God’s sovereignty

God’s Work and Voice in Me, Part 7F: To Speak or Not to Speak, that is the Question

If God is still speaking to us, why don’t we hear him more? This presentation reviews the reasons given in Scripture.

You Are Not the One to Build, Part 5: God’s Callings for All of His Children and Friends

God “calls” all believers to love one another and to be conformed to the image of His Son–to be made, by God, to be just like Jesus. There is also a number of other things to which God “calls” all believers–almost all of them things we simply let him do to or through us, and all of them summed up by loving each other and being remade into His image.

Going to Be With the Lord

No faith is needed where the thing hoped for can be seen. And the difference between not yet seeing and fully seeing Is the whole difference between being in the body and being out of it and “with” the Lord.

Our Father–The One in the Heavens: God with Us in the Lord’s Prayer

Recognition of the heavens all around us and of the imperatives used in the Lord Prayer, Jesus’ model for our prayers, transforms it into a very radical and dangerous prayer. In it, we are actually commanding the immediate manifestation of God’s increasing rule in our present existence and on Earth.

What I Believe–stated simply

In this post, I give a short, one web page, summary of what I believe, in language as simple as I can manage. It gives only a quick, “big picture” of my understanding of God, my relationship to him, and my role on Earth. Comments are invited.

Repentance and Earthly Consequences: the Consequences of David’s Sins–including Jesus

Though God forgave David his adultery with Bathsheba and his murder of Uriah, this sin had a traceable chain of earthly consequences which extends to the present and which includes the death of Christ on the cross.

The Pharaoh who played “let’s make a deal” with God

When God sent Moses to deliver his people from Egypt, the Pharaoh who ruled Egypt responded to some of the plagues with false repentance. That is, he tried to “make a deal” with God, and even admitted that he was in the wrong, only to renege on his agreements as soon as God removed the plague. With each “deal” on which he reneged, his heart became more hardened. But this is always what happens when, out of fear or remorse, we try to “make a deal” with God rather than obey him.

Of Assyria, Egypt, and God’s Sovereignty in My Life

The continued existence of ethnic Coptic and Assyrian Christian minorities in Egypt and the Middle East demonstrates God’s faithfulness and the possibility of a literal fulfillment of Isaiah 19:23-25. If God can preserve these ethnic groups across two millennia of persecution in order to fulfill a prophecy, can he possibly need my “help” doing anything in my own life?

Repentance of the Ninevites and Unrepentance of Israel in Matthew 12:41

Jesus contrasted the Jewish leaders, who refused to hear his words, with the Ninevites who repented at the preaching of Jonah and put away their bloodshed and violence.

God’s Working with Us is Not About Our Present, Temporary Happiness or Comfort

To enter God’s kingdom, moment by moment, I must repent of my claims of ownership of my own life. Instead, I must be willing to do things His way, even if it is His will that I crash and burn in this world. He is reality. His unseen Kingdom will one day be seen, and it will eventually be obvious to everyone that His reward is more real than anything in this world.