Celebrating God’s Mighty Acts

Posted on by korgrocker

“You will wipe their children from the face of the earth; they will never have descendants. Although they plot against you, their evil schemes will never succeed. For they will turn and run when they see your arrows aimed at them. Rise up, O Lord, in all your power. With music and singing we celebrate your mighty acts.”
Psalm 21:10-13 NLT

If there is ever a time in history when we need God to “rise up” in all His power, it is today. We look around at the world and see the wars, not just in a physical sense, but also in the sphere of global macro-economics. We see the misery of people stuck in a hopeless cycle of drug and alcohol addiction. We read about the people who want to end their lives because living doesn’t appeal to them anymore. We see the tragedy of unborn babies being eliminated in the name of women’s health. But I expect many in our past have called upon God to rise up in power. What prayers and cries to God were going up during the last world war? What were relatives praying when their loved ones were dying in the Covid pandemic? What about the times when untreatable sicknesses were rife in Victorian days? And all the way back to David’s day and beyond, there were crises, one after another, when people cried out to God for help. And how many people are suffering today, persecuted and abused just for believing in God? Part of living in an evil and sinful world is the reality that there will be times of difficulty, misery, pain, and hopelessness. But having written all of this, there is hope. David finished Psalm 21 with the words, “With music and singing we celebrate your mighty acts”. That implies that there were, and are, times when God does act. In fact, I am sure that God is holding back most of the evil that is poised, waiting to be unleashed on a helpless world full of God’s creation, evil that the devil and his assistants are concocting to bring unbearable misery. 

When God created the earth and all that is upon it, He said it was good. All that we perceive as evil just wasn’t there, but a Heavenly being, an angel called Lucifer, or Satan, rebelled against God and had to be removed from Heaven, which is the sinless domain where God lives. Unfortunately, the angels are immortal beings so there was only one other place that the rebellious angels could go and that was Planet Earth. Isaiah 14:12, “How you are fallen from heaven, O shining star, son of the morning! You have been thrown down to the earth, you who destroyed the nations of the world“. And so there is a struggle between how God created us, good and perfect, and the devil and all his evil ways, that has resulted in a world tainted with sin. Many of David’s Psalms portray the struggle that has resulted. But in it all, David was close to the Lord, and could testify to the mighty acts of God worked out in his life during his reign as king of Israel. 

In our lives today, we pilgrims too can testify to the mighty acts of God. The first is the act of redemption and atonement that God Himself brought right down to Planet Earth. An act of love and compassion never before seen, and it will never again occur. It was a once only event, a time when Heaven and earth, the spiritual and the natural, collided and one that signed the death warrant for the devil and all his schemes. The devil thought that by bringing about the crucifixion and death of God’s only Son, Jesus, he would finally win the war between Good and Evil, but how wrong he was. There is now a conduit between earth and Heaven that allows human beings to escape from his clutches. Yes, we pilgrims are still living in a world of evil and sin, even to the point where we too are entangled in sinful ways, but as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, we have been set free and we are assured forgiveness and redemption through Jesus. 

We pilgrims can also sing and praise God for His “mighty acts” in the way He has brought about events in our own lives. I can personally testify to many occasions when God has come through for me and my family, as we trusted Him for direction and favour in a time of crisis. And I’m sure my readers also have their own stories of how God has blessed them. And so together we can celebrate His “mighty acts” with singing and music. There is no God like our God. Who else is there who can pour out on us so much love and compassion? Who else can forgive us for our sins and bring us ultimately to our Heavenly home? Who else is there who can wipe away our tears and heal our diseases? But even in times when it appears the doors of Heaven are shut and our prayers bounce back unheeded, we can stand firm as Habakkuk did when he wrote, “Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vines; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the fields, and the cattle barns are empty, yet I will rejoice in the Lord! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!” (Habakkuk 3:17-18). We know that the battles waging around us will ebb and flow, but we are certain, as Jesus said, ” … the one who stands firm to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24:13). In the meantime we will sing and make music in honour, and to the glory, of the One who has performed “mighty acts”.

Dear Father God. You and only You are the One who loves and cares for us and our souls. We worship You with grateful hearts today. Amen.

Mere Mortals

Posted on by korgrocker

“what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them? Yet you made them only a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honour.”
Psalm 8:4-5 NLT

Was David elevating himself above his station in life when he declared that mankind has been “made only a little lower then God”? The NIV translation reads, “You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honour”, but it seems the original Hebrew does in fact say “God”. There are many differences between human beings and God. In fact, the gulf is so great that it is almost mutually exclusive. God is Spirit, mankind is physical. Two different kingdoms, but there is a link between God and man, as there is between a Creator and His creation. Isaiah wrote about the connection between a potter and the pots he was making. “How foolish can you be? He is the Potter, and he is certainly greater than you, the clay! Should the created thing say of the one who made it, “He didn’t make me”? Does a jar ever say, “The potter who made me is stupid”?” (Isaiah 29:16). Paul took up this theme in Romans 9, “ … Who are you, a mere human being, to argue with God? Should the thing that was created say to the one who created it, “Why have you made me like this?” When a potter makes jars out of clay, doesn’t he have a right to use the same lump of clay to make one jar for decoration and another to throw garbage into?” (Romans 9:20-21).

There is of course perhaps a degree of relativity here, with human beings having intelligence far above that of an earthworm, for example, and the ability to be creators in their own right. Just look around us and we see many “potters” making their own “pots”. Each one of us is able to create something from the materials we have to hand. And of course we all know someone who sets themselves up as a “god” in their environment, be it the workplace or their local neighbourhood. But the fact remains that David wrote something that, superficially at least, seems to be incorrect. How could human beings be a “little lower” than God?

Perhaps David was writing something prophetic about what was to come. If we turn to Hebrews 2:9 we read, “What we do see is Jesus, who for a little while was given a position “a little lower than the angels”; and because he suffered death for us, he is now “crowned with glory and honour.” Yes, by God’s grace, Jesus tasted death for everyone”. Paul wrote in Romans 8:29, “For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters”. Through our connection with Jesus, and amazingly how bizarre it sounds, we have the potential within us to join Him in His status as being a “little lower than God“. In our positions of being brothers and sisters of Jesus we have within us unlimited possibilities to do God’s work. Have we really got our minds around what Paul write in Ephesians 3:20, “Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think“? It is this potential for accomplishment that is possible because of His power, and our willingness to serve and be obedient to Him, that challenges me. Does this elevate us pilgrims through faith to a position a “little lower than God“? God said it can. Do we believe Him?

Dear Father God. In You we have enormous potential to do great things for You. Stir us up, we pray, to violate our human thinking and replace it with Your thoughts. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Jesus’ Authority

Posted on by korgrocker

“Then Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up. “There’s a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that with this huge crowd?” “Tell everyone to sit down,” Jesus said. So they all sat down on the grassy slopes. (The men alone numbered about 5,000.)”
John 6:8-10 NLT

There were many people in that crowd. John recorded that there were five thousand men, so we can perhaps multiply this number by as much as four to obtain an estimate of the number of men, women and children, present. These were all people mostly from the surrounding towns and villages, and they had all come to see Jesus, the miracle worker sent by God. We don’t know how far they had travelled, but it was sufficient for Jesus to be concerned about their return journeys. What were these people expecting from Jesus? Was it to be entertained? Perhaps they were attracted, as people are today, to something “magic” (although of course there is nothing remotely similar between a deception and Jesus’ miracles). Did the people genuinely want to hear more about God and His Kingdom? Were they sick and wanted to ask Jesus to heal them? Or were they just curious and had nothing else on that day? Probably all of the above, but regardless, here they were in Jesus’ presence, and as Andrew noted, they made up a “huge crowd”. In Mark 6:34, there is a similar account of what happened that day, and we read, “Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things” (Mark 6:34). 

The next thing that happened was that Jesus asked the disciples to do a bit of organising. “Then Jesus told the disciples to have the people sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of fifty or a hundred” (Mark 6:39-40). Just a small point, but it once again illustrates how Jesus planned carefully what He was about to do. There was no point in having a large crowd of people milling around. Children chasing each other and parents getting stressed wondering where they were. So, knowing where everyone was made sure that no-one was missed in the food distribution that was about to commence. But perhaps it was significant that the people obeyed what Jesus asked them to do. I have heard conference organisers describe the problem of getting people to do something together at a corporate event like herding cats. People tend to be independent and often uncooperative and can have a ”who is he telling me what to do” attitude. So to get everyone to sit down together in regimented groups was almost a miracle in itself. The Gospel writers don’t say what the expectations of all the people in the crowd were when they sat down, but they had probably come to realise that with Jesus around, miracles happen. 

That’s the issue though. With Jesus still around today through the Holy Spirit, what are our expectations? And because the Holy Spirit lives within us, surely we pilgrims can be personally involved with those expectations. Paul wrote to the Ephesians, “Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20). A challenging verse, but, nevertheless, what are we hoping to accomplish in God today? The God who fed a bunch of slaves for forty years, or, through His Son, a huge crowd sitting on grassy slopes on the Eastern side of Lake Galilee, can also do amazing things through us, can’t He? But will we allow Him to? Hmmm…

Dear Father God. It is so humbling to know and experience Your wonder-working power in our lives. We pray for the opportunities to do Your works as we go about Your business here on earth. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Divine Power

Posted on by korgrocker

“By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvellous glory and excellence.”
2 Peter 1:3 NLT

In the bustling chaos of our daily lives, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and drained. We often find ourselves juggling responsibilities, navigating challenges, and seeking fulfilment in a world that constantly demands more. Peter tantalisingly gives us the thought that regardless of how are lives are proceeding, it is possible to live a Godly life, because all the power we need is in God. It’s a power not constrained by our human limitations but one that encompasses everything we need for life and godliness. This divine empowerment isn’t arbitrary – God doesn’t sit on His throne with a sweety bag, throwing out handfuls of granny sookers at random – the availability of His Power is intricately related to our knowledge of God. As we delve into the depths of understanding Him, we unlock the reservoir of His power available to us.

The divine power available to us pilgrims isn’t limited to a specific area. It applies to every facet of our existence. From navigating relationships to overcoming personal struggles, the power we can access in God is available to us and covers the entirety of life’s spectrum. But what is this power? Paul wrote about it in Ephesians 1:19-20, “I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honour at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms“. 

So how can we access this limitless source of divine power? It is obviously a power that is far greater than anything we could imagine. And we know that from Ephesians 3:20, that His power is within us, “Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think“. Enticingly, we can do much with this power – the limitation seems to be our willingness to dream, to ask God, to believe that He is who He says He is, and wants to work much through our lives. This Divine resource comes from a deep, intimate knowledge of God that opens the floodgates of His power. This knowledge involves seeking Him through prayer, studying His Word, and cultivating a relationship that goes beyond surface-level understanding. 

For a moment let us journey back to Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth“. Then look at verses 3, 6, 9, 14, 20, 24, and 26. They all start with “Then God said…”. How much power did that take? Our amazing God spoke and something happened that was far beyond anything we can get our minds around. That’s divine power. In Romans 8:11 we read, “The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you“. That’s divine power. In Matthew 14 is the account of the feeding of the 5,000. We read, “Then he told the people to sit down on the grass. Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven, and blessed them. Then, breaking the loaves into pieces, he gave the bread to the disciples, who distributed it to the people. They all ate as much as they wanted, and afterward, the disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftovers. About 5,000 men were fed that day, in addition to all the women and children!” (Matthew 14:19-21). That’s divine power. And we can look at other Bible events and see the manifestations of God’s power, events often far beyond the ability of the authors to articulate what really happened. 

We pilgrims can do great works ourselves because Jesus said so. We read what He said in John 14:12, “I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father“. So is it too much to believe that God’s power is sufficient for “everything we need for living a godly life”? But we worry and fret. We’re anxious about the next pay check. We take our eyes off our God with all His resources of divine power. But no more. On our knees today we ask for His forgiveness and hold out our hands in supplication, in the knowledge that he wants to provide for His children. Through faith, all we need is available to us.

Dear Father. Thank You for Your provision, Your resources, Your limitless power. Please help us to tap into what we need day by day, and we ask that You keep us close to You. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Stand Firm

Posted on by korgrocker

“Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith. Remember that your family of believers all over the world is going through the same kind of suffering you are.”
1 Peter 5:8-9 NLT

We pilgrims are aware that the devil is on the prowl, and we are at our most vulnerable when we do something for God that is very visible in our families and communities. New Christians in particular are in the devil’s sights because, if he can, he will cause them so many problems that they give up almost straight away. Jesus taught about this in the parable of the sower, and, unusually, he explained it to His disciples. We read in Matthew 13:19-22, “The seed that fell on the footpath represents those who hear the message about the Kingdom and don’t understand it. Then the evil one comes and snatches away the seed that was planted in their hearts. The seed on the rocky soil represents those who hear the message and immediately receive it with joy. But since they don’t have deep roots, they don’t last long. They fall away as soon as they have problems or are persecuted for believing God’s word. The seed that fell among the thorns represents those who hear God’s word, but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the worries of this life and the lure of wealth, so no fruit is produced”. Notice that there are three categories of person who succumbs to the devil’s ploys. There are those whose spiritual eyes are blinded, preventing them from understanding the Good News. There are those who hear and understand it, but lack the perseverance to press through any difficulties that come their way. And there are those who get caught up with living in a certain way and pursue wealth to support their lifestyles. All methods that the devil uses to ensure a believer won’t cause him any difficulties.

The devil is very subtle in the way he tempts people. Look at the way he drew Eve away into sin. We read the story in Genesis 3, but the key opener was “Did God really say …?”  The devil will work with our human nature to birth sin in our lives, and there is that desperately sad verse at the end of Judges, “In those days Israel had no king; all the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes” (Judges 21:25). The same applies today, with people who have no moral compass, who lack God’s presence in their lives, and go on to live a life, debased by the devil and his evil lies. Their own twisted logic is influenced and matured by the devil, who devours them and then uses them for his own wicked ways.

We are not on our own in matters of temptation. Peter wrote that the “family of believers all over the world is going through the same kind of suffering” that they were. To the early believers, a very real temptation was to alleviate the suffering by renouncing their new-found faith. But Peter’s answer was for them to “stand firm” and “be strong in [their] faith”. The Apostle Paul wrote some great practical instructions for the Ephesian church. We read what he said in Ephesians 6. “A final word: Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on all of God’s armour so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil” (Ephesians 6:10-11). He explains in a little more detail some information about how the devil devours. “For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12).

Peter used the illustration of the devil prowling around but he has a whole contingent of “mighty powers”, and “evil spirits” all doing his bidding. We pilgrims need to be on our guard and constantly alert to those weak spots where the devil will find us the most vulnerable. We mustn’t forget that around us are other fellow believers who are fighting the same battles. So we pray for them and get them to pray for us. And we ask the Bible Author to show us the resources we need to help us in times of need.

Dear Father God. We pray again for Your help in our lives. We cannot fight the devil on our own and we thank You for the resources You have given us. Amen.