Don’t Lose the Wonder

“There are three things which are too wonderful for me” (Proverbs 30:18). 

 

Science may be able to explain the flight of birds, the movements of serpents, the currents of the atmosphere and of the ocean, and human sexuality, but that does not take away from the wonder of it all.
Life and love are not explained in the laboratory. Experiments or the formulas which are convenient to the experts do not take away the splendor and awe of God’s creation and created order.
So many times as we go through life, we tend to lose the sense of wonder. We become farsighted and forgetful linked to unthankfulness.  If someone lives near the ocean you can find in any day many who have not been to the shoreline all year. The stars shine above us and yet we forget that they do. The birth of a baby happens and we share stares and looks and comments but it’s “just a newborn.”
Today look at your salvation you received from God. He created you, gave you breath, drew you to Himself, changed you, remade you, and is coming back to receive you. What a great God who can change a heart into a heart like unto His. Don’t lose the wonder! It’s too precious.

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  • An Angry Nation

    “Wherefore, laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speaking, as newborn babies, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow by it” (I Peter 2:1-2).

    With the breakup of the home we are becoming an angry nation.  With the advent of kids who are angry at life and what it has done to them there is an uptick in gun violence.  What used to be settled through normal communicable channels and court systems, we are now discounted and unsettled through the vengeance of young men or women with a gun.

    The race issue has surfaced like days before.  Except now the media covers quickly what it took papers days to print.  Many conservative speakers can no longer enter our universities because of radical leftists who have resorted to violence.  Add white supremacists into the mix and we could have a war on our hands.

    Dietrich Bonhoeffer lamented the fact that students and professors during the Hitler era resorted to silence so as not to lose their jobs, etc.  Today in our institutions Christian students, and especially professors, have to keep their convictions to themselves in order to graduate or continue teaching.  One cannot even say, “Jesus“, in a classroom without repercussions.

    I have no hope that the immigration crisis will be ever resolved.  As both sides demonize each other we will continue to have a toxic atmosphere of name-calling and political posturing.  The good news with all of this is that the churches have the privilege of welcoming whomever God sends to us.

    God has called us to honor Him by letting our light shine despite the consequences.  What is at stake are the eternal values that has been handed down to us.  The Lord Jesus has given His Church (notice that I said, “His Church“) all the resources she needs to be faithful in every culture, every generation, and every circumstance.  He will not forsake us now!  By His Grace let the Church be the Church!

  • Counter Cultural: Living Well in a Broken World

    “If ye be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God” (Colossians 3:1).

    The cross offends. It cuts across the grain of the heart that is against the very intentions of God Almighty. The cross stands before every person and says, “We offend a holy and righteous God.” We are to say, “I agree.” And we fall down in brokenness and humility and rise to say, “I’m reconciled to God and His ways.”

    The cross reconciles. It is through the cross of Christ where sinners find refuge and reconciliation with God and with other men, no matter color, class, or credit. All people who come into this world by their first birth are bent on their own ways and their own thoughts. But the cross of Christ brings us to God’s way. When we are born again we are twice-born and we show forth the praises of Him who died and rose again for us.

    The cross prioritizes. It is through the work of the cross of Christ where men and women bring their lives into the direction of God. We become slaves of God. We no longer are directed by the flesh but by God. So Sundays are God’s, our time belongs to God, and our families are God’s to build and to use. No item or matter in our lives are off-limits to God. He owns us and all we are.
     
    The cross speaks and it speaks of wisdom and power.     Without the cross of Christ there is no reconciliation, no holiness, and no priorities. Without the cross of Christ there is nothing but chaos and selfishness.  But with the cross of Christ all things are brought into order and into subjection of God’s most holy Son. One day the world will be brought to the cross of Christ and see the results of God’s greatest work. For God will bring all things to Himself.

    “Father, thank you for giving us peace through the blood of your Son’s cross. By your Son you have reconciled all things unto Himself. All things…things in heaven, all things in earth, and whereas we were enemies of God in our mind by wicked works, yet now has your Son reconciled us with Him to You.”

  • Peace, God’s Peace

    “Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again” (Luke 24:7).

    The Lord Jesus was judged upon a cross that was planted in His heart. He grew in statue and wisdom having searched the Scriptures and found favor with God and with men. The Scriptures and His life with sinful men proved the necessity of a Savior for their sinfulness and ignorance, while viewing the utter hopelessness of mankind without God’s intervention.

    We are afraid of so much in this present evil world and fearful of the future ahead. We may not speak of this in sober words but inside there is great conflict that is hidden and controlled by a deafening low sound within the recesses of the soul. It’s there but we do nothing about it.

    We will find God’s pardon at the cross and we will see God’s peace at the tomb where He no longer is dead. He arose again and now all sinful men may find peace when they kiss the Son. The peace with God and the peace of God only comes to those who view God through the prism of His grace.

    Can we say, “The Son of man has been delivered into the hands of sinful men, and was crucified, and the third day He rose again?” If you can say that in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit then you have a peace that the world cannot give or take away. It is called God’s Peace which is none other than God’s Son the Lord Jesus.

  • Moving Away

    “Therefore, my brethren dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved” (Phil. 4:1).

    We as a society have been conditioned to believe in the big, the fast, the expensive and the far away.  Whatever is big, fast, expensive, and away is the life of joy and happiness.  I am convinced that if you have to move ten inches from where you are now in order to be happy, you never will be.

    Paul was in prison for Christ, yet he was content.  Joseph was indeed in a mess down in Egypt, yet he was aware that God was working.  John the Baptist had stumbled over the timeline that God had for him, but he was learning.  The Lord Jesus operated by faith and not by feelings, and never moved from where His true peace was located.

    One can live with joy in their present circumstances and still live with expectation.  Life becomes more precious and more special to us when we look for the little everyday miracles and get excited about the privilege of simply being human.

    There is a powerful story of a young man who was seeking God.  He sought out a wise man who lived in a nearby beach house and posed the question:  “Old man, how can I see God?”  The old man who knew God at a depth few experience, pondered the question.  At last he responded quietly:  “Young man, I am not sure that I can help you–for you see, I have a different problem. I cannot not see him.”

  • The “Red Cross”

    “He shall purify himself with it on the third day, and on the seventh day he shall be clean: but if he purify not himself the third day, then the seventh day he shall not be clean” (Numbers 19:12).

    When you and I feel overwhelmed with fear, guilt, or weariness, picture yourself at the foot of the cross, with your arms wrapped around it, hanging on as tight as you can. You will be covered by the blood and God will protect you.

    God desires His people to be holy and separated from sin. To touch the dead things of the world is to contaminate ourselves and those around us. God has given us the solution in the cross of Christ. There we find life…His life in us, alive and well.

    Someone has penned these words:

    I take, O cross, thy shadow for my abiding place; I ask no other sunshine than the sunshine of His face; Content to let the world go by, to know no gain nor loss. My sinful self my only shame, my glory all the cross.

     

  • Don’t Lose Out

    “On the third day, behold, it happened that a man came from Saul’s camp with his clothes torn and dust on his head. So it was, when he came to David, that he fell to the ground and prostrated himself” (2 Samuel 1:2).

    No battle is filled with more shame than at Gilboa. Herein is where Jonathan and his father Saul, the King of Israel, died. Saul was deserted by the Lord and the Philistines ransacked the nation and Saul preferred suicide than to fall into the hands of his enemy.

    A more noble death could have been Saul’s tenure. Yet he continually refused the Word and will of the Lord, for he rebelled and reneged on his only hope. We should pray, “Lord, help us to end well.” Saul had a good beginning but it had a terrible ending.

    One can start in light and end in darkness, begin with great courage and end in fear, to start with wisdom and fall into folly and foolishness. David ended his life in great standing before God. Though David was a great sinner we learn that David had a great Savior. He prayed, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10).

    Defeat, death, and disgrace hounded Saul because Saul chose to disdain God’s chastening hand. He lost his crown, his life, his family, and his nation. Saul lost what he could have found. Let us end well.