pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

Tag Archives: power


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Jesus as Center

Idols are all of those things that we invest our time in, that we put our trust in, and that, in the end, draw us away from God.  Our idols can include our possessions or money, our job or position, our looks or our body.  It is all that we place ahead of or before God.  Idols are stumbling blocs in our relationship with God.

In times of need, when we are struggling or suffering and need strength or comfort, our idols can do very little for us.  For a time we can think our chosen idol is helping as it masks the pain or hardship for a time, but it cannot take is away.  Only God can do that.  Only through a relationship with Jesus Christ do we find true peace, comfort, rest, and contentment.

Our idols can also harm others, drawing their attention away from God.  One new to the faith may see you as an example to follow.  If we choose an idol over God, they too may make a similar choice for themselves.  The same is even more true for our children.  Their little eyes are watchful and their small ears are attentive.  What they observe in our lives, they mimic in theirs.

As our lives silently speak out about what we value and where we put our trust, does your life reveal Jesus as your center?  All in our life must fall under His authority.  It is a daily struggle to put God first in all we do, but we can have Jesus as our rock if we make a conscious choice to take our stand upon Him each day.  He is our firm foundation.  Thanks be to God!

Scripture reference: 1 Corinthians 8: 1-13


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God’s Sacred Child

In the middle section of Psalm 139 we catch an amazing picture of God and His relationship to us.  We see the power and omnipotence of God in the words that speak of our own creation and in those that remind us that God’s thoughts are more vast that the grains of sand.  We also see a God who saw each of our unformed bodies and wove us together.  We are also told that all of our days are ordained and are written in the book of life.

Our God is a big god.  Yet how easily we slip into doubt and how easily we think we can do it on our own.  The cares and concerns of this world can become our focus.  In this struggle we often turn inward and seek our own solutions instead of turning upward and seeking God.

Our God is also a god of details.  He knows each of us from our very beginning to our last day.  His hands formed us.  His thoughts surround us.  If we choose to live with these things as our focus, then we easily turn to God in times of stress, pain, anxiety.  We easily walk in His strength and comfort.  We are wonderfully made and loved deeply.  May we live as God’s sacred child this day and every day, trusting in our Creator and walking in His ways.

Scripture reference: Psalm 139: 13-18


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Connecting to God

When the storm clouds begin to build I like to sit on the front steps or out back on the deck.  As the storm builds I can sense God’s energy and presence.  When the lightning flashes and the thunder claps, God’s power is at hand.  Sometimes when it is raining, I like to open the window or sliding door and just listen to the raindrops landing.  It reminds me that God is watering and nourishing the earth.

At other times I like to go out in the sun in the quiet of midday and listen to the birds singing.  Late at night I like to go out in the stillness and stare at the stars.  Sometimes He even treats me to a shooting star.  God can be found in many way sin our created world.

In all these things I sense God’s presence still working in our world.  The voice that created all we know with just a word continues to be involved in our world.  I awe at the sense of God’s power, majesty, and strength in the world all around us.

And what is my response?  Experiencing God in the world around me often leads me to pray a prayer of thanksgiving and love.  Sometimes it causes me to lift my voice in song.  Sometimes I simply stand amazed and take it in, allowing His presence to envelop and fill me.  Connecting to God in such ways renews and refreshes me.  Take some time to be in connection.  Allow His majesty and power to awe you.  Feel His presence.

Scripture reference: Psalm 29


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Praying with Faith

Daily we come to God in prayer.  Often times we come with requests or pleas during our prayer time.  We all have items or situations we would love Jesus’ help with – some are personal and some are for other people.

In Matthew 15 the Canaanite woman comes to Jesus seeking healing for her daughter.  But she is an ‘outsider’, a person who most every Jew would not even speak to or would even shun or avoid.  And she knows this.  Jesus reinforces this when He tells her that He came to the ‘lost sheep of Israel’ and when he refers to her as a dog.  Yet she persists.  She persists because she knows that Jesus has something that she desperately desires – the power to heal her daughter.

Don’t we come with the same hope? When we come before Jesus to pray for this or that, don’t we hope for the healing or the solution or the need?

But do we know the same Jesus that the Canaanite woman knows?  Do we have the same absolute faith in Jesus’ power?  Jesus offers us the same thing He offered her – the power to do anything.  May we pray with her persistence as well!

Scripture reference: Matthew 15: 21-28