“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”
Isaiah 55:9
Rarely does God do something exactly as we think He will. Moses experienced this as he learned how God was going to deliver the Hebrews out of Egypt. God told him He would harden Pharaoh’s heart. Yet, the result was not what Moses anticipated.
Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.
Jeremiah 33:3
Too often we settle for much less than what God wants to do through us. We read in Jeremiah 32:27: “I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for Me?” and we answer, “No, Lord.” Yet when we face difficult situations we begin to qualify our belief in God and lower our expectations of what God will do.
God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.
Deuteronomy 8:2
God allows us to suffer difficulties and hardships for a purpose. God led the children of Israel to wander through the wilderness for forty years in order to humble them and test them. When they refused to obey Him and enter the Promised Land, the Israelites revealed that they did not really know Him.
Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh.
Hebrews 10:19-20
Our generation lacks a sense of wonder and reverence toward God. We want to bring God down to our level, to the commonplace. He is God! Though we have direct access to Him as His children, we ought never to forget that this access was purchased with the precious blood of His only Son. No one who truly understands this ever enters God’s presence without a sense of holy awe.
Six years ago was a Sunday much like today, but would end very differently at First Baptist Church in Maryville IL.
FBC was a growing church (at the time about 1,200 average attendance) with a dynamic pastor who had been at the helm for more than two decades. Pastor Fred was a visionary leader who had a plan to spread the church through a multi-site model, eventually having at least three locations. That’s where I come in.
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