In the Face of Uncertainity

Yesterday was interesting to say the least.  The stock market retreat and the uncertainty of so many things was on everyone's mind.  This morning I read another blog and want to re-post it for you.  As Pastor Chris said last night, "The Stock Market losing 1000 points in a couple of days did not catch God by surprise."  Therefore our goal is to trust more and look at what is happening around us less.

Enjoy Pastor Chris's blogs - www.drchrisstephens.com

              Hey Friends,

Look anywhere and all you see is fear and questions about the future! Where will the stock market go? What will we do? What is next? The questions swirl around us on every possible media outlet. As Christ-followers are we supposed to live in fear? Has God got this or what? Where is our faith, or what have you put you faith in? As I read the Word we are not supposed to focus on the circumstances, but the Christ over the circumstances.

At Faith Promise we are two weeks away from what we call a Miracle Weekend and our Miracle Offering! This timing could not be worse by the world’s standards, but from God’s vantage point the timing is great. We get to show the Lord where our faith and trust really are. The Kingdom continues to grow and go regardless of the economics. Lost people are still heading to hell and we must make a difference. I have no problem asking God’s people to sacrifice and give by faith even as the stock market rolls down the roller-coaster!

Our God is bigger than the economic problems we face. Most Christians seem to focus on the natural and the physical, when we are commanded to focus on the Christ over the circumstances.  What an opportunity to show the world we have faith in God and we will not be afraid! Not only that, but we are going to continue to march off the map in service to our Lord.

Are you afraid? Remember God holds the world in His Hand. He holds you and you are to rest in Him!

Just a thought,

Pastor Chris

Self Evaluation - Once a Year

When do you reflect on the past year or reflect from a set period of time?  For me it is always during my birthday that I would take some time and think about what took place during the last year.   

Since today is my birthday, I took a few moments this morning in reflection and evaluation.

I do not reflect on the successes or failures of business and life, which I mentally keep track of that on a weekly basis, but instead I ponder on the people who have entered and left my life.  Facebook and Twitter has afforded me an opportunity to rediscover people from my childhood and those friends who now live in other states.

Yet in learning about my friends lives, I am impacted by death in their families.  The pain of each one helps me realize that we are given only this moment and no more.  Our goal should be to cherish any time you can spend with family and friends.  Yet we spend so much time in arguments and not speaking to friends and family for years.  In most cases the only people who care about it are the people who are hurt or mad.  Many times the person who gave us pain, really don’t care and so we spend time from enjoying our lives by living a life of hurt and hating. 

 

A great friend is experiencing a great ordeal in that his wife is going into surgery and has already been told she will have a 25% chance of survival.  Prayers go out to him for a miracle but their faith is that God will perform a miracle in sparing her life.

My number one lesson learned this last year is that God performs miracles daily but we are so concerned with our own feelings, anger, and fears that we miss the excitement of watching or being a miracle.  

Why don’t you stop asking God for all the “Me, Me, Me” things and ask for His Favor and blessing in your life.  Also ask Him to let you witness a miracle.  You won’t have to go far as your eyes will be opened to what God is doing every day!

Dreaming What Might Have Happened

 

What is the result when you take the most logical figure and the most compassionate figure in the world and put them together?  God!

While in college, I had a professor that taught us to analysis why God did some of the things he did.   One of the challenges that has stuck with me is the tower of Babel.  Stay with my thought pattern for a few moments.

Remember how Adam and Eve were booted from the Garden of Eden.  They were commanded by God that they would have to work by the sweat of their brow - Physical Labor.  There we have Noah and his sons building the ark but you know that story.  So now years later Noah’s sons had moved to the land of Shinar and settled down.  Genesis 11:1 begins that they all spoke one language.  Common in thought and mind.

They said they wanted to build a city and a tower that would reach the heavens and so they began.  It is in verse 6 & 7 that it gets interesting.  “God took one look and said, “One people, one language, why this is only the beginning.  No telling what they’ll come up with next –they’ll stop at nothing.”

What’s the problem?  When God stopped the building of the tower it was estimated to be less than 80 feet talk.   We know today that we can build skyscrapers over 100 stories high and there is not a problem that God has to confuse our language more now than like he did in Shinar.  Dream with me a minute.

Men and women had ALL their brain capacities at that time.  We only use about 25-30% today.  It is speculated that with 100% of our brain’s capacity they could move objects and do other wondrous things.  The speculation was that the people discovered that if they banded together they could sit in groups and make bricks, mortar, while others could move them into place with their unified minds.  In fact they said, “let’s make ourselves famous so we won’t be scattered here and there.”  That was in direct disobedience of God.
 
So. . . In confusing their languages, they could no longer communicate at any level and could not use their full brain power. Wars have started because of poor communication so the people had to do something different.  The building of the tower and the city stopped and in verse 9 it says, “Then God scattered them from there all over the world.”  Once again they had to labor for what they received and God’s world was back in order.

Dreaming for what might have happened has taken me to so many occurrences and happenings in the Bible.

My list of questions as to why God did some of things he did in the Bible will just have to wait until I get to see Him face to face.  But then again, I probably won’t care.