8.The God Who Find Us

By Ronnie Martin

☆There are few stories in the Bible more heartbreking than the story of Adam and Eve.

☆Running caused Adam and Eve to invent ways to cover their own sin, which for them was breaking out the thread and needle and getting drerred as soon as posible.

☆Our sin always caused us to have to DO something when we move in any direction other than God, which by the way, is exhausting and fruitless.

☆Adam and Eve experienced no rest as they started multitasking their way toward covering their indiscretion.

☆We enter into doubt and despair because at some we belive a lie instead ot the truth. At some point we believe that God´s goodness wasn´t so good and that His greatness wasn´t so grand.

☆Somehow, in the shallowness of our minds, we believed that we´re the ones who should have control over destiny of our lives.

☆In fact, we can see God mold and shape our hearts in more profound ways when they´re hurting than they´re not.

☆When God calls us to do a faithful work for Him, He also provides the results. We act, but only the Holy Spirit can active.

☆He handles the activation. It means that we can take rather large anvil off our shoulders knowing that every move we make, every emotion we feel, every defeat we experience, every doubt we harbor, and every disappointment we carry is all under the sovereign control of God. All of it.

☆Her´s a stork yet beautifully liberating reality: We don´t control anything. We never have, we never will. Because God is sovereign. He has perfect control over all things. No boundaries, no limitations. All-knowing, all-loving. Theres is no place in this universe where His presence does not exist. There is nothing that can happen in this entire universe without His knowledge and consent.

☆So breathe a sigh of relief. He has this thing. He´s our only hope from losing hope.

☆When we as believers struggle to belive, it´s not that we´re misplaced hope, it´s that we misplaced God, who is our hope.

☆He consumes the darkness with His light! He illuminates those areas in our lives so that we are not hidden under darkness any longer but "hidden with Christ in God"(Colossians 3:3). He wouldn´t be God if He did anything less.

☆He will show us mercy in the dark solitude of our storms and become the great refuge for our sorrowful souls when we repent of our  self -sufficiency and return to the shadow of His wings.

Leer: 7. My Father´s Son

ACERCA DEL AUTOR: Ronnie Martin

7. My Father´s Son

 

"Praying Through Unbelief  by Ted Kluck

✔I think it´s an ocassion to question our own tendency toward hero-worship. If we say that we worship the Author and Perfector of our faith, why then do we have an almost insatiable and semi-embarrassing drive to create heroes in other walks of life?

✔I was listening to an old Tim Keller sermon recently that suggests that the quality of our sleep can sometimes be a barometer of how well we´re trusting God. Sleep is a gift from God. And David wakes up determined, in the Lord, to not fear the tens of thousands who assail him. W can pray, and sleep, with the same confidence.

✔When we doubt, we´re left with two opinions -curse God and die, or continue to pray, hope, and believe through our doubt. 

✔Repentance is the only way to true joy becasuse it´s such a fundamental part of the Gospel. "Repentance", wrote Puritan Thomas Brooks, "is the vomit of the soul." John Piper writes in Future Grace, "But if you would turn from self as the source of satisfaction (=repentance), and come to Jesus for enjoyment of all that God is for us in him (=faith), then the itch (for human glory) would be replaced by a well of water springing up to eternal life."

✔Repentance, and receiving grace, has allowed me to give grace in abundance. We give grace out of gratitude, and we live our lives in a passionate pursuit of Christ because of what He did for us, the worst of sinners.

Leer: 6. Blue Monday

ACERCA DEL AUTOR: Ted Kluck

6.Blue Monday

                                     

                                      "Reflectios on Doubt and Unbelief " by Ronnie Martin

• Because God is sovereign, it means that every event that unfolds in our lives is under His watchful eye and within His careful design.
• Maturity in Christ is when we remember God´s goodness when life is less than good. The problem with maturity is that by definition, it´s something that happens over time, not instantaneously.
• The ruequestion of doubt is always a question of who over what. Is the who you are doubting a liar or a truth teller? If we believe the who, we never need question the what. I never think what my wife is telling me is untrue because I believe with every fiber of my being that she is someone who would never lie to me.
• Unfortunately, Eve´s doubt about who God was led to her pride over what he commanded, and all of earth and creation is still reeling, from the aftereffects.
• Temporary blindness is just that. Temporary. We can trust that God will be faithful to pierce through the darkness of our doubts and continue to build and strengthen our belief in Him.
• At the heart of doubt and unbelief is the unwilligness to submit and yield to Jesus Christ, the creator of the universe. The difference, though, is that doubt is a temporary condition that can lead to greater belief, while unbelif is the condition that condemns a person.
• Knowing that God is grater than our doubts give us greater hope in Him.

Leer: 5. I Built My Fortress

ACERCA DEL AUTOR: Ronnie Martin

5. I Built My Fortress

 "Mistaking Failure for Humility, and Killing Big T" by Ted Kluck

+God was leading me on a journey toward complete brokenness, but He still had a few idols left to destroy, including the praise of man. 

+We often describe failure as "a humbling experience." This is the whole "At least you´re building character" argument.

+But I wasn´t becoming humble; I was becoming embittered and cynical- My heart, gradualy, was being hardened. I was seeing the doctrine of Total and Inherited Depravity on full display in my own heart. As Tozer writes in The Pursuit of God, "There is within the human heart a tough, fibrous root of fallen life whose nature it is to posses, always to posseee."

+We sin because we fundamentally distrust that God´s plan will be enough to bring us the hapiness (or esteem or comfort) that we crave the most. So we look to the world to provide those things. And many times, from Christians, we´re just implored to sin less.

+I was sinning by doubting in three specific areas: One, that God is sovereign. Two, that God is working all things for my good. And Three, that God is good.

+In The Joy of Calvinism, author Greg Forster writes, "The Bible commands us to rejoice all the time. God says that if there is even a tiny fraction of a split second when we´re not rejoicing, that´s disobedience."

+In America we sometimes call that competitiveness, but in reality it´s just sin (jealousy, envy), and it makes a person (read:me) the worst kind of jerk at times.

+David´s greatest strengths were his greatest weaknesses.

+"Confession and repentance is where the power of Christianity is." That´s wisdom that, of course, applies to both men and women.

+He [David] remind us that God does not delight in burnt offerings. He doesn´t want our money or, necessarily , our impressive spiritual résumés. He wants brokenness and contrition. That, David writes, He will never despise.

And oddly, out of the brokenness and contrition, comes joy.

Leer: 4 . Personal Jesus

ACERCA DEL AUTOR: Ted kluck