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Heads Up, God’s Listening

Whoever taught me this taught it well. Many a time I chose to do the right thing because I knew God was watching as well as listening. Wow! Someone (God) is listening to every conversation and watching us all the time. More than that, He even knows what we’re thinking about this very second.

 God lets us know how important our talk is to him:

“And they who feared the Lord spoke often to one another,

and God heard. paid attention and a book of memories

was written before him about them . . .

(Malachi 4:16)

 Watch what you say, it might “make the book”! One day God will open the book to his great pleasure and say, ”Let’s look at your baby pictures and listen to your baby talk.” The best thing about us as far as God is concerned? We who worshiped the Lord will make up the finished inheritance of God, His treasured possession.

 Think about it. At least three times today.

When I Consider . . . (Psalm 8:3-9)

 It’s not a sin to think. It’s just terrible to think wrong. The Psalmist is thinking ___ he calls it considering ___ and declares the result of such thinking. 

“When I consider your heavens,

the works of your fingers, the moon and stars you have set in place,

what is man that you are mindful of him?”

 Well, it’s obvious that when the Psalmist got God in the right place, everything else fell into place. Your heavens, your moon, your stars, your people. God so fashioned the mind that. Given a moment to properly consider, God comes crashing into sight and everything else comes into proper perspective.

 We all think at one time or another that we are or should be in the top spot. The fact is that when we find God, we find that the spot God has for is better than “top”!

We are . . .

 A little lower than heavenly beings

 Crowned with glory and honor,

 Ruler over God’s projects, 

 Everything under his feet, animals of the field, birds of the air and all life in the sea.

 Such a job description! Not such a bad deal after all.

 Think about it! Often.

It’s Just Like God!

God seems seldom inclined to take the expected, predictable route to any of His goals. His people were in bondage in Egypt. Had been for several hundred years. One of the facets of their bondage was the terrible torture of population control and I don’t mean contraceptives. A law was passed that all boy babies for a season were to be put to death. But guess what! Since God knows everything, past, present and future he can trump the enemy’s plans handily and then some.

Examples:

The key Israelite boy baby was hidden in a water-worthy basket at the river.

It was placed at the very spot where Pharaoh’s daughter happened to be bathing.

She spotted the basket, examined it and found the baby pleasing to her sight.

She took the baby back to the palace.

The baby’s big sis, watching from a distance, asked if she might need a baby-sitter. She said yes and . . .

Allowed the baby to grow up in his own house with his own mother being paid to care for him.

When the boy was older he was taken to the palace and declared to be the grandson of Pharoah.

His name? Moses, who would deliver the Israelites from the centuries of bondage.

What a bizarre plan! But it’s just like God. Who has a god like our God?

Think about it!

The Message of the Scars

 A scar, have you considered this phenomenon? A scar results from a healed wound. It testifies clearly to a wound but even more loudly to a healing. I have multiple scars all over my body, none more obvious than those resulting from multiple heart surgeries. I never look at them without praise welling up within me. Scars speak to me, “Wow, whoopee, we made it!” They are always an occasion for celebration. They testify of the mobilizing of the multiple powers of the body to heal itself, the skill of surgeons and the mercy of God. The point of the scar is stronger than the same tissue before the wound.

 When Thomas missed a vital meeting in which the resurrected Christ appeared to the others, he simply couldn’t believe it all. But when he saw the scars in Jesus’ hands and side, he exclaimed, “My Lord and my God!” Scars turned unbelief into certainty as well as joy. There are no scars on the dead.

 Scars have a testimony. Listen! Scars are visual aids. Look! Scars prompt memories. Think! Scars are entitlements, credentials of valuable experiences of survival and faith.

 God loves scars. They confirm His choice of life and show His ability to sustain it.

 The devil hates scars. They trump his malignant intentions to kill, steal and destroy.

 Look at the scars, feel the bumps on your head and give God to glory. We made it!

 Think about it.

Who is this Stranger Anyway?

When Moses was tagged by God to bring the slaves out of

Egypt

, the conversation might have gone something like this:

 “Moses, I want you to go tell Pharaoh to let my people go.” No little task this.

 “And if I go and someone asks who sent me, what should I to tell them?”

 “Tell them that ‘I am’ sent you.”

 Now, where is this conversation going? All Moses could get from God was, “I am Who I am.” 

 “O.K., Lord, I think that’s fairly evident, I guess I can say the same, ‘I am who I am’.

 “Yes, Moses, but I have always been ‘I am’, you haven’t. I am everything I need to be; you’re not. What I am is always enough, your I am is never enough. You will never understand the full meaning of my “I amness”. Don’t try, just believe it and say it and act like it.”

 A good while later . . . 

 “Yessir, Lord, but how does it work?”

 “See that body of water (wide, deep

Red Sea

)?

 “Yes, Lord, it is all too obvious to me! I can’t get this people across’ who’s going to do it?”

 “I am!” 

 “You are?” 

 “Wrong way to say it, Moses. Don’t question who I am!”

 “O.K., Lord, you are!”

 Enter sounds of roaring wind, rushing, splashing, retreating water and gasping Israelis, and suddenly a super freeway appears between two high walls of water.

 “Wow, Lord, how’d that happen.”

 “It’s simple, Moses: I said, ‘I am’, you agreed and said ‘you are’ and what happened made the whole watching world say, ‘He really is!”

 So from then on (except the notable time Moses disobeyed God and bought the farm) it was the same:

 God said, “I am,” Moses said, “You are,” and the world watched a miracle and said, “He is, He really is!”

 And that’s how it is, Walter! That’s how it really is and that’s how it really works.

 Think about it!

Should I Expect God to Make me Happy?

When we yield to God we often wonder whether He will put us in circumstances that are helpful to happiness. We often secretly suspicion that if we ever really give ourselves to God He will surely make us marry an ugly, fat and cross-eyed mate and send us to darkest Okeefenokee Swamp as a missionary. Dangerous thinking! Additionally, it’s just plain wrong.

 If we knew God just a bit better we would say, “Lord, I choose to be joyful and happy wherever you put me because it is Your purpose that I be in the one place in the world where I will bring glory to You. There is my happy place!

 By the way, if nobody has told you, salvation, life and ministry are not about you or even those who you are assigned to reach. It’s all about Him, only, totally and forever.

 Under those circumstances, yes, you can expect God to make you happy. In this way God is sort of like Mom, if she’s happy everybody is. Better still, knowing Him as a Happy God is enough to make us happy!

 Think about it! Happily.

Why is God Happy?

The word “blessed” in Scripture means blessed, happy,, well off, supremely fortunate. Since we have affirmed that our God is happy shall we venture another question? Why is He so happy? A few words will have to do for now:

 He is happy because of the eternal fellowship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He is not God alone, he is God Three in One, co-equal, co-operative, co-eternal.

 He is happy because He is holy, totally without sin, pure in motive, totally loving. Being holy he has no equal nor can any claim to be his contender. None is worthy of that.

 He is happy because of His creation. Have you examined this lately? And we can see only a little chunk of creation. The majestic mountains, the soaring clouds, the glistening oceans, the tumbling waterfalls, stars in the gazillions! And we have hardly gotten off the ground!

 The best for last: He is happy in His Son and the saved. He says over us, “These shall be mine when I make up my treasured possession (Malachi 3:17) Tune your ear, do you hear it? It begins with a whisper and soon reverberates into a wave of unbelievable sound, “Mine, mine, MINE!

 Think about it. Think about it a whole lot.

Is God Happy?

One verse is enough to answer this rather important question: 1 Timothy 1:11.

“ . . . the glorious Gospel of the blessed God.”

 Aside from the context, the two words “blessed God” form a slam dunk confirmation that our God is indeed a happy God. The cat’s out of the bag, our God is one happy, exulting, celebrating God! Who’d a thunk it? I don’t know about, you but my idea of God was of a serious being who watched me with an eagle eye and a clenched fist waiting to catch me in a word, deed or even a thought that didn’t please Him and, WHAM! I would be toast, expecting his fist on my head so hard, it would break both my ankles. Hallelujah! Tain’t so. In fact He loves us, is wild about us, favors us. The little-known prophet, Zephaniah, even says,

“This God is with you, mighty to save,

He will take great delight in you

And will exult over you with singing (Zephaniah 3:17)”.

 Now just before you remind me of what I already know, that this verse is for Israel, I want to say that it is also for all those who are God’s kids, including you and me. Hallelujah to our happy God!

Think about it. Now you can fear Him gladly! Other questions coming.

Is the Bible Alive?

Well yes and no! The Bible is the result of the Living Holy Spirit breathing on men chosen to write down the original autographs. So it may be said that the words of the Bible are the distillation of the breath of God. That’s the literal meaning of inspiration . . . “God-breathed”. But there is something else to consider: The words of the Bible themselves do not have a life of their own. The spiritual life and power of the Word of God lies, not in the document, but in the power of the Holy Spirit who is able to take the words He formerly spoke and give them life again as they are read and declared.

 Without this work of the Spirit of God, the words run the risk of losing the original intent and meaning of the Scriptures. If we seek to interpret them in the light of our unaided reason we will not have a supernatural experience. Each time we have an experience with the Scriptures without an encounter with the Living God, we simply become more religious. And walla!, out jumps a Pharisee.

 I found myself praying this morning as my wife and I prepared to read our daily Scriptures, “Holy Spirit, please take this “said and read” Word and make it in my life the “saying” Word.“ If God said it before, He is still saying it and I should be able to go beyond the reading of what He said and hear Him saying it again to my heart and witness the Presence that brings needed change.

 Think about it! Second thought, you may have to think about it several times.

And that’s the way it is. . .

 Remember how just about everybody’s favorite news anchor, our adorable, Walter C, used to sign off on his newscasts?

“And that’s the way it is . . .”

 Sorry, Walter, you were great but you were wrong every time you said that.

Correction: “That’s the way it appears to be!”

 And that, dear one, is a major revelation. If you want to live frustrated and die miserable, simply conclude that the face of things, event, tragedies and the like form the “real” world. With that perspective, listening to one newscast or reading one newspaper will deliver you to the dumps every time.

“We don’t get down in the dumps

because we don’t look on things that are visible.

Instead we fix our gaze on the invisible.

What is visible doesn’t last;

What is invisible is forever!”

(JRT Paraphrase of 2 Corinthians 4:18)

 Try shutting down all “visibles” and audibles and ask God to show you “reality” from His point of view. You might hear Him whisper,

“And that’s the way it is, now and forever!”

Amen

 Think about it!