Tag: God's Dreams

On God’s Pattern for Good

Genesis 50:20 MSG  Don’t you see, you planned evil against me but God used those same plans for my good, as you see all around you right now—life for many people. 

Romans 8:26-28 Phillips The Spirit of God not only maintains this hope within us, but helps us in our present limitations. For example, we do not know how to pray worthily as sons of God, but His Spirit within us is actually praying for us in those agonising longings which never find words. And God who knows the heart’s secrets understands, of course, the Spirit’s intention as He prays for those who love God.  28-30 Moreover we know that to those who love God, who are called according to His plan, everything that happens fits into a pattern for good. 

Observation

God’s pattern for good is often a mystery for us.  I am sure that Joseph wasn’t feeling the goodness while he was being sold into slavery, then unjustly accused by Potiphar’s wife, and ending up in jail.  But, in hindsight, he could see why he was where he was and what God was doing in the not so good times of his life. He was handpicked and specifically placed for God’s purposes.

Paul is another who was specifically chosen by God and then molded and shaped to fulfill His will and purpose – in and out of jail, shipwrecked, beaten, hungry, homeless and more. His life could be the basis for a “sick, sober and sorry, broke, disgusted and sad” country song!  Paul endured it all for the sake of the Gospel, seeing each circumstance as an opportunity to share Jesus in a new place with a new group of people.

These two trusted and rested in wherever our good God would lead them and accepted whatever they must endure knowing that the ultimate destination was “life for many people.”  I wonder what I would have done in their stead – bemoan my circumstances or look around to see where Jesus was leading?

Impact on Me

I have found in my Christian walk that God is the best, the perfect Father, because He is more interested in:

  • building my character than providing my comfort,
  • becoming my hope and Comforter in unbearable or unspeakable times,
  • strengthening my endurance in faith rather than making my life easy,
  • walking alongside me at my pace to build a relationship that will withstand every flaming arrow the enemy may shoot,
  • patiently teaching me (again and again) how to trust His plan and timing rather than bustling about trying to bring about my own “perfect” plans to rectify or solve the issues I face.

In other words, He loves me enough to work for my good regardless of how I may view the process or the circumstances I must endure.  Faith becomes stronger when it is exercised and I tend to exercise it more when I know I don’t have the answer or have no control over changing my circumstances or just have no strength to go on or rise above them. 

I have to admit that most of the deep holes I have found myself in where of my own making – running ahead of God, pursuing my own solutions, or heading in a different direction that He was leading.  One thing I have always found is that He holds no grudge, never shames me with “I told you so!” or turns a deaf ear.  He goes with me into the morass, the darkness, the fire and, when I repent for my rebellion, arrogance, or other human failing, and call out to Him, He leads me out.  I find that He has been close by waiting for my call, praying for me to see and call out to Him. “His Spirit within us is actually praying for us in those agonising longings which never find words. And God who knows the heart’s secrets understands, of course, the Spirit’s intention as He prays for those who love God.”  What did I do to deserve such a Savior?

Prayer

Father, You are the perfect parent, One Who knows my heart and my intentions.  You respond with grace and forgiveness when I repent, never shaming me but always encouraging, comforting, and building me up when I turn to find You again.   Give me the wisdom to trust You, regardless of where You lead me and where You place me, so that I may give You joy in Your heart by responding according to Your Word and grace.   I want to be all that You dream for me to be, using all the talents, abilities, and wisdom that You have gifted to me in the ways You desire.  I ask it all in Jesus’ name.  Make it so.

On The Bottom Line

Romans 12:1-2 Phillips. 1 With eyes wide open to the mercies of God, I beg you, my brothers, as an act of intelligent worship, to give him your bodies, as a living sacrifice, consecrated to him and acceptable by him. 2 Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity.

Romans 12:1-2 MSG. 1 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. 2 Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. 

Observation

This chapter 12 of Romans could be titled, “The Universal Practical Guide to Worshipping God in Your Living.”  Paul has spent the previous 11 chapters explaining how only faith in Christ provides forgiveness of sin and redemption, and that faith is not based on or evidenced by the adherence to any Jewish religious rules, practices, or The Law.  Living by faith in Christ transcends culture and religious rites, rituals and rules; it is based on:

  • 24/7 worship,
  • our glad obedience/submission to God’s will, and
  • allowing Him the freedom to change us in order to fulfill His plan in and through us – “bring the best out…develop well-formed maturity”. 

This might require us to be as counter-cultural as Paul is asking the Jewish believers to be regarding new Gentile believers – by accepting that faith in Christ is not proven by works, but, rather, weighing all against the heart of God to redeem and restore relationship with all of His creation.  With this heart, we can embrace others in the Body of Christ in spite of differences in practice as long as Jesus is their Lord and only Savior.  Paul lays out the bottom line for all believers here in chapter 12:

  • submit (“give Him your bodies, as a living sacrifice, consecrated to Him and acceptable by Him”),
  • be changed and matured by the Holy Spirit (“Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within”)
  • serve with humility trusting in God’s plan/purpose for you (“Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it”), and
  • let your love be sincere, motivated by mercy, grace, and redemption  generously poured out to all (Romans 9-end).

Impact on Me

The book of Romans is cram-packed with teaching by Paul on what really happened on the Cross, Who Christ is, what His sacrifice really provides for all mankind, and how I should respond to/show my gratitude for this free gift of redemption. 

Here Paul is saying that I need to:

  • submit myself to God, giving the Holy Spirit freedom to search me, know me (without reserving any private areas),
  • allow the Holy Spirit to bring areas that need changing to my attention, and
  • give the Holy Spirit freedom to work the change in me that makes me ready and able to fulfill God’s will and purpose for me.

This requires me to have the courage to trust Him with my secret places of pride, shame, sorrow, guilt, stubbornness, fear, selfishness, criticism, and all the other ugliness I have hidden away in the locked closets of my soul. I am then shamefully faced with the question of how much I really do trust Him.  Would I really be willing to let Him be in charge of cleaning out those closets, truly putting my past, my present, my future under His scrutiny and in His hands regardless of the cost to me?  Am I willing for Him to reveal my deepest darkest secrets if it serves His purpose to heal and release me or others?  It all comes down to the bottom line – how much do I really trust Him?

Prayer

Lord, my desire is to trust You so unconditionally that I will have no secret places, no locked closets in my soul full of shame, guilt and unforgiveness.  I want to cooperate with You in the process – “be changed from the inside out”–so I “may prove in practice that the plan of God for you (me) is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity.”  Help me to hear the song You sing over me – that it may ring in my flesh, my heart, my spirit so I may worship You with my “everyday, ordinary life…and place it before God as an offering.”  I want to live in Heaven’s culture, having my actions determined by what You see with Your eyes and how You love with Your heart.  I pray this all in Jesus’ name. Make it so.

On Chasing the Lion

 2 Corinthians 10:3-6 NKJV 3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, 5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, 6 and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. 
 
2 Corinthians 10:3-6 MSG. The world is unprincipled. It’s dog-eat-dog out there! The world doesn’t fight fair. But we don’t live or fight our battles that way—never have and never will. The tools of our trade aren’t for marketing or manipulation, but they are for demolishing that entire massively corrupt culture. We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ. Our tools are ready at hand for clearing the ground of every obstruction and building lives of obedience into maturity. 

Observation

I started a 7-day devotional available on the YouVersion app. It is titled, “Chase the Lion – If your dream doesn’t scare you, it is too small.”  These are the verses for Day 2.  The author proposes “…if we focus on the negative implications while ignoring the positive possibilities, it becomes a half-truth. It’s also about capturing creative thoughts and keeping them in our minds. Simply put, it’s about stewarding every idea inspired by the Holy Spirit.”  He speaks about dreams which are thoughts imagined before they ever come to pass physically and says these positive, creative thoughts are brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ through “blood, sweat and tears” – in other words, by execution which requires faith, risk, sacrifice, effort, time, talent and other investment on our parts.  Thinkers may inspire us, but doers make things happen.

As James 1:22-25 MSG says, “Put the word into action. If you think hearing is what matters most, you are going to find you have been deceived. If some fail to do what God requires, it’s as if they forget the word as soon as they hear it. One minute they look in the mirror, and the next they forget who they are and what they look like. However, it is possible to open your eyes and take in the beautiful, perfect truth found in God’s law of liberty and live by it. If you pursue that path and actually do what God has commanded, then you will avoid the many distractions that lead to an amnesia of all true things and you will be blessed.” 
 
So, according to today’s verses, we are called to live in this war zone by God’s rules and using His strategies and weaponry. This includes disciplined trading to develop automatic, obedient responses to the tactics the enemy uses – “building lives of obedience into maturity”.  In this sense, God is not playing fair with Satan because our enemy has no defense against our absolute obedient submission to God’s will and the weapons and strategies He has laid out for us. What defense can Satan raise against love, mercy, grace, forgiveness, joy, peace, faith, goodness, kindness, meekness and all the other virtues we have in Christ?  The most he can do is deceive us into surrendering them, but, if we refuse to surrender these, he remains subject to the defeat Our Savior won over him through the sacrifice of the Cross.   
 
Therefore, our warfare is two fold on many levels:  
      * both defensive (protecting against the enemy’s strategies/tactics of deception) and offensive (taking the land; pressing the battle to enforce the victory won by Christ);  
      * both internal (allowing the Holy Spirit to mold, shape and change us into what God dreams for us to be) and external (choosing to live what God dreams for us to be regardless of the consequences so others will embrace salvation and enter into the dreams God has for each of them); 
     * both saying “yes” to God and following through as evidenced by our visible living response to His Word;  
     * both destructive (tearing down strongholds and taking captives) and creative (developing strategies, preparing through discipline and unity of purpose).  

Ultimately, we become skilled warriors for God by disciplining ourselves to trust in His methods and His weapons, recognizing that we are fighting a war that is not of this world, is not conducted by the rules of this world and will not be won by the world’s weapons. 

Impact on Me

 I recognize that I allowed myself to limit “bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” to only the negative, sinful and defeating thoughts because of the defensive aspect of the warfare association.  True obedience and submission to God requires that I cannot accept the Word on a shallow face value, letting its message be frozen in my initial understanding or limited by my inexperience with God. I want to embrace the Word so that I am actively enriched, enlightened, encouraged, equipped and enabled to be one who is a skilled warrior in God’s special forces, willing to give my all in His service.

I have found that reading in other translations, as well as reading or listening to the Holy Spirit speaking through others can get me up out of my current perspective seat to walk around the familiar verses, find another aspect so the Holy Spirit can reveal more depth, more insight, into the nature, plan, tactics, and strategies of God in conducting this warfare (both within me and in the world around me).  The enemy is very skilled at deception and understands how effective he can be in eroding my obedience, my submission to God.  If I am not diligent in seeking and submitting to God, I can allow the enemy to deceive me inch by inch until I find myself miles away from where I need and want to be.  Satan is the great marketer and manipulator and, if he can’t get me to sin by commission (doing something to displease God), he will settle for omission (doing nothing to stay in God’s presence).   
 
So, back to the passage for today, if I neglect to embrace, pursue, invest the “blood, sweat and tears” required by God to fulfill His dreams for me, I have allowed the enemy to deceive me into accepting his defeatist propaganda, failing in my duty, and eroding my trust in my adoption in Christ’s ultimate authority and power to do what He says He will do..  Forgive me, Lord, for every inch I have ever given!  .   

Prayer

 Father God, in the name of Jesus I come before You and pray that by Your Spirit You will make Your Word alive to me and active in me, constantly molding, shaping and making me into what You dream for me to be. I want to engage anew even the most familiar passages so I will continue to find new depths of understanding of Your nature, Your power, Your love, Your plans for me. I want to boldly “Chase the Lion” – taking captive every dream You have for me and pursuing its fulfillment with all I have in me – and war only according to Your ways and plans, using only Your weapons. Help me to stand firm and fixed in You so I will not move even one inch out of Your truth, will and purpose for me. May others come to know You because they meet You in me. Make it so.