God

Common Sense & the Will of God

By in Encouragement, God

We tend to think that what “makes common sense” will most likely be the will of God for us. It is not wrong to use the common sense that God gave us but don’t count on your calculations unless you have figured God into the equation. There are times that God will lead us contrary to popular opinion, pragmatic reasoning, and common sense. But He will never lead us in ways contrary to His Word and His Spirit, and that is why it is most essential for us to walk by these means.

“Notice God’s unutterable waste of saints. According to the judgment of the world, God plants His saints in the most useless places. We say—‘God intends me to be here because I am so useful.’ God puts His saints where they will glorify Him, and we are no judges at all of where that is.” Oswald Chambers.

“But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” I Corinthians 1:27-29 (ESV)

Do not be surprised when God leads you down a path that makes no earthly sense. He delights in doing impossible things, confounding the world, and exalting His name.

I would love to connect with you! If you have any questions or would like to connect please use the contact page.

Growing Together

By in Family, God, Grace, Northland, Sanctification

Just this past week Diane and I recorded a brief video where we look back at how we have been continually challenged to keep growing and digging into the Word. This has been challenged and fueled as we have attempted to disciple our own children and now an entire college student body. There has never been a time that we have more fully realized that we ourselves are still in the process of being conformed to the image of His Son. I guess that reinforces the idea that the best teaching comes from the overflow of what God is doing in your life.

Embracing Obscurity | A Review by Trevin Wax

By in Books, God

Yesterday Trevin Wax posted a review about an anonymous book, Embracing Obscurity: Becoming Nothing in Light of God’s Everything. This book looks to be a helpful reminder that we are nothing compared to God. God is so much bigger than who we think we can be and we must be content to be in that place. Check out Trevin’s post over at The Gospel Coalition site for his review and consider picking this up to read.

I would love to connect with you! If you have any questions or would like to connect please use the contact page.

Comfort in the Sovereignty of God

By in God, Sovereignty

From The Attributes of God by A.W. Pink (p. 31):

Rightly did the late Charles Haddon Spurgeon say in his sermon on Matthew 20:15— There is no attribute more comforting to His children than that of God’s sovereignty. Under the most adverse circumstances, in the most severe trials, they believe that sovereignty has ordained their afflictions, that sovereignty overrules them, and that sovereignty will sanctify them all. There is nothing for which the children ought more earnestly to contend than the doctrine of their Master over all creation—the kingship of God over all the works of His own hands—the throne of God and His right to sit upon that throne. On the other hand, there is no doctrine more hated by worldlings, no truth of which they have made such a football, as the great, stupendous, but yet most certain doctrine of the sovereignty of the infinite Jehovah. Men will allow God to be everywhere except on His throne. They will allow Him to be in His workshop to fashion worlds and make stars. They will allow Him to be in His almonry to dispense His alms and bestow His bounties. They will allow Him to sustain the earth and bear up the pillars thereof, or light the lamps of heaven, or rule the waves of the ever-moving ocean; but when God ascends His throne, His creatures then gnash their teeth. And we proclaim an enthroned God, and His right to do as He wills with His own, to dispose of His creatures as He thinks well, without consulting them in the matter; then it is that we are hissed and execrated, and then it is that men turn a deaf ear to us, for God on His throne is not the God they love. But it is God upon the throne that we love to preach. It is God upon His throne whom we trust. “Whatsoever the LORD pleased, that did He in heaven, and in earth, in the seas, and all deep places” (Psa 135:6). Yes, dear reader, such is the imperial Potentate revealed in Holy Writ. Unrivaled in majesty, unlimited in power, unaffected by anything outside Himself. But we are living in a day when even the most “orthodox” seem afraid to admit the proper Godhood of God. They say that to press the sovereignty of God excludes human responsibility; whereas human responsibility is based upon divine sovereignty, and is the product of it.

I would love to connect with you! If you have any questions or would like to connect please use the contact page.