HOW TO KEEP THE AWE GOING

Victory.  Oh how we like it.  Celebration.  More of the same.  Success.  A feel-good moment.

Who doesn't appreciate the victory and celebration of success.

Christianity is not a new brand of V-C-S lifestyle.  Neither is it simply a notch above worldly V-C-S.  No. Christianity gives its inhabitants abundance of life and grace when there is loss, when their are tears, and when there is embarrassing failure.

This is a zone the church struggles to see.  But....let's grow to see it.

If we have a goal day of attendance or of raising funds and hit these goals, we parade our way-to-go smiles coupled with hugs and pats on one another's backs.  If we miss our goals, there can be a tendency to feel like failures.  Worse yet, we might even feel that God didn't bless.

How we keep the awe going is to realize that the faith God seems to wish we possessed sees well.  It is a new sort of sight; walk by faith not by sight looks at every setting with a secret faith-code.  The code is remember resurrection power.  

God is all about His family living under the clearly affixed divine umbrella of resurrection power.

• The hope spoken in Rom. 4:17-25 is based on Jesus being raised from the dead.
• The Rom. 8:28ff all things work together for good text continues to speak of such direction which is issued upon the basis of Jesus being raised from the dead.
• We are to fix the eyes of our hearts to know the hope, the riches, and the surpassing power of His greatness....identical to and the same as was when He raised Jesus from the dead....Eph. 1:18ff

Get this: raised from the dead is an exhilarating effect of God's deliverance.  Certainly.  And, we want this kind of awe in our very walk.  However, we short-sheet His grace when we forget that if there is not severe strain, anguish, misrepresentation, disappointing moments, persecution, and eventual death of Jesus....there is no resurrection.  

Awe hinges upon un-awe.  In all things, awe is coming!

Believers get to march in the parade of awe; not because the breaks always go our way and we have victory, celebration, and success parties galore because we get what we want as with some magic wand.  No, we have awe because even in the abuse and mistreatment we receive, we can still set our eyes on God's resurrection power which is with us day by day.