"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." Hosea 4:6
I heard a woman named Susie Larson share 3 reasons why the people of God are lacking Holy Spirit power in their lives. That this is so cannot be denied. We, the professing church, do not seem to be any more successful in dealing with life's problems and needs than the unbelieving culture around us. This is completely contrary to God's will for us. We're to be overcomers in Jesus Christ, and that is the problem. Too much of our life is lived outside of the consciousness and presence of Christ. Larson gave three reasons for the demise of the victorious lifestyle of a believer. All of them center on the loss of our sense of awe at the works and character of God.
The first is that we, like the people of Israel, have lost our sense of awe and wonder at the miracles and works of God. We believe in miracles, but we rarely believe in them for ourselves. We have lost our sense of anticipation that He will work, and He will work in miraculous ways. We've either become so hardened in this that we miss the miracles He has wrought in our lives or simply forget them because we've failed to honor and glorify Him for them. May each of us begin to dwell and meditate upon all the wonders He has worked in our lives. May we go back with Him and remember the places where He intervened in an impossible situation, brought healing, deliverance, or provision. May we remember and give Him the glory. And may we repent and seek forgiveness for forgetting it all in the first place.
Secondly, we need to have a sense of awe and wonder at the abundance of mercies that He has bestowed upon us. Scripture says that His mercies are "new every morning," and that is something that I have begun expressing daily gratitude for. His mercy to me grows more amazing as I think upon how deep, high, and wide it is....and how totally undeserving of His mercies I am. All of us are, yet He lavishes His mercy and forgiveness upon us. Think of all the places in your life He's done that....and worship Him there.
The first is that we, like the people of Israel, have lost our sense of awe and wonder at the miracles and works of God. We believe in miracles, but we rarely believe in them for ourselves. We have lost our sense of anticipation that He will work, and He will work in miraculous ways. We've either become so hardened in this that we miss the miracles He has wrought in our lives or simply forget them because we've failed to honor and glorify Him for them. May each of us begin to dwell and meditate upon all the wonders He has worked in our lives. May we go back with Him and remember the places where He intervened in an impossible situation, brought healing, deliverance, or provision. May we remember and give Him the glory. And may we repent and seek forgiveness for forgetting it all in the first place.
Secondly, we need to have a sense of awe and wonder at the abundance of mercies that He has bestowed upon us. Scripture says that His mercies are "new every morning," and that is something that I have begun expressing daily gratitude for. His mercy to me grows more amazing as I think upon how deep, high, and wide it is....and how totally undeserving of His mercies I am. All of us are, yet He lavishes His mercy and forgiveness upon us. Think of all the places in your life He's done that....and worship Him there.
Last, we need to have a sense of awe and wonder over His goodness. There are times I just stop and become overwhelmed at how good He has been to me. I've never deserved it and in fact, deserved anything but His goodness, yet He poured out His goodness upon me. That saying we use is so true, "God is good, all the time, and all the time, God is good." Nowhere is His goodness seen more clearly than in the giving of His Son to all who would believe upon Him.
These are three simple but powerful remembrances that need to be fresh and new in our lives each day. If they're not, then we may expect what befell the nation of Israel to come upon us as well...that we perish. If not literally, then most certainly spiritually. May our personal experience and knowledge of the miraculous wonder of God, of His infinite mercies, and of His neverending goodness fill our hearts and minds. If so, I believe, as Scripture promises, that we will see the glory of the Lord in the land of the living.
Blessings,
Pastor O
Blessings,
Pastor O
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