NEVER THE SAME!

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Encountering the Love of God NEVER leaves you the same. When you're faced with the awesome, magnificent, wonderful, unfailing, overwhelming and uncontainable AGAPE, you can't help but weep in awe of the magnitude of His love towards us. Jesus is madly, greatly, deeply, truly, expressively, totally in LOVE with you. John says that this is how we know love; it's not that we first loved God, but that He first loved us and chose to send His son as a propitiation for our sin. 

His love compels Him to bless and heal and prosper and favor and sustain us as the apple of His eye. He is love. He can't help but love. He doesn't know how not to love. He's not mad at the world. He's in love with us. He loves us just the way we are but He loves us too much to leave us just as we are. He is moved with compassion every time He comes across the sick, the poor, the fatherless, the widow, the hungry, the homeless, the hurt, the dying, the down hearted, the lost and the unsaved. His heart goes out to them. 
We serve a God who first reached out to us with EVERYTHING He had. An object is assigned it's value depending on how much people are willing to pay for it. Imagine how much you're worth if the God of the universe thought that you were worth no less than the life of His only Son. No one can outbid that! 
It's the ultimate price, the ultimate sacrifice, the ultimate demonstration of love in return for the ultimate gift - US.
The next time you're struggling to get your prayer life back on track, to get your priorities in order, to fashion your heart after His own, know that He longs for all these things as well, so much more than you can imagine. One encounter with the Love of God and we're NEVER THE SAME!

Drenched, soaked and dripping with His love,
                              Ben

Read more...

MORE THAN ENOUGH!

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

We serve a God who is MORE THAN ENOUGH! Paul tells us at the end of the 3rd chapter of Ephesians that our God is able to do for us, exceedingly, abundantly above all that we could ask for or even imagine. John tells us that if we are to ask for ANYTHING according to His will, He hears us; and if we know that He hears us, then we know that we HAVE the petitions that we have asked of Him. 

Imagine with me, if you will; Jesus doesn't just answer prayers, He does for us, exceedingly, abundantly above all that we could ask for or even imagine or guess, or request in our wildest dreams. From where I'm looking, our God isn't only ABLE, but WILLING to always bless us with MORE! To say that God is able, but not willing to keep to His word, is more of an insult to God than it is to say that He isn't able to do it at all. 
My God is MORE THAN ENOUGH! I have had MORE THAN ENOUGH! I have MORE THAN ENOUGH! I will always have MORE THAN ENOUGH! My Father is loaded and I have MORE THAN ENOUGH of every good thing so that I will always have an abundance for every good work! My God is head-over-heels, desperately, deeply, madly and truly in love with me and I am likewise smitten and crazy about Him. He is my all sufficient Savior, my all-in-all, my everything. 
He causes me to indulge in ALL His goodness. I am the apple of His eye and His highly favored child. He truly is MORE THAN ENOUGH!

You're blessed beyond your wildest dreams,
                              Ben

Read more...

FAITHFUL!

Sunday, August 3, 2008

GOD IS FAITHFUL! 
        The validity of the notion's not up for discussions, negotiations, deliberations and votes. He just is. His faithfulness is not dependent on our faithfulness to Him. Thank God for that! We're faithful to Him BECAUSE He IS faithful to us. God's not just faithful to us when and if we are faithful to Him.  God made a heartfelt and eternal commitment to us on the cross and He's not going back on His word. The deal is signed, sealed and paid for. We're blood bought children of the most high God. rest assured that His hold on you is much much more stronger than your hold on Him. 
He IS Jehovah Jireh! He IS Jehovah Rapha! He IS Jehovah Nissi! He IS Jehovah Shalom! He IS Jehovah Tsidkenu! He IS El Shaddai! He IS the great I AM! He isn't all this WHEN.... He IS all of it right now, right here, TODAY! Our God IS all powerful! Our God IS Love! Our God IS good! Praise God for His faithfulness! 
Feel like you've been a back sliding, good for nothing spawn of satan lately? feel like you're beyond redemption, beyond help, past the point of no return? God thinks differently. He sees you just the way Christ transformed you to be when you received him as Savior and Lord of your life. You ARE a highly favored child of the Most High, deeply loved, greatly blessed and divinely anointed by the creator of the universe! It's a PERMANENT state of being. The next time satan and his horde try to lie and trick you out of the living growing relationship you're destined to have with God, stare Him straight in the face and boldly confess that your GOD IS FAITHFUL! 

You're loved more than you know!
                    Ben

Read more...