“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.’ Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me.” (CSB – Read the chapter)
I was recently reading through a devotional looking at various statements people often associate with the Scriptures, but are not actually found in them at all. In fact, when you break down these popular sayings, their foundational ideas are actually counter to the truth claims the various authors who contributed to the Scriptures make. One that really jumped out at me because I have heard it so many times is this: God won’t give you more than you can handle. This idea is popular, but is it true?
This past Sunday we kicked off a brand-new teaching series called, Bible Stories to Make You Squirm. If you are the kind of person who believes the Scriptures should have some kind of a place of authority in your life, you are left with a thorny problem: There are some stories in there that are just downright uncomfortable. If they are there on purpose and for our benefit, what are we supposed to do with them? In this series, we’ll explore several of these hard stories and begin to see that all Scripture really is for our benefit. Even the hard stuff.
You Want Me to Do What?
Have you ever
watched or read something that just wasn’t good? It’s not necessarily that it was bad, it just
wasn’t good. You just didn’t enjoy it. I remember watching Adam Sandler’s Punch
Drunk Love when I was in college. If
you’ve never heard of it, you’re better off for that. It’s a dark comedy about a socially awkward
guy falling in love. It was awful. The credits rolled and all of us gathered in
my friend’s living room watching it looked around at each other and as almost
the same time said, “We can’t have that two hours of life back.” I remember reading Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
when I was growing up. A book combining
science fiction and medieval adventure should have been an easy winner. It was all I could do to not put it down and
find something better to read. If I
wasn’t such a perfectionist about finishing books I probably would have. The thing about reading a book or watching a movie
that isn’t good is that you can always just walk out. There are some stories, though, that are
harder to ignore.
“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.” (ESV – Read the chapter)
Have you seen enough of God and His activity that rejecting Him is no longer a valid option for your life? That’s kind of an interesting question, isn’t it? We don’t often think about it like that. We usually think more in these terms: Have you seen enough of God to make receiving Him a reasonable thing to do? The thing is, if we look closely at the Scriptures, that first question is the one with which we are really confronted.
This post and this afternoon’s post of yesterday’s sermon will be the only two posts this week. Enjoy celebrating Christmas with your family tomorrow and see you on Monday of next week! Merry Christmas!
“And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.” (ESV – Read the chapter)
How did you respond the last time God asked you to do something hard? Were you ready to go, or were you more hesitant in the face of the great unknown stretching out before you? When God calls us on an adventure of some kind, that’s a scary place to be. His adventures tend to go well beyond what we can manage or handle on our own. But in that unease is the promise of life.
“‘How can I know this?’ Zechariah asked the angel. ‘For I am an old man, and my wife is well along in years.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)
Have you ever received news that was totally unbelievable based on everything you knew and didn’t believe it? Each of us has a level of disbelief we are capable of suspending in a given situation. We can only handle so much wonder. That level tends to be higher the younger we are (which is why, for instance, my boys wake up every morning these days asking where Elfie is and delighting in searching for and finding him), but grows smaller and smaller the older we get. When we are asked to suspend more than our max level, we tend to put on our suspicious hats and remain incredulous until we see proof. That’s normal. When it comes to the things of God, though, it can get us into trouble.
The Nexus 