All posts tagged God

Awful At Being In Awe

Hebrews 12 is one of my favorite passages in the Bible. It starts off with such a beautiful picture of those who have gone before us and points everything to Jesus, “the founder and perfecter of our faith.” But then the passage goes on to talk about entering in to the presence of God and ends by saying, “Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.” This fire brings to my mind a couple occurrences of fire in the Old Testament. First, a fire that led the people of Israel through the wilderness (Exodus 13:21), and secondly a fire that consumed a very wet offering that Elijah gave to God on the top of Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18). How often do we view God as a consuming fire? Perfectly holy and just and apart from a perfect sacrifice unable to have anything to do with sin.

Many people I’ve talked to do not want anything to do with God’s holiness. They insist that God’s love covers over any other attribute he may have, and while it’s true that God is love (1 John 4:8), if that’s the only characteristic we have of God, we have an incomplete and false perception of him. One of the books I’d recommend on this article is ‘The Hole in Our Holiness‘ by Kevin DeYoung. We, generally, are awful at being in awe of God. We too often turn the glory in on ourselves instead of marveling at the incredible creator who cares about the intricacies of our lives. As I once heard Matt Chandler say, you never hear anyone stand in the Grand Canyon and talk about how much they can bench. That would be ridiculous! But we will look at the God who created the universe and try to tell him how much he owes us.

How can you work at being more in awe of God this week? How can you encourage your church to be more in awe of God?

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by mikethestrand on May 17, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Bible, Blog, Life, Theology
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Posted by mikethestrand on May 17, 2013

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2013/05/17/awful-at-being-in-awe/

Waiting

Waiting it hard. Waiting is difficult. Waiting takes patience. Waiting is something God has been working on in my life over the past week. I don’t always know why God does what he does when he does in my life, but I’m learning and striving to trust him in the midst of the struggles. As Relient K said, “I struggle with forward motion/we all struggle with forward motion/cause forward motion is harder than it sounds/every time I gain some ground I’ve gotta turn myself around again” And David wrote in Psalm 37, “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; fret not yourself over the one who prospers in his way, over the man who carries out evil devices!” Be still and wait. In our culture that is so difficult! We have access to more information online than previous generations had in entire libraries, yet how often do we simply sit and wait?

I read a blog today titled ‘The “Right Time” God‘ that was really helpful for me this week. One of the most impactful things for me to read was:

But we see, in hindsight, see that God was not inactive during that time, but instead knew the right “when.” We know this of course. Of course we do.

Except we don’t.

We think we do, but our impatience and frustration betrays us. In fact, I wonder today how much sin might be avoided in my life if I really believed in the perfect timing of God. Every time I think I must manufacture an opportunity I show that I don’t believe.

I’m thankful God doesn’t work in my time table, and I continue to pray and trust that God will work things our for my good and his glory!

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by mikethestrand on April 11, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Blog, Life
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Posted by mikethestrand on April 11, 2013

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2013/04/11/waiting/

Putting Your Spouse First

I’m the kind of guy who likes to do research. Whenever I’m about to buy something, I read as many reviews as I can find, painstakingly pick one out, then read the manual from cover to cover before the item even gets to my door. This thinking permeates all areas of my life too so in preparation for marriage, I’ve read When Sinners Say I Do, The Meaning of Marriage, What Did You Expect, and various blogs as well as talking to everyone in the church I’ve seen to have a good marriage. I’ve been doing my research! Yet one thing I’ve already learned in my 24 years of life is that until this intellectual knowledge becomes practical knowledge that I’m living out, I know nothing! One of my best friends from high school got married in May of last year and as we have been talking through the course of his first year of marriage of just how difficult marriage is. That doesn’t mean it’s bad, quite the opposite in fact! The difficulties come from two sinful people coming together in an attempt to mirror the perfect relationship God has with us.

So in my studying and research on this matter I came across this blog today. What an accurate picture of what marriages today need!

My parents were intentional that having kids wasn’t going to stop them from doing the things they did before they had kids. Their object was to bring the kids into their marriage, not allow the kids to drown their marriage in a sea of tasks for the children. For this reason, our kid activities were pretty limited.

Whoa! How many parents actually do that today? And would doing this decrease the incredibly high divorce rate in America today? I think it would! As I’ve been talking to people who have been married for 20-30-40 years they have had this mindset, or else they wake up to it sometime in their marriage. Lewis B. Smeades in an article on Christianity Today way back in 1983 said:

My wife has lived with at least five different men since we were wed—and each of the five has been me. The connecting link with my old self has always been the memory of the name I took on back there: “I am he who will be there with you.” When we slough off that name, lose thatidentity, we can hardly find ourselves again. And the bonds that connect us to others will be frayed to breaking.

As we go through life our main focus should be, in this order: God, our spouse, our children and then anything else. I know it’s one thing for my to write about this on this side of marriage, but it’s a reminder I need to begin telling myself before I get married to carry in to my marriage. Through God’s grace, I will keep Him first, and then make my spouse my priority as we do our best to live out the Gospel in our lives.

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by mikethestrand on February 14, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Blog, Life, Relationships
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Posted by mikethestrand on February 14, 2013

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2013/02/14/putting-your-spouse-first/

Westboro Baptist Church: A Story of Redemption

A big topic in the news this past week is that 2 members of the picketing, gay hating Westboro Baptist Church have left the church and are trying to figure out how to live life apart from the church now. You can read the story here.

One thing stands out to me from this story. Megan is quoted as saying, “I don’t know what I believe, so I don’t know what to say.” This seems to me to be a a trend: those who are in a very strict upbringing are exposed to the world and have no base to stand on so they end up believing nothing and questioning the validity of everything. This it the wrong reaction to have, but I understand and sympathize with those who have such extreme views.

The encouraging thing is that it sounds like both Megan and her sister Grace are checking out some different churches and doing as much research as they can. It really shows that God has no bounds and can reach and redeem those who we seem to think are too far removed from grace. I hope and pray that Megan, Grace and the rest of the Westboro church learn about this God who extends grace to even the worst of sinners. Until one is willing to admit that they are just as in need of God’s grace as the worst of sinners, they won’t be able to extend the same grace to the world around them. I’m thankful for a God who extends grace to my on a daily, hourly, minutely, and socondly basis.

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by mikethestrand on February 12, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Blog, Church, Life
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Posted by mikethestrand on February 12, 2013

https://pastormikesmusings.com/2013/02/12/westboro-baptist-church-a-story-of-redemption/

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