August 7, 2017
The faithfulness of the Lord, or His firm adherence to the promises He has made, is not something limited to the Old Testament. God is capable of things we cannot even imagine, but we cannot limit Him to His past workings. We must acknowledge and thoroughly understand that the same God who showed faithfulness, miracles, and crazy love to His people in the Bible, is the same exact God who can do beyond what we can imagine, today!
In the book of Exodus, God parts the Red Sea and leads His people through it to the wilderness on the other side. Sit in that for a second. He splits the sea in half to allow them to get to the other side to freedom!
In the wilderness, He promises to provide for their needs, and He forms food and water for them out of nothing! Even though the Israelites were not to their promised land yet, God still showed up for His people and the same God who saw them in the wilderness, is the same God who brought them to the Promised Land!
We do not serve a God who is in the business of breaking promises.
This is only one of the many times where God showed faithfulness to His people; He rescued Jonah from the belly of a whale, He allowed Abraham and Sarah to have a son in their old age, He saved Noah from the flooding of the earth – and those are just Old Testament examples!
But why do we read these stories and limit the God who parts the sea, shuts the mouths of lions, heals the sick, makes the blind able to see, and brings the dead to life a God who has only done so in the past?
This perspective comes from speaking of God’s abilities in the past tense:
“God protected Daniel in the lion’s den”
“God defeated Goliath through a shepherd boy, David”
“Jesus healed the sick and brought the dead to life”
“Jesus died in my place and rose from the dead”
Now compare that, to the following:
“God protects Daniel in the lion’s den”
“God defeats Goliath through a shepherd boy, David”
“Jesus heals the sick and brings the dead to life”
“Jesus dies in my place and rises from the dead”
See the difference?
God not only protected Daniel in the lion’s den nearly 3,000 years ago, but He defends you against the enemy today!
Jesus not only healed the sick while on earth, but He heals the sick today and continually restores and revives lost and broken people.
God not only defeats Goliath with David’s skipping stones, but He is currently defeating giants of sickness, addiction, and more!
Jesus did not just die on the cross for one moment in time, but He continually stands in our place in sacrifice, so that God can see us through the perfection of Jesus Christ now, and always.
How powerful is that?!
I have been so narrow-minded, and have always taken the God of the Bible, and even Jesus’ life on earth, and limited the power of the Lord shown in the Bible, to the very Book itself.
But what we must understand is that the Word of the Lord is living. Jesus is standing in our place so that God can see us as perfection each and every day. We are children of God, and God will move mountains and part seas today just as He did then!
So I encourage you to read the stories of the Bible not as facts of history, or past proof of God’s faithfulness, but as living and applicable Faithfulness from the Creator that will be manifested in your own life.
Don’t miss out on what God wants to do in and through you by limiting Him and His power.
Are there lions’ mouths you need shut? Are there prison walls you need broken down? Are you desperate for healing and restoration?
Trust that God is able and mighty to do a work in and through you, and ask Him to move grander than what our limited expectations can fathom.
“I’ve seen you move the mountains God, and I believe that you will do it again.”