Living His Mission » Amazing God Joy http://jeff.lhcsj.org Thoughts and stories from Jeff Gates on missional life Tue, 04 Jan 2011 05:42:26 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 en hourly 1 A refreshingly amazing and stunning God! http://jeff.lhcsj.org/2009/08/04/a-refreshingly-amazing-and-stunning-god/ http://jeff.lhcsj.org/2009/08/04/a-refreshingly-amazing-and-stunning-god/#comments Tue, 04 Aug 2009 19:16:38 +0000 Jeff Gates http://www.rhythmsofgrace.us/jeffgates/?p=47 I seem to go through phases with the words I use to describe God and pray to Him in thanksgiving. These words were the ones that struck me today. He is amazing…that’s a recurring word that I seem to come back to time and again. Ultimately I find myself lost for words to pour out my heart to God. That is when I am so thankful for the heavenly tongues He gives me to pour back to Him in praise. What a crazy amazing God He is.

Today at Living Hope we looked at 1 Peter 2:4-12…absolutely stunning. Why would the God who created everything…which includes us…say such amazing things about us and not just say them…but mean them and make us into them? A royal and holy priesthood! Us? You’ve got to be kidding me. I know me:) And I know my race. He is a crazy God. To take the very creature who betrayed Him…rejected Him…did not trust Him that the garden was enough…and now make us into living stones built into a holy priesthood in the image of Jesus. I can only be stunned.

God keeps going. He’s serious about His business. He’s serious about His Son. He is making for His Son a people. A holy nation…what? No way! We were not a people and now we are. Blow me away…won’t you. Does that refresh you? It does me and should refresh us as His church. Receivers of mercy made to proclaim His excellencies…how can we not…so that all the world will know and worship Him as God. Stunning…amazing!

I shared this morning…how as I travel farther from the date of my entry into His kingdom…my day of salvation…that I am more stunned that He saved me. I am more aware each day that I am a wretch in need of a Savior. I’m not even sure I’d save myself. And as I am stunned by who I am…I am more stunned by who He is and that He saved me. Will it be like this forever? Will I grow in my awareness of how little I deserve His grace and mercy…and more and more in my thankfulness for it? Will I grow more and more stunned by how wretched I am and how great He is? I hope so! There is no glory in me except for what He has now given to me. God to me…crazy. I deserve to die…yet Jesus did. I am refreshed in this life. Are you?

What a strange and wonderful thing when we become less…think less about ourselves…and think more of Him and about Him. Dude! Can it get any better…oh yes it can…and I look forward to the forever journey! Do you?

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