Greg Laurie Daily Devotion - Aug. 7, 2012
No Permission Necessary
“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” - (Isaiah 55:8–9)
Some people today will sing the praises of a Jesus who will give them wealth, success, and happiness, but they recoil from a Christ who would require obedience, commitment, and death to self. As a result, they have a false concept of God.
They want a god who does what they want him to do when they want him to do it. They want to be in charge. This is demonstrated in statements like, “Well,I am mad at God. He disappointed me.” I have even heard people say they need to forgive God. I think statements like that are crazy. Who do they think they are to say they are mad at God? Romans 9:20 says, “Who are you, a mere human being, to argue with God? Should the thing that was created say to the one who created it, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ ”
We are the clay, He is the Potter. We are the sheep, He is the Shepherd. We are the branches, He is the vine. We are the recipients, He is the Giver. He is God. And we need to understand that.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with saying that we don’t understand why things happen to us in life or that we are sad, even disappointed, with certain circumstances. Nor do I think there is anything wrong with asking why. But to say you are mad at God is foolishness to me.
When someone says they lost their faith over a certain crisis, then they probably never had real faith to begin with. The faith that can be lost is no faith at all. And the faith that cannot be tested is the faith that cannot be trusted.
God is able to do what He pleases with whomever He chooses whenever He wishes. He doesn’t need our permission.
Summary sentence: How high are God’s thoughts and ways?
Tags: God’s thoughts, faith
Copyright © 2012 by Harvest Ministries. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
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