despair – happyreign

Extreme paraphrase of Romans 4

What did Abraham discover about being made right with God?

People are counted righteous not because of something they have worked hard on or labored for, as something they finally earn after achieving a status, goal, or performance level, but because of believing what is true, believing in the person who is true – The God Who Forgives Sinners.

David in the book of psalms wrote of the happiness of those who have come to learn and know this: What joy for the forgiven disobedient, whose sins have been cleared and the forgotten forever, never again to be brought back to mind or mention.

There may be signs or expressions in our lives that are evidence of the faith we walk in but they are not how righteousness was achieved or obtained. All blessings that came to Abraham were never given based on his performance or obedience — they were never based on his behavior or discipline. Living a life based on rules always calls forth punishment, not promises.

God’s blessings and faithfulness to Abraham were entirely, 100% free gifts. We are all certain to receive them too — not dependent on our performance or our obedience to dead stipulations and regulations. But on our belief in what God has done; what he achieved through his behavior, the impossible on our behalf.

God makes dead things alive and creates newness from nothing.

Hope thrives when there remains no longer any evidence to support it. God’s word is the foundation and capstone of Hope’s continues existence.

When everything looks as if God’s word is unable to perform itself, there exists the crux of Abraham’s –and all believers –faith. When the situation looks the most impossible, there and then, faith is the most sensible thing to hold onto. And in the face of no natural reasoning possible, expect the impossible performance of God to show up and make itself manifest.

In fact, in this moment especially, do not waiver in your belief in God, yet let your faith grow all the stronger in the assurances of the Lord, becoming even more convinced God is able to do anything, such as raising his crucified son from death. Our sin resulted in his punishment (now extinguished); his resurrection is our now our life in which we live.

I usually come here with a message I want to share but today I just really wanted to come here and write without knowing what! There is an exhilaration in living life in the unknown and so a part of adding joy to my day is doing this!

I just want to write that the purpose of life is so much more than what we produce! Did you know you can have a perfectly wonderful day apart from being productive?? That the moment we leave this earth, all of our to do lists cease and everything we were intending to do never gets done and the earth still spins without us?? There are thousands of people around the world with no job or no career that wake up and exist, some with joy even, and are their lives not still full of value?!?

I would speculate that the purpose of our lives is to experience the exchange of love, either between us and people, or us and God, and hopefully both. And money, whether it is elusive or we have plenty, only fits into this equation of purpose when used as a tool to experience this LOVE?

We are even good at turning ministry into a work and can lose joy trying to make as many people possible experience this exchange of love! God’s calling never asked you to set aside your piece of experiencing heaven on earth for the sake of others; we share what we walk in, whether a worker mentality or a son or daughter of God mentality.

Did you know the fastest way to your eternal productivity is to rest in God’s orchestration and providence in your life and be faithful to the people he’s already placed around you in life?!? Did you know we are not supposed to pour out our soul for the sake of trying to make something happen that God can do so easily on his own and in his own timing?!?

There is grace and joy when heaven is behind the work of your hands, even when enduring hard or difficult obstacles, where there is nothing else you would rather be doing with your time and energy. Did you know that rest IS powerful? Did you know that trust IS productive?

No matter how hard Moses tried in the natural he could have NEVER liberated hundreds of thousands of his people from the Egyptian empire, but when God wanted it to happen, Moses participated but God did all the work? When we trust God for him to accomplish his ideas through us, it always is supernatural beyond our own abilities? Deliverance wasn’t even in Moses’ mind!

God’s ideas are the best for us to partner with and sometimes it requires a lack of our own understanding of the how or the why or the timing. This is great! You are not doing anything wrong, you are trusting for something bigger than your ability to orchestrate the outcome.

Trust and rest in God’s impossible! May you truly experience the awe of his manifest glory and presence and orchestration in your life. Peace and blessings!