What Can You Believe?

For with God nothing shall be impossible.     Luke 1:37

Is God who called the worlds into being unable to divide the Red Sea?

Is God unable to shut the mouths of lions?

Is God unable to cause a virgin birth?

Is God unable to raise the dead?

Is God unable to heal the sick?

Is God unable to give an inspired book called the Bible?

Is God unable to forgive sins?

Is God unable to change the hearts of people?

Is God unable to keep the sun from setting on one particular day?

Is God unable to rapture the church calling us up to be with Jesus when he returns?

Is God unable to give the strength to turn from sins?

Some might say to us, I’m a man or woman of logic. I don’t think what you ask me to believe is logical.

We don’t need to be stymied by a question like that.

Who decides what is logical the unbeliever or God?

And, what we need to remember is that if God says it is logical, it is logical! To paraphrase (Isaiah 55:8,9) My logic is higher than your logic, and my ways higher than your ways. Don’t let the unbelievers determine what you believe.

A Devotional Thought From Joshua

And now, behold, the LORD hath kept me alive as he said, these forty and five years, even since the LORD spake this word unto Moses, while the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness: and now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old.     Joshua 14:10

                An 85-year-old man named Caleb, still full of strength, and hope, and expectation, stands before Joshua. He has survived the 40 year journey in the wilderness, as has Joshua, everyone else from the original group of people who were delivered from Egypt by God has passed away, and now their children and grandchildren make up the people of Israel. But nonetheless there stands Caleb, and his testimony is clear and powerful: the LORD hath kept me alive!

                Caleb speaks for all of us. God has given us life, we are in His hands, and He has kept us alive until this very moment. To quote the Apostle Paul: …in him we live, and move, and have our being…  (Acts 17:28).

A Devotional Thought From Joshua

Therefore the five kings of the Amorites, the king of Jerusalem, the king of Hebron, the king of Jarmuth, the king of Lachish, the king of Eglon, gathered themselves together, and went up, they and all their hosts, and encamped before Gibeon, and made war against it. … And all these kings and their land did Joshua take at one time, because the LORD God of Israel fought for Israel.     Joshua 10:5, 42

                So, these five kings decided to punish the city of Gibeon for making an alliance with the armies of Joshua, the people of Israel. They raised their armies and gathered together, creating a massive impressive, powerful army. The Gibeonites sent for help to Joshua who brought his army and in one of the amazing battle victories of all time completely defeated the armies of the five kings. Within two days all five kings were dead, their armies decimated, and four of the five cities had been burned to the ground. Within two days!

                There were supernatural issues at play, of course (the LORD God of Israel fought for Israel), but a terrifying lesson from this passage is that no matter how secure a city, or nation, may feel, no matter how powerful its forces, no matter how unlikely its devastation may appear, death, despair, and destruction may be just around the corner.

                For a nation, as well as individuals, the only true security is the living God of the Bible.

A Devotional Thought From Joshua

For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red sea for you, when ye came out of Egypt; and what ye did unto the two kings of the Amorites, that were on the other side Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom ye utterly destroyed.     Joshua 2:10

                One of the old criticisms of the literal interpretation of the Bible is the attack upon the miracle of Israel’s crossing of the Red sea on dry ground. Critical scholars with little imagination, and no more faith in inspired revelation than imagination, have intoned denial after denial. The Red Sea could not have been divided, with  a wall of water on one side and the other, with no evidence ecological havoc. They denied the possibility of such a thing. Such a thing would take a miracle.

                So in their minds they substitute a swamp or lake presumably called the Sea of Reeds. That must’ve been what they crossed said, and say, the star crossed lovers of denial. Such an indictment of the crossing story is at odds with many references to the Red Sea miracle throughout the Old Testament. Note what Rahab says in the text we referenced for today’s devotional thought: we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you. Would the Canaanites had been so afraid of a God who dried up some mushy ground? Or was the act of dividing the sea of such power that they were terrified by the people who were powered by this God’s power? Would the crossing of a marsh strike fear into the hearts of the people of the land God declared he gave to Israel? Would rolling through lake reeds give the impression that they could roll through defensed cities? 

                Those outside God’s people who heard the story of the pathway through the sea were not doubtful, amused, or ambivalent, they were afraid. A God who can defeat oceans can defeat city walls, and armies. A people who could slog through the mire to get to solid ground were to be admired, but anybody could do that. A people who could walk from one side of the sea to the other on dry ground while the waters piled up on either side that is something else entirely. God must be helping them!

A Devotional Thought From Joshua

For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea for you, when ye came out of Egypt; and what ye did unto the two kings of the Amorites, that were on the other side Jordan. Sihon and Og, whom ye utterly destroyed.     Joshua 2:10

What happens in the lives of believers goes ‘round the world, and when people hear and believe in the God who does great things lives, and, often, circumstances change.

We have heard what your God has done for you was what Rahab was saying, and she details the amazing dividing of the Red sea so Israel could escape Egypt, and the two victories on the way to the Promised Land over kings and countries who at that time were considered the big dogs on the block. Hearing of a God with power like that, Rahab concluded, not only that He was real, but that she should believe in Him although it would mean changing from the paganism she had been raised it. That change of faith saved her soul, her life, her family, her place in history, her eternal destination.

That shows us who have found God in Jesus how important it is that others hear about what He is doing in our lives. We hope they will say, I wish I could have what that believer in Jesus has. Then we can say, you can.

Let him that hath ears hear!

A Devotional Thought From Joshua

Now after the death of Moses the servant of the LORD it came to pass, that the LORD spake unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ minister…     Joshua 1:1

Throughout the Old Testament it is noted that God spoke to individuals. We don’t know exactly how that happened. Did Joshua hear an audible voice? Did the Holy Spirit speak by impressing words, thoughts, or concepts on Joshua’s heart in such a way that he could not miss the point? Was there some other way? I like to think, as many others might also, that at least on some occasions God used a literal voice to instruct people about His will.

We long to know the will of God, and wouldn’t it make life so much easier if we could hear and recognize His voice? Though He has spoken like that, those times were few in relation to the history of the world. He does however continue to speak.

God has given us His inspired word in written form. When an individual believes that the Bible (the written form) is given by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he/she has in his hands the truth for faith in life that God is speaking to all of us.

In the New Testament God says that if we want to have a personal relationship with Him there is a pathway of belief that brings us into His Presence. It’s receiving Jesus, God’s son, in our hearts. Jesus tells us specifically I am the way (John 14:6). So that’s what God says to you in His plan of salvation.

Then in passages like Colossians 3, God tells us how to have the best of what human life is about. He says get rid of things like lying, anger, blasphemy, and sexual sin, among others. By eliminating that which is bad, our lives get good. Then through the writer of this passage, Paul, God says add to your life kindness, forgiveness, and love, among other good things, and when you do this your life improves overall.

There are numerous passages in Scripture that talk plainly about living the good life, and in them He is speaking to you (to us) if we will accept the fact that He has inspired the Bible for that very purpose

If you want God to speak to you get familiar with what He has said in the Bible.

A Devotional Thought From Deuteronomy

O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end! Deuteronomy 32:29

In Moses’s last days God gave him a song to teach the people of Israel. It was a song to warn about their future if they were an unfaithful people to God. In the song God details the awful tragedies and punishments that will befall them unless they keep to the straight and narrow and get out of the way of sin. The disasters would hit them hard.

In the midst of the song God says, O that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end! God wants His people to think and evaluate their lives and behavior. He wants them to look where they’re going. He wants them to ask where is our way of life taking us? He wants them to realize that they are headed to a precipice, and must change direction if they want to avoid disaster.

O that the nations of the modern world would consider where they are going.