Everything will be OK

Of course everything will be OK

Almighty God is in control of EVERYthing

Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power
    and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,
    for everything in heaven and earth is yours.
Yours, Lord, is the kingdom;
    you are exalted as head over all.
¹² Wealth and honor come from you;
    you are the ruler of all things.
In your hands are strength and power
    to exalt and give strength to all.
¹³ Now, our God, we give you thanks,
    and praise your glorious name.

How we got here

Occasionally I like to remind myself how I got here.

So I trace my steps from my godless birth in Adam  to my intimate eternal relationship with Jesus Christ that I enjoy every day. I had little to do with creating the intimate relationship. In fact God did it all.  my entire participation in his process amounted to accepting the gifts he freely gave me.

We all have a similar biography.  Read Ephesians chapter 2 and you’ll discover that Paul seems to have captured our story there.

From death to life

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

We were dead in our trespasses and sins but God crucifed his only son on the cross so you and I could be free from the life of sinners forever.

Our old self crucified

⁰ For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with,^[a] that we should no longer be slaves to sin—

“We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ on the cross so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin.” That does not mean we will never sin again. It means that forever we are free from the control of sin foreveFor if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!r. Sin no longer has power you control our lives. So God takes away our old self,our old life of sin away from us.

He freely gives his life to us

For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the life of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Romans 5:10

Now He lives his life through us

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20

for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. Philippians 2:13

Empowering

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  2 Corinthians 12:9

If you watch much TV you discover there is a  vitamin,  a cream, a lotion, a diet,  a pill,  a vacation spot, or a breakfast cereal  that  will empower you and bring you happiness and good health and long life all for only $19.95.

Lately I’ve noticed that some of these products promise you they’ll empower you to face and conquer life’s challenges and become the successful person you’ve always wanted to be.

Bunk

How gullible some of us are to believe that there’s power in a pill or breakfast cereal. Or that we will be empowered  to leap tall buildings in a single bound if we brush with a certain brand of empowering toothpaste.

We are woefully misguided if any of us believes he or she has the ability to generate any power on our own.  Many of us rely on our own resources to generate self power, which  is not real power. If we rely on our flesh to produce power, we will surely fail and become frustrated.

 The only Power that is beneficial or  helpful to us is the power that comes from God. That power  resides in the life of Jesus Christ. If we believe in Jesus as our Savior we reside in him. To access his awesome power we must become weak and surrender our flesh to him. The weaker we become the more power becomes available to us through Christ..

If you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, here is a list of things you are when you live out of your true identity in Christ

1. you are a totally new creation
2. you are in Christ
3. you are totally forgiven for EVERY sin you’ve ever committed, are committing now, or ever will commit in the future
4. you are totally righteous
5. you are totally reconciled
6. you are redeemed
7. you are sanctified
8. you are justified
9. you are totally accepted
10. you are an integral part of the body of Christ
11. you are a citizen of heaven
12. you have eternal life and you’ll never die
13. you are unconditionally loved
14. nothing you could ever do would ever make God love you less than He does now

How to feel accepted

We claim  here on For His Glory that acceptance is  mankind’s greatest need. We are all born with it.  In fact none of us can function very well in this life without it.  Many of us enjoy acceptance if we’re fortunate enough to grow up in a healthy home and family environment.  Some of us enjoy acceptance in close friendships or business environments.

 Then there are those without the benefit of healthy families or relationships. Consequently acceptance is often lacking in their lives. They still need  to feel acceptance, but in order to gain it they feel the need to manufacture it themselves.  This is acceptance by self effort. It doesn’t work and often leaves the person feeling frustrated and more unacceptable.

 One way we try to force acceptance is with our appearance. They think if they dress the part   and wear the right clothes  and impress people with their outside appearance they’ll be accepted.

 Some try to gain acceptance with their behavior.  They think if they follow all the social conventions and go to all the right parties and act with social norms they’ll gain acceptance.

Some have  family heritages or business success they can flaunt to make  them appear acceptable.

Unfortunately all these things we do with self effort do not work.

We find are acceptance, needs and self-image met only in God. This is the person God accepts.  In God is the only place we can find who acceptance. And God’s acceptance is true, unconditional and eternal.

Rejection

As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him. 2 Peter 2:4

Forgiveness

Psychologists and psychiatrists today generally agree that forgiveness is a conscious, deliberate decision to release feelings of resentment or vengeance or anger toward a person or group who has harmed you, regardless of whether they actually deserve your forgiveness.

Dr Tony Evans in his book Detours  divides forgiveness into two categories: unilateral and transnational. If  we forgive someone unilaterally we don’t expect a response. We forgive and forget.  That doesn’t mean we were not impacted by the  or words by the  ocean we are forgiving; it just means we are no longer allowing What they said or did to take up residence in our  minds and thoughts.

If you choose transnational forgiveness you will try to reconcile the relationship with the person  whose actions or words caused you to harbor resentment and  unforgiveness.

Space has always fascinated me.

The heavens declare the glory of God;  the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech. Night after night they reveal knowledge. Psalm 19:1-3

 I’ve always been overwhelmed by God’s power and his creativity.  It’s not hard, it’s impossible, and beyond my comprehension to grasp the majesty of the heavens and the stars and  outer space and know that He created it all and it all functions perfectly and exactly like it’s supposed to function  according to His purpose and His will. Consider some of the  things scientist and astronomers tell us about the awesome, incredible power of God.  If you can’t tell me you are amazed after you read  about God’s awesome power  I’m going to cross you off my Christmas card list.

The Sun’s power

• A million earths could fit inside our sun.
• It takes only 8 minutes for a single beam of light to travel the 93 million miles from the sun to earth.
• The temperature on the surface of the sun approaches 10,000 degrees.
• Every second the sun produces enough energy to power human civilization for almost 500,000 years.
• The sun has enough nuclear fuel to burn another five
  (5) trllioni (with a T) years.
• The sun never shuts down.
• It is a gascious ball of continuously occurring nuclear explosions radiating energy in all directions throughout the solar system.
• So far, astronomers have found more than 500 solar systems and are discovering new ones every year. Given how many they have found in our own neighborhood of the Milky Way galaxy, scientists estimate that there may be tens of billions of solar systems in our galaxy, perhaps even as many as 100 billion. And God’s power through His spoken word has created each one of them.

I watch the Hallmark Channel

 I watch the Hallmark Channel and its sister channel Movies and Mysteries regularly. I catch all kinds of flak from the guys at church. They dismiss those  movies as chick flicks.

But I don’t care. In these movies no one ever gets shot or stabbed or strangled. Nobody commits adultery. No women or children are ever abused. No characters ever fly into a fit of anger or rage. Conflicts between the characters are few and far between. Any conflicts that arise always get resolved at the end of the movie.

What I like most about Hallmark movies is that God and Christ  are woven throughout the movies.  Pastors, priests and rabbis appear in some movies as characters who impact the story lines.  They sometimes play influential roles in the movies. Churches and synagogues  often serve as scene settings for the dramas. Scenes often include families praying together and fellowshiping around the dinner table talking about God and spiritual matters. Families are all a mainstay in every Hallmark movie. The underlying theme of every Hallmark movie is helping and serving others.

Marie and I don’t care much for TV at all. I watch college football. We have a few select shows during the week that we’ll watch.  Survivor and Dancing with the Stars among them. Marie likes 20/20 and some cop shows.Some nights we go without watching TV at all.

But we’re always up or a Hallmark movie.

She learned trust in the pool

She was five. Already brave and outgoing. And, like her dad, a type A who never met a stranger.  But she tip-toed around water.  She was okay walking around in the shallow end wearing her swimmies. Those kept her head above water.

I thought it was time she lost her fear of the water.  We moved down to the waist-high area of the pool.  I stood in the water a few feet from the edge.

“Jump in, Leah,” I said.

She would have no part of it. She stood on the bank with one of those 5-year-old “No, I’m not going to” defiant objections.

“Oh, come on. Daddy’s right here. I’ll catch you.”  I spread my arms wade apart. “I’ll catch you.”

“No! I’ll get water in my nose.”

This war of pleas and objections went on for 10 minutes. She finally worked up the courage to walk to the edge of the pool. “Hold your nose and jump in,” I said. “I’ll catch you. I promise. Just trust me.

She finally held her nose and jumped. I dunked her head under water for two seconds. She survived! She thought jumping into the pool and daddy catching her was a blast!

So, my five-year-old jumped off the edge of the pool and daddy caught her . . .again and again . . .for the next 45 minutes! She never got tired. Daddy did. Or we’d still be at that pool.

Once my daughter learned her daddy would do what he said he would do, she trusted him.

Isn’t that true with our Daddy? When we learn once that we can trust God to do what He says He will do in a circumstance we surrender to Him, isn’t it easier, the next time to trust him with another circumstance or trial or dilemma?

Lessons God teaches us

When DO we all get to heaven?

Clawing my way out of a black hole . . .of my own making

Good people don’t go to heaven. Bad people do.

The Jesus way

Thou shalt love the Lord how much?

Knowing and Believing — The Great Divide

What’s the difference between knowing and believing?

Faith in the classroom

Where will you go when you die?

How do we know the one true Church?

Adam’s conversation with God

Banging on the door

What resentment can do

Wisdom And Good Advice From An Old Farmer