A Great Reward, pt. 2

Get that, I said I trust God completely in my dying and yet I do not trust Him completely in my living.

I know without a doubt what death means for me. As Ephesians 2:8-9 tells me I have been saved by grace, through faith. I have a home waiting for me in the eternal presence of God. I trust Him for that.

But wait a minute. I trust the most glorious One in the universe whom I have wronged. I have tarnished His name and deserve hell. Yet, I trust Him to look at the blood of Jesus and know me anyways. I can hardly express the seriousness of this.

My offense against God is infinitely worse than stealing a man's car, killing his family, burning down his house, and then going to court only to find out that he is the judge who will be declaring my guilt or innocence. I would be standing before that man broken knowing that I am not going to like my sentence.

Yet, here we have God, who in His mercy, says I know you have wronged Me. I know that, left to yourself, you would have spent your entire life struggling against Me, trying to suppress My Name and My Truth. Yet, in My mercy and grace I sent My Son as a sacrifice for the sins of My people. You are Mine. I know you, I love you. Your soul has been cleansed from all guilt and shame. Welcome home My good and faithful servant.

I trust God in my dying because of the work He has done in my life and the promises He has given me in His Word. I am sure of this, He is my God and I am one of His people.

That's the hard part. That's the part with eternal consequences.

If I know that the Holy God of all that exists, has pardoned my sin and has made a place for me at His table....How can I even begin to fear His plan for today or tomorrow?

I am sure of His plan for my life. It is for my good and His glory. It is to make me more like Jesus who perfectly carried out God's mission of making His Name known throughout the earth (Romans 8:28-29). Ephesians 2:10 tells me that He has my life planned.

Yet, in my foolishness, I can honestly say that when it comes down to it, I am not trusting God for what I know to be true about my living.

I believe my fear of these things is merely a symptom of some other sin. I know it's absolutely ridiculous to trust God in my dying and not in my living. I thank God that I have seen this and I trust that He will continue revealing the hidden sins I have kept from myself.

A Great Reward

Getting consistent with your time spent communing with God in His Word always offers immediate reward. There is bound to be some truth you see in a new way.

That happened to me in Psalm 112 verse 7. I write in my Bible. If you flip through the pages you will see marks from pens, pencils, and highlighters. There are underlines, squiggles, stars, brackets, parentheses, circled words, notes, and of course, DATES. The dates are my very favorite part. It is through keeping track of where I've been and when I was there that I am able to remember the seasons of life that God has brought me through.

Psalm 112:7 is clearly a verse that has spoken to me over and over again.

Today, one of my secret or hidden sins came out. I did not go looking for it. God revealed it to me.

Psalm 112:7 says this,

He is not afraid of bad news;
his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord.

Today I saw that I trust God completely in my dying, but that I can honestly say that I do not trust Him completely in my living.

How do I know? Because I do fear bad news when it comes to today and tomorrow. At the same time I am absolutely fearless when it comes to death....

Question and Answer

I've got a couple of posts coming up.

Before we go there, I want you to take some time to ask your soul a question.

When you are finished, go to the Bible and look up the verse at the end of this post.

The question: Soul, trusting God in my dying is great, but am I trusting Him in my living?



Let the Word work: Psalm 112, especially verse 7.

Uh Oh

I guess blogging less often means longer posts.

Sorry about that! When I started this blog I wanted it to be short and sweet.

I'll try to do away with longer posts!

Walking in Truth

Rather than mimicking those saints that inspire me, I want to be like Jesus.

To do this, I need to seek God in His Word, through prayer, and worship. Not exactly how others have or do these things, but the way He leads me. It's a daily thing, a moment by moment thing. My journal will look different than theirs. My surroundings will be different than theirs. What is the same is the God at work and the truth being instilled.

Together, all of us form a body known as the Church. We, with all of our uniqueness, are the same in that we all are being changed into the likeness of Christ. As we are changed we are testifying to the Gospel of the grace of God. We are doing that ministry that we have received from the Lord Jesus.

Join me in serving God as the Church and as individuals. We have much to learn from each other and that is well and good. But rather than looking around trying to be like each other, let's look to Jesus.

After all, His is the Author and Finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12). We may inspire each other, but we ought mainly to inspire each other to seek Him, to be like Him, and to please God with all that we are.

In these last two posts, I hope you heard one thing: KNOW God, today. As you abide in Him, your life will testify to that Gospel at work in you. You will be in the Word and in prayer. You will be a worshiper of our great God who captivates you.

We will live as though we exist to know Him, be known by Him, and make Him known to those around us.

It will be good. In fact, it is very good!

On My Mind

Okay, this is going to make me look rather foolish. The truth is, I am a total fool. Thankfully though, by the grace of God, through the blood of Jesus and the work of the Holy Spirit, I have been given new life! Rather than living like the fool I am, I have been given the joy of living like Jesus Christ!


You know how you read about great saints who spent their lives passionately serving God? Or you are blessed by teaching from someone who is spending their life passionately serving God? And then you just want to read as much as they've written as you can, listen to as much of their teaching as you can, and better yet, be around them as much as you can...You want to be a fly on the wall in their house, in their prayer closet, know how they meet with God, how they worship Him...In short, you just want to learn as much as you can from them so that you're life might bless others the way their life has blessed you. Surely I'm not the only one who has thought these things!

I have been inspired by many such saints. I have wanted to be like many of them. In the last few weeks I've come to realize something extremely important. As usual, it's rather simple.

I am not those saints. I am not called to be those saints.

I am called to know God. I am called to be changed by God. I am saved by Jesus and made new. I am known by God! I am His child, destined to spend eternity with Him! That is enough.

Thankfully, that same God who has worked and is working in the lives of those great saints that have inspired me, is working in my life! By His grace, I will indeed inspire others to glorify Him as I simply obey Him in my everyday life.

By His grace, my life will not be wasted. By His grace I will have strength to face each day, whatever it holds, with a spirit of peace and boldness and hope.

By His grace Acts 20:24 will be more than a prayer or a hope or a dream. By His grace it will be a description of what my great God has done with my life.

But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself,
if only I may finish my course and athe ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus,
to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.