The Gospel, The Good News 3 of 41

Glory of God (cont.)

Psalm 100

 Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands.

Serve the LORD with gladness: 

come before his presence with singing.

Know ye that the LORD he is God: 

it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; 

we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, 

and into his courts with praise: 

be thankful unto him, and bless his name.

For the LORD is good; 

his mercy is everlasting; 

and his truth endureth to all generations.

Psalms 107:1 

Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good!

For His mercy endures forever.

 Philipians 4:19 

And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

Colossians 1:16-17  

For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.  And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.

God is perfectly good and unbelievably merciful as my Creator. He sustains me, he holds me up, and takes care of all my needs. Everything I have comes from my God- a God who is good all the time (even in my darkest times, He is there for me). 

Lamentations 3:20-26

My soul still remembers

And sinks within me. 

This I recall to my mind,

Therefore I have hope.

Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed,

Because His compassions fail not. 

They are new every morning;

Great is Your faithfulness.

“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,

“Therefore I hope in Him!”

The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,

To the soul who seeks Him.

It is good that one should hope and wait quietly

For the salvation of the Lord.

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The Gospel, The Good News 2 of 41

Glory of God (cont)

Deuteronomy 32:3-4

For I proclaim the name of the LORD:

Ascribe greatness to our God.

He is the Rock, His work is perfect;

For all His ways are justice,

A God of truth and without injustice;

Righteous and upright is He.

In the previous chapter in Deuteronomy God told Moses that His people would turn away and chase after strange gods forsaking the One true God. God told Moses to write this song and teach it to the people as a witness to Himself against the Israelites. 

In the beginning of the song Moses begins by asking for not only the Israelites attention, but all of creation. 

We have a picture of a rock, unmoving(immovable) and unchanging(immutable) in character.

Moses gives praise to God for his absolute perfection, righteousness, holiness and for being absolutely just in all things. 

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The Gospel, The Good News 1 of 41

1. Glory of God

Isaiah 40:12

Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand,

Measured heaven with a span

And calculated the dust of the earth in a measure?

Weighed the mountains in scales

And the hills in a balance?

My God is so great, immense and awesome. He is dominant over all creation that he has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and not only that, but the heavens He measured with a span (the width of a hand). 

The Bible teaches us that God the Father is spirit so He does not have a body as we know it. 

John 4:24- God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.

The Bible uses human terms so that we can partially understand who He is and what He does. We can picture a hand and we can picture just the size of all the oceans and seas, rivers and streams, and we can get a glimpse of just how immense and vast and powerful God the Father is. Even the Universe is just like the size of His hand. 

What we can get from this is that God is so great, immense, awesome and over all creation that we should be in awe of Him. My spine tingles just thinking of His power and glory.

Download the Gospel Primer by Milton Vincent

Hope in Sorrow

1 Thessalonians 1:13-1

13 But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.

Death is a very real part of life that happens to all of us. It is a subject we don’t like to talk about very much as it brings memories of loss and sorrow to the surface. Because it is a fact of life, we are all affected by it.

Just the other day as I opened up to Facebook, I was hit once again with the unexpected tragedy of a family we knew. As missionaries living over seas, and many times out of touch with the lives of people back in the country of origin, it still brings pain knowing that many of our friends are going through this tragedy. We are suffering with them even though it is across an ocean. Pain has no borders. We only wish we could be there to personally share in the grief and be a comforting presence. We know our extended Family is sharing in the grief, and we know it is hard, but we do have  hope. Praising God through the grief that we will one day see our loved ones again.

As a follower of Jesus, Paul tells us that we should not sorrow as others who have no hope. Paul says that if we (and they) believe that Jesus died and rose again, we will see our loved ones again. We have this hope. Yes, we do sorrow, but with hope. We miss seeing those we love that have passed into eternity, and we can look forward to seeing them again.
15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.

A friend wrote this on a blog: How do we still our shattered hearts?

With the Word. Psalm 46 is a great place to camp out during any time of trouble to focus on Who God is:

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble (vs.1 ESV).

Because God is our refuge and strength...

Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling. (vs. 2-3)

The weight of grief can feel like the earth is giving way under our feet, that our sorrow is more than we can bear, like we are drowning in the roaring foam of the sea. But, our God is here holding us up and giving us strength, courage and grace in the midst of it all.

As we still our broken hearts, may these words of our heavenly Father bring comfort, peace, and strength:

"You are My servant, I have chosen you and not cast you off"; 

fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God;

 I will strengthen you. I will help you, 

I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

For I, the LORD your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, 

"Fear not, I am the one who helps you"

(Isaiah 40:10, 13 ESV, emphasis mine).

With a broken heart, I cling to Christ.      Read the full article at: When Life Hits Us Hard, God Hugs Us Tighter

Who do you serve?

If you are an MK, or have MK's i encourage you to read this article. It hit home. I could not have said it better.

Great article on MK/KM'S: The MK privilege.

Phone call:

me: hi, steve. How are you doing?

steve: good

me: where are you?

steve: at home

me: good. are you busy?

steve: no, not right now.

me: i am on my way home from Mangalia. and I am on the Bucuresti centura (beltway). the van i am using broke down and the engine fell out of the car, is there any way you can help me tow it and find a mechanic near you?

a long pause.

steve: okay, it will take about 2 hours to get to you from here and i need a few minutes to collect some tools….

what an afternoon! :-)

so, we waited on the beltway for almost three hours. I sent our gps coordinates of exactly where we were at. being a hot day, there was still a breeze to cool off with. how much was it going to cost? how, where, and who was going to fix this issue? to me it looked like a huge problem. i could tell that the motor mount bolts had sheered off and the motor was sitting on top of the cv joint. the timing belt was eaten away so bad that i do not know how it did not break. 

while we waited i counted the semi’s driving by- 100, 101, 102….. one of them rolled down his air conditioned cab and asked if we had help coming. i said yes and thank you. he then offered me a two liter bottle of ice cold sparkling water- ahhhh, that hit the spot. now if only steve’s gps would get him here quicker. 

steve and i secured the motor with wire and a hook so that it was higher off the ground and towed the car about 100 km to his house. by the time we got there the mechanic was gone. so we had to wait until morning. 

the mechanic was very optimistic and pleased that the timing belt had not broken. the owner of the vehicle was pleased that the mechanic thought he could fix the engine. 

a trip that was supposed to take from monday to thursday turned into a trip that lasted until sunday morning at 1am. the van was fixed and amazingly only costed me the exact price i rented the van for.

van: ford galaxy

km on the van: 914,234 (ALMOST A MILLION KM!!!!!) 

after getting it fixed we made it home in 8 hours with no problems. Praise the Lord. 

1Thess. 5:16-18   

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.