For Today?

 "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." Hebrews 13:8....."Is your Bible a 'Not For Today' version?" Jack Hayford

Hayford's question is one that should cause considerable squirming when we're confronted with it. How do we view what's contained in His Word? Things we say we believe, do we really believe them? Do we, as one person asked, "believe the God we say we believe in?"

We believe in miracles. We believe in His promises. We believe in the abundant life He gives. We believe in all of it...but so often, it seems to be in the past tense. We know He's done it all before, we stagger at the promise that He's still doing it all today. We struggle mightily to believe the God we say we believe in.

The reasons for this are seemingly endless. A great part is that we have come to depend so greatly upon rational thinking and logic. We depend upon our natural senses. Most of all, we depend upon what natural science says is impossible. That's our greatest problem I think. We depend so much more upon what's "natural" to us that we just can't seem to believe in the One who is beyond all natural explanations. Our supernatural God in 3 Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

I think much of the professing western church has removed a great deal of the mystery of Almighty God. We have invested huge amounts of energy trying to explain Him, defend Him, and justify Him to an unbelieving world. We miss completely the fact that we can never adequately explain  the One who will always at root be unexplainable. We're finite beings and He's an infinite God. The beauty here though is that to those who will truly believe in Him, who seek, above all things to know Him, He will reveal so much that is a mystery to us. He wants to be known. By His grace, He invites us to pursue Him. As His Word promises, He reveals the hidden things. Things we only can know through intimacy with Him.

So often, Jesus prefaced His miracles with the question, "Do you believe that I can do this?" In the midst of your deepest need, your most crushing situation, your most desperate place, how do you answer this? Someone said that we all believe in His miracles, but few of us ever want to be in the place where we need one. Are you in the place of needing one? 

I will never promote a "miracle on demand" belief system. He is Sovereign, and all that He does and how and when He does it is in His hands, but in over 45 years of walking with Him, I have beheld so many of His wondrous works. I have discovered some small part of the mystery of who He is. There is so much more to know, and I believe I, we, will spend eternity discovering ever more of Him. May we not miss any of the journey of discovery in the here and now. The glory that Moses beheld on Sinai, that the disciples looked upon in Jesus, that they saw in His resurrected body, can still be known and experienced today....if we'll but believe. If you're reading this, I expect that you believe in Him. Do you believe the God you say you believe in? I expect you also have some translated version of the Bible. Is yours a Not For Today version? Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Is He really that for you? He invites you into a lifetime, an eternity of discovery. Are you coming?

Blessings,

Pastor O