Would you be satisfied?

John Piper once said something to the effect of:

Would you be satisfied to go to heaven, have everybody there in your family that you want there, have all the health and restoration of your prime, and everything you disliked about yourself fixed, have every recreation you've ever dreamed available to you, and have infinite resources and money to spend, would you be satisfied... If God weren't there?

Would you be satisfied if God weren't there?

That's a question that hits most people right between the eyes, myself included. Perhaps a different way of phrasing it is would you be satisfied if only God were there?

Most today would not be able to answer these questions as we ought. Do we love God as we ought, or do we love ourselves, our families, our money, our health more than our Creator?

God's love is such that through the death of His own Son, He works in us by His Spirit so that we no longer feel loved by our self deification that makes much of us. We come to realize that such is a cheap imitation of love. We then start feeling loved in the way we were created to feel loved, by glorifying God and making much of Him in all we do forever.

Is God enough? Ought we to answer as the Psalmist did?

Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
- Psalm 73:25-26

Such should be the prayer of our hearts; that we might say that without God I am never be satisfied and only with Him am I whole! Jesus is my portion! Jesus is my all! My strength will fail me. My heart will deceive me. My friends and family may abandon me. I will be laughed at and scorned by men yet I am more than conqueror through Him who loves me! God is my strength and portion! Christ is my life! So long as He enables me I will glorify Him because He is worthy!

Think about it.
Grace and peace.

Why do I so often fail.

Often I wonder what if. What if I had been better, what if I had "prayed harder," what if I had presented the Gospel in a way that they were more ready to receive it? The clear answer is that which John the Baptist said, "He must increase, but I must decrease." Oh how the good book helps us and leads us to peace.

It is "neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth." - 1 Corinthians 3:7

To do all that I can I must have faith that God may call those whom I love that are lost to repentance all the while if that is not His purpose saying, thy will be done. While I might intercede and plea to God for them without the Father drawing power by the Holy Spirit to Christ they will never come. Therefore even though I as Paul and Moses before him might seek to be accursed and set apart from Christ for the sake of my beloved friends I must learn to trust their salvation to Christ alone, that they might see the err of their ways and the foolishness of their wisdom. God please grant me the courage to change that which I can, the serenity to accept that which I cannot, and the wisdom to know the difference. This is how I must live, doing everything I can and trusting God to do what I cannot, sleeping in the sovereign grace to know that He works all things for the good of those who love Him.

I make success and create disaster; said the LORD.

"I form light and create darkness, I make success and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things."
Isaiah 45:7

These words have never rang more true to the students at the campus of Union University than last night. At around 7:07 PM on February 5, 2008 a massive tornado ran through the campus tearing the roof off of Jennings Hall and destroying many of the dorms, in a word disaster. And this evil was not like the evil of terrorists bombing buildings but was from nature itself, leaving many to wonder where God was in this. How could God allow something so evil to happen? How could He allow some of His blessed children to be hurt and trapped for hours, where were you God?

The answer lies in the center of the storm, because we know that nothing comes to pass without our Father in Heaven knowing about it, for the LORD Himself creates disasters to call people to Him according to His good purpose. Jesus said “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” Where are you God is the wrong question to be asking, the question we should be asking is God how are you going to work this for the good of those who love you? You promised you would in Your word, oh God, that you would never leave us nor forsake us, how will this work for your Glory and our benefit.

If we truly believe that the LORD is sovereign then how are we to deny that He was the author of this storm and using it for His glory and praise. We should be asking ourselves if we truly trust Him as supreme in all things. For even through the disaster we must humbly, for we are humbled by His awesome power, fall before Him and give Him all glory in this trial that He might increase our faith remembering “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” Please Father reign in the aftermath of this storm and rain down blessings and grace on those who You will because You are in control.

Grace and Peace.

The Lamentation of My Heart.

I agree with scripture, unfortunately it in a way makes me mad at God. Actually I am mad at myself for not understanding God, His ways, methods, timing, just Him. He loves those who He chooses to love and allows others to walk into hell because He chooses not to save them. This makes me extremely fearful because if the will of God is such that He did not choose those whom I love to be part of His flock then why did He choose me to be a member among them knowing it would break my heart to see them lost and knowing that there is absolutely nothing I nor anyone can in essence accomplish to save them. If He chose not to then they are forever lost and if He chose them to be part of His flock why have they not come when they hear His voice. I know the power of the Holy Spirit can over come all resistances man can make in their sinful state, I know that if God wills a man or woman to come to Him, while that can be resisted and indeed will be in our sinful state He is powerful enough to show them the right choice, and once they see it they will not be able to choose another because of the Glory that is God. I know I am being like the pot of Romans 9 yet in this state of flesh I cannot help it. It seems through the tears my broken heart is crying both "Why God" and "Blessed be Your Holy Name." It is praising the Lord for saving me, yet it would seem I am also inclined to scream that He shouldn't have chosen me and forsaken the ones I love. It is almost as if the more I know Him the more I love Him and want to know Him yet at the same time in the same way it almost makes me want to hate Him. It makes me question why a God who is Love would not love everyone because it is written "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." I am completely aware that the boldness of the statement is not that He hated Esau for Esau was a sinner but rather it was the peculiar thing about it is that He loved Jacob, whom by all accounts of men would have been considered a worse sinner than Esau. As such I too according to men seem to be a worse sinner than many of those whom I love and for this reason I cannot understand why God chose me for His own when there were so many better options out there. Oh the wonderful unconditional grace of God yet my heart laments for those whom I love that have no knowledge of Him. There is but one thing to do, and that is continue to share the good news of Christ, God in the Flesh, with them that perhaps in God's own time their eyes might be opened to the light, yet as it stands and from where my blurred vision rests I cannot see, I am a blind beggar that is simply praying for the lost whom I love every second, out of selfishness, because of love. Yet I know God works all things for His Glory, Show me Your Glory oh Lord that I too may understand why these things happen. Praise be the name of the Lord because He is Holy and wholly worthy of all praise, He gives and He takes away, He confounds the wise and allows the fools to see, Blessed be His Glorious Name. May He work in me to make me a fool for Him, for if I am wise I will never understand yet if I am made as a Child I may yet know. Praise be to God Most High, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus Christ.