Mighty to Save: A Series about a Sovereign God

Daniel 2:10-11 

(The king has just commanded the astrologers to tell him his dream and interpret it or be put to death).

"The astrologers answered the king 'There is not a man on earth who can do what the king asks! No king, however great and mighty, has ever asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or astrologer. What the king asks is too difficult. No one can reveal it to the king except the gods, and they do not live among men."

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In this post I want to examine the viewpoint of the skeptics and non-believers. If you question whether or not there are other gods, or whether or not you choose your own statue of faith to call god, consider the response of the men in this passage.

The astrologers mentioned in this passage are men who believe in the powers of their gods. They have asked their gods for assistance in the past and they have been aided. But when a task this massive is put before them, the interpretation of a dream they have not heard, they abandon all hope. They tell the king that his task is bigger than what they can do. They tell him only "the gods" can do it. But these gods, are not ever-present among mankind like the One True God.

You see, this True God reveals the dream to Daniel, who is then able to interpret it for the king. This task which was deemed impossible by man, is possible by God. 

Man has been trying forever to explain away the complex simplicity that is our world. One God just doesn't seem to be enough, but that is because we have believed His power to be limited. What if He has infinite power? What if God really is sovereign as he claims, and has proven himself, to be?

We make God out to be a glorified form of ourselves, "the big guy in the sky", when really he is so much more. I hope to convey the Gospel of God's Power through this following series. Before I go further, ask yourself these questions? (like literally take a minute to think about them. like now.)

• Are there things that I don't believe God can do?
• Why do I refuse to believe he is all powerful?
• Why have I created my own form of God (or gods) to replace Him?
• Can God change me?

Rest assure in this. God has the power to do anything He wants. If he wants you to drop dead right now He can do it, He's done it before. If He desires you to come to know His true power, He will show you all that you can handle. 
Can God change you? Yes. Ask God to teach you more about who He is. Let Him rock your world with His might. 

Our God is Mighty to Save

-matt

Weekly Scripture

Exodus 14:10-31



 ¹⁰ As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the LORD. ¹¹ They said to Moses, "Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? ¹²Didn't we say to you in Egypt, 'Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians'? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!"
 ¹³ Moses answered the people, "Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. ¹⁴ The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still."
 ¹⁵ Then the LORD said to Moses, "Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. ¹⁶ Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground. ¹⁷ I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them. And I will gain glory through Pharaoh and all his army, through his chariots and his horsemen. ¹⁸ The Egyptians will know that I am the LORD when I gain glory through Pharaoh, his chariots and his horsemen."
 ¹⁹ Then the angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel's army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them, ²⁰ coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel. Throughout the night the cloud brought darkness to the one side and light to the other side; so neither went near the other all night long.
 ²¹ Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the LORD drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, ²² and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.
 ²³ The Egyptians pursued them, and all Pharaoh's horses and chariots and horsemen followed them into the sea. ²⁴ During the last watch of the night the LORD looked down from the pillar of fire and cloud at the Egyptian army and threw it into confusion. ²⁵ He made the wheels of their chariots come off so that they had difficulty driving. And the Egyptians said, "Let's get away from the Israelites! The LORD is fighting for them against Egypt."
 ²⁶ Then the LORD said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen." ²⁷ Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward it, and the LORD swept them into the sea. ²⁸ The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen—the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived.
 ²⁹ But the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left. ³⁰ That day the LORD saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore. ³¹ And when the Israelites saw the great power the LORD displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the LORD and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.

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Even when all seems lost and everything is against us, God will always prevail. Stay strong my fellow brothers and sisters.

-matt

Alive: Come and See the Glory of God

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, 

but whoever loses his life for me will find it. 

Matthew 16:25.

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I usually have titles just come to me. They usually fit hand and hand with what I'm talking about, and add just a little bit of zest to them. Well, I have nothing now. Literally, I feel as if there is hardly anything left of me inside of me. There is nothing inside of me that deserves this much good. I don't deserve any of this that He is blessing me with. It just keeps coming and coming. I've discovered that when I surrender my sin and my wants at the foot of the cross, the faithfulness of God is strong. He transforms. Whatever I say is meaningless without the cross.


With that preface, feel free to take all my words with a grain of salt. Instead, read this as if the Holy Spirit was active in it. If these sentences henceforth are in accordance with God's Word, maybe He might speak in it. Ask Him. Thus the title given to this is not anything of my own, but rather a praise. Come and See the Glory of God.

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The story on my heart is not mine. What I said in that previous post stands true today. Everyone has a story, and we have the privilege of being a part of the greatest story of them all. Part of this great story is unique to each one of us in Christ. Your's will be different, with one exception. This story belongs to Jesus Christ.

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The full story goes back years before I came to be. I pick it up in media res, so bear with me. On a Friday afternoon in February, my dear friend Nathan Spell and I met in a band practice room and prayed. We didn't know what the rest of the day would hold for us, and we really didn't know what to say. You see, in less than an hour God would give us one more chance. A chance to present His love to a room of people who did not know Him. People who might be against him. People who might just not care. People who had simply grown cold. Every type of person would be at this Religious Symposium that we had been invited to speak at.

God knew that. He knew that he wanted to move for an audience of one. Every single person who was there that day was there for a purpose. I don't know what it was for nearly all of them, and I probably will never know.

You see God has a funny way of pulling all the pieces together. He moves in ways that don't make sense to us in our frail human minds. And I'm certainly okay with that, we should all be. (that's another story for different time). On that afternoon God had appointed the Holy Spirit to begin it's work on someone I had never met before, my soon-to-be friend Shelby. That day the Gospel took hold and began its work.

Through the work of the Spirit through many willing hands, God began to grab a foothold on her heart. She began to ask questions. Little did she know, there was something inside of her that God was carrying into a head on collision with Christ. 

The whole story is not mine to tell. So I am not going to tell it. Ask Shelby, if you have the chance.

Suffice it to say I experienced the most joyful moment of my entire life this past Monday night. I look back on my own gradual transition into the love of Christ, and as beautiful as it was, I felt something bigger. 

That night the love of Christ became real to her, she gave her life away to the Savior of the World.

The reason I can't get it off my heart nor can I cease praising God for it is because it is His Story. You see, anyone who is in Christ has seen how their story fits into the big picture. I hesitate even to write this because I know it will not do it justice. It is with trembling hands that I even attempt to share the Awesome Power of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

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You see I have come to realize why God has brought me here to this world, to this church, to this school, to this life. My life is not my own, as Christ says in Mark 10:45, my life has been purchased by the ransom of the  blood of God. That finally means something to me. Humanity isn't the answer, God is the solution.

So for you whom wrestle with this tonight, stop fighting. Maybe for the first time, be still and listen. I know it to be true that the most important thing any one of us can do is to be silent and hear. If you read this post and thought it was about a girl named Shelby, you would be right. But. If you read this an saw the beauty of God's craftsmanship, you are on to something more.

You see, miracles like what happened here are spectacular. The Power of the Spirit inside of the story can move each of us to change. I can attest that He has been transforming my very own soul during all of this.

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John 3:16

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life."

Forget all of our Christianese. Let's get rid of everything besides the Truth of Jesus. Jesus loves us more than we know, more than we can imagine. Let him be in you in new and exciting ways.

My life is not my own,

For I am only alive in Christ.

Instead, I am an advocate of one who is Greater than me.

To the Holy God and Lord Jesus Christ,

To YOU be all glory.

-matt