The Kingdom Grew By One

Romans 11:33-36

Oh what a wonderful God we have!

How great are his riches and wisdom and knowledge!

How impossible it is for us to understand His decisions and His methods!

For who can know what the Lord is thinking?
Who knows enough to be His counselor?
And who could ever give Him so much that He would have to pay it back?

For everything comes from Him....
Everything exists by His power.....

And is intended for His glory.

To Him be glory evermore...

Amen!

God.....

Just the very mention of His name produces opinions, good and bad, by people. Every one knows God. Everyone one has an idea, or thought, or a way they view Him.

Some grow angry at the mention of His name. Why? Maybe they lost a love one and some other person carelessly mentioned, "Well, it must be God's will." What? God's will. God never intended us to die. We brought that bad puppy in when a fruit party took place in the garden years ago. 

Some have a religious view of God as some sort of cosmic grand father or Santa who sole purpose of existing is to hand out celestial goodies to all us good little boys and girls. Pain isn't a part of the salvation deal. It would be nice is this were true, unfortunately pain is a part of life. Once again throw the blame back to the two who had it all and gave it away for.....wait for it.....some fruit. Must have been some kind of good fruit, right?

You see all these things I've mentioned this morning....pain, suffering....death....misery....are all a by product, and the result of sin being introduced into our world. What we fail to realize that every hour of every day....every minute....every second....God is at work cleaning up the mess and righting that which has gone wrong. In other words, the kingdom (His dynamic rule and reign) has invaded our time and space. We saw evidence of that at last nights VRC meeting.

He came in right before we started worship. Sat in the back of the room....

He waved to me and I smiled and waved back. We chatted briefly and I knew that tonight could be his night. Just the very fact that he came to the meeting let me know that God was at work.

The meeting progressed as worship was very tender and powerful. You knew that God was in the room and was moving on the hearts of all of us. Seth Barber spoke and once again hammered home the truth in simple terms. When God restores us, it is a complete work that begins inside. It is more that the settling of outward circumstances and situations. It is a complete change and healing that is driven to the very core of who we are. 

When ministry started, he was one of the first ones up. I went to the back to meet him. He was so broken that he could barely speak, but his body language and the tears that were falling spoke volumes. We got to see the kingdom of God extended last night, in the life of this man. He renounced the darkness that had consumed him and controlled him. He told me that he wanted to be free and that he wanted this Jesus that he only thought he knew about. We prayed. He was changed. Such is the Kingdom of God.

Sometimes we see great numbers of people who desire to be free and come to Christ.
Sometimes it is just one....
The numbers are not important...
That one life is .......

It was a good night.

God on you..

mb