pastorjohnb

Thoughts and musings on faith and our mighty God!

Tag Archives: walk


by Leave a comment

How Deep and Wide

As Christians, we have this idea in our minds that God rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked.  God blesses those who love Him.  He brings consequences to those who fail to walk in His ways.  We like to feel that we are on the righteous end of this continuum, but the reality is that we do at times sin and can tend towards the wrong end of the scale.

When our faith is strong and we are walking close to God in our daily lives, we sense His presence, we feel we are being fruitful in the world, and we feel His protection.  We feel centered and confident that we can handle what life brings our way.  God feels like a good friend.  Then we drift.  Or maybe we fall hard into sin in what feels like an instant.  We look up and feel like God is nowhere to be found.  The source of life feels like a distant memory.  Then we are like chaff, blown easily this way and then that way.  Yet there is hope.  There is always hope.

Jesus Christ is the living water, the way, the truth, and the life.  When we are lost, He gives direction.  When we are empty, He fills us up.  When we are confused, He pours wisdom into us.  When we sin, He offers grace and forgiveness.  As inconsistent and changing as we are, Christ is as rock-solid and unchanging.  As often as we stumble and fall, Jesus is there over and over and over again, extending us that grace and love that never ends.  How deep and wide is His love!  He calls us to walk in His ways, to be His disciples, and to love as He loves.  May we reflect His love today.

Scripture reference: Psalm 1


by Leave a comment

Walking by Faith

Paul reminds us that we walk by faith and not by sight.  Envision with me, just for a moment, your feet walking along a stony path.  See just the bottom of your legs and your feet and the path.  Hear the sound of the rock underneath your feet.

What is it that you see and hear?  Are your feet moving right along, steadily crunching the gravel as you stride?  Or are your feet skipping along making a scuffling sound in the stones?  Or are they moving haltingly and unsteadily, offering up an uneven pattern of noise?  Or are your feet still, making no sound at all upon the rocks?

Depending on how our lives are at the present moment, we may be breezing along the path, at a standstill, or somewhere in between.  For a season our walk of faith might be steady, but at other times it is not.  Life can distract us, disruptions can halt our progress.  Peaks and valleys come and go, but we always must keep moving forward in faith.

In faith we do continue to walk forward, ever seeking to draw nearer to He who stands at the end of our path – Jesus Christ.  By keeping our eyes on Christ, we can always move closer whether we run, jump, skip, walk, or barely move forward.  At times the next step may seem unclear or unsure, but we know by the faith in our heart that He is there, ever calling us along our journey of faith.

Scripture reference: 2 Corinthians 5: 6-10


by Leave a comment

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