Finals Week and More

It is finals week at Michigan Tech. I took one of my two so far and the next one is Wednesday at 8 AM. Once exams are done, because I will be going on Summer Project, I can't get a job for the 3 weeks of summer that I will be in the UP of Michigan. I need to be down in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina on May 26th and will be carpooling with people from all over and we're meeting at the twin cities. I just have a huge gap in between now and then.

Now it's a matter of figuring what I'm going to do in this gap. I definitely want to take some more time to read a few books I've been wanting to read and I hope to finish the New Testament in that time. I am currently in 2 Timothy on my read through. I want to prepare for what God is planning for my life through Summer Project.

One way in which I started preparing this morning is through listening to a sermon by Alistair Begg. (If you have the time, I highly recommend you listen to that sermon that I linked to). He is my favorite preacher and I have many of his sermons on my Zune. The one I chose to listen to, or rather, the one God brought to my attention through the random shuffle on my Zune was one I had heard before, but I remember it being really good so I wanted to listen to it again. He talked about the necessity of weakness and how God chooses to work through weakness. The Bible teaches that God's power is made perfect in weakness and when we are weak, then we are strong. Conversely, when we are strong, we are actually weak. He specifically brought up the story of Gideon and the Midianites in Judges 7. In Judges 7, Gideon's army starts out with 32,000 men. At this point, they are probably looking at the enemies great numbers (like locusts in abundance who had camels without number) and thinking that 32,000 isn't even enough.

So what does God do? God says that they had too many people to fight. What?! Too many people? Should it surprise us that God does thing different than we do them? Isaiah 55:9 says: "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." We don't understand why God does things the way he does, but we do know that "[...] for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose." - Romans 8:28. Because we know these things, we can have peace that God is in control and has a great plan for our lives.

So getting back to the story of Gideon, God ends up narrowing the 10,000 who stayed down to 300. Many people try to teach Sunday school lessons on why God did what He did the way He did it. They say that we should be the people who were lapping as opposed to the people who were kneeling down because those are the one's God chose. Then they go on to try to draw parallels and hidden meanings that simply aren't in the text and they miss the whole point. God was not narrowing down the number to only those who were most adequate for the job or who were most prepared. Rather, God was simply using their method of drinking water to reduce the number way down to 300. Now Gideon had 300 people to fight a very large army whose number of camels alone were comparable the number of grains of sand, in other words: a lot! Why did God do this? The very simple answer is that God worked through this situation with a man who was weak. Gideon could not have defeated to Midianites on his own with the army he had. Rather, it was 100% of God delivering them and turning the army against itself in great fear. God lowered the numbers of his army so that no one could say it was anything that Gideon did. It was only by the power of God that they were saved. Does that sound familiar? This points to the New Testament to Ephesians 2:8-9 which says: "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast." It is God alone who saves and God works through our weakness.

If you are not convinced of this yet and want it more explicitly stated, the Bible has that covered in 2 Corinthians 12:9: "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me."

God doesn't need you to have great credentials in order to serve him effectively. Rather, he desires obedience and a willingness to be used by Him with the power of the Holy Spirit to do His will and that will bring more joy that anything you could possibly imagine. Seeing God work through you is far better than anything else.

So often I find myself taken up with our culture which has nothing to look forward to. In order to remedy this, we've created things like TV, and movies. Have you ever watched TV for any period of time where they didn't say: Coming up at 6, this amazing story, or "Next week, final episode of...". The point is that our world is looking for satisfaction in constantly looking forward to the next big thing.

As Christians, we have eternity with God in Heaven to look forward to! Why do we waste so much time doing what our culture tells us when the Bible is so clear on how to spend our time? Our world is jumping from one pleasure to the next trying to get the most out of it. We are incapable of doing any good on our own and if it were not for the Grace of God, I would be in a hopeless state as that so I praise God for all the ways He has been working in my life, using me in my completely inadequate state to accomplish his ultimate purpose of bringing glory to Himself which is where it all belongs.

This is all Summarized in I John 2:15-17:
"Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world— the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever."

I want to close with I Corinthians 10:23: Do All to the Glory of God. “All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up.

True Joy and satisfaction in life come from God and God alone. That doesn't meant that we won't have problems, but God will carry us through them if we yield to Him. The true joy that surpasses all understanding is not dependent on circumstances, but rather on the Truth of God we have access to through Christ Jesus!