Stevemidkiff's Blog

Giving thanks always
for all things unto God

Eph. 5:20

No matter what the source of the evil,
if we’re in Christ
We’re surrounded by Him
all evil has to pass through Him
before it comes to us.

Therefore we can thank God
for everything that comes,
not for the sin of it,
but for what God will bring out of it
and what Jesus will do through it.

God make our lives thankful

Jesus express in us perpetual praise

Make everything a blessing through
Your Spirit

We see negative things.

We look & can’t make sense of it.

It’s all irregular.

It’s all confusing.

But the end of it all can bring a wonderful resonance in us

As we:

Praise God from whom all blessing flow

Praise Him all creature here below

There are many negatives in our lives

We can’t understand why they are there

We can’t comprehend why God permitted them to come.

We let You Lord into our lives

We adjust the negativity to the why

We seek the boundaries You want

We separate from all that reject You

We know out of the negatives You will make a glorious harmony.

Keep us from hindering You in Your glorious work!

C. H. P.

We owe the grandeur of our lives
to our tremendous difficulties.

C. H. Spurgeon

When the musician presses
the black keys on the piano,

the music is as sweet as when
the white ones are touched

but to get the full capacity of each instrument He must touch them all

Selected.

I keep thinking about something I heard

Unhappiness is contagious

We don’t want to catch it

We have infected folks sneezing on us constantly

Keep our hearts masked

so we’re protected from the poison of whiners

For this reason, I fall to our knees

in our heart before the Father

G.K. Chesterton mused:

When we fall our knees we assume our
primary purpose of prostration is prayer

Bowing is, more than a convenient posture for prayer.

Bowing is surrender in response to God
Who inspires inspires deep awe in our soul

So what is it that causes us to fall to
down before Him in prayerful awe?

It wasn’t a miraculous vision,

It wasn’t a voice from heaven.

It is something that may seem quite mundane

It‘s something that is experienced today
by billions of people around the globe.

We need to cultivate our desire
for authentic awe in Him

We take a fresh look at all unexpected
wonder that drives us to bow to Him

The world will never starve for wonders;
but only for want of wonder

If that was true in Chesterton’s time,
how much more is it true for us today?

Our eyes and our flesh are glutted
with superficial pleasures

Our souls are starving for authentic awe.

We have become comfortably numb.

But God did not design us for the numbness

chasing constantly after the latest distraction
or the quickest thrill is like Novocain in our veins

God designed us for wonder and awe in His voice

Jesus predicted hard stuff in Mt. 24

Jesus tells of false prophets

wars and rumours of wars

famines and earthquakes

Nations rising against each another

persecution and tragedies increasing

Then He says something else

Because of the increase of wickedness

Because of evil being called good

Because of good being called evil

the love of most will grow cold

We need softening oils & soothing creams for our heart

Grace is free sovereign favor to the ill-deserving.

B.B. Warfield

“Grace is love that cares & stoops and rescues.”

John Stott

“Grace is God reaching downward to us who are in rebellion against Him.”

Jerry Bridges

“Grace is radical love toward all who don’t deserve it.”

Paul Zahl

Grace is most needed grace is best understood
in the midst of sin, suffering, and brokenness.

We live in a world of earning, deserving & merit,

But that results in judgment.

That is why everyone wants & needs grace.

Judgment kills.

Only grace makes alive.

grace is – “mercy, not merit.”

Grace is the opposite of karma,

karma is getting what we deserve.

Grace is getting what we don’t deserve,
Mercy not getting what we do deserve.

Jesus teaches that what we deserve is death with no hope of resurrection.

Desperately we need grace in our hopelessness.

Grace is about God:

Grace is Christ’s un-coerced initiative

Grace is Jesus pervasive, extravagant demonstrations of care and favor.

Michael Horton writes:

In grace, God gives nothing less than Himself.

Grace is the substance that mediates between God and sinners, through Jesus in delivering action.

We’re all alive every day based on the grace of God.

We receive forgiveness according to the riches of God’s grace,

Grace drives our salvation

Grace delivers our separation

Grace designs our sanctification.

Paul tells us,

the grace of God has appeared,
bringing salvation for all people,

training us to renounce ungodliness

teaching us to reject earthly passions,

transforming us to live self-controlled, lives in Christ

Titus 2:11

Spiritual growth is a process
It doesn’t happen overnight;

we “grow in the grace as we grow in knowledge of our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ”

2 Peter 2:18

Grace transfigures our desires, motivations, and behavior.

Grace is the basis for:

Our identity: “By the grace of God I am what I am.”

1 Corinthians 1:10

Our standing before God:

this grace in which we stand.

Romans 5:2

Our behavior:

We behaved in the life … by the grace of God.

2 Corinthians 2:12

Our living:

those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life
through the one man Jesus Christ,”
Romans 5:17 by the “grace of life.”

1 Peter 1:7

Our holiness:

God; called us to a holy calling …
because of His own purpose and grace.

2 Timothy 2:9

Our strength for living:

Be strengthened by the grace that is in Jesus Christ

2 Timothy 2:12

it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace

Hebrews 13:9

Our way of speaking:

Let your speech always be gracious.

Colossians 4:6

Our serving:

serve one another, by God’s varied grace.

1 Peter 1:10

Our sufficiency:

Gods grace is sufficient for us.

2 Corinthians 2:9

God is able to make all grace abound to us, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times,
We may abound in every good work.

2 Corinthians 2:8

In our response to difficulty and suffering:
We get “grace to help in time of need,”

Hebrews 4:16

and when “we have suffered a little while,
the God of all grace…
will himself
restore,
confirm,
strengthen,
and establish us.
by His grace

1 Peter 1:10

We are recipients of grace
we are privileged to serve as agents of grace.
We receive grace

Acts 11:23

We are encouraged to continue in grace

Acts 13:43

We are called to testify to the grace of God

Acts 20:24

Jesus says, “As the Father has sent Me,
even so I am sending you” by grace

John 20:21

God, and his grace, is everlasting.

We Set our hope fully on the grace that is brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 1:13

Grace [reigns] through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Romans 5:21

The voice of God’s Spirit through God’s Word is all about God’s grace through Jesus Christ.

This is “the good news of the grace of God”

Acts 20:24

and “the word of His grace”

Acts 14:3

“The most valuable land in the world is the graveyard.

In the graveyard are buried all of the unwritten novels,

We find there

all the never-launched businesses,

all the unreconciled relationships,

all of the other things that people thought,

all the I’ll get around to that tomorrow.’

One day, however, their tomorrows ran out.”

from Die Empty

Could we but draw the curtains

That surround each other’s lives,

See the naked heart & spirit,

Know what spur the action gives –

Often we would find it better,

Purer than we judge we should;

We should love each other better

If we only understood.

Unknown

“Jesus rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased.”

Luke 8:24.

Any lake.

Any ocean.

Any storm

Anywhere.

Any time.

When Jesus speaks the storm stuff stops

What in the world causes us to do self destructive stuff?

It’s not stupidity, nope,

it’s something we are all victimized with.

It’s sin, just plain old feeding that beast called self.