O great and powerful God, whose name is the LORD Almighty, great are your purposes and mighty are your deeds. Jer 32:18b-19a
Greetings in Jesus name to all my precious Sisters,
My prayer for you this week is for your hearts to be filled with faith to choose with your ‘wills’ specifically to believe that God is good. I know you would probably all answer spontaneously in the affirmative. I want to encourage you to engage this Truth allowing it to challenge how you have previously embraced it. My Pastor’smessage this week was on the goodness of God. It is the most prevalent truth God is teaching me. I remember a time in my life when I often felt the only good thing in my day was the food I had eaten! It was then my hungry soul read and clung to these words:
Psalm 92:15 LB "He is my shelter. There is nothing but goodness in Him!"
Profound! but do I truly believe this? If I believe this would I question God’s dealings with me? I considered the pain and confusion of loss with the many faces it wears. Health, finances, death, disappointment, sin, fears, rejection, abuse....
I was slow to learn everything does not have to be good in in my life to be good in my soul because He is good. As I trust him He turns my loses to joy and my trials benefit me in the end. He brings good out of the worst circumstances. Praise Him! And the greatest good I know is His allowing me to draw near; resulting in a hunger to know Him intimately. Consider:
When God gives He is good.
When God takes He is good.
When God waits He is good.
When God is silent He is good.
When God disciplines He is good.
When God tries me He is good.
When God carries me He is good.
When God does not pick me up He is good.
No matter how I feel, God is good.
Only my arrogance sights God as unfair, uninvolved, unloving, unfaithful, or untrustworthy and my unbelief stays His hand for good in my life. As I romped through a few chapters in Jeremiah it was exciting to see the progression, as I read about this weeping prophet who did some strange things in obedience to God's instructions, regarding the messages he delivered to Israel. In chpt 27 he wears a yoke which is broken off his neck by Hannaniah. Isreal refused to listen. God prophecies against them using Jeremiah’s lips to pronounce “Thus says the LORD”... yet there are some real jewels in these few chapters. 'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.' (29:11) (At first I saw loss and trials under ‘calamity’). In 31 Grace in the wilderness' is promised after surviving the sword. Often our trials are sharp as swords yet the promise here is sweet... in our wilderness, fresh from surviving the sword; God who is good, provides the grace of comfort and everlasting love.
31 speaks of deliverance and in 32 is one of my 'cling-to' verses: "Ah, Sovereign LORD, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you. (Jer 32:17) O great and powerful God, whose name is the LORD Almighty, great are your purposes and mighty are your deeds. (Jer 32:18b-19a)
Following this in 33:2, Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.'
Connect these three verses together. There is nothing too hard for God and then in v19 the life-changing statement.... "great" are His purposes! He then invites us to ‘call on Him’ that He may show us great and mighty things. (reveal Himself to us!?) He does this best through need-producing trials. When I fail over and again to love, I run to Him to love through me etc. No matter what struggle I am in or loss is suffered the Truth is unchanging: God is good and will use it for good in my life to create in me the likeness of His Son. Great are His purposes. Is love swelling up in your heart for such a Savior? Stop and give Him praise.
Foolish, finite, stubborn, I cannot see beyond now. How easily I fret over the small insignificant things in my day allowing the sin of grumbling and unbelief to reign in my heart, when I could choose to give thanks.
It seems counterintuitive to give thanks in suffering, but God commands it, and countless people have benefited from it. R.Alcorn
“Sin need have no more power over the believer than he grants it through unbelief. If he is alive unto sin it is due largely to the fact that he has failed to reckon himself dead unto sin. R.P.
Do you believe God is good?' I hope it shakes your thinking today to consider it. God’s goodness is the attribute that is part of all His other attributes. If God is unfaithful can He be good? If God is Good can He be unfaithful? and so on. This I know: He is Good, I am not.
I come again Holy One, You who are the Lamb-sacrifice, You who have nothing but Goodness in your being. Out of Your greatness You work Your will in me whom You love immeasurably. I long daily to ‘taste and see that You are good’. It causes me to seek You. It causes me to question why You would choose to love me and save me and let me enjoy You! You promise nothing is too hard for You and then You invite me to call on You and You will show me great and mighty things... Abba, there is so much I do not know that I long to grasp. You are comfort, You are endurance and hope and mercy. Today I need all You are to make it through and live in a way to bring You glory. I bow.... I worship. Bless my Sisters with a hunger to know You intimately and seek You with all their hearts; enduring because they believe You are good. Lord You see into each heart.... it is such a relief to know You are good because nothing is hidden from Your eyes. You see all. I pray in Your name Yeshua, Lamb of God. amen
Because God is good...
az
