Are you not the same today, God, as you were in the past? Think about all the things you read about in the Bible … every miracle, every healing, the parting of waters, the shutting of lion’s mouths, the creation story, the raising of the dead, and of course, the empty tomb. Everything you read about in the Bible, you could say to yourself, “Are you not the same today God?”
Think about that. God does not change His mind, His character, or His truth. He remains the same and in all that we read about Him from the Scriptures. He is the same God as He was in the Biblical stories. Thinking about God this way, is how we can trust Him for the same kind of interaction with our day as He was in the past. If He doesn’t change, then we should never doubt Him in our present needs. Many of us need miracles in our lives. For an exercise in faith, read about all the miracles in the Scriptures. Saturate yourself with what God has done, then say, “Are you not the same today God?”
God has not taken a vacation, nor is he on holiday from being active in our lives. He is always present … especially when we honor Him by living in faith. We also know by reading about God in the Scriptures, that He is compassionate and full of mercy, and will always apply these benefits to your story as you ask, seek, and knock for answers.
God does not punish the faithful by not answering them, or does not leave them without hope or direction. Our test comes when we have to be patient in waiting for Him to answer. That test is to confirm our faith in Him, even when there isn’t an immediate response. This is when it gets tough to trust God; those times when faith just isn’t working in our favor. Job has the answer for us in moments like this:
Job 13:15 God might kill me, but I have no other hope. I am going to argue my case with him.
Job was saying, “Even if my request ends in me dying, I will not give up on asking and trusting in God.” Think about that for a moment. No matter what, response or no response, I will not give up on God and I will stay true to applying my life to His will for me. That is hard to say in our world. Our culture says, “If it doesn’t work, move on to something that does, keep trying until you reach your perceived goal.” Job says, “I will trust God even when my goal is not reached.” Faith firmly planted in our hearts is the element that makes our will to survive firmly connected to God. Doing what is right, even when it is not profitable to do so, is what makes the righteousness of God seen by all. We celebrate and honor all the martyrs throughout history that gave their lives. What these men and women stood for and believed in was the reason they were killed, and that speaks to us about the values and strength of trusting God, even though I die, my trust remains in Him.
I know this doesn’t sit well among the me first culture but it does speak to finding significance and meaning in life. Jesus said,
John 15:13 There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
Learning to live is learning to trust God, risk all by surrendering to Him, be willing to stand in a lion’s den, and know that the God that saved Daniel, is the same God that will save you. Why? Are you not the same God today as you were back then?
We should have a theme to rally our lives around, like this saying from Isaiah. I wonder if we were to adopt something like this, if we would see remarkable growth in our faith, and be more honoring to God by trusting Him?
This would be like the one word per year practice where you adopt a word for the year. My oldest son taught me this, to take a word such as subtract and throughout the year use that word to get rid of all the things that hinder you from achieving your life’s purpose, such as attitudes, resentments, greed, habits, traditions, people, and a host of other things including decluttering your life from stuff. This is a great practice, but I deviated. Adopting a Biblical phrase/verse as your mentor for the year is another way of growing toward a life pleasing to God. How about it? It isn’t easy doing something like this, but in order to keep doing it, you have to be intentional about it, and don’t quit after 30 days.
So that intentionality becomes a daily rehearsal of your word and or your phrase. I’d suggest you write it out, put it on post-it notes, and place it in the places you visit every day. Say it, say it, practice it, and say it again. Eventually you will see it change your life.
Remember brother Isaiah’s words, “Are you not the same today?”
Challenging the Culture with Truth … Larry Kutzler