International Justice Mission - Benefits - 2011 Dallas Benefit Dinner

International Justice Mission - Benefits - 2011 Dallas Benefit Dinner

se-curity

"Deep and lasting security, resilient hope, and sturdy rest of heart and mind can only be found vertically. You will only know the rest for which you seek when you begin to embrace the astounding reality of who you are as a child of God. If you are God's child, you are the object of the love of the Person who rules everything that there is to rule.

It's fundamentally impossible to be in a situation, location, or relationship where He is not present. It's impossible for anything or anyone to be more powerful than Him. It's impossible for anything or anyone to be wiser than Him. It's impossible for what He desires and has chosen and planned not to come to be. He rules every microbe of physical and spiritual creation. There is no rule of law that stands above Him. There is no one to whom He must answer. He is perfect in every way, existing entirely without flaw of will or character. He is the beginning and epicenter of everything that's good, loving, wise, and true. He never forgets, and He never fails to deliver on any of His promises. And Scripture says that He exercises His rule for the sake of His body, the church. (Eph. 2:22-23)

You are secure not because you have control or understanding. You are secure for one reason and one reason alone: God exists and He is your Father. He will never leave your side. He will never fail to provide. He will make good on everything He has promised. And He has the power to do so. He is Lord."

~Paul David Tripp (A Shelter in the Time of Storm)

snippet o' the day

"I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the wild beasts multiply against you. Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and possess the land." ~Exodus 23:29-30

Exodus is quickly becoming a huge favorite of mine. I used to just think of it as a history/stories, right now God is revealing so much to me through the Israelites' journey & struggles - about His character, about our/my sinful, foolish nature, about how tender and how detailed God is in caring for us, that He outlines details, specifications, rules & stipulations, because even though He is the giant Creator-God of the universe, He cares about the condition of our hearts at every moment! That's huge.

Today the Holy Spirit wowed me with these two little verses - God is going to drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites to give His people the promised land. But He's not going to do it all at once, all in one fell swoop - because even though God Himself can do anything, His people are mortal, tiny, weak, far from all-powerful. So He chooses to work in a way that is best for His people; purging the enemies of God little by little, growing His children stronger and more faithful, little by little, until they can handle stewarding well the entire breadth of the promised land.

I am weak. small. sinful. frail. God knows this, He knows how much I can handle. Though my sins have already been forgiven & justified once for all by His blood, death, & sacrifice, I have not become holy, perfect, & flawless overnight; I am still a fleshly mortal living in a broken, fallen world. Because this world does not need a bunch of perfect people walking around, it needs lovers of God who are struggling well and learning to do life based on God's agenda & timing. He's working out all things in countless interwoven details and in even the most minute circumstances. Our human minds are just so limited in scope that we can't see how or what He's working - we can't even see what's behind our backs or what will happen to us in the next hour. He sees all of time, every person's story, and how they are all woven together in the most beautiful, intricate, delicate pattern!

He is working on us, each of us, day by day, little by little, with just exactly the right amount of what we can handle.

O blessed thought! He cares so much for us!

More on how God gives each of us just enough each day:

Exodus 16 (16-18)

Matthew 6:25-34

verse 34: "Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."

"He may delay because it would not be safe to give us at once what we ask: we are not ready for it. To give ere we could truly receive, would be to destroy the very heart and hope of prayer, to cease to be our Father. The delay itself may work to bring us nearer to our help, to increase the desire, perfect the prayer, and ripen the receptive condition." ~George MacDonald

patience

"I called him, but he gave no answer." ~Song of Solomon 5:6

Prayer sometimes lingers, like a petitioner at the gate, until the King comes with the blessings that she seeks. The Lord, when He as given great faith, has been known to test it by long delays. He has allowed His servants' voices to echo in their ears as if the heavens were brass. They have knocked at the golden gate, but it has remained immovable, as though it were rusted upon its hinges. Like Jeremiah, they have cried, "You have wrapped yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can pass through." In this manner true saints have continued to wait patiently without a reply, not because their prayers were not strong, nor because they were unaccepted, but because it so pleased Him who is Sovereign and who gives according to His own pleasure. If it pleases Him to test our patience, shall He not do as He wishes with His children? Beggars must not be choosers either as to time, place, or form. But we must be careful not to take delays in prayer for denials. God's postdated checks will be punctually honored; we must not allow Satan to shake our confidence in the God of truth by pointing to our unanswered prayers - they are not blown away by the wind; they are treasured in the King's archives. This is a registry in the court of heaven in which every prayer is recorded. Struggling believer, your Lord has as it were a tear-bottle in which the costly drops of your sacred grief are put away, and a book in which your holy groanings are numbered. By-and-by your case shall prevail. Can you not be content to wait a little? Will the Lord's time not be better than yours? By-and-by He will comfortably appear, to your soul's joy, and will cause you to put away the sackcloth and ashes of long waiting and put on the scarlet and fine linen of full fruition.

~C.H. Spurgeon

"Morning and Evening"

March 29 Eve

I just love it when God brings me EXACTLY what I need to hear or read, in the most incredible timing! He is so good and so faithful!