the BLESSING
Identifying the Goodness of God
November 14th, 2022
Romans 8:31-32, ‘So what does all this mean? If God has determined to stand with us, tell me, who then could ever stand against us? For God has proved His love by giving us His greatest treasure, the gift of His Son. And since God freely offered Him up as the sacrifice of us all. He certainly won’t withhold from us anything else He has to give.’ (TPT)
LifeTime Warranty
Have you ever wished your children or perhaps even a spouse or parent or co-worker came with an instruction manual? How to Operate or Trouble-Shooting or Money-Back Guarantee or how about a LifeTime Warranty? When my children were small, I ran to the doctor with every bump and cry, sat by their bedsides as if my presence would keep them breathing or sleeping, consulted every page of Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care, and wished—oh, how I wished—they had arrived with a manual. Now, there is Google. Good Lord, there is Google. I don’t know what’s worse—no manual or Google!
There isn’t one thing we can’t learn about today or figure out with a couple typed entries in a search engine. If we are too lazy to type we can try the pleasantly annoying voice of Siri and Alexa answering our quests for knowledge and researching topics once written in instruction manuals we no longer wish to research on our own. Be careful what you ask for. You may learn and discover some stuff you never really wanted to know after all.
We actually did arrive on this planet with a manual, but we seldom consult it, and even more often, we choose not to follow it’s instruction. The Bible, the inerrant Word of God, is a precious gift from a Holy God, given to His children so we might know His heart and receive His counsel on how to operate in this world. There’s not one question or complication or issue or situation that hasn’t arisen and isn’t considered in the Book of Life. That’s because when all else failed and Jesus put on skin and came to this world to identify with the children God was trying mercifully to rescue, He encountered the same opposition and betrayals and snobbery and brokenness we encounter. He also had history repeating itself even though the textbook would not be written for a very long time. God’s Word is the most fascinating play-by-play manual you will ever delve in to and your life will be far richer when you do.
There are a lot of voices out there in our culture today. Everyone telling you what to do and when to do it. All the threads unraveling as you try to suture your life in comparison to everyone else you have chosen to ‘follow’; all the streams drying up and leaving you empty as you surf from channel to channel. The most important and overwhelming voice you and I need in our lives today is, however, the one that is the quietest, a mere whisper, because He wants you to come close and listen to His voice and experience His heart for you. He will never fail you nor will His Word for you ever lead you astray. You also can be assured that just as parents know the exact cry of their children—hungry cry, fake cry, hurt cry, etc—so does God the Father know exactly the purpose behind the cries of each of His children. He knows just how to come to my aid when He hears my cries because He knows me and He knows the sound of the noise I utter. How else do you think those ‘God-things’ happen if He didn’t know the sound of your cry and exactly how to remedy it?! How more personal can the God of the Universe become?
And by the way, we spend time on what is truly important to us; we invest time into relationships that are special and with those whom we love. If God is that to you, and while you walk with Him and come to know Him intimately, you can be assured you will surely receive His LifeTime Warranty.
Isaiah 55:11, ‘”So will the words that come out of My mouth not come back empty-handed. They’ll do the work I sent them to do, they’ll complete the assignment I gave them.”’
