The Transforming Word of God

"Knowing about God is crucially important for the living of our lives", wrote J.I. Packer in his book, Knowing God . In fact, knowing God is crucial to everything else in life! May grace and peace be multiplied to you  in the knowledge of God  and of Jesus our Lord. 2 Peter 1:2 It's our knowledge of God that multiplies, that grows, grace and peace in our lives. I can persevere through all things, through hardships and temptations, because of my intimate knowledge of God. For example, knowledge of God is what kept me totally free of worry and anxiety as I walked through my cancer. It is my knowledge of God and Christ that causes me to stand in awe of His love for me. It is my growing knowledge of God that has wrought changes in my attitudes and behavior over the years—and continues to grow and change me. God's not through with me yet! I am still a very flawed human being in need of His constant transforming work in my life. His divine power has granted...

Before the mountains were brought forth or ever you had formed the earth and world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. Psalm 90:2 I think you would agree that it's not that hard to believe, to sense, to think of eternity to come. But to try to grasp eternity past is more than our finite minds can comprehend. Yet God always was, just as He always is and always will be. That's why it makes sense to me that God named Himself "I Am" when He called Moses (Exodus 3:14). He just IS! Before time, which He created, He was. And is. And will be. The same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8).  As the psalmist says, God existed before the mountains, before the earth itself. God was there before there was anything! Although we know that, although we assent to that fact mentally, we struggle with the nothingness of His pre-existence. We have a beginning, even though we have no memory of that beginning. The very fact of our beginning makes it ...

Have you caught the excitement of worshiping God? That joy you feel after sitting still before Him, after meditating on who He is and all His benefits? The total surrender and trust that comes from reveling in the greatness, the glory, the majesty of our God, our Creator, our Savior? So why should we anticipate boredom in an eternity of worship? Of course, we will have our tasks on the new earth that God is going to create for us, but everything we do will be worshipful. How exciting is that? Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. Revelation 21:1 The book of Revelation gives us a glimpse of what our worship will be about. First we see from John's vision that God is worshiped because He existed in His holiness as Lord God Almighty from eternity past, through the present and into eternity to come. Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come. Revelatio...

I try to find time each morning to simply worship God before laying my supplications before Him. I've always had certain passages I have turned to as aids, but I decided I need to refresh and expand my worship time.  This morning, I decided to begin with a list of the names of God. That began because last night I jotted down some thoughts about who God is, about who Jesus is, and the contrasts that exist in the word pictures of Scripture.           He is the King who is also the Servant           He is the Shepherd who is also the Lamb           He is the Creator who took on the created, becoming a man           He is the Judge who is also the Mediator           He is the Judge who is also the Friend         ...

This morning as I sat down to pray and spend time with God, I had planned to pray through one of my favorite Psalms. But my Bible was open to Isaiah 43 where I had been reviewing the first three verses I previously memorized while walking through cancer and I was somehow drawn to that chapter once again. Three verses stood out to me: Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made. Isaiah 43:7 The people whom I formed for Myself  that they might declare my praise. Isaiah 43:21 I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins. Isaiah 43:25 Because I am God's child, I am called by His name. United with Christ, I am a Christian. Therefore, God created me for His glory.  It struck me that so many of our prayers are self-centered rather than God-centered. When I pray for my grandson, for my friend's son, and another friends son-in-law, how do I pray? Why do I pra...

Matt Chandler, in The Explicit Gospel, writes:      "God’s glory is what drives the universe; it is why everything exists.      "The supremacy of God’s glory is everywhere in the Bible because God’s plan is for it to be supreme everywhere in the world. This is the story of the Bible, not you or me. It is God and God alone, God’s name and namesake alone. The point of everything is God’s glory alone so that to God alone will be the glory." As I let this single fact of God’s glory sink in, I find it affects my thinking—and my praying—about everything. After Moses' first request of Pharoah to let the people go and worship the Lord God, Pharoah  increased the people's burdens, requiring them to find their own straw to make bricks, without reducing their quota. The Israelite foremen complained to Moses and Moses went to God with this complaint: "O Lord, why have you done evil to this people? Why did you ever send me?" Exodus 5:22...

Unbelief.  Our Community Bible Study lesson this week has set me to pondering the different facets of unbelief.  It is so much more than not believing there is a God; it is so much more than believing the need of purification from sin by the blood of Christ. So much more. In Numbers 20: 10-13, Moses failed to speak to the rock to bring forth water, as the Lord had commanded him. Instead he spoke to the people saying, “Shall we bring water for you out of this rock?”   And then he struck the rock twice with his staff. God was gracious in His love and provision for His people. He still miraculously caused the water to gush out, enough water for the huge congregation of Israel and their livestock!     God’s response to Moses’ action, a response that included Aaron, was not what you would expect:   “Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the l...