Skip to main content

 As followers of Jesus Christ wait for His return, His Second Coming, we can sometimes, maybe often, feel kind of like the Israelites as they traveled through the wilderness. Sadly, the wonder of the daily provision of the Lord wore thin, and the relentlessness of the wilderness conditions began to cloud their vision of Who God is. Even though He was among them in a tangible way, by a cloud by day and by fire by night.

After just over two years of wandering in the wilderness, most of Israel still refused to believe God, to take Him at His Word. Twelve spies were sent into the Promised Land to “check it out”. They saw strongly walled cities, some members of a Canaanite clan that had overactive pituitary glands and seemed like giants, and 10 of those 12 spies referenced their ability to do what God said they were to do in their own human abilities.

God never asked them to trust in their own strength. He told them to trust Him. Joshua and Caleb were faithful, believing they could do what God has said because God was with them and would go before them. The other 10 spies sowed fear and unbelief into the rest of the nation of Israel and the people trusted in themselves rather than in God. It took 40 more years of wandering for the nation while the unbelief was purged from their ranks.

Followers of Jesus Christ have been given new hearts and a new spirit in which the Holy Spirit has taken up permanent residence to live out in us and through us the Life of Jesus Christ.

In Ephesians 3:20-21, the Apostle Paul writes, “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen!”

Paul is stating the fact that the very power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead is NOW working IN us. It is able to do FAR MORE that we could ever ask or imagine. We are neither abandoned to the relentlessness of daily living nor left without the power to endure and flourish in life. In Romans 8:37 Paul calls us “super-victors” because we are united to God in Jesus Christ and he lives His life in us.

Sometimes the magnitude of the needs we see in the world around us, in our own lives and the responsibilities we carry can weigh so heavily that we seem like “grasshoppers” in our own eyes. Life’s circumstances can loom like giants before us. St. Augustine said, “Beware of despairing about yourself: you are commanded to put your trust in God, and not in yourself.” We need to adjust the focus of our lives. We need eyes like Caleb and Joshua.   

Follower of Jesus Christ, God not merely with you, He is in you, working in you. Bernard of Clairvaux said, “God is willing, able and ready in His mercy and grace to speak into the most mundane areas of life. Jesus came, Jesus is coming again and daily, He is with you coming into all aspects of human living with the Power of His resurrection. Turn your eyes upon Jesus.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

WHAT DO YOU BLESS? It would be an act of utter folly and disaster were I to choose to "bless" what God will not bless. God's wrath is set against anything and anyone that would try and hinder you becoming all He created you to be and to grow in by being united to Him through the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ. There is nothing arbitrary about the Word of God. He is very specific on what will make for life and what will not. Human life only becomes human life when the Holy Spirit becomes Life withing a believer. Being united to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the follower of Jesus becomes a new creation and begins to live Life as God intended. God begins the good work, and He is the One who will bring it to competition. Somethings will NEVER make for life. What God calls sin, missing the mark of what will make for life, is always sin regardless of what culture anywhere and anytime say to the contrary. Sin cannot save, heal, redeem, restore or remake...
Post a Comment
Read more
BEWARE DECEPTION   Deuteronomy 18:9 “When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you, be very careful not to imitate the detestable customs of the nations living there. Deuteronomy 12:29-30 “When the Lord your God goes ahead of you and destroys the nations and you drive them out and live in their land, do not fall into the trap of following their customs and worshiping their gods. Do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How do these nations worship their gods? I want to follow their example.’ Pragmatics was the downfall of Israel when they took possession of the Promised Land. To the unredeemed eye, it seemed that the fertility gods and agricultural gods of the pagan nations actually were helping the indigenous peoples. Just because something works does not make it right or good.  God promised to prosper His people if they would trust Him to the point of obeying His Word. God's Word is not empty. When He directs and commands, it is always for...
Post a Comment
Read more
 THE FOLLY OF IDOLATRY Martin Luther said that the human heart is an idol factory. The truth is that we were created to know and live by the gracious rule of and in the Presence of God who created us. Our peace, our understanding of meaning and purpose can only be truly grounded in God who created us for that meaning and purpose. The rebellion of Adam and Eve, their decision to do the opposite of what God said would make for life, resulted in spiritual and ultimately physical death. They chose to believe they needed something more than what God had provided. Their doomed attempt to try and live life without reference to God as the ground of meaning and purpose did not make life fuller, but emptied it. They wanted to decide what was good and what was evil without God and the disintegration of human life was the consequence. Rather than living in the Presence of God and by the gracious rule of God all around them, they turned from wholeness to brokenness, from fulfilment to scarc...
Post a Comment
Read more