that Sunday.

The preacher was dealing with Hebrews 11, a chapter we sometimes call the “Hall of Faith.” This is one of the cool chapters in the Bible. This chapter talks about all the saints of God in the Bible that had faith. The folks had faith in God, in His plan, in His calling, and in what He was doing.

Listen to what this passage says:

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

It says this – they longed for these things from God, but they died not having received from God the things hoped for.

God promised Abraham a great nation. Which happened. But, not in his lifetime.

This did not invalidate the promise.  It happened.  Abraham just didin’t see it.

And even though he didn’t see it, he still believed.  He knew that God’s promise was true, even if he didn’t see it.

And because of this, God was not ashamed to be called his God. Abraham had faith, even when he didn’t see. And because of that, God was not ashamed to be called his God.

Think about that for a second. We often think about how we shouldn’t be ashamed of God. How we should stand up! Be strong!  Have faith!

But hear this. When we live in faith. When we follow, obey, and stand in faith – God is not ashamed to be called our God.

God is not ashamed of us. God is not ashamed of you.  God is proud of you.

Hear that.

Today, through faith, God is proud of you.  Live today, in that knowledge.

A Taste of Eternity

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One of the criticisms people can have of the church and of us as Christians sometimes is that we can be so heavenly minded that we are no earthly good.

We can focus on heaven to exclusion of other things.

Why work for change here upon the earth, when our reward is in heaven?

Why should we worry about the earth at all? Why should we try to change things at all. After all, this world is not our final destination.

Now, there is something to the notion that as Christians, this world is not our final home. This world is not our final security. This world is not our final hope.

Our final hope is in heaven.

Then, what is heaven?

Listen to what Jesus tells us in John 17: 1-3

When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent

We see here that knowing God as God, and His son Jesus Christ. That is eternal life. That is heaven.

In heaven, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, we know know God fully, as He fully knows us. We will have that full knowledge of God and of everything.

Well, that journey starts now. Through knowing God here, through our walk with Christ here, we get a foretaste of heaven.

This is enteral life. Know God. So, today, through our knowledge of God, we are getting a taste of eternity.

Today, live in that great, joyous knowledge. Today is a day of eternity. Today, let’s live in that power.

The Israel of God? Huh?

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Last night in my Asbury Small Group Connection (by the way, quick plug, if you’d like to sign up for one of our Small Group Connections, you can click here) we finished up Galatians. Galatians is one of my favorite books of the Bible. It deals with grace, and law, and faith.

And, as Paul ends this letter, he is reminding the people of what he has stressed to them throughout the letter – you are saved by grace.  Not by action. Not be the law, not by anything you can do.

You are saved by the grace of God. That’s it. That’s the list.

As I told my group last night, there’s nothing you can do to make God love you any more.  Nothing.  You can’t make God love you anymore. He simple loves you more than you’ll ever imagine, right now.  You can’t make God love you any more.  You can’t make God love you any less.  He simply loves you.

Remember that.  We aren’t faithful to make God love us. We are faithful because that is the response of a thankful heart.

And Paul ends this letter on grace and love with these words:

For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God.

It’s that last phrase that I love.  All who walk by grace will be the “Israel of God.”  Notice when you hear those words in scripture, it’s normally the “God of Israel.”  Here is the Israel of God.  Paul spends time throughout Galatians saying that those that live by faith, not the law, are the true children of God, and they can claim the promises of the Old Testament.

Here, Paul calls those of us that believe, the “new” Israel.  And he is saying in that, that we belong to God.  We are His.  He claims us.  He owns us.  We are His.

You, today, are the Israel of God.  Your identity, your worth, your everything, it comes not from anything you can do, it comes from what He has done.

Today, above all else that counts in your life, there is this.  You are a child of God. Remember that.  You are His.  That’s what counts. That’s what matter.  You are His.

Today, remember who you.  Remember whose you are.  You are the Israel of God. Don’t forget.