Posts Tagged ‘God’s Will’

So as we are in this time of elections and our nation’s governing body is seeing turnover (or maybe that word should be turmoil) and seats changing parties and so forth, this can lead itself to some pretty heated discussions over politics and what one thinks should be done or what one thinks is wrong and who’s fault that is.

Now I know that this all is important and in the current state of our country’s debt no doubt we need to be smart and make wise decisions, however I am not one to be a huge political activist.  I hold true to some core values in my political beliefs and if a candidate is outside of those there is nothing that can be said or done to gain my vote.  I know this is a limited viewpoint, none the less it is mine.

But this is radically different with my beliefs on scripture and on the what, when, why”s”, and etc. that God has put before us.  I am very passionate and very much one that would sit and discuss my beliefs and am always looking for an intelligent dissection of scripture that might be a revelation from God.   But how far would we really go?  How far does our lip service of surrender to Jesus really go?

If you are a steady follower of this blog then you know that one of my passions is “The Church”.  What our task is, what we should look like, how we should act, etc.  so when I saw this quote this past Sunday in Church I had to research and read more about the author.  I thought the expression was very profound so I want to take a second to share it with you and then share a little bit about the author with you (I will also give you a link so that you can do a little more research your self.)

So here is the quote:

“Church is defined as those who are persecuted and martyrdom for the Gospel’s sake”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Now that you have seen the quote let me share a few brief details with you about his life and then give you the link to read more. He was born in Breslau Germany in 1906.  He came to America in the 1930′s to do a post graduate study in pursuit of his doctorate.  He went to seminary and became a key speaker for the German people to not fall into a worship of Hitler and to remain true to their faith.  Two days after Hitler was put into power Dietrich went on the radio to denounce Hitler and warn his fellow Germans against this tyranny.   He was later imprisoned and eventually executed.  But Here is what is profound!  This is what was said about him by one of the employees of the concentration camp that he was being imprisoned at.

The camp doctor who witnessed the execution wrote: “I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer … kneeling on the floor praying fervently to God. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of execution, he again said a short prayer and then climbed the few steps to the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds. In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.”

Will we go that far?  Will we follow Christ all the way through the gallows (whether that is figuratively or physically) with the quiet heart of submission.  If you have been a Christian very long and if you have ever taken any role of leadership you understand the struggles and joys that go along with serving.  And there will (if it has not already) come a time when you will have to look your faith in the face and say “God, how far do you expect me to go?’  and His response will be “I asked my own Son to go to the Cross, now how about you just …?”

The point being this, when the time of persecution, trial, or assassination comes (and it will come) will you fight and kick and scream or will you go as Pastor Bonhoeffer did fervently and submissively in prayer?  Thus, allowing God to have complete control and the ability to mold and chisel in your life where He sees fit.

REAL EASY TO TYPE…real hard to live through!

God Bless~
Pastor Tyler

I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church . . . —Colossians 1:24

I wonder what finger and thumb God has been using to squeeze you? Have you been as hard as a marble and escaped? If you are not ripe yet, and if God had squeezed you anyway, the wine produced would have been remarkably bitter. To be a holy person means that the elements of our natural life experience the very presence of God as they are providentially broken in His service. We have to be placed into God and brought into agreement with Him before we can be broken bread in His hands. Stay right with God and let Him do as He likes, and you will find that He is producing the kind of bread and wine that will benefit His other children.

We take our own spiritual consecration and try to make it into a call of God, but when we get right with Him He brushes all this aside. Then He gives us a tremendous, riveting pain to fasten our attention on something that we never even dreamed could be His call for us. And for one radiant, flashing moment we see His purpose, and we say, “Here am I! Send me” (Isaiah 6:8).

This call has nothing to do with personal sanctification, but with being made broken bread and poured-out wine. Yet God can never make us into wine if we object to the fingers He chooses to use to crush us. We say, “If God would only use His own fingers, and make me broken bread and poured-out wine in a special way, then I wouldn’t object!” But when He uses someone we dislike, or some set of circumstances to which we said we would never submit, to crush us, then we object. Yet we must never try to choose the place of our own martyrdom. If we are ever going to be made into wine, we will have to be crushed—you cannot drink grapes. Grapes become wine only when they have been squeezed.

Now, the decision that you have is to determine if you are in a place that God has complete control.  Have you surrendered Lordship today?   Today?, you ask, sure today.  This is something that we as humans struggle with everyday.  In every decision that you make are you/we going to surrender to what God’s will/thoughts/decisions/purpose would be for us?  You may have done a great job of surrendering yesterday but what about today?  Are you serving yourself or are you serving Christ?  Are you glorifying yourself or Christ?  Are you a hard unripe grape that is not allowing yourself to be used or are you a grape that is ready to be made into wine to be poured out into peoples lives so that they can see Christ through you.

I just did not have the words this morning so I am going to do something that I normally don’t do.  I am going to simply put my devotion reading this morning up so that you can read it and let it speak to you.  For me it was just to much of where I am for me to speak on it.  I pray that God will speak to you out of it.

Jerusalem, in the life of our Lord, represents the place where He reached the culmination of His Father’s will. Jesus said, “I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me” ( John 5:30 ). Seeking to do “the will of the Father” was the one dominating concern throughout our Lord’s life. And whatever He encountered along the way, whether joy or sorrow, success or failure, He was never deterred from that purpose. “. . . He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem . . .” ( Luke 9:51  ).

The greatest thing for us to remember is that we go up to Jerusalem to fulfill God’s purpose, not our own. In the natural life our ambitions are our own, but in the Christian life we have no goals of our own. We talk so much today about our decisions for Christ, our determination to be Christians, and our decisions for this and that, but in the New Testament the only aspect that is brought out is the compelling purpose of God. “You did not choose Me, but I chose you . . .” ( John 15:16  ).

We are not taken into a conscious agreement with God’s purpose— we are taken into God’s purpose with no awareness of it at all. We have no idea what God’s goal may be; as we continue, His purpose becomes even more and more vague. God’s aim appears to have missed the mark, because we are too nearsighted to see the target at which He is aiming. At the beginning of the Christian life, we have our own ideas as to what God’s purpose is. We say, “God means for me to go over there,” and, “God has called me to do this special work.” We do what we think is right, and yet the compelling purpose of God remains upon us. The work we do is of no account when compared with the compelling purpose of God. It is simply the scaffolding surrounding His work and His plan. “He took the twelve aside . . .” ( Luke 18:31  ). God takes us aside all the time. We have not yet understood all there is to know of the compelling purpose of God.

God Bless ~ Pastor Tyler