NCarolinian

Someone once said, "God still uses cracked pots." - referring to the utilization of broken people to accomplish His will. I believe this with all my heart. To acknowledge we are not perfect I think is one of the major steps of great wisdom in life. The next step is ascribing who is perfect and lived the perfect life - God in the flesh, Christ Jesus, Father God's only Son. Because of Christ and His life, believers are victorious in and through the many challenges that life presents, even when death arrives. Because of His perfection, our striving for perfection is not necessary. Christians find their everything, their perfection in Christ, The King of The Kingdom of Imperfect People. However, within this imperfection and in spite of it - God uses His believers. Writing in his second letter to the believers in Corinth, Paul stated the idea like this -  "But he [Christ] said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Th...

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, I find that as I age, along with the world beside me, not only do the problems that are guaranteed in life come but they seem to transform or at least jump a level to that of "Woes". The results of the "Woes" of life are a very bad attitude and even worse perspective on everything. Our focus, my focus, is not only turned from the "silver lining" in people, places and things, but God is missing from the beginning in the picture also. Like a batter in baseball who has gone into a slump and finally emerges from that slump with the realization that all along he was not consulting his coach on the third-base line who was there throughout the slump - so should Christians turn to the Holy Spirit all the time, but especially during their "woes". "Woes" in life, like slumps in baseball, have a powerful influence, they place us in a "woe is me funk". There is that negative turn of perspective and att...

In Job's life the devil was a major influence, but God was sovereign over all the details. God used the Behemoth and the Leviathan in His discussion with Job to display His power over everything. Pointing out the incredible, descriptive details about those creatures, God naturally asked Job and all of humanity - Who then can compare to me as The Creator and Sustainer? If humans cannot stand against such fearsome and awesome creatures as the Behemoth and Leviathan, what success does one think he/she might have with The Creator and Sustainer of these beasts and all creation? Later in the New Testament, Paul would echo this strong declaration of Creator and Sustainer-God when he said - "For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." (Colossians 1:16-17) "So God ...