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Do You Believe?


Water you turned into wine,
opened the eyes of the blind -
There’s no one like you,
none like you.
Into the darkness you shine,
Out of the ashes we rise,
There’s no one like you,
None like you.

Our God is greater,
Our God is stronger,
God you are higher than any other.
Our God is healer,
Awesome in power,
Our God.  Our God.
~ Chris Tomlin singing, “Our God”

                Do you believe it’s true?  Do you believe that there is none like our God?  Do you believe that our God really is able to open blind eyes and cure the sick?  That He’s moving mightily upon the earth even now, and if you don’t feel it or see it – that it’s not His fault?  Do you believe that He wants to sweep you into the majestic and frighteningly glorious plan He has for His people?  Do you believe that “If our God is for us, then who could ever stop is?  And if our God is with us, then what could stand against?”  Do you believe that God has mighty plans for you so much bigger than a comfortable house and a happy-ish family, as we so often interpret His plan for us?

                Do you believe that you could be called to serve Him in the slums, in orphanages, in prisons?  Do you believe that He could be calling you to lay hands on the sick here at home, and across the world in a remote village where the medicine is a foreign concept?  Do you believe that there are people God has predestined you to minister to – and that He’s waiting on you to move in obedience and wholehearted pursuit of Him?  Do you believe that “the cost of believers not taking Jesus seriously is vast for those who don’t know Christ and devastating for those who are starving and suffering around the world?”[1]

                Do you believe that He could be calling you to open your home – to the orphans, the widows, the homeless, the weak and the poor?  Do you believe that you could be the agent of change for them, the one that introduces them to the Savior who died on the cross for them, to the glorious and hope-filled future He has for them?  Do you believe that you have a destiny on this earth, that God’s plans for you are truly bigger than you think they are, more dangerous, more unusual, more frightening and amazing and exciting than anything you’ve ever learned in a textbook?

                Do you believe that Jesus is coming back?  Soon?  In the next heartbeat, maybe?  Do you believe that He’s going to come riding on the clouds with a mighty trumpet blast?  That you will be held accountable for the way you lived your life?  That He will evaluate whether or not you followed Him with reckless abandon, or just slid through life on a mediocre faith-setting, just sitting in church on Sunday mornings and thinking it was enough?

                Are you living each moment, seeking a way to make a difference?  Are you looking for ways to minister the Gospel?  Are you in the hedgerows, calling out with a desperation and urgency that can’t be contained to see people come to the wedding feast of the King?  Are you throwing yourself at the throne of the King, laying down your life, and offering all you have to Him? 

                Nothing else will do.  Nothing else will do.  God requires our all – not our leftovers.  He loves us with a jealous passion that tolerates no other loves.   We must pursue Him, His best, as though our very lives depended on it – and they do.  We must love Him so dearly, so passionately, so urgently, that nothing short of everything we have will seem enough to give Him.  We must give Him every ounce of determination we’ve ever had … He is our God.  He is greater than any other.  He is higher, mightier, more powerful than anything else.  He is everything.  There is none like Him … and His plan …  Will you trust Him enough to pursue Him – whatever the path looks like?  Will you love Him enough to surrender all your ideas and goals and simply submit yourself to Him?  Even if God called you to do something like this:
                                   
http://www.reignministries.org/royal-servants/mission-trips/nepal-mission-trip/
What then?  What now?  What will you do?  What will I do?  What would God have us do?
[1] Page 16, Radical, by David Platt, 2010.
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