I apologize to you for my neglect of the blog over the last several weeks, couple months or so.<\/p>\n
As I mentioned some time previously, I am writing a new book – Beyond Pretend: The Grass Really Is Greener on the Other Side. With the other things I am doing – like working so we can pay the bills – that kind of puts me over the top. I hope to have a solid first draft done by the second week of July. I am taking a week off work then to help make that ambitious goal a reality.<\/p>\n
God is not only good, he is “gooder” than we realize.
\nMany of us aren’t tasting God because we aren’t truly trusting him. We are in love with the life that God has given but we are enjoying things on the “creation track” and the best of God comes in trusting him on the “redemption track.”\u00a0 Sometimes we mistake tasting God for merely tasting the things that God has provided.\u00a0 We are in love with the gifts of life but not the giver of life.\u00a0 However, Psalm 34.8 exhorts us to taste God.\u00a0 How?\u00a0 By taking refuge in him; by trusting in him.<\/p>\n
(Psalms 34:8 ESV)\u00a0 Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\u00a0(Psalms 34:8 MSG) Open your mouth and taste, open your eyes and see– how good GOD is. Blessed are you who run to him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The best stuff, the abundant life that Christ came to provide, comes through living in the redemption track.<\/p>\n
(John 10:10 ESV)\u00a0 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The entire world in one sense enjoys the goodness of God as every good gift comes from him, everything thing we see, touch, feel, smell and taste.\u00a0 It is spring in Indiana and it is absolutely beautiful this morning.\u00a0 God began this beauty project on the third day of creation and said it was good and it still is very good.<\/p>\n
The majority of people in this world only taste God’s goodness through this creation track.\u00a0\u00a0 Unfortunately many who profess to know God only know him in this way.\u00a0 The goodness of God and some religion can add up to a pretty good life on this Earth.<\/p>\n
But it is not the abundant life that Christ promised to bring when he came.\u00a0 It is not the best that God has to offer.\u00a0 Many people who passed through the broad gate and who are tasting the goodness of God’s creation and have some Bible and theology “under their belts” mistakenly believe they know God.\u00a0 You can find this group in Matthew 7.22 and following.\u00a0 They missed the narrow gate Jesus spoke of earlier in Matthew 7 and their religion deceived them until they came before ultimate reality in the presence of Christ.<\/p>\n
They had built their lives on a knowledge of the Bible but they were not living the knowledge on the redemption track.<\/p>\n
As believers in Jesus Christ, we are each assigned to, called to, a life on the redemption track.<\/p>\n
(1 Corinthians 7:17 ESV) Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Understanding these things and living them not only helps us to walk in God’s abundance but walking the redemption track reflects not just the goodness of God’s creation but the goodness of God’s redemption.<\/p>\n
As we walk the redemption track, people see God, get a whiff of God, a smell.\u00a0 Maybe like walking into Wal-Mart and the smell of cotton candy catches your sensory attention as it wafts through the air.<\/p>\n
Walk the redemption track and people smell eternity, something deep within them is stirred.\u00a0 Maybe they don’t come to Christ but they have at least seen his reflection, been flashed by the light and love of God.<\/p>\n
And as good and powerful a witness that God’s creation of grass and trees and flowers and water is, it doesn’t compare to having a reflection of God’ life and light beaming from one of his children in their private world.<\/p>\n
May God bless us as we follow the path of Jesus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I apologize to you for my neglect of the blog over the last several weeks, couple months or so. As I mentioned some time previously, I am writing a new book – Beyond Pretend: The Grass Really Is Greener on … Continue reading