BELIEVE: What do you believe about the true God?
Devotions this week based on the Message: “BELIEVE: Week 1: Believe in God!”
(NOTE: This sermon series and devotional series is based on a book by Randy Frazee entitled, “BELIEVE.”
You may choose to download or purchase the book as a supplement to your worship and devotional emails.)
I really didn’t know that about you!
Have you ever been in a conversation with someone you thought you knew pretty well only to have them reveal some part of them or their past that you never knew?
Perhaps it was the “missing link” to really understand a person and how they view the world and interact with it. Perhaps it was just a fun trivial fact.
I wonder…no, I know…that there are many people who would be surprised if they really got to know the true God as he’s revealed himself in the Bible.
Too many go through life with a perception about God based on movies they’ve seen, people they’ve talked to, or even bad church experiences they’ve gone through.
As a result, they have an incomplete at best or a completely wrong perception of God altogether.
Getting to know God is a lifetime opportunity. Even after being a life long Christian (50 years) and pastoring for 25 of those years, I am still uncovering and marveling at who the true God is and what impact he has in a very real and personal way on my life.
I could claim great diligence in uncovering and discovering God, but it is the opposite. God reveals himself to us as we spend time in his Word of truth.
What do we uncover? What does he reveal to us about himself that we can believe with 100% certainty?
This short concluding verse of Second Corinthians summarizes it well:
May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” (2 Cor. 13:14)
In this brief verse, God reveals a lot about himself we won’t find in nature, our conscience or our soul.
- He is a God of free and faithful grace.
He willingly gave his Son Jesus Christ to come to this earth to do what you and I could not do for ourselves so that we might be restored into a right relationship with God after our sin broke it. Jesus lives a perfect life, which he credits to our account. Jesus died an innocent death which pays for all the debt our sin accumulated. Jesus rose again to prove the payment was paid in full and we too will live with him forever. ALL of this he gives to us as a gift of grace!
You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. You know that he gave up his heavenly riches for you. He gave up everything so that you could be richly blessed. (2 Corinthians 8:9)
- He is a God of free and faithful love.
The fact that the true God would put his name on us and claim us as his own…true love. The fact that God would show his love to individuals who have rejected and pushed him away all too often…true love. The fact that he has made us part of his family through baptism and called us his children…true love!
See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! (1 John 3:1)
- He is a God of free and faithful fellowship
God the Holy Spirit loves to build unity in the hearts of people. He is the one who works faith in our heart to trust what Jesus did for the world is ours personally. He is the one that builds unity of faith among people that we might enjoy the relational fellowship of the Church. He is the one that solidifies and strengthens our relationship with God and opens our heart to allow God himself to dwell with in us. He is God the Holy Spirit, the god of free and faithful fellowship or unity!
3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (Ephesians 4:3-6)
Nature tells us of God’s power and knowledge. Our conscience tells us of God’s justice and accountability. Our soul seeks the divine and the presence of God. The Bible completes the picture by revealing the Triune God as the Father who loves us, the Son who saves us and the Spirit who restores our relationship with God.
God wants you to know this about him!
Apply: Open your Bible and read a chapter…any chapter. What does that chapter teach you about God? What insight about God might you say, “I never knew that before!”
Prayer: Lord God, thank you for revealing yourself to us through the pages of the Holy Bible. Lead us on a lifetime of learning and fascination to learn and experience things about you that we have never known or experienced before. AMEN.
BELIEVE: Who do you believe God is?
Devotions this week based on the Message: “BELIEVE: Week 1: Believe in God!”
(NOTE: This sermon series and devotional series is based on a book by Randy Frazee entitled, “BELIEVE.”
You may choose to download or purchase the book as a supplement to your worship and devotional emails.)
This video is telling. Take a look: https://vimeo.com/116967898
How would you define God?
I have observed something. Every definition or description of God that mankind comes up with are the same…or at lease very similar. They fall into one of three categories:
- Something to do with nature (i.e. sun god, moon god, fertility god, etc.)
- Something to do with conscience (i.e. angry god, god who wants us to do good, etc.)
- Something to do with our soul (i.e. a feeling, a force, an energy, etc.)
Why this makes sense is because the true God instilled all those aspects around us so that we might perhaps reach out and find him.
Acts 17:26-28 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
As we looked at yesterday, nature testifies to the glory and power of God. Our conscience testifies to the justice and accountability to God. Our soul yearns for a connection with the divine.
So without the revealed knowledge of God we find in the Bible, it would make sense that every iteration of God found around the world comes from one or more of these inner realities God put in us.
But all that which is called god and not based on how God reveals himself in the pages of Scripture will fall short of a full definition and understanding of God.
That’s why we need the Bible to build on what our natural knowledge tells us to fill out the reality of who God is.
God is not just known from the glories of nature, he is the Almighty Father in heaven who designed, ordered and created all of nature…including us, as the ancients said, “We are his offspring.”
God is not just known for his justice and the one to whom we are accountable, but the one who came as a person into this world, Jesus, to appease the justice and give forgiveness for a clean conscience.
God is not just an impersonal force found in the universe around us, he is the power of his Holy Spirit who is found in the hearts of people like you and me.
As God who is one and yet three persons, he desires us to know him as he is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Nature, our conscience and our soul get us close…the very words of God reveal who he really is.
Apply: Consider other religions or definitions of God. Do you notice which category it falls into?
Prayer: Lord, thank you for revealing yourself in the pages of Scripture so we may know you more fully than just what nature, our conscience and our soul reveal. AMEN.
BELIEVE: Do you believe in God?
Devotions this week based on the Message: “BELIEVE: Week 1: Believe in God!”
(NOTE: This sermon series and devotional series is based on a book by Randy Frazee entitled, “BELIEVE.”
You may choose to download or purchase the book as a supplement to your worship and devotional emails.)
Did anyone ever stop and ask nature if it believes in God?
What would a star or a bee or a prickly pear cactus say about its origin?
I wonder what nature would say to the theory that predominates the “science” field that says everything has evolved over billions of years and by a series of random and natural selective processes.
Would the heavens agree that they are billions of years old?
Would the earth and all that lives on it affirm those that propose evolutionary beginnings?
Not at all. Here’s what they do in their own way:
1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
3 They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
4 Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world. (Psalm 19:1-4)
All creation knows its Creator. All creation, if it could, believes in the God who is introduced in Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
Creation’s statement of God’s existence were not just inventions of primitive man, but observations of every man. Creation’s testimony hasn’t changed. Man’s willingness to hear it has.
Romans 1:20 “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”
The testimony of creation about God is what is called the “natural knowledge of God.” It’s one way apart from the revealed knowledge of God in the Bible that people can know a) that there is a God and b) that that God is a God of power, order, and simply God. This leaves people without excuse. Evolution is not the end of God, it is merely man’s “excuse” to have a need for God.
The Bible puts it pretty bluntly: Psalm 14:1 “The fool says in their heart there is no god.”
To be clear, creation won’t tell us fully who the true God is, that is why we need all the pages that follow Genesis 1:1 as God interacts with people and reveals himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
But if we are simply wrestling with the question, “Does God exist?” or “Do I believe there is a God?” Perhaps the answer isn’t to go outside and get “in touch with” nature, but to go outside and hear the testimony of nature. Perhaps you would hear God say to you similar to the words he confronted Job:
4 “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
6 On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
7 while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?
8 “Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,
9 when I made the clouds its garment
and wrapped it in thick darkness,
10 when I fixed limits for it
and set its doors and bars in place,
11 when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt’? (Job 38:4-11)
There was only one that was there: God himself. All creation testifies to it.
Apply: Read Job 38-39. As Job questions God’s ways, God answers with his resume of creative and directive acts. Consider ALL the ways God created, ordered and orchestrates nature to work. All of it testifies to his existence!
Prayer: Lord, Creator of all, let me hear the testimony of the world you created speak to your power and glory. Let this testimony strengthen my conviction and confidence of who you are and your love for me. AMEN.
BELIEVE: What does it mean to believe?
Devotions this week based on the Message: “BELIEVE: Week 1: Believe in God!”
(NOTE: This sermon series and devotional series is based on a book by Randy Frazee entitled, “BELIEVE.”
You may choose to download or purchase the book as a supplement to your worship and devotional emails.)
“Just believe!”
The advice of a raving fan of an underdog team… “Just believe!”
When facing a challenging illness or difficult surgery… “Just believe!”
Questions asked about God or other teachings of the Bible… “Just believe!”
This phrase gets thrown around in our culture today in many different settings. I would say that the common factor in all of these situations is a level of “unknown” or a situation that is “out of our control.”
As we begin a series, it would be good to define what we mean by “believe” so that when we use it, we have a common understanding of the term.
To believe means three things:
- To KNOW the true God.
The Apostle Paul was in Athens and wandered through the many temples of many gods. Ironically he found an inscription at one that said, “To the unknown god.” Those in Athens worshipped many “gods” they knew, but also wanted to make sure they had recognition there may be someone they missed.
Acts 17:23 For as I was walking around and carefully observing your objects of worship, I even found an altar on which had been inscribed, ‘To an unknown god.’ Now what you worship as unknown—this is what I am going to proclaim to you.
Paul recognized that one can not believe in one they have not heard of, “How can they believe in the one they have not heard?” (Romans 10:14)
To believe in the true God, we must know the true God.
Second, to believe means
- To ACCEPT the Bible as the Word of God.
The Bible is the place where God has revealed all of who he is and what he has done for us to know him and believe in him. Therefore, the Spirit of God must work an acceptance in our heart that the Bible is the Word of God. It is difficult to believe in the true God when I don’t accept his Word as true.
“Faith comes from hearing the message and the message is heard through the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:17)
Jesus prayed for his disciples, 17 “Sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth.” What sets apart the Christian faith from all others is acknowledging the Bible IS the Word of God and as the Word of God is truth for all of faith and life.
Third, to believe means
- To TRUST God and all his promises.
Trust is challenging. It is putting your safety and security in the hands of someone else. I remember the story of Blondin, a tight-rope walker who asked if people believed he could walk across a tight-rope strung across Niagara Falls with a chair on his back and someone seated in that chair. The crowd yelled, “We believe!” To which Blondin invited, “Which of you would like to sit in the chair?” The crowd was silent.
Trusting is sitting in the chair on the back of our Savior relying on him for everything in life and eternity. As the Psalmist said, “But I trust in you, O LORD; I say, ‘You are my God” (Psalm 31:17).
“Just Believe” can be an empty phrase we use in uncertain times. When God invites us to “just believe” it is his gracious invitation to KNOW him, ACCEPT his Words, and TRUST his promises.
Just believe!
Apply: Which of these three areas perhaps is the greatest challenge to your faith? Ask the Lord to strengthen areas where you are weak.
Prayer: Lord God, thank you for allowing me to know you, accept your word, and trust your promises. Grow my faith in you throughout this series! AMEN.
Getting Rid of Counterfeit Gods…Part 5
Devotions this week based on the Message: “Counterfeit Gods: Getting Rid of Counterfeit Gods”
(NOTE: This sermon series and devotional series is based on a book by Tim Keller entitled, Counterfeit Gods.
You may choose to download or purchase the book as a supplement to your worship and devotional emails.)
I like to try to do my own repairs on my vehicle.
For the most part this goes OK. However, there are few times where I really struggle to get a part off. It is rusted, frozen, or I just cannot get any leverage. I can struggle sometimes for hours to get the part off. I scrape my arms, bump my head, and have to get a few band aids.
No joke, when I get to this point I have often remembered to ask God to help. A simple prayer of “I give up God” followed by, “Will you help me?” ironically has worked pretty well. The bolt I was struggling to loose, frees up on the next try. The electric connector I could not get off, slides right off. The part I could not get out of the way, comes right out.
Thank you God.
In life, we can struggle with many things on our own. We expend emotional energy, physical energy and hours of time trying to gain what we think we want, need, or should have. The path is filled with scrapes, bruises, headaches and more.
When we stop and think, we probably are expending all this energy struggling after counterfeit gods, trying to make something fit, hoping it will fill a void, or seeking meaning and significance somewhere other than God.
How has this worked for you? It has not for me.
When will you give up struggling/contending with the wrong things, the wrong people, the wrong objectives and surrender and say, “I give up God.” “Will you help me?”
Here’s the truth: Counterfeit gods end when I seek blessing from God!
The irony is we contend in life for the powerful, the influential, the material things to fill voids of love, value and acceptance. The Apostle Paul reminds us, “This isn’t where God chose to bring blessing. Rather he chose the weak, the shameful, and the lowly things to bring joy, hope and love to our hearts.
1 Corinthians 1:26 Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him.
When we give up the struggle of doing life on our own, we can experience the blessing God loves to give!
Galatians 3:13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” 14 He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.
The irony in all of this, is we work so hard to get what we think is so important from counterfeit gods and yet all along our Savior is inviting us to give up that struggle and give our focus, attention, trust to him. He will end the struggle and fill our voids with everything true and everything we need. Here’s the summary truth of this sere
When I have Christ, I have everything I need.
When I have everything I need in Christ,
I have no more need for counterfeit gods.
PRAYER: Lord, as you have exposed counterfeit gods in my heart, remove them by the power of your Spirit and fill them with every good blessing you love to give. AMEN.
NOTE to all email devotion readers who also watch our Sunday worship live online…
We are changing our schedule as of THIS Sunday to ONE service at 10am. Look forward to “seeing” you there!