The most important promises in our lives are ones that God has made to us. He promises to forgive our sins, to never fail or forsake us, to lift us up when we are bowed down, to lead us in the way of truth and life. But many of God’s promises are conditional. Their fulfillment depends not on God’s desire to keep his promises, but on our responses to them.
Ann Spangler shared Moms in Prayer - Michigan's photo.
Moms in Prayer is a terrific group! I was privileged to address their state convention in Grand Rapids, MI last Saturday. What a joy!
Dallas Willard points out that spiritual formation happens to everyone, whether or not they know it. He also points out two important truths: first, that all of us are more ruined than we think, and second, that all of us have more potential for goodness and glory than we think.
Because he is perfect, God is already everything he should be. He can’t devolve, even for a moment, which means it’s impossible for him to lose perspective or control.
Instead of hoping and waiting for God to change, we should admit that we are the ones who need to be different.
When you magnify something, you make it look bigger. Since it’s impossible to make God any bigger than he is, magnifying him means focusing on him in a way that enables others to perceive his immensity and greatness.
Thank you, Biblegateway for this great conversation about #TheRescueBook: "Every time I went to Brooklyn to interview people, I felt more in awe of God. I realized even more than in the past that God deeply loves every person on the planet. I also realized that beneath the circumstances that try to define who we are—rich or poor, emotionally happy or deeply wounded, healthy or mired in some kind of addiction—we’re not that different. We’re all broken people in need of Christ’s saving power." Read or listen here: https://bit.ly/2GxvUhi
When life is intractably hard, it helps to recall the immensity of God, to remember that it is when we are weakest that God can show himself strongest.
Jesus came into our unstable, fallen world, with the sole purpose of transforming our relationship with God and others. In this sense, change is our only hope.
Because God is already everything he should be, his nature and his will are unchanging, immutable...the unchangeable nature of his character assures us that he can always be relied on. He is the rock upon which we stand.
A reader sent me this from Barnes & Noble--thank you for picking up #TheRescueBook there. https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-rescue-jim…/1126606181…
"This little cheap god we’ve made up….isn’t the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He isn’t the God who laid the foundations of the heaven and the earth; he’s some other god.” A.W. Tozer
Ask God to bless you with the best translator in the world--the Holy Spirit who can help you consider God’s word and apply it to your life.
The “if you loved me” habit can erode our sense of how good God has already been to us and how his goodness will ultimately triumph in our lives.
"If you stretch out your hand and put it into God’s hand, the plan that he’s had for you since the beginning of time—the plan that only you can live out—will come into being and you will know joy and freedom."
Read Toni’s story (+6 more) in #TheRescueBook - http://bit.ly/TheRescueBook
"No matter how painful your story has been, or how much shame you might be hiding from yourself and others, God is strong and loving enough to deal with it. He’s also creative enough to use eve...rything—even the worst things—to accomplish his good purposes. If you let him, he will turn your life into a story that you will cherish, just as my son Ruben and I cherish ours today. We call it not “my story” but “our story” because of how God has blessed us both despite the difficult way in which Ruben was conceived and came into the world. The only question you have to answer right now is this: Who will you trust with the life you’ve been given? What kind of story will be yours?" ~Toni
#HeRescuedMe #HopeForMe
