THE EXUBERANT OMNIPOTENCE OF GOD . . . REASSERTING GOD'S RIGHTFUL PLACE IN ALL OF LIFE
Today's Freedom Fighter comes from the writings of one of my favorite authors, Dr. John Piper.
"Where is God in your daily newspaper or in your talk radio show or the network TV programming or TIME or NEWSWEEK or the theater or the public school classroom? God is the most important reality in the universe. But he is almost totally ignored. And if not, he is as likely belittled as reverenced. Yet he is the most crucial factor in every issue facing the nation. There would simply be no nation without God. But he is regarded by our cultural leaders in almost all they do. Disregard for God is the greatest evil in the West today. It is as though an ant on his anthill should disbelieve in the earth.
If the church is going to reassert God's rightful place in the soul of a man and the center of all life, we will need a sharpened focus of who HE is and what HE is like/ One of the reasons our witness to God's reality is minimal is that our UNDERSTANDING of God's reality is minimal. In the name of quick and relevant impact we minimize the very greatness that would he his renown. Without this, we will not boldly and graciously assert his rightful place in all of life.
What we need is a big picture of a great God who is utterly committed to joyfully demonstrating his greatness is doing us good. That is, we need to see the MAJESTY of God and know the SPLENDOR of God overflowing toward us with exuberant omnipotence. It is not enough to believe that God is big and strong and fearsome -- which he is. We must experience this magnificence as the explosion of God's uncontainable zeal to satisfy his creatures by showing them himself.
We need a vision of the God that Jonathan Edwards had already at the age of twenty when he preached a sermon titled 'Nothing Upon Earth Can Represent the Glories of Heaven.' He revealed in the God of this sermon so much that he preached the same message in at least six towns outside his own parish of Bolton.
The 'doctrine' of the sermon he stated like this: 'The godly are designed for unknown and inconceivable happiness.' This he discerns from the purpose of God to glorify himself in creating the world and from his conviction that 'this glory of God, [consists] in the creature's admiring and rejoicing [and] exulting in the manifestation of his beauty and Excellency. For God has not glory actively from those that beheld his glory and take no pleasure in it; but the essence of [the] glorifying of God consists, therefore, in the creature's rejoicing in God's manifestations of his beauty, which is the joy and happiness we speak of.' In other words, the CERTAINTY and Greatness of the happiness of God's people is as sure as God's zeal for his own glory.
This is the vision we need. And we would do well to meditate on some of the great texts that capture the wonder of God's exuberant omnipotence in doing good to those who hope in him:
Zephaniah 3:17-18
Jeremiah 32:40-41
2 Chronicles 16:9
Deuteronomy 30:9
Psalm 149:4
Psalm 147:10-11
Psalm 35:27
Philippians 4:19
Ephesians 2:7
Isaiah 62:4-5
God's omnipotent exuberance to do us good is one of the most freeing discoveries a human can make. Oh, that we might believe it and savor it and bring it to mind again and again until it is our very nature to feel the truth that 'the godly are designed for unknown and inconceivable happiness.' Unremitting confidence in this truth would surely transform our attitudes and keep is steady in the face of great adversity." from TASTE AND SEE ... Savoring the Supremacy of God in All of Life by Dr. John Piper, published by our good friends at Multnomah.
Take some time today to look up the verses and meditate on the truth contained in them. Have a great day!
Great quote: Wherever you are, be all there. Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God. Jim Elliot
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