Friday, April 26, 2013

"Yes, Your Majesty."

A few days ago, my daughter was joking around and responded to something I told her to do with "Yes, your Majesty." She was not being disrespectful in any way, but it did get me thinking...

How do we respond to God when He is requiring our obedience?

We know from Scripture that He is the King of Kings (Psalm 5:2; Psalm 24:8; Isaiah 43:15; 1 Timothy 6:15; Revelation 17:14; Revelation 19:16). We also know that if we are in Christ we are adopted into God's family as His children and are now heirs with Christ (Romans 8:15-17; Ephesians 1:5; Galatians 4:7; James 2:5).

This means that we are considered princes and princesses. This means that our Father is the King of Kings.

As parents, we expect our children to obey. We expect them to obey, not with grumbling and complaining, but with a "Yes, Mom." or "Yes, Dad." Why? Because Scripture tells them to honor their parents.

But as adults, do we honor our heavenly Father by obeying, not with grumbling and complaining, not with questioning, not with doubt and fear, but with "Yes, Your Majesty."? After all, He is the King and anything less than obedience is treason against the King - in other words, sin.


Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Cells of Faith

These past couple weeks I've really been struggling with trusting God. As my husband and I prayed about and eventually made the decision for me to quit my job, fully based on what we believe God wanted us to do, the struggle began. I was starting to struggle all over again with trusting God over our finances.

WHY? 

Has God not just spent months showing me He is Jehovah - Jireh (the God who provides)? Has He not just spent months proving to me His faithfulness?

Yet, here I am, starting to stress all over again. Starting to lose faith and wondering how I was going to figure this out. 

Do you see the problem? Yeah, I know. I was trying to do it myself again. 

I spent this last weekend at a women's retreat for our church. As part of the team, I had spent months helping prepare for this retreat and even writing a talk to give on the weekend. God taught me so many things, even through my own talk, but one of the most memorable things I learned is this:

laminin

Maybe you know what this is, but if you are like me and don't know much about science, let me tell you. 

Laminin is the protein cell that is the foundation for all of our other cells to function. It is what holds us together. 

So you're thinking, "Great, what's so exciting about that?" Oh, but wait, let me show you what laminin looks like


This is a scientific diagram of what the cell structure laminin looks like. 


This is a picture of an actual laminin cell structure.

Are you as excited as I am to know that Christ is written into my very being? That the stuff that was made to hold us together is in the shape of the cross, a reminder of what Christ has done for us? But even more exciting is to know that this has been there, a part of human beings since the beginning of Creation!

Wow!

Let me just say that I love how the more I learn about God's design for Creation the more awestruck I am at His glory. Wow!

As I sit here reflecting on His great glory and how He intricately designed His Creation to point back to Him, I wonder how can I doubt His work? How do I get to a point where I think that the Almighty God, who not only knew, but planned for me to be His would not care about my needs, or not see that I desperately need Him? Especially, when He has asked me to take a step of faith that requires me to trust Him. 

He is the very center of my being. May He always be the very center of my life.