Great Things He Hath Done

It is relatively easy to believe great things of God as in Psalm 33:6, 9:

By the word of the LORD were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth....
For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.

It seems to be more difficult to believe great things of God when it has to do with us. These things are true:

And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. (2 Cor. 9:8)

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us... (Eph. 3:20)

Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. (Heb. 7:25)

Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand. (Rom. 14:4)

That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day. (2 Tim. 1:12)

If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. (Dan. 3:17)

To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy — to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen. (Jude 24-25)

Alternative Forms of Worship

Dear children, keep yourselves from idols. (1 John 5:21)

You would think this shouldn't be a difficult piece of advice to follow.

The voice of God thundered from Sinai in the second command. "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments" (Exod. 20:4-6).

Within the month, the people of Israel were busily building an idol, a golden calf. It did not last long.

Rachel, Jacob’s wife, stole her father’s household gods. All of Jacob's sons had idols. "So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, 'Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes.' ... So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had and the rings in their ears, and Jacob buried them under the oak at Shechem" (Gen. 35:2, 4).

King David’s wife, Michal, had an idol. "Then Michal took an idol and laid it on the bed, covering it with a garment and putting some goats’ hair at the head" (1 Sam. 19:13).

Jereboam built two golden calves, one in Bethel and one in Dan.

In this age of tolerance, we have accepted foreign idols as legitimate "alternative forms of worship". To speak against the idolatry of Buddhism, Hinduism, or Taoism is considered bigotry, intolerance, and hatred of other people. What does God have to say about this?

Gather together and come; assemble, you fugitives from the nations. Ignorant are those who carry about idols of wood, who pray to gods that cannot save. Declare what is to be, present it – let them take counsel together. Who foretold this long ago, who declared it from the distant past? Was it not I, the LORD? And there is no God apart from me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none but me. Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other. (Isa. 45:20-22)

Servant Leadership

There is a kind of man who has absolute authority in this world. He is the captain of a ship at sea. It makes no difference whether he is captain of a merchant ship or the captain of a navy ship.

There are two types of captains. One rejoices in the authority he has and becomes an autocrat, a dictator. The other uses his authority to become the servant of the crew. The U.S. Navy assigns the primary duty of the captain: it is the morale of the crew.

Christians in leadership positions should be servants of their followers. They should create leaders who are in turn servants of their own followers.

We Know and Rely On This

Some years ago, Bessie brought to my attention 1 John 4:16: "So we know and believe the love God has for us" (RSV).

What struck us was the two verbs know and believe. We know the love of God. We believe the love of God. The New International Version says, “We know and rely on the love of God.” Let me say it this way: We know and trust the love of God. The verse starts out with “So,” which means this conclusion is based on the previous verse. “If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us” (1 John 4:15-16). That is how we know, and that is how we believe.

Barb's Wire: Children with Disabilities - A Severe Blessing

Barbara Friedman was CCM's free personal evangelist in Moscow and Pullman and was on our staff from 1973 until her retirement last year. Here is one of her old ministry letters:

About two months ago, I met this mother and her blind and autistic son, his younger sister and baby sister. This family had previously been in America and had returned to their homeland. Now they were back in the States for their son’s sake. The schools in their homeland were not equipped for children with disabilities like his. The family knew that in America their son could get the help he needed. America attempts to make it possible for those who are handicapped to live as if they were not.

The mother asked me if God was punishing her because her son was born blind and with autism. Immediately I thought about that Jewish man who was born blind (John’s Gospel, chapter 9): "As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, 'Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?' 'Neither this man nor his parents sinned,' said Jesus, 'but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.'" After Jesus miraculously healed this Jewish man, he believed that Jesus was the Messiah, the one God promised to come, and he received eternal life. His blindness from birth, rather than being a curse, was a "severe” blessing. It led to his salvation. The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent (John 6:29).

“No, God is not punishing you," I told her. "Rather, he has given you this son as a very special gift. Though all children are gifts from God, a child with a disability is even more so.”

She looked at me with surprise, disbelief, and “with all ears.” I told her that children born with disabilities are not the norm; they are not common. Therefore, this makes these children special gifts. I expressed that God really intended to bless her and the family when he gave them this son with his handicaps. What many would consider a curse was really meant to be a hard blessing.

Surely children born with disabilities will require special care and treatment, as well as much more love, much more patience, and much more wisdom. I explained that when God entrusts to a family one of these special gifts, He certainly wants to give them all the “much mores” they will need in order to do what is best. Then I compared human love, patience, and wisdom, which have limits, to God’s love, patience, and wisdom, which have no limits. This mother was well aware of her limits, her inadequacies, and shortcomings related to her son and his disabilities. “Your son’s needs have caused you to have needs that will require God's help as well as His comfort. When you believe in God and in Jesus, God will give you all the much more love, patience, and wisdom that you need in order to do what is best for your son and family. And to do it with joy! When you believe, this will be the first blessing your son will bring to the family.” She smiled at me.

At our next meeting, this mother asked, “What exactly is sin?” At our third meeting, she asked, “What really happened when Jesus died on the cross?” She was already in Heaven’s harbor waiting to dock. Well, she got docked! May God use her peace and joy and her new life in Christ to draw her family and others to the living God and the love of God.

Recently she mentioned how others felt so sorry or her because of her son’s situation and the suffering it must bring to the family. She said to me, “But we are not suffering because of our son. We have peace and joy.” I told her to use this as an opportunity to explain how she came to believe in the living God because of her son and how her son really has been a gift from God and a blessing from God.

"Praise be to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our trouble...For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows" (2 Cor. 1:3-5). If any of you are in difficulty or having trouble of the kind that seems too much, too big, too awful for you, remember that God gives overflowing comfort. There is no suffering that is too much, to big, or too awful that God’s comfort cannot down. He is “the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort.”

Not Wishful Thinking

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (1 Cor. 13:13)

We know that faith and love remain. Somehow we tend to have our doubts about hope. Perhaps it is because we have placed a 21st-century definition on the word hope. For instance, we may say, “I hope so,” meaning, “I wish it would happen, but it probably won’t.” To us, “hope” is wishy and doubtful. That is why it doesn’t sound like it belongs with faith and love.

In the Bible, hope is not wishful thinking; it is a sure thing.

God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. (Heb. 6:18-19)

For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope – the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good. (Titus 2:11-14)

Notice: Hope is firm and secure. Hope is blessed. Hope is future. Hope is centered on the appearing of Jesus Christ.

In other words, hope, as spoken about in the Bible, is a glad anticipation of a future certainty, the return of Jesus Christ.

But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ. (Phil. 3:20)