Archive for God's Heart
Why God Asks Questions
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What is the last question God asked you? On first impulse, you might say, “God doesn’t ask questions; He knows everything.” And that He does, however God is a master question-asker. What kind of questions does He ask and what is the purpose of His questioning?
SOME OCCASIONS GOD ASKED QUESTIONS
God asked Adam, “Where are you? Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree?”
God asked Eve, “What have you done?”
When Cain murdered Abel, God asked, “What have you done?”
God asked Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh? Is anything too hard for the LORD?”
GOD’S PURPOSE IN ASKING A QUESTION
The questions of God are laden with purpose…targeted…cutting…they reveal our heart.
They are not simple requests for information but divide between our soul and spirit and reveal the thoughts and intents of our heart. As Hebrews 4 tells us, we are naked before God. He knows all about us.
He understands us.
Yet we often do not know our own hearts. We have difficulty sorting out the depths of our motives so God comes with His questions and lays us open before Him. This “laying open” is not done to condemn us, but to strengthen us, restore us, convict us, and heal us.
ELIJAH, WHY ARE YOU HERE?
Elijah was a great prophet of God. He was courageous and powerful. His life exemplified one who walked in signs and wonders.
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Treating Our Heart for the Treasure It Is (and update on Alabama)
Posted by: | CommentsOccasionally I repost something from another author. At the end of this post is a devotional from John Eldredge. John is one of my favorite writers and often leads me to deeper waters. This is his daily devotion for today taken from one of his books, Waking the Dead. Hope you enjoy it.
On a personal note, my life has been quite busy the last few days because of the tornadoes which hit Alabama on April 27, 2011. It was a dark day while we watched wave after wave of tornadic activity plummet our state.
Almost all of North Alabama is without power. We are thankful here in Florence to still have our power and so my little nest has increased temporarily as my mother and daughter and son-in-law are here while their power is being restored. Authorities say it may be several more days before that happens. We personally did not have any damage, although several areas close to us were deeply affected.
The devastation here is almost beyond description. The last information I heard stated that we had at least 66 tornadoes here in Alabama which hit in 16 counties. The damage is so wide-spread that almost everyone I know has been impacted in some way. Entire small cities were almost wiped out. Several larger cities have massive destruction.
Please pray for the state of Alabama. Recovery will be a long process. It is beautiful though to see masses of people mobilizing to help the hurting. The people of Alabama are a caring people. I am thankful to call Alabama home.
"Above all else, guard your heart." We usually hear this with a sense of "Keep an eye on that heart of yours," in the way you’d warn a deputy watching over some dangerous outlaw, or a bad dog the neighbors let run. "Don’t let him out of your sight." Having so long believed our hearts are evil, we assume the warning is to keep us out of trouble. So we lock up our hearts and throw away the key and then try to get on with our living. But that isn’t the spirit of the command at all. It doesn’t say guard your heart because it’s criminal; it says guard your heart because it is the wellspring of your life, because it is a treasure, because everything else depends on it. How kind of God to give us this warning, like someone’s entrusting to a friend something precious to him, with the words: "Be careful with this-it means a lot to me."
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How Can You Keep On Keeping On When Life is Difficult?
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John Eldredge captured the feeling we all have at times when he said that sometimes life feels like a long, brutal assault against one’s heart. Try as we might to explain it away, perhaps the best summary is that life is not what God originally intended. The Fall of Man continues to have rippling effects on all of humanity, and we find ourselves in a less than perfect world with less than perfect people, including ourselves!
The present result of living in a fallen world is often pain, discouragement, and difficulty. We know that God has come to us, offering redemption in our daily lives through Christ and setting in place the ultimate redemption of all when Christ returns. Yet in the meantime, we often find ourselves hurt and misunderstood and having hurt others.
How can we care for others and our own hearts in the midst of pain and suffering?
Jesus gave keys to his disciples in John 14 as he prepared their hearts for the difficult days ahead.
“Don’t let your hearts be troubled.” You have a part in guarding your own heart from discouragement. Note that I didn’t say you could necessarily guard your heart from difficulty. Jesus was not offering an exemption from the difficult days which lay ahead of the disciples; he was offering an anchor for the storm.
Proverbs 4:23 tells us to guard our heart above all else because from it, all of our life flows.
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Getting to the Heart of Things
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A most terrifying and at the same time, comforting, thought is that Jesus knows our hearts. When we face the truth about our own heart, we find two things. We find that, at times, our heart is desperately wicked, strays from God, and seeks our own way. Concurrently, we find that our heart is good and has been changed by God Himself.
We have two natures. The Scripture refers to this as the old nature and the new nature. Our journey with Christ invites us, with the Spirit’s help, to crucify the old nature and its desires and strengthen and feed the new nature.
This journey into our own hearts is initiated by God. I have found that as I know more and more about the truth of my own heart and am able to name my own sin, struggles, and woundedness, I am able to find more of God’s heart. In other words, the journey to know my true heart leads me deeper into knowing God’s heart and vice versa.
In John 21, we find an exchange between Jesus and Peter which has been the topic of many sermons, Bible lessons, and discussions. I’ve been meditating on this passage since last night. This morning, I kept feeling challenged by God that there was much more there than I’d seen before. I invited His Spirit to speak, to teach me, to open my eyes.
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Love of God
Posted by: | CommentsLove of God – Has it captured your heart?
I could paint with a broad stroke and speak of His love for all humanity. I could talk about the affection of God as it relates to the Church. Those aspects of God’s love form an important framework, but what we all long to know – or perhaps to know increasingly -is the love of God for each of us individually.
And lest you think that is selfish, let me assure you that that is precisely what God wants for you! God has moved from the beginning of time to insure that any who wanted, could have a very personal relationship with Him and receive the affections of His heart.
As a child, when I first committed my life to God through Christ, I was looking to escape judgment. I came to the foot of the cross in fear. I was motivated more by the fear of God than the love of God. Yet the longer I walk with God, the more my understanding of Him becomes relational. The more I have come to know Him, the more I understand that our relationship is anchored in love and the less I am motivated in immature ways by my fear of God.
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