Greater Things Are Yet To Come

MONDAY, MAY 13, 2013

By Gary Wilkerson

God wants to do mighty things through us. He wants to express His love to the
world through us. So if we are clinging to one thing that gets in the way of
His accomplishing that—some willfulness, some refusal to trust Him for
everything—He points it out to us.

Sometimes God wants us to add something to our lives before He brings His best.
This may involve something we have not done, so He wants us to ask, “Have I
been slow to respond to something God has asked me to do?”

We find an example of this in Acts, when the disciples added a new member to
replace Judas. While in the Upper Room, they drew lots and chose Matthias. It
seemed like such a small thing. These same men had seen Jesus work wonders,
open blind eyes, cast out demons, even raise a man from the dead. They had seen
God’s kingdom advanced on earth as never before in history. And when Christ
ascended to heaven, He gave them this incredible word: “You will do even
greater works, once I send you My Spirit. He will empower you. Greater things
are yet to come!” (see Acts 1:1-8).

Indeed, these same disciples would go beyond Israel and the Middle East, into
Europe and India and Africa, preaching the good news of Christ to the nations,
all within their generation. What made it so important to add another disciple?
They did it for one simple reason: Peter sensed it was something God wanted them
to do.

“In those days Peter stood up among the brothers . . . and said, ‘Brothers,
the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the
mouth of David concerning Judas . . . For he was numbered among us and was
allotted his share in this ministry’” (Acts 1:15-17). Peter was referring
to Psalm 109:8: “May another take his place of leadership.”

There is a great lesson here for Christ’s church today. That is, never
overlook a nagging issue of the heart, no matter how small. God puts His finger
on these matters for a reason: to reveal our heart’s response to Him. Greater
things are yet to come!

Read this devotion online: http://www.worldchallenge.org/en/node/22808?src=devo-email

Go And Tell Peter

Here’s Today’s Devotional from The Vine..

But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He goes before you into Galilee. There you will see him, as he said to you.’” – Mark 16:7

 

Why “and Peter” ? Why was Peter named, and none of the other disciples? Had Peter been the most loyal and faithful of all the Master‘s friends, that he deserved such a mark of distinction as this? Oh no; we remember how Peter had fallen. The last word that had dropped upon the ear of Jesus from His lips was a bitter word of denial. Peter had acted worse than any other of the disciples.

Why, then, did Jesus send this special word to Peter? It was just because he had sinned. That last look of the Savior broke his heart, and he went out into the night a penitent man, weeping bitterly. Those had been dark days for him since Jesus died. Not only was he overwhelmed with sorrow at the death of his Lord, whom he truly and most dearly loved, but his grief was made bitter beyond endurance by the remembrance of his own base denial at the very last. Deep must this sorrow have been, and all the deeper because he would never be able to ask forgiveness. How he must have longed to have Jesus back, if but for one moment, to confess his sin and crave pardon!

Jesus left this special word for Peter with the angel at the tomb, because He knew of the bitterness of His disciple’s sorrow. Peter might have been saying, when he heard Jesus had risen, “Perhaps He will not own me any more,” and so Jesus sent this message with Peter’s name in it specially, just to let him know that he was forgiven and would not be cast off. What a world of comfort there is in this “and Peter” for any who have sinned and are penitent! Those who have fallen are the very ones who receive the deepest, tenderest compassion from Jesus, because they need it most, and because He would help them to rise again. The gospel always has its special word for the penitent; Christ still comes to call the sinner.

How to Hold On

Read | Psalm 37:5-7

Job was a man who certainly knew trouble and temptation, and yet he boldly claimed, “Though He slay me, I will hope in Him” (Job 13:15). That is commitment. Job had lost his children, his fortune, and his health, but he refused to abandon faith in God. The stricken man was determined to hold on because he trusted the Lord to do right.

Unwavering commitment to trust the Lord in all situations is a cornerstone of unshakable faith. From the vantage point of that foundation, we can focus our eyes upon God alone. It is easy to be distracted by circumstances and allow them to dictate our emotions. But if that’s the case, then when life is good, we’re happy; when times are tough, we’re frustrated; and when hardship pours in, we’re downright miserable and looking for escape.

Unlike Job, we are fortunate to have Scripture, which reveals God’s nature and promises. And it is a wise believer who claims those promises when enduring hardship. For His Word tells us that our Father is always good, always just, always faithful, and always trustworthy. When we take our eyes off the whirl of day-to-day activity and concentrate on honoring Him and following in His way, we find a consistent peace that carries us through both plenty and poverty.

In order to hold on to God through any trial or temptation, commit to trust and follow Him all of your days. Lay claim to His promises: The unchanging Lord and Savior (Heb. 13:8) is committed to caring for you in all circumstances (1 Peter 5:7) and will never leave or forsake you (Heb. 13:5).

Dr. Charles Stanley

Can You Lose Your Salvation?

English: Noah Found Grace in the Eyes of the Lord; as in Genesis 6:8; illustration from Sunrays Quarterly (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.”

John 10:28

Perhaps one of the most well-known stories in the Bible is that of Noah and the ark he built. God told Noah that He was going to send judgment upon the earth in the form of a flood. But because Noah and his family were righteous, God told Noah He would save them and gave him plans to build a boat.

So on the day that the flood was to come, God said to Noah, “…come into the ark” (Genesis 6:18). And that tells us, of course, that God was inside that ark. The only way Noah and his family were going down was if God went down. And God wasn’t going down!

I’m so glad God didn’t say, “Noah, I’ll put a few pegs on the outside of that boat for you. And if you hang on faithfully until the end, you’ll be secure through the storm.” No, He said, “Come into this ark.” And Noah may have fallen down many times in the ark, but he never fell out of the ark!

Now Peter tells us that Jesus is our ark of safety (1 Peter 3:20). And if we are in that ark—in Christ—we can never fall out. So if you’re in Christ, rest assured that though you may stumble, you can never fall out of His grace, and you have eternal life forever!

REST IN THE ASSURANCE THAT IF YOU’RE IN CHRIST, YOU CAN NEVER LOSE YOUR SALVATION!
Pastor Graham

God Will See It Through

By David Wilkerson
[May 19, 1931 - April 27, 2011]

St. Peter Denying Christ, by Gustave Doré (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Peter was the man who said he would never desert Jesus. Yet, not only did Peter
deny he knew Him, but he did it with a stream of profanities pouring from his
mouth.

“And a maid saw him again, and began to say to them that stood by, This is one
of them. And he denied it again. And a little after, they that stood by said
again to Peter, Surely thou art one of them. . . . But he began to curse and to
swear, saying, I know not this man of whom ye speak” (Mark 14:69-71).

If you had been standing near the fire listening to Peter, you may have
thought, “Is this the man who was on the Mount of Transfiguration? The one who
laid hands on the sick and they recovered? The one entrusted with the keys to
the kingdom? Listen to what’s coming out of his mouth! How could he walk so
intimately with the Lord and then blow up like this, lying, cursing and denying
Him? It’s all over for Peter. He might as well go back to his fishing nets.
He’ll never be heard of again.”

Had you run to the Lord exclaiming about Peter’s cursing, He would have
answered, “Yes, Peter has failed Me but I know his heart. He’s going to be on a
hill in a few hours, weeping and coming back to Me. In fact, he is on his way to
Pentecost — to a life of ministry for Me.”

“If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself” (2 Timothy
2:13). The actual Greek reading of this verse is: “If we are faithless, yet He
remains faithful.” It is true that Peter was terribly unfaithful but God
remained faithful and His eternal purpose in Peter’s life was not thwarted.
Why? Because God cannot deny who He is.

No matter what you have been through this past year, God looks on your heart.
If you have a broken and contrite spirit, He will be there for you. His eternal
purpose for you will not be ruined because He will see it through!

Learning from Failure

 

Several types of Cirrus clouds. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Luke 22:31-34

 

The disciple Peter was a man of great faith and bold action. But as readers of the New Testament know, his brash style sometimes led him to make humiliating mistakes. More than once, this disciple had to wear the label of “miserable failure” rather than that of “obedient servant.”

We can all relate when it comes to falling short of expectations. Obedience to God is a learning process, and failure is a part of our development as humble servants. When we yield to temptation or rebel against God’s authority, we realize that sin has few rewards, and even those are fleeting.

Failure is an excellent learning tool, as Peter could certainly attest. Through trial and error, he discovered that humility is required of believers (John 13:5-14); that God’s ways are higher than the world’s ways (Mark 8:33); and that one should never take his eyes off Jesus (Matt. 14:30). He took each of those lessons to heart and thereby grew stronger in his faith. Isn’t that Romans 8:28 in action? God caused Peter’s failures to be put to good use as training material because the disciple was eager to mature and serve.

God doesn’t reward rebellion or wrongdoing. However, by His grace, He blesses those who choose repentance and embrace chastisement as a tool for growth.

We would probably all prefer to grow in our faith without ever making a mistake before God’s eyes, but we cannot deny that missteps are instructive. Failure teaches believers that it is much wiser and more profitable to be obedient to the Lord. That’s a lesson we all should take to heart.

Dr. Charles Stanley

Strength Out of Weakness

Today’s Devotional The Vine…

but I prayed for you, that your faith wouldn’t fail. You, when once you have turned again, establish your brothers.” – Luke 22:32

Peter was not to be lost in the terrible experience through which he was to pass. Christ had made intercession for him, and he would come again from the trial humbled, bruised, defeated, but saved, and a better man. Our Lord tells him here that after his restoration he should turn his experience to account in helping other souls. “Do thou, when once thou hast turned again, stablish thy brethren.” He would be able then to warn others of the dangers in which he had suffered so terribly. We can imagine Peter in after days counselling Christians against self-confidence and the other false steps which led to his own fall, and thus strengthening or stablishing them in safe ways. Then there is no doubt that his experience of penitence, and of the grace and love of Christ in that experience, enabled him to be a wise and safe guide to many another disciple who had fallen into sin and was seeking to be restored.

The lesson is important. All the lessons that God teaches us we should teach others. When we are helped it is that we may then help others. When God comforts us in any sorrow, He thereby ordains us to go forth to comfort others with the comfort wherewith we ourselves have been comforted of God. When we fall in temptation, and God lifts us up and restores us, He wants us to use our experience in helping other weak ones in their temptations.

O lead me, Lord, that I may lead
The wandering and the wavering feet;
O feed me, Lord, that I may feed
Thy hungering ones with manna sweet.

O strengthen me, that while I stand
Firm on the rock, and strong in thee,
I may stretch out a loving hand
To wrestlers with the troubled sea.

Today God Is First By Os Hillman

“So Moses thought, ‘I will go over and see this strange sight-why the bush does not burn up.’” Exodus 3:3

Have you ever heard someone say, “God doesn’t work that way? He would never do that.” Well, there are times when God chooses to confound the foolish in order to change our paradigm of experience. Moses had never seen a bush that burned but did not burn up. It got his attention and it drew him to God.

When Jesus appeared on the water in the middle of the night during a storm, the disciples exclaimed, “It’s a ghost!” They had never seen a man walk on water. This led to a great miracle-Peter walked on the water, too. When Jesus asked Peter to catch a fish and get the coin from its mouth to pay their taxes, you can imagine what Peter must have thought about those instructions. When Moses got to the Red Sea, he ran out of options. God had an unexpected solution to the Israelites’ problem-He parted the Red Sea to demonstrate His power and allow the people of Israel to cross over to flee the Egyptian army.

Each of these new paradigms was a stepping-stone of an encounter with God so that the individual would experience God in a new way. God used these times to enforce the principle that His ways are not our ways. Whenever we try to predict that God will act in a certain way, He changes the paradigm to keep us from becoming our own little gods.

Have you ever been guilty of judging someone for an experience they’ve had that you’ve never had? Did you dismiss it as extreme or something not of God? God is in the business of changing our paradigm from no personal experiences to God-experiences. However, if you operate on a level of rigid logic, you may never have the privilege of having the God-experiences. Keep your heart free to experience new paradigms with God today.

http://wdednh.wordpress.com/2011/09/04/changing-our-paradigm/ More good reading.

Changing Our Paradigm of Experience

Today God Is First By Os Hillman

“So Moses thought, ‘I will go over and see this strange sight-why the bush does not burn up.’” Exodus 3:3

Have you ever heard someone say, “God doesn’t work that way? He would never do that.” Well, there are times when God chooses to confound the foolish in order to change our paradigm of experience. Moses had never seen a bush that burned but did not burn up. It got his attention and it drew him to God.

When Jesus appeared on the water in the middle of the night during a storm, the disciples exclaimed, “It’s a ghost!” They had never seen a man walk on water. This led to a great miracle-Peter walked on the water, too. When Jesus asked Peter to catch a fish and get the coin from its mouth to pay their taxes, you can imagine what Peter must have thought about those instructions. When Moses got to the Red Sea, he ran out of options. God had an unexpected solution to the Israelites’ problem-He parted the Red Sea to demonstrate His power and allow the people of Israel to cross over to flee the Egyptian army.

Each of these new paradigms was a stepping-stone of an encounter with God so that the individual would experience God in a new way. God used these times to enforce the principle that His ways are not our ways. Whenever we try to predict that God will act in a certain way, He changes the paradigm to keep us from becoming our own little gods.

Have you ever been guilty of judging someone for an experience they’ve had that you’ve never had? Did you dismiss it as extreme or something not of God? God is in the business of changing our paradigm from no personal experiences to God-experiences. However, if you operate on a level of rigid logic, you may never have the privilege of having the God-experiences. Keep your heart free to experience new paradigms with God today.

Simple Acts of Obedience

LUKE 5:1-7 

Obeying God in small matters can bring blessing to many. Today’s passage illustrates this principle.

Simon Peter, a fisherman by trade, had worked hard the entire night without catching anything. He was on the shore finishing his work when Jesus approached him. The Lord wanted to speak from the boat to the crowd onshore. Despite a long, fruitless night of work, Peter agreed to take Jesus in the vessel. The crowd was blessed by seeing and hearing Christ preach.

God’s requests can come to us at inopportune or unexpected moments. We may be tempted to let someone else respond to His call, thinking it will not matter who is the one to comply. But remember, His plans are designed for our benefit (Jer. 29:11).

Later Jesus made a second request to Peter—to move the boat into deeper water and let down the nets. The fisherman commented about the unlikelihood of catching anything but nevertheless did as Christ asked. Peter’s cooperation resulted in an abundance for the crowd, the other fishermen, their families, and himself.

Peter didn’t obey in order to be rewarded, yet that is precisely what happened. His simple acts of obedience led to greater opportunities for service and occasions for abundant blessing.

Some of us act as if obedience in the little things is unimportant. Peter’s story teaches us the opposite. Let’s commit to carrying out the Lord’s instructions in small matters as well as large ones, trusting that He will bring good from all obedience. Following God is always the right choice to make.

Dr. Charles Stanley