God Can Use Even Our Worst Impulses For His Purposes! - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, and majestic in his radiant splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him today and what came to my heart and mind in Acts 13:27-31,

“The people of Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognize Jesus, yet in condemning him they fulfilled the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath. Though they found no proper ground for a death sentence, they asked Pilate to have him executed. When they had carried out all that was written about him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he was seen by those who had traveled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now his witnesses to our people.”

It is amazing to me how it is that God can use even the sinful impulses of mankind to carry out his purposes. God sent his Son into the world to provide a sacrifice to pay for the sins of all mankind.

Paul tells us in Romans 3:25, “God presented him [Jesus] as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.”

John tells us in 1 John 4:10, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

And Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:16-17, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

Also, in Luke 19:10 Jesus simply says, “The Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”

For those unfamiliar with their Bibles, Jesus saves us from God’s wrath, his judgment of our sins, (and every soul that has lived has sinned.) He died in our place, to take the punishment due us onto himself.

As Paul spoke to the people of Pisidian Antioch, he noted that it was the failure of the people and rulers of Jerusalem to recognize God’s Son, so far removed from God they were, that in their jealousy and hostility to the One sent from God, they asked Pilate to put him to death. Without grounds for a death sentence, they demanded that Jesus be put to death, so great was their murderous hostility. In this, God used these sinful impulses of man to bring about his own agenda, something far beyond the small-minded purposes of sinful man: in God’s great love he brought about redemption for them!

The transcendence of God is something to behold! Nothing any of us can come up with is beyond our Creator’s ability to manipulate and/or use for his own purposes!

As Paul articulates in his wonderful doxology of Romans 11:33-36, “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.”

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God Sends His Word To The World! - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, and majestic in his radiant splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him today and what came to my heart and mind in Acts 13:5,

“When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the Jewish synagogues.”

As I read of the beginning of Barnabas’ and Paul’s first missionary trip, I see that it was “the word of God” they proclaimed at their first port of call at Salamis on the island of Cyprus.

As we continue to read of the events that took place, it was the word of God that Paul and his team carried into new territories. The message they took was not the word of the church, the word of the denomination, the word of this or that new  movement. It wasn’t the word of some new world religion or the latest teaching from some seminary or university. It was the word of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Not the traditions developed or the doctrines hammered out at the epicenter of Antioch: It was the word of God himself.

In that town we are introduced to a “sorcerer and false prophet named Bar-Jesus”, Acts 13:6. Saul (Paul) and Barnabas were opposed by this man and Paul condemned him as a man who never stopped “perverting the right ways of the Lord.”

Not the ways of Paul and Barnabas and not the ways of the church in Antioch. Not the ways of the early New Testament church, not the ways of the circumcised believers nor the ways of the Gentile believers, it was the ways of the Lord that Bar-Jesus was opposing as Paul and Barnabas brought the word of God to Cyprus.

We are told it was “the word of God” that the proconsul of Cyprus, Sergius Paulus, wanted to hear that Bar-Jesus was in such opposition against. Imagine the insanity of opposing God!

Two men, Paul and Barnabas, (three if we include John Mark), who set out on a journey to take the very words of God to mankind!

We’re talking about the words of the Creator of the cosmos: it is his communication to mankind that Paul and Barnabas are taking to these new areas!

The more I think of it the more astonishing I find it!

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God Speaks! - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, and majestic in his radiant splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him today and what came to my heart and mind in Acts 13:1-2,

“In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’”

Within the fellowship that Paul and Barnabas participated in at Antioch there were prophets. I note that when the Holy Spirit told the fellowship to set apart Barnabas and Saul he did it through verbal utterance. “the Holy Spirit said…” This was no “feeling” or “leading” folks there experienced, it was a verbal utterance that presumably was delivered through one or more of the prophets that Luke introduces us to in verse one.

In my mind the utterances of God are of preeminent importance in all of life. Anyone who has a healthy fear of the Lord, a reverence for him, recognizes that all of life need stand still and heed whatever it is our Creator has to say.

Peter helps us understand the nature of prophecy and the association of the prophet with the Holy Spirit relative to Scripture. Far from Scripture being the thought of any man or even the intention of any man, we are told, “Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” 2 Peter 1:20-21.

“Men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit”! This is a reality that needs to grip my mind as I consider how much time and how much effort I am going to put into reading my Bible. To think that we have sitting on our coffee tables communication from our Creator, how can I neglect the proper treatment it rightly deserves in my life, in my schedule? Surely I don’t want to hear on that day, “I had things to say to you but you wouldn’t take the time to listen to me.”

Sobering to think of, isn’t it?

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

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God Manifests What He Is Doing In How He Gifts Us - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, and majestic in his radiant splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him today and what came to my heart and mind in Acts 13:1,

“In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers…”

It is at this church in Antioch where disciples were first called “Christians”, Acts 11:26. Barnabas was dispatched from Jerusalem when the believers there heard that “a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord” in Antioch. After arriving in Antioch, Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Paul (still called Saul in the account in the book of Acts at this point.) After Barnabas and Paul returned to Antioch we are told they taught the believers there for a year.

At the time, they had also been sent from this church back up to Jerusalem to take a gift to help the believers there who were experiencing a famine. When Barnabas and Paul returned to Antioch they brought with them John Mark, the author of the gospel that bears his name.

As seen, there was a lot of activity taking place at Antioch, and we read in Acts 13:1 that there were prophets and teachers within the fellowship there. God was on the move and it is from this fellowship that we see Paul’s missionary enterprise being launched. God was active at Antioch, and the Holy Spirit raised up gifted people to perform the work that needed to be done. There was a need for prophets and teachers, so the Holy Spirit gifted certain ones to fill that need.

Within the early church, and throughout the centuries of church history, we see God gifting individuals to carry out work that needs to be done. In Ephesians 4:11-13 we read, “It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”

God gifts us all for participating in what he is doing in and through the church. “Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good”, 1 Corinthians 12:7. With these gifts he expects us to serve one another. In 1 Peter 4:10 we read, “Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms.”

It is in this that I find the presence of God very active in the church. He gifts us all and raises up certain ones for specific tasks. He did in the early church and he still does so to this day.

I find it fascinating to see how the Lord manifests what he is doing by looking at how he gifts his people.

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

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God: Sovereign Over All - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, and majestic in his radiant splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him today and what came to my heart and mind in Acts 12:11,

"Now I know without a doubt that the Lord sent his angel and rescued me from Herod's clutches and from everything the Jewish people were anticipating."

As I read the account of King Herod’s intent to put Peter to death, I am reminded of a theme that appears in the book of Proverbs. Herod had put John’s brother, the apostle James, to death and “when he saw that this pleased the Jews, he proceeded to seize Peter also.” Acts 12:3.

The church was “earnestly praying to God for him [Peter]” and so God had other plans. We read in Proverbs 19:21, “Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails.” See also Proverbs 16:1 and 16:9. No one, not even a king can thwart the purposes of God. Even a king’s heart is subject to God, “The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases.” Proverbs 21:1.

God is sovereign over all of his creation. We enjoy a free will only because our Creator has deemed it so. As I think of the choices we make in life, especially the ones I make, I think of the sheer insanity of not choosing that which is consistent with the will of God.

John 1:12 tells us, “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God”. What of those who choose not to “receive him”? Insanity! Our God is supreme in all of creation. He is transcendent and sovereign and no one, nothing, not any plan or intent, no scheme, no religion, not even if all humanity assembled to oppose him, nothing can bring even a dent against what God chooses to do.

As God says in Isaiah 55:10-11, “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

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God's Wonderful Heart - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, and majestic in his radiant splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him today and what came to my heart and mind in Acts 12:8,

“Then the angel said to him, ‘Put on your clothes and sandals.’ And Peter did so. ‘Wrap your cloak around you and follow me,’ the angel told him.”

There is something here in this account of Peter’s escape from jail that touches my heart about the heart of God. As we follow the account of Acts 12 we read of the first apostle martyred, James the brother of John. As Herod persecuted the church and saw how his killing of James “pleased the Jews” he proceeded to do the same with Peter. As I read it, I find this to be a very vivid and dramatic account. Peter is thrown into jail but the church was “earnestly praying to God for him.” Two forces pitted against one another for the life of this great apostle.

I can't help but note that the church at John's mother's house was up during the night praying for Peter, no doubt filled with anxiety over Peter's plight and seeking the Lord for his deliverance. For his own part, Peter was simply fast asleep, chained between guards at the prison. I'm not quite sure what, but this does tell me something about Peter!

On this night we find Peter stripped of his clothes and bound with two chains between two soldiers with sentries at the entrance. An angel appears and tells Peter to get dressed and miraculously leads him out of the jail. The account tells us that the chains binding Peter’s wrists “fell off”. The angel leads Peter past the guards that have been assigned to keep him secured. A gate opens by itself to let them through and Peter is freed.

As many do, I find this a very exciting and fascinating account to read. And embedded within this story is something the angel does that touches my heart, and is certainly an expression of God’s heart. When the angel appears, wakes Peter and has him get dressed, in the midst of this miraculous and dramatic encounter in this fallen world with the heavenly presence of God’s angel, the angel tells Peter to wrap his cloak around himself! Maybe it is just me, but to see the angel’s concern for Peter’s comfort as he leads him out into the cold night air in the midst of this incredible drama, shows a tenderness and a care for Peter by this angel that I find remarkable. Surely this very minor detail exposes the great heart of God for Peter in this angel's care for him.

I am sure this is viewed as a somewhat insignificant comment by Luke in his recounting of the event. But for me, it is precisely these comments that speak so much of the heart of our wonderful loving God.

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

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God And Prayer - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, and majestic in his radiant splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him today and what came to my heart and mind in Acts 12:5,

“So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.”

Here we see the clash of two wills. King Herod intended to have Peter put to death after he saw how much it pleased the Jews when he had John’s brother, James, put to death. James was the first known apostle to have suffered a martyr’s death and Herod intended to do the same with Peter.

But the church did not want Peter put to death, and not having the power to stop it themselves, they were “earnestly praying to God for him.” They made their appeal to God to spare Peter’s life, and as we read the account we see their prayers answered. So startling was this answer to prayer that, when Peter showed up at the door where a number of disciples were praying for him, they initially assumed the servant girl, Rhoda, who had answered the door, was out of her mind when she told them Peter was at the door.

Much has been said of the expectation we should have when we pray, and this account is often used as an example of what it looks like when we don’t have the faith that God will answer our prayers, “when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished.” Acts 12:16. Why should they have been astonished?

I see something else here as well though, which commends these believers to me. We are told in 1 John 5:14, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.” These believers were praying according to God’s will. Apparently God was not done with Peter in this life and he was pleased to respond to the believer’s prayers to spare his life.

It is fascinating to me to read the verse in John’s letter. There are those times God wants us to participate with him in the actions he takes by us requesting those things that need to be done, that are according to his own will. There may be many things we pray for that do not coincide with God's will, but the clear implication here is that some things might not happen if we don’t pray for them.

What might have happened if the church had not prayed for Peter? What might happen if I do not bring those things to God in prayer that I know are according to God’s will? And, for that matter, am I engaged in those things that lead me to know what his will is in the first place?

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to hear from you!

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