Friday, May 30, 2014

Expect Great Things From God .. Attempt Great Things For God - Wm Carey

My Utmost For His Highest
 
Suppose God tells you to do something that is an enormous test of your common sense, totally going against it. What will you do? Will you hold back? […] Again and again you will come right up to what Jesus wants, but every time you will turn back at the true point of testing, until you are determined to abandon yourself to God in total surrender. Yet we tend to say, “Yes, but— suppose I do obey God in this matter, what about . . . ?” Or we say, “Yes, I will obey God if what He asks of me doesn’t go against my common sense, but don’t ask me to take a step in the dark.” […] In the spiritual realm, Jesus Christ demands that you risk everything you hold on to or believe through common sense, and leap by faith into what He says. Once you obey, you will immediately find that what He says is as solidly consistent as common sense. […]Trust completely in God, and when He brings you to a new opportunity of adventure, offering it to you, see that you take it.’ CHAMBERS
 
William Carey, the famous missionary in India, said “Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.”  What God asks each of us to do is not the same.  It is a function of the grace given and the faith applied, all in the context of His purposes and plans.  Purposes and plans that he made long before any of us were born. Look at the people of faith in the Bible and you will see that they were “ordinary” people chosen by God for His work.  God selected them … but they had to say “yes”.  They had to trust the One who called them.  It is a mystery why God uses us … He can do whatever He wants to do … and He did and does … He uses mere men and women to accomplish “great things” for the kingdom.
 
A longtime friend and Brother shared this scripture with me the other day.  It sums this up quite well.
 
2 Corinthians 4:7-12 (The Message) “If you only look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That’s to prevent anyone from confusing God’s incomparable power with us. As it is, there’s not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we’re not much to look at. We’ve been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we’re not demoralized; we’re not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we’ve been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn’t left our side; we’ve been thrown down, but we haven’t broken. What they did to Jesus, they do to us—trial and torture, mockery and murder; what Jesus did among them, he does in us—he lives! Our lives are at constant risk for Jesus’ sake, which makes Jesus’ life all the more evident in us. While we’re going through the worst, you’re getting in on the best!”
 
Bondye Beni Ou (God Bless You)

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