Our God is BIG!

Psalm 97:1-6

The Lord reigns;
Let the earth rejoice;
Let the multitude of isles be glad!

Clouds and darkness surround Him;
Righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne.

A fire goes before Him,
And burns up His enemies round about.

His lightnings light the world;
The earth sees and trembles.

The mountains melt like wax at the presence of the Lord,
At the presence of the Lord of the whole earth.

The heavens declare His righteousness,
And all the peoples see His glory.

The Lord reigns, let the earth be glad, let the multitude of islands rejoice! Why? because God reigns! That's good news for us! OUR God reigns, not some other God, not any earthly president or king, but our GOD reigns! And our God is BIG!

I think we sometimes forget how big our God is. Remember, He is the Creator, He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and end. We tend to put God in human terms so that we can better understand Him, but we need to remember that God is not bound by our limitations and our weaknesses, He is as far above them as we can possibly imagine. Our God is not a God we can put in a box, or keep in control, He's not a tame God or a "safe" God. I love what Mr. Beaver says about Him (in the character of Aslan) in C.S. Lewis' The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe:

"Safe? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. but he's good. He's the King, I tell you."

I tell you, He's the King! Our God holds all things together. (Colossians 1:17) He holds everything from the invisible forces that keep the atoms of our bodies together to the galaxies and constellations in the heavens. In Job 38, God answers Job's questions about God's reasons for His actions by contrasting God's power and majesty with Job's. Here's a little snippet from that conversation:

Job 38:31-33
"Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades,
Or loose the cords of Orion?
"Can you lead forth a constellation in its season,
And guide the Bear with her satellites?
"Do you know the (rdinances of the heavens,
Or fix their rule over the earth?


God is talking about star constellations here, and how He alone has the power to do with them as He pleases, in fact, He holds them and guides them! Here is a picture of the Pleiades star cluster that God is talking with Job about:

Just out of curiosity, can you hold that star cluster together? Can you even hold that star cluster? Can you even visit that start cluster? Obviously, the answer is no! You and I are not even specs of dust in comparison with that star cluster. But God, God holds that thing in His hand, and he binds it together with the forces of gravity and electricity and keeps it where He wants it to be. Wow are we small, but man is God big!

In case that doesn't do it for you, check out this verse:

Isaiah 40:12
Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand,
And marked off the heavens by the span,
And calculated the dust of the earth by the measure,
And weighed the mountains in a balance
And the hills in a pair of scales?

Our God has marked off the heavens with a span. That means that He takes His hand and holds it up, and the space between His finger and His thumb holds the whole universe. Do you know how big the universe is? Right now, estimates place the size of the universe at around 28 billion light years in diameter, we can never really know the actual size, so that's a small estimate, based on what we can see. A light year is 5,878,630,000,000 miles. So the estimated size of the universe is 28,000,000,000 X 5,878,630,000,000 miles wide at it's diameter. I'll let you do the math on that one.

Here's a picture of what the universe might look like were you to look at it the way that God does, by the span of your hand.

You can't find earth in that image, you can't even find our solar system, in fact, looking at this image, it would be near impossible to point out our galaxy, the Milky Way. The spots that look like stars are galaxies, and even clusters of galaxies! Bigger than our minds can comprehend. Our God holds THAT in the palm of His hand. We serve a BIG God.

When you think about how big our God is, and how small we are, it's pretty amazing that He would care about us isn't it?

Psalm 8:3-9
When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained,

What is man that You are mindful of him,
And the son of man that You visit him?

For You have made him a little lower than the angels,
And You have crowned him with glory and honor.

You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under his feet,

All sheep and oxen—
Even the beasts of the field,

The birds of the air,
And the fish of the sea
That pass through the paths of the seas.

O Lord, our Lord,
How excellent is Your name in all the earth!

The same God who made those stars and galaxies, and who measures the universe by the span of His hand, loves you enough that He came to earth and lived as a man, and died the death of a lowly criminal for YOU. The God who measures the universe in His hand became smaller than an atom in relation to the universe, and lived humbly, submitting to men, dying on a cross, so that you could have life in Him.

When you think about how big God is, doesn't it make your problems seem small? If God is that powerful, He can take care of the problems and struggles in my life can't He? Of course He can! How small are my problems in relation to the universe? And when God doesn't do things the way that I think they should be done, and I'm going through struggles or hardship, I need to realize that doesn't mean God can't handle it. It means He is handling it in exactly the way He wants to handle it. He is allowing things to happen the way that He wants them to be. He has the power to change every situation I am in, and if He doesn't it's because He is doing a work in my life, and His plans are infinitely better than mine.

The Lord reigns, let the earth be glad, let the multitude of islands rejoice! Why? Because God reigns! That's good news for us!

I'm glad that a God that loves me is in charge.

The Truth of the matter

Jesus said that God's word is truth.

"Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth." - John 17:17

God's word is not just true, it is Truth. True is an adjective, truth is a noun. God's word is the Truth, the standard by which all that is true must be measured. There are lots of things that are true, but those things are not truth itself. We must measure whether things are true by the holding them up to the truth.

When we face things that are called "true" in the world, we must look at whether those things line up with the Truth, the Word of God.

We live in a relativistic society, and say "That may be true for you, but it's not for me". How smart, thinking human beings can make a statement like that is beyond me. For something to be true, it must be true universally, otherwise it is not truth, it's opinion. For us to have truth, we must have a standard of what is true. And for Christians, we have the answer to what that standard is, the Word. If we cling to the Word, the Truth, we will be able to discern all the false truths out there, and get to reality! If we want to actually know what is true, we must line it up with the Word of God, the Truth.

Those that would claim you can find truth in all religions and in all places are not lining those things up to the Word of God, the Truth. If you take the Word, and line up those so-called "truths", we quickly see that they sound very similar to the truth, but are twisted just slightly, so that they say something different.

Let us cling to Truth. Let us cling to Christ, the Word. Let us seek to know the Truth, and then we can discern what is true, instead of seeking what is true, and getting confused about what the Truth is.

Remember, Jesus said "I am the way and the TRUTH and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me" - John 14:6

If we will simply cling to Jesus, we cling to the Truth. We don't need to look anywhere else! We don't need to look to find truth in other religions, or in the world, we have the one who is the Truth!

The Repentant Church

WHEN A GROUP OF SMALL BOYS out to play ball, arrived at the play ground, they discovered that no one had brought a ball. "Forget the ball," said one impatiently. "Let's get on with the game." We are trying to play without the ball when the Church tries to evangelize before she has repented. The Church can do many things after she has repented but nothing until first she repents. If God ever visits us again in real revival, there will be many red faces as churchmen and religious leaders blush and hang their heads in shame for the silly and stupid ways in which we have tried to promote the work of God in the energy of the flesh by the help of the world. Drama will be unnecessary. We may not even need great preachers! Gospel jazz will slink away, and we shall be chagrined that we ever sank so low as to tolerate it. All this will vanish in the blinding light of the holiness of God, and no flesh will glory in His presence.

Vance Havner (1901-1986)

I'm not opposed to "gospel-jazz", or even to Christian Hardcore music, for that matter, in fact, I used to play in a Christian Punk band, but I don't think that music is the point he's getting at here... We, the church, have tried to promote God and Christianity by the world's methods, we have tried to create a revival, instead of allowing the Reviver to create it in us. Our only appropriate place is on our knees, humbly asking the Lord of Hosts to forgive, indwell and empower us to reach this lost and hurting world!

Blessings,
Nate

The Compelling Majesty of His Power

(from My Utmost for His Highest, February 4th)

“The love of Christ compels us …” (2 Corinthians 5:14 ).
Paul said that he was overpowered, subdued, and held as in a vise by “the love of Christ.” Very few of us really know what it means to be held in the grip of the love of God. We tend so often to be controlled simply by our own experience. The one thing that gripped and held Paul, to the exclusion of everything else, was the love of God. “The love of Christ compels us … .” When you hear that coming from the life of a man or woman it is unmistakable. You will know that the Spirit of God is completely unhindered in that person’s life.

When we are born again by the Spirit of God, our testimony is based solely on what God has done for us, and rightly so. But that will change and be removed forever once you “receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you …” (Acts 1:8 ). Only then will you begin to realize what Jesus meant when He went on to say, “… you shall be witnesses to Me … .” Not witnesses to what Jesus can do—that is basic and understood—but “witnesses to Me … .” We will accept everything that happens as if it were happening to Him, whether we receive praise or blame, persecution or reward. No one is able to take this stand for Jesus Christ who is not totally compelled by the majesty of His power. It is the only thing that matters, and yet it is strange that it’s the last thing we as Christian workers realize. Paul said that he was gripped by the love of God and that is why he acted as he did. People could perceive him as mad or sane—he did not care. There was only one thing he lived for—to persuade people of the coming judgment of God and to tell them of “the love of Christ.” This total surrender to “the love of Christ” is the only thing that will bear fruit in your life. And it will always leave the mark of God’s holiness and His power, never drawing attention to your personal holiness.

Politics or the Gospel?

"Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence" (John 18:36).

The fact that Christ's Kingdom Is not of this world is enough to keep me out of the world's politics. If I participate in politics, then I am casting a vote of confidence in the system's ability to solve the world's problems. But frankly, I have no such confidence because I know that "the whole world lieth in wickedness" (1 John 5:19).

Politics has proved singularly ineffective in solving the problems of society. Political remedies are nothing but a band-aid on a festering sore: they do not get at the source of the infection. We know that sin is the basic trouble in our sick society. Anything that fails to deal with sin cannot be taken seriously as a cure.

It becomes a matter of priorities, then. Should I spend time in political involvement or should I devote that same time to the spread of the gospel? Jesus answered the question when He said, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:60). Our top priority must be to make Christ known because He is the answer to the world's problems.

--William MacDonald, One Day at a Time, Gospel Folio Press, p. 24.


What a great reminder that we are not citizens of this world, our citizenship is in heaven! As Christians, our chief concern is not to be in the dealings of the world, but the dealings of the Kingdom of Heaven. If Christians spent half the time spreading the news of the gospel that we spend spreading our politics, what wondrous things could God accomplish through us?

Rejoice in the Lord!

Philippians 3:1 (NKJV)
Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. For me to write the same things to you is not tedious, but for you it is safe.

Paul here repeats himself. He is saying, it’s not tedious, and should not be tedious to you for me to write the same things over and over again. It is a safeguard for you, hearing me repeat these things over and over will help ensure that you receive them and accept them into your heart, not just let them go in one ear and out the other.

So what is it that he is repeating to them? Rejoice in the Lord! He wants them to get back to the root of their faith, to remember why they do what they do, to remember why they act how they act, and to remember for whom they endure hardship. Rejoice in the Lord! For He is Good! When we get back to simply rejoicing in Jesus, we tend to forget about the troubles we have, we tend to not try so hard to be good Christians, and we start to reflect Christ, because we are with Him, and He is working in and through us! Joy wells up inside of us because of our relationship with our Father in Heaven, and we begin to overflow and rejoice.

Are you rejoicing in the Lord? Are you delighting in His face? Are you basking in His Glory? If not, stop whatever you’re doing, whether it’s trying to be a good Christian, feeling bad about your past, feeling busy, feeling lost, hopeless or empty. STOP!

And rejoice in the Lord!

As the old hymn goes, turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of his glory and grace.

Relational Vs. Comprehensive Evangelism

I have been thinking about a couple of the different schools of thought when it comes to evangelism lately, and would like to share some of my thoughts.

First, there is the relational school, which says that you need to earn the right to share the gospel with someone. You need to become their friend and let your life be an example to them before you can share the message of the gospel with them.

Second, there is the "cold-turkey" school, which, because of the urgency of the message, and the reality of hell would say that you should share the gospel whenever you have a chance, with whomever you have the opportunity. You don't necessarily need to work your way into their life, because it is the message of the gospel that contains the power of God, not our lives or our example of the gospel.

While both schools of thought have very valid points, I would have to say that I believe in a more comprehensive approach. Here's what I mean. Relational evangelism is great, you have the opportunity to share Christ with someone you already know. It's great, it's hard, it's scary, and it can be effective, because those people have had the chance to see the way you live your life, and when the message is shared with them there may be an "aha!" moment where they realize that this gospel is why you have such joy, why you live a different life, etc. It is a great evangelistic tool. On the other hand, Christ did not command us to share the gospel only with those we know, but to take it to the ends of the earth. And if you look at Christ's ministry, he shared the gospel with thousands of people, thousands! Many times those thousands were all together in one place! He did not always use the relational method. In fact, a good example of this is in John chapter 4, where he meets the woman at the well. He has met this woman for the first time, and honestly, he treats her in a fairly confrontational and unconventional method, which made her uncomfortable. He talked to her, when the social norm would say no to that. He then dug pretty deep into her personal life, and then shared the message of the gospel with her. He did not have a personal relationship with this woman, he had just met her. But his message was met by her realizing he was the Christ, and then sharing it with her whole village, who also believed.

In my view, the correct approach to gospel presentation would be an "any and all" method. As paul said in 1 Corinthians 9:22-23 "to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. Now this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I may be partaker of it with you." We should always be ready to share the gospel (1 Peter 3:15, 2 Timothy 4:1-2), whether it be with friends or strangers, we are called to be Christ's ambassadors in this world.

The fact is that it is the MESSAGE of the gospel that is the salvation of men, not our presentation of it (1 Cor. 1:17), not our lives, but the message itself. This is clearly presented in Philippians 1:15-18:

Philippians 1:15-18

15 Some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife, and some also from goodwill: 16 The former preach Christ from selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my chains; 17 but the latter out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. 18 What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached; and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice.

So, here's the gist of this section of scripture, there are people who preach the gospel for ill motives, they want selfish gain, they want to stir up trouble, they want to feed self. BUT, there are also those who preach Christ from goodwill, seeking to further the gospel message and bring people into the fold of God. So what of it? Paul rejoices that Christ is preached, whether it is in pretense or truth, whether from selfish motives or sincere motives, he will rejoice in the fact that Christ is preached. Why? Because it is the MESSAGE that counts, not our presentation of it, not our lives as we present it, not our words, not our deeds, not our denomination, not even our own status as believers, but the MESSAGE. The message of the gospel is where the power is. Romans 1:16 (I am not ashamed of the gospel, because IT is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.)

Paul rejoices, because the message of the gospel is what the Holy Spirit uses to draw people to Christ, not our lives, but the gospel. This does not give us an out on living holy lives and practicing our faith, on the contrary, if we have truly received the gospel of Christ, our lives will reflect the gospel, and be a living testimony to it. But, Paul was rejoicing even though there were men out there proclaiming the gospel selfishly, and out of impure motives. This makes it very clear that what really matters in evangelism is the message of the cross, nothing more, nothing less. 1 Corinthians 2:1-3 When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling.

Side Note: Paul is rejoicing that Christ is preached, but elsewhere, he condemns those who would distort the gospel of Christ. He is here rejoicing that the true gospel is preached, not a distorted one. We are not to tolerate false gospels as you can clearly see in the book of Galatians. But, as long as the true gospel is being preached, we are to rejoice, no matter what the circumstances of it's presentation.

Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should. -Ephesians 6:19-20