Category Archives: Uncategorized

Uncategorized

God with a big "G"

Leave a comment
Judy McCarver May 31 at 7:14pm
1 Consider the idea that unmet expectations are the root of our disappointments, sadness, and our unhappiness. The truth we find in scripture is that only God can truly meet all of our expectations and emotional needs. That we indeed “live for an audience of One.” Neither our spouses, our parents, siblings, or closest friends are capable of meeting our deepest needs. Only God.

To that end, we read Psalm 19:12-13

These verses illustrate the inability of others to do for us what only God to can do for us? After all, who but God can forgive us our sins, and who but God can see our hidden faults, our hidden hurts, those things that go unsaid? Only the One for whom we live and by whom we were created. No person can do this for us.

2 We then ask ourselves the question, “Do I serve a God with a capital “G” or a little “g?” Many people believe in God and even call themselves Christians, yet they have a very limited scope of what their “god” can do for them? Do we believe that we serve the God, the Alpha and the Omega, the Creator of the universe who is interested in all the details of our lives, or do we believe that we serve a “god,” who is not concerned with the details of our lives? Or perhaps a “god” who does transform the lives of others, but never mine?

1 Samuel 17:32-37 tells a great story of two men, one of whom served “God,” father of the Israelite Nation, the “Almighty God.” The other served “gods,” with a little “g.” The men were David, a young boy perhaps at the time not even 16 years old, and his opponent and enemy of the nation of Israel, Goliath-in David’s words, “The uncircumcised Philistine who dares to defy the armies of the living God.”

Reread this story. Start seeing yourself as the child of the Almighty God, the same one who was with David when he took down the Philistine Giant. Yes, the same one.

This is the God to whom we pray when we pray.

What God do you serve? “God” with a capital “G?” or “god,” with a little “g?”

3 Philippians 4:19 says that “MY God will meet all your needs according to His riches in Glory.”

Now we have come full circle-back to where we started! Disappointment and Unmet Expectations.

According to this verse, it is indeed God who will supply all of our need- and how? “According to His riches in Glory.”

So the next time you feel frustrated, sad or disappointed, look to the Almighty God who created you who meets all your needs, “according to His riches in Glory.” And remember when you pray, you are praying to the Almighty God. You can look at the world with all of its problems and with all the darts that are thrown your way, and you can say what David said “That’s all you’ve got?” (I love this) Literally he said to Goliath, “you come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.” Essentially, he was saying to Goliath, “That’s all you’ve got?” The next time you enter into that holy place with your God in prayer, remember you are stepping into the arms and the wing of the living God and you are coming against the world’s javelins and spears with the presence and power of the Almighty God. We are more than conquerers.

Uncategorized

Amazing, Uncontainable, Irrefutable Grace Part 2 Remove the Mask

Leave a comment

Some weeks I really stink at parenting. I mean really I totally miss the mark. I yell. I am overly critical. I don’t pay attention when I should. There are likewise times when I really stink at being a wife. I miss opportunities to encourage my husband. I am not there for him at critical moments. I am overly concerned with being “right,” and stomp on his feelings in the process. I have to work on this daily. I must daily hand my spiritual and emotional struggles over to God, my creator, my Father, the one, who through a supreme sacrifice has extended me far more grace than I deserve. But when I do, oh the joy that God’s love affords me. 

What I have done in these first few lines is essentially removed my “mask” for you. Not in a way that is offensive or tells you more than you need to know, but in a way that is real and authentic. Sometimes people just need to hear this from Christians. That is to say, we need to be willing, when it is appropriate, to self-disclose. In their book, True Faced, Trust God and Others with who You Really Are, the authors (Bill Thrall, Bruce McNicol, and John Lynch) offer a beautiful metaphor of our walk with Christ. This wonderful book illustrates two paths for Christians. One is the path of pleasing God. The other is the Path of trusting God. When we take the path of Pleasing God, our walk with Christ becomes all about Self-Effort. “The path of pleasing God becomes, what must I do to keep God pleased with me?” In short, this path hinders us from being vulnerable, and it precludes sharing with others our struggles, heartaches, and our sins. This path calls for us to maintain a façade of “I have it all together because if I don’t, I can’t please God.” The focus is on trying our best not to sin in an effort to make ourselves presentable to God. The other path of Trusting God leads us to “The Room of Grace.” Outside the room hangs a sign, which says, “Living out Who God says I am.” The difference between the two lies in the chasm between our own personal effort and God’s work in us. When we journey down the path of trusting God, we embrace who we already are in God. Genesis tells us that God created man in His own image. We are fashioned after our Creator. This completely agrees with John 1 that tell us we are children of God, “children born not of natural descent nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God!” We were born into a divine family of unconditional love and acceptance to begin with. We don’t have to earn that position any more than we should have to earn such a position in our earthly families. Yet, we pour our efforts into trying to make ourselves perfect so that we can be accepted by our Father. Yet Hebrews 12 is very clear that Jesus is “the author and perfecter of our faith.” Apart from Him, we cannot perfect anything. We can’t get it right on our own. This doesn’t mean that sin is suddenly of no consequence. It doesn’t mean that God is “soft” on sin. Just the opposite. Remember it means that we are “living out who God says I am.” God is the one who says we are His, that we are Holy, that we are set apart. It is for us to live these truths out in our lives-how? With exercising humility and trusting God that indeed we are who He says we are. 

Okay, so what is the harm of going down the path of “pleasing God?” Just this: First of all, it will always leave us discontented and disillusioned. Our own efforts will simply NEVER be good enough. The attempt will leave us empty and void of the joy that God intended for us. It only follows that our relationships with family and friends and neighbors will suffer in kind. Secondly, we lose people along the way. We lose others who need Christ. People who might come to know a God who is forgiving and merciful. (Psalm 103:1-17) People who might come to know a Father who believes that they are the “apple of His eye.” (Psalm 17:8 and Zechariah 2:8) But why would anyone want a Savior who is only interested in his or her performance? When unbelievers see us working so hard and so painfully to please our Father in heaven, it is far more likely that they will pity us than envy us. In the postmodern culture wherein we live, the art of self-deception and superficial living is in no short supply. Both unbelievers and new Christians need to see Believers who are mature in Christ. That is to say, believers who are the “real deal,” open and authentic. Believers who are “living out who God says they are.” So that “others being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3)

Remember my struggles I mentioned at the beginning of this devo? I will never ever forget years ago, I had been married for less than 5 years, and I had a big argument with my husband that morning (a Sunday.) I was really struggling emotionally. At church that morning, I spoke with a very matriarchal woman who I admired and trusted. I explained to her how I felt and the frustration in the discourse that morning between my husband and I. She immediately said to me, “Oh my husband and I have never argued. Over the years I have learned to…..” And I tuned her out after that. I vaguely remember my response to her being “congratulations.” And I walked away. She had a unique opportunity to mentor a younger woman in her marriage, to hold her accountable, yet also share personally with her in a way that might make that young woman (me) a better wife and mother. On the contrary, she chose to maintain the façade of the perfect wife. I didn’t believe it that day, and I don’t believe it today. Truly, rather than helping me through my trial, that encounter left me empty. When we are unwilling to be vulnerable as Christians, we foster the attitude in others, “I must be the only one who……” And certainly, this encounter did nothing to point me toward Christ. 

Well, there are a lot of things wrong with me (how long do you really have?) But God doesn’t make junk. He wants us to live out who we already are in HIM. And when we do this, we are compelled to remove the mask and show people who we really are. That is to say, we are not sinners trying on our own to stop sinning. Rather, we are sinners, “standing with God, with our sin in front of us, working on it together.” (True Faced). 

The author says, “We will never please God in our efforts to become Godly. Rather we will only please God-and become Godly-when we TRUST God.” And to this can I here a BIG AMEN?