"Wonder-Working Power"

"With a strong hand, and with a stretched out arm: for his mercy endureth for ever." (Psalms 136:12)

  I am sorry if I caused anyone to weep a little bit, because my day was a little wrecked as well. Talk about well, that song which goes, "It is well with my soul," has been mysteriously swirling around inside my mind every since I finished yesterday's post. I could not put my finger on it till just now, but that is the summary of what I believe God wanted me to say, I just didn't have the strength to say it! I started that which I could not finish, because it is God who finishes every good work; we just need to ask Him, and it is done! No, that's not a, 'name it and claim it', statement, no way, no how; this is about us asking God to conform us to His will, by us simply letting Him do whatever it takes to get it done; and then, the song, "It is well," comes crashing in! To the point about whether or not Jesus did care about this life, there are several examples that He did: the most of which, is that He did not sweat blood for nothing; He did not say, after telling people to hate this life, "Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour," for nothing: because it hurt Him to think about the hurt! Yesterday I was blessed to hear a couple of messages that made me realize something we easily overlook: It is God's power that changes us, not our own! I was reminded of the many times I practiced something that I might have not have correctly done. When someone would give their heart to the Lord, the practice was to take them aside and give them the instructions they now needed to keep themselves right: read your Bible, find a church that teaches out of the Bible, start a prayer life, share what God has done; all good things to do and put into practice, but they will not be the same as the miracle that happened when Christ came into your heart! When you opened that door, the world as you knew it charged in an instant: you were Born Again! Like a statue that is being created by an artist, God is the One who is chipping away all the things that do not look like His Son; the statue does nothing to make itself, it is God that does the work. Please don't read anything stupid into that; there is seriously too much of that happening right now, as it is! This is about deliverance, not works, because real works are not real unless they are based upon love! How do you tell the difference? Simple question deserves a simple answer: If you are doing it because you want to, verses doing it because you need to make yourself look good. If you are really do it out of love, it is something you want to do for love: as in, "For God so loved the world," even though it hurt. One of the messages I heard was about when Jesus told the disciple to throw their nets on the other side of the boat, and how easy it would have been for them to say, "Hey, your a carpenter, we know fishing!" Then the pastor went on to share 4 of 5 things that prevent us from dropping the net to the other side: Salvation, Sanctification, Service, Sacrifice; but I did not hear the 5th, so I needed to filled in that blank myself: Supernatural, as in trusting in His Wonder-Working Power...

"If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn't love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God's secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn't love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I had to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn't love others, I would gain nothing." (1 Corinthians 13:1-3) NLT