Stevemidkiff's Blog

Let the heavens rejoice & let the earth be glad;

let the sea roar & the fulness thereof.

Let the field be joyful & all that is therein:

then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice

Psalms 96:11-12

All of creation is standing on it’s tiptoes to express God’s beauty & majestic glory

Everyday & everywhere the grandeur of God’s creatively energizing voice is displayed

Ask the animals & they will teach us,

Ask the birds in the sky & they will tell us;

Speak to the earth & it will teach us,

Let the fish in the sea inform us.

Each of these knows that the hand of the LORD has done this?

In His hand is the life of every creature & the breath of all mankind.

Job 12:8-12

God can appear arbitrary in the way He brings some destruction & others protection

But no. God is not capricious or even random.

There is a rhyme & a reason to all God’s selections of what appears undefinable.

He is premeditated & purposeful

There is divine purpose & intention in everything

It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honor of kings is to search out a matter.

Prov. 25:2

The heights of the heavens seems to be limitless,

The depths of the earth seem to be unsearchable.

There is something inscrutable about each heart

No one knows exactly what each other are thinking.

But the mysterious, unfathomable, incomprehensible providence of God’s determinations

Are all disclosed in His amazing revelations & it’s our honor to explore His loving wonders

Release me from my bands

With the help of your good hands:

Gentle breath of yours my sails

Must fill, or else my project fails.

(lines from The Tempest by William Shakespeare

We often feel under an avalanche of wacky circumstances that crush & smother us

And we cry

God! you walked off & left us,

You’ve kicked our defenses to bits & stalked off angry.

Come back God. Oh please, come back!

You shook earth to the foundations, ripped open huge crevasses.

Heal the breaks! Everything’s coming apart at the seams.

You made Your people look doom in the face, then gave us cheap wine to drown our troubles.

Then you planted a flag to rally Your people, an unfurled flag to look to for courage.

Now do something quickly, answer right now, so the one You love best is delivered . …

Psalm 60:1-5 paraphrased

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you & when you pass through the rivers,

they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned;

the flames will not set you ablaze.

Isaiah 43:2

Even in the deep waters of life – God has promised to be with us.

He has even promised to never leave us nor forsake us. Hebrews 13:5 –

Keep your lives free from the love of money & be content with what we have,

because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”

Jesus has promised to be there to the end.

He has promised to never leave us nor forsake us.

He has promised to not let us drown in the deep waters of despair.

God’s people are precious to Him & He will not abandon us.

God will not let us face life alone. He is always there for us.

Not all storms come to disrupt our life

Some come to clear our path

When we rely upon organization,
we get what organization can do;

when we rely upon education,
we get what education can do;

when we rely upon eloquence,
we get what eloquence can do,

We don’t undervalue any of these
things in their proper place,

but when we rely upon prayer,
we get what God can do.

A. C. Dixon

Our Lord is the God of boundless resources. The only limit is in us.

We limit our Father

By our asking,

By our thinking,

By our small praying

By our limited expectations

Christ is trying to lift us up to a higher conception,

Jesus lures us on to a mightier expectation & appropriation.

Are we putting Him in derision?

Are we mocking Him by ignoring His abundances of treasures

He is limitless
He provides beyond what we may ask
He is a perfectly glorious giver of everything good;

Everything is “according to the power that works in us.

Adapted from A. B. Simpson.
“Climb to the treasure house of blessing on His ladder made of divine promises.

By a promise as by a key open the door

to the riches of God’s grace & favor

What would Peter have done on the Day of Pentecost if he had persisted
in pensively dwelling on his ugly denial,

What would his life had been like if he’d not dared to believe that all was forgiven & forgotten?

What would have been the effect on Paul,if he had allowed the memory of his share in the
murder of others to overcast his spirit when summoned to pioneer churches, write epistles,
and traverse continents?

F. B. MEYER

When we confess it to Jesus, our sin is immediately & forever put away.

God says: I will remember their sins no more

Hebrews 8:12

I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake & I will not remember your sins.

Isaiah 43:25

He has compassion on us; He treads our iniquities underfoot.
He casts all our sins into the depths of the sea.

Micah 7:19

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave us.

Ephesians 4:32

God never mentions our sins again.

Its never a barrier on our walk with Jesus;

Our sins don’t hinder us from aspiring to & enjoying the most intimate fellowship

Forget the past sins & failures of our life

Don’t wallow in a morass of brooding in guilt over sin with perpetual lamentation.

But magnify Jesus, rejoice in His great love & live in the riches of the glory of His grace