Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Gotcha' God!

Isaiah 55:8-9 "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways," says the Lord. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts."

A young boy at the dinner table asked, "Dad, is God everywhere?" "Yes," his father assured him, "God is everywhere." "Is He in this room?" the boy wanted to know. "Of course," his father said. "If God is everywhere, then He is in this room." Eyeing the sugar bowl on the table, the boy continued, "Well, is God in that sugar bowl?" "Yes," his father replied, "if God is everywhere, I guess we'd have to say that He's even in the sugar bowl." Reaching for the lid, the boy quickly slipped it over the bowl. "Gotcha', God!" he said.

The Israelites also wanted a "sugar bowl" god, someone they could control. Isaiah rebuked them for cutting down a tree and using part of it to warm themselves and with the rest making it "into a god, his carved image. He falls down before it and worships it, prays to it and says, 'Deliver me, for you are my god!'" (44:17). Israel wanted a god who could be contained in their temples and manipulated by their worship--but the God Isaiah had seen (6:1) was not that kind of a God.

How wonderful to know that the real God is so much greater than anything we can imagine or create. His ways and even His thoughts are so far beyond our finite minds that we can't begin to comprehend Him. When we come to Him with our problems and our difficulties, we never have to worry about whether He's big enough to handle them.

Don't try to put God in a sugar bowl. You won't be successful, for He is an awesome God. Rejoice that though you may not be able to understand Him, you will always be able to trust Him.

God will be God regardless of what we do!

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Hurry Up, God

 Psalm 70:1-5Make haste, O God, to deliver me! Make haste to help me, O Lord! Let them be ashamed and confounded Who seek my life; Let them be turned back[a] and confused Who desire my hurt. Let them be turned back because of their shame, Who say, “Aha, aha!”  Let all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in You; And let those who love Your salvation say continually, “Let God be magnified!”

Has God ever been slow in your life? He was in David's. This undoubtedly was one of the psalms written when David was being harassed by King Saul. So he cries out, "Lord, why don't You do something? You're being awfully slow."
Have you ever pondered the delays of God? He is never in a hurry, but once He starts to work, watch out! He patiently accomplishes His work. David pleads, "Make haste, make haste" (v. 1). He repeats his plea in verse 5: "I am poor and needy; make haste to me, O God!

You are my help and my deliverer; O Lord, do not delay." If right now it seems as though God is tarrying instead of working, if it seems as though He is delaying instead of acting, what should you do? Seek Him and wait on Him and love Him. Verse 4 says it beautifully: "Let all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in You; and let those who love Your salvation say continually, 'Let God be magnified!"' We've seen that phrase before. David, when he was sinking, said, "I . . . will magnify Him with thanksgiving" (Ps. 69:30).

Here's a good lesson for us. When God is not moving as rapidly as we think He should, when our timetables do not coincide, what should we do? Rejoice in Him, love Him and magnify Him. Let Him worry about the timetable. God is always working, and we know that all things are working together for good (Rom. 8:28). But He waits for the right time to reveal His victories. Let Him watch the clock.

God's delays are a part of your character-building process. The next time God gives you a delay, encourage yourself by remembering that He never stops working for you, and He knows when and how to help you. Submit to His timetable and His care.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Streams in the Desert

Psalm 68:28Your God has commanded your strength; Strengthen, O God, what You have done for us.”

The Lord imparts unto us that primary strength of character which makes everything in life work with intensity and decision. We are "strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man." And the strength is continuous; reserves of power come to us which we cannot exhaust.

"The Lord is my strength" to go on. He gives us power to tread the dead level, to walk the long lane that seems never to have a turning, to go through those long reaches of life which afford no pleasant surprise, and which depress the spirits in the sameness of a terrible drudgery.

"The Lord is my strength" to go up. He is to me the power by which I can climb the Hill Difficulty and not be afraid.

"The Lord is my strength" to go down. It is when we leave the bracing heights, where the wind and the sun have been about us, and when we begin to come down the hill into closer and more sultry spheres, that the heart is apt to grow faint.

I heard a man say the other day concerning his growing physical frailty, "It is the coming down that tires me!"

"The Lord is my strength" to sit still. And how difficult is the attainment! Do we not often say to one another, in seasons when we are compelled to be quiet, "If only I could do something!"

When the child is ill, and the mother stands by in comparative impotence, how severe is the test! But to do nothing, just to sit still and wait, requires tremendous strength. "The Lord is my strength!" "Our sufficiency is of God." The Silver Lining