Be Great: Discover Greatness in God

Isaiah 50:4 “The Lord has given me an ear to hear His inaudible voice as a disciple SO THAT I can be His voice to those who need encouragement. Morning by morning He awakes my ear to listen to His voice.”(Paraphrase)

As followers of Jesus Christ, most of us long to be used in meaningful ways to further the advancement of the Kingdom. One of the greatest things that we can do is to be an ambassador for Christ (2 Corinthians 5). An ambassador is one commissioned to represent an authority and speak on their behalf. Typically this is thought of as sharing our faith with others who do not follow Jesus. But there is a twin aspect to this, which is the encouragement of the saints.

While it is noble to long for and desire to be used of God to strengthen and encourage our fellow believer, the efficacy of our attempts are often found to be less than we had hoped. One of the great secrets to fruitful encouragement is found in Isaiah 50:4. Here the prophet reveals his own habit which led him to become the greatest Old Testament messianic prophet. No one else in the Scriptures prophesied about the coming Messiah as clearly and distinctly as did Isaiah. Continue reading →

Weeds have no need whatsoever to be planted or cultivated. They just spring up. They are very tolerant of drought and other inhospitable environments and push their way to the forefront while crowding and choking out the desired plants. They do not need fertilizer and actually do quite well without it. On the other hand, our garden plants, the ones we desire for beauty or food, require a great deal of care or they will flounder and die.

Jesus taught us that all of nature is a textbook for what is happening behind the scenes in the invisible, spiritual realm. In the parable of The Sower, the birds of the air ate the seed and this pictured the reality that there is a host of demonic minions whose objective is to prevent a person from having faith in the Living God by hearing in their heart the Word spoken….. the “birds” (demonic host) ate the “seed” (Word of God). Continue reading →

The creation of God is a Bible in itself. The Apostle Paul says that all of God’s invisible attributes are CLEARLY seen thru looking at (what I term) the Bible of nature/creation (Romans 1:20). Again, Paul, quoting Psalm 19, goes on to say in Romans 10:18 “…I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have, for ‘Their voice has gone out to all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world.'”   So whose “voice” is Paul referring to? He is quoting Psalm 19 so the answer is found there and that answer is that Creation is “speaking” of God and His glory….. so one may deduce that creation is a Bible “speaking” to us of God.

Jesus Himself is also The Word of God…..John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and The Word was God.” Then again a few verses later John writes “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” And finally we see a name by which Jesus is known in Revelation 19:13 “He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God.” Continue reading →

SONY DSC

The Scripture says that all the character traits and attributes of the Invisible God are clearly seen thru nature and all creation (Romans 1:20)

One of my great joys of life is to grow trees, flowers, vegetable gardens and to even grown caterpillars into butterflies or moths…. I am utterly amazed and become transfixed on these glorious things of nature. I am ever on the hunt for a new reflection of God thru something growing or some other aspect of creation.

Furthermore, in the Gospel of John 1:18 “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” (NASB)

The great Greek scholar, Kenneth Wuest says that the Greek word for “explained” (ἐξηγέομαι) means “to lead out” and then goes on to say “God the Son, through his incarnation, has led the Father out from behind the curtain of His invisibility into full view”. Continue reading →