The Goodness of God

 

The words “good hand of our God (Ezra)” and the “goodness of God (Paul in Romans)” have encouraged me recently and I hope they will you also. Actually, I am revisiting Ezra just in a different way from another blog I gaveJ.

 

EZRA:

The King had noticed...

7:9 “According to the good hand of his God upon him (Ezra).”

8:18 “...by the good hand of our God upon us.”

...and so the king helped Ezra with his desire to get to Jerusalem...

Then Ezra in 8:23 realized he had claimed that God’s good hand was on him and...

“I was ashamed to ask the king for soldiers and horsemen to protect us from enemies on the road, because we had told the king that the gracious hand of our God is on everyone who looks to Him...”

Because of this prior testimony, Ezra and his men fasted and prayed and God answered without the King’s help. J

 Have you ever had to commit a problem silently to the Lord because you had given testimony that He could take care of everything for you? Of course, sometimes we need help from others...but what a testimony when we can solely lean on our “good hand of our God” to handle the problem.

Ezra reports in vs. 23: “So we fasted and entreated our God and...

8:31 “The hand of our God was upon us, and He delivered us from the hand of the enemy.”

And God brought them safely to Jerusalem!

Ezra was not proud...He realized it was all His gracious God.

Ezra 9:13 “Our God, You have punished us less than our sins deserved.”

That is exactly what Paul said in Romans 2: 4:  ^“Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?”

Recently, I have been in a Bible study in the book of Romans. This verse is right in the middle of a series of verses that deal with many forms of sin from gossiping to homosexuality to murder. How amazing! God wants to remind ALL of us that no matter the sin (oh, yes...gossiping), He will judge us, BUT He will use His goodness to bring us to Him!!

Riches of His goodness... He will give the best for us and to us - through the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation, through the Holy Spirit for our instruction, through His Word that speaks truth to us to comfort and convict us, through God Himself as our heavenly Father Who hears our prayers.

Just as Ezra was able to show God’s good hand in the presence of the King and his fellow Israelites, Paul explains that we can show others the goodness of God through our receiving His forgiveness and thanking Him for His forbearance and longsuffering with us. What a promise!

Pray for those who need the Lord Jesus to see the goodness of God and allow it to change their hearts 

Psalm 31:19...Oh, how great is Your goodness.”

--Maylou Holladay

The Weak Things of This World

 

If we are willing to let God use us to glorify Himself, we don’t get to choose in what form He does so. Even if we are not willing to let God use us, we don’t get to choose in what form He does so.

Once upon a time, there was a man born blind. In a culture where blindness made every aspect of life a disaster, including being barred from Temple worship, there was no possibility of “looking on the bright side.” To add insult to injury, literally, it was generally assumed by everyone that the blind person or his parents must have committed some grievous hidden sin and deserved this punishment. Yet, God the Father chose that unhappy situation for that particular man, as explained by God the Son, “so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” John 9:3.

Centuries later, a man named Horatio Spafford lost his only son and later all four of his daughters. This was irretrievable loss. No human could say, “It was worth it.” Even so, millions of people, you and I included, have been blessed by his response, “It is Well with My Soul.”

 Many decades later, a young woman was severely injured in a swimming accident and never recovered the ability to move. Nevertheless, Joni has had a lifetime of ministry, giving honor and glory to God, supplying spiritual and physical assistance to thousands and thousands of people.

 About that same time, a teenage boy in Omaha, Nebraska, broke his back in a car accident and has since navigated life from a wheelchair. After he spoke at a church event – invited because his handicap had brought him back to the Lord – a young mother chose new life in Christ. After he spoke at a youth activity – invited because of his disability – a high school girl gave her life to the Lord for missionary service. She has been a career missionary in the Philippines. Because of his joy in the Lord and his kindness, a family was encouraged and brought closer to God. (The daughter from this family married him.) Paul has been honoring God from his wheelchair for 57 years.

 Many people seem to think that God cannot use people who are somehow limited physically or intellectually or who seem to have few talents or social skills as well as He can use people who are stronger, smarter, or more skillful than others. But that’s exactly backwards. The Almighty claims to use the weak to honor Himself.

 Some years back, when we lived in Cleveland, TN, which is home to world headquarters of three different branches of the Church of God, Paul had countless experiences of total strangers telling him God would heal his broken back and he would be able to walk. These were frequently prefaced with the admonishment, “If you will get right with the Lord…” One man gave him a tract with advice about how to be healed physically. There was not a word in it about eternal life. What shortsightedness! Those folks needed him to “get well” in order for them to be spiritually comfortable. They could not recognize that God could use someone in a physically broken condition to encourage people toward God and to glorify Him, even though God has given us examples in Scripture. Because Paul broke his back, a circumstance we would wish to avoid, many people heard the Word of God as Paul spoke to youth groups, children’s clubs, church services and children in a juvenile prison. As with all faithful Christians, one cannot know all the ways God brings glory to Himself as He uses people as He chooses.

 God used a slave child to direct Naaman toward glorifying God. The shortest, youngest son, the least important in a family, became the second king of Israel. An unnamed lame man healed by the word of Peter and John gave glory to God in his strength. Mephibosheth, lamed as a child and never healed, also brought glory to God in his weakness by his loyalty to God’s king. A woman who had been filled with demons glorified Christ before his death. And even Lazarus, who was dead, brought glory to God, by God’s choice.

 The apostle Paul, in his writings to the Corinthians, reminds them of their position at the time God called them – not wise, not influential, not noble. “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him. It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: ‘Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.’” I Cor. 1:27-31.

 I might remind all of us not to look down on others because of their weakness or to assume God’s usefulness of them is limited, but that reminder is probably not needed. What may be needed, as it is in my own case, is a reminder not to look down on our own weakness or inadequacy, not to disparage our own usefulness because we have compared ourselves to someone “better.” In any case, He doesn’t want us to boast in our own usefulness or to disparage our own apparent lack of usefulness. God gets to choose, and we don’t always get to see the results of His choices. He asks us to trust him, and our faithfulness to Him brings glory to Him. Rejoice in God’s faithfulness to His own Word!

 --Lynda Shenefield

 

A Well-Known Book

 

There’s something special about returning to a well-loved book, even if you know how the story goes. One of my favorite authors is Jane Austen, and I am currently reading, for perhaps the third or fourth time, Sense and Sensibility. We read a story differently when we know how it ends; we pick up on details we missed before, we slow down and appreciate the descriptions and dialogue more, and we experience the characters as people we already know and love. Additionally, we may have had life experiences since the last read-through that give us a greater understanding and sympathy for what the characters face as we read it this time. There are plenty of books I have read that I have no desire to turn back to, but the books I’ve loved most are a delight to immerse myself in once again.

I was thinking about this today in regard to Pastor Adam’s new series. For many of us, the book of Philippians is a well-known book. We have heard it preached through in a Sunday morning series (perhaps more than once), and we may have studied it in Sunday School, and/ or on our own at home. Out of my own personal love for the book’s message, I even chose to memorize it back in 2005. It took all year, but it has been a great blessing in my life to know its words so well. But despite all this, when I found out that this was the next series we would be going through in church, I didn’t say, “Not again!” Instead, there was joy in returning to a deeply-appreciated book that I do know well. For as in the reading of Sense and Sensibility, and even more so because Philippians is part of God’s living and inspired Word, I will see things I haven’t seen before. I will be impacted in different ways than when I heard it preached last. Meanings of words and depths of truths will open to me in fresh ways and will take deeper root in my heart. My life experiences since the last time I studied this book will help shape a greater understanding of how to apply what Paul wrote so many years ago.

So, whether this is your first time to study Philippians in depth or the tenth time, I hope you, along with me, will open your heart to hear what God wants to say. I pray that we would see His glory shine through the words He spoke through Paul. As we study this epistle, may the Lord change us to be more like Christ and less like the world as we “press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil.2:14).

--Amy O'Rear

Random Thoughts from Genesis

Here in the beginning of January I would like to share some random observations from my reading in the book of Genesis.  Like many of you, I have begun reading through the Bible again, beginning in Genesis.

 

Genesis 2:9, I read, “The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food.”  God was concerned with both emotional health (pleasing to the eye—beauty!) and physical health (good for food). Since the tornado on Easter Sunday I have grieved over the loss of trees in the area hit.  My daughter and her husband lost 23 trees just from their lot.  Next door to them a wood chipper roared for days, grinding the remnants of trees lost on that property.  The toothpick-like stumps throughout the neighborhood remind me that the area will take years to recover.

 

Genesis 2:15 reads, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.”  Work is not the consequence of sin, but what we were designed for.  My son-in-law was in training for his dream job when Covid hit with its shutdowns.  Because the job is a federal one, his training immediately shut down.  Now these many months later, training has not resumed.  My son-in-law has been very frustrated in this period of idleness forced by the pandemic.  He has had plenty to do with repairing storm damage, but he has not had a regular work schedule.  How many senior citizens have retired, only to find out they want to work.  They start a new career or they go back to the old. My officemate before I retired did not have a life outside of work.  He died within months of retiring.  We need work.

 

Genesis 2:18, “It is not good for man to be alone.  I will make a helper suitable for him.”  I am so glad I did not have to choose my children’s partners, but so blessed to see how each couple fits together, is suitable, are helpmates.

 

Genesis 3:1, “He (the serpent) said to the woman, ‘Did God actually say, You shall not eat of any tree in the garden?’” He was trying to sow doubt and he succeeded. Genesis 3:2-3,  “And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.” Eve was honest enough to admit that God had not said they couldn’t eat of any of the trees, but she added to His command, “Neither shall you touch it.” How easy it is to first challenge the authority and then distort the commands by adding to them. Isn’t that what we do sometimes today? We add and distort what Scripture actually says, elevating our opinions to the level of God’s authority. In our world of constant cultural change, the temptation is to say, “That’s not what God really meant.  That’s just for that time, not for today.”  

 

Genesis 3:12-13, Adam said, “The woman gave me.”  Eve said, “The serpent gave me.”  How typical! It’s not my fault! One of the most important principles I tried to teach my children was that of personal responsibility for their actions.  We cannot blame others for our poor choices.

 

Genesis 3:17-19, “Because you have eaten of the tree which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you. . . . .By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread.” Suddenly work became difficult, painful, thorns and thistles.  Oh, I believe there is still pleasure in work, but along with the pleasure come sweat, sore muscles, sunburn, even arthritis pain.  I love working in my flowerbeds, but I know I will pay a price, one price of the original sin.

 

In Genesis 5 is a long genealogy with long-lived men.  Adam lived 930 years.  Adam was still alive in the days of Lamech, father of Noah.  One comment I read said that gave Adam many generations to influence through his personal testimony of creation and his own fall and ouster from Eden. But in spite of Adam’s testimony, one generation later, God saw only evil continually.

 

Genesis 6:5-8, “The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness had become and was grieved.”  If not that Noah found favor in the eyes off the Lord, God would have destroyed mankind, wiped him out, but “Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time and he walked faithfully with God.” So God provided a way of escape from judgment.  As Noah and his family walked off the ark after the flood had subsided, God gave a rainbow as a sign of His covenant. When I was in high school I was in a trio that sang, 

            “Every time I see a rainbow shining in the sky above, 

            I remember God’s great mercy and His faithfulness and love.”

I still sing that song when I see a rainbow.

 

I have given you a taste of my random thought on the first few chapters of Genesis.  Because I have read through Genesis so many times in the sixty-eight years I have been a Christ-follower, I sometimes read these chapters automatically, even skimming through them.  I want this year to be a year of contemplation, thinking about what I read, not merely skimming. May this be a year of consistent focused feasting on the Word of God.  

 

“Your words were found, and I ate them, and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; For I am called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts.”  (Jeremiah 15:16)

 

                                                                        ~~Faith Himes Lamb

 

 

New Every Morning

 

I have pondered and pondered about what to write this week. I thought about making a list of suggestions for how to approach a new year. I considered inviting you to list your best ideas or some inspirational verses. But the truth is this: we have a book full of inspirational verses; we just need to read and obey it. We all have great ideas for how to make the new year the best it can be, to give ourselves motivation and incentive. (Can there really be any better incentive than that God wants us to love him and love others?)

No matter what I thought of, I kept coming back to this poem. I have probably shared it before and may do so again. It’s worth a re-read. I hope you take it to heart.

New Every Morning
Susan Coolidge

Every morn is the world made new.
You who are weary of sorrow and sinning,
Here is a beautiful hope for you,—
A hope for me and a hope for you.

All the past things are past and over;
The tasks are done and the tears are shed.
Yesterday’s errors let yesterday cover;
Yesterday’s wounds, which smarted and bled,
Are healed with the healing which night has shed.

Yesterday now is a part of forever,
Bound up in a sheaf, which God holds tight,
With glad days, and sad days, and bad days, which never
Shall visit us more with their bloom and their blight,
Their fulness of sunshine or sorrowful night.

Let them go, since we cannot re-live them,
Cannot undo and cannot atone;
God in his mercy receive, forgive them!
Only the new days are our own;
To-day is ours, and to-day alone.

Here are the skies all burnished brightly,
Here is the spent earth all re-born,
Here are the tired limbs springing lightly
To face the sun and to share with the morn
In the chrism of dew and the cool of dawn.

Every day is a fresh beginning;
Listen, my soul, to the glad refrain,
And, spite of old sorrow and older sinning,
And puzzles forecasted and possible pain,
Take heart with the day, and begin again.

Happy New Day, Friends!

--Sherry Poff