Friday, October 02, 2015

WHAT DIFFERENCE DO GOD MAKE?

Oh, I know the grammar of this title is not the best.  Yet the point is what I'm after. Ron Hall and Denver Moore's great book, What Difference Do It Make?, perpetuates this morning's post.  Does God make any difference?  If so, what?

God makes a life-changing, life-sustaining, life-moving difference.

However, truth seems to be, God has been lost within and among His very own creation.  We have taken over from here.  We are doing our best to run the show.  And while there surely are great moments of victory, every person lives under the umbrella of discouragement and dark times.  There is no exception.

So....if a person is to yield to the God-concept, what difference would it make?  Is there supposed to be a difference?

I love knowing and working with God.  Here's some of the difference I see.  Because of His kind of faith--not the boring church kind that so many experience--there is an entirely new kind of life at our disposal.  Like what, Terry?

Faith believes that what isn't yet can become.  This helps me help any who are bummed; even feeling hopeless.  Jobs can end.  Couples may quarrel.  Dreams temporarily fade.  Hopes can be found dented....if not wrecked.  But faith has the courage to stare right into the center of any demise and believe that life can once again become real.

If and when one believes that Jesus arose from the dead...a live man died, was buried, and then came back to life...then such faith applied to any discouraging setting we face has reason for secure hope.

So many love life as long as it is pleasing.  What I love about faith is that if the moment isn't pleasing, there truly is an invisible power to transform such into fruitful, valuable time.  Because of the legitimacy of faith, even the darkest of days are pregnant with reason to believe that new possibilities can arise from the ashes of destruction.

Faith in the talented, skillful God is what makes the difference.  Not our ingenuity. Not our do-goodness nor our be-goodness.  Our active, functioning, creative God is the one who defies the brain-storm of the flesh.  God can make what isn't become.

What difference do God make?  He can take the celebrity or the homeless man or woman who are severely discouraged and lift them to a higher quality life.  It's fascinating to me.  Life isn't dependent on us getting things accomplished and keeping them operating at full steam.

Life is dependent on the Spirit of God for it is our inner spirits that face agony; not our elbows.  And the Spirit of God lives...yes lives...to work within us in order to get us through the rough terrain.

That's....a part of the difference God makes.

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