Hello to everyone!
Sunday morning we’re amidst a series entitled, “Majoring on the Almighty” and I am fired up about it!
In life there is not a more important subject than, Almighty God!
The reality is that your vision and understanding of God will have the greatest impact on your life. Believing in God may not change your circumstances but it will change your life!
So, we have been studying the first two verses of the Bible (Genesis 1:1-2) and are learning FIVE incredible realities of God: #1 God is eternal; #2 By nature He is a plurality but unity, God is triune in nature; and #3 He created the entire universe!
Tomorrow we learn two more great realities: #1 God is separate from creation but INVOLVED and even INITMATELY active as FATHER in the lives of those who are IN CHRIST! #2 that God is good!
I thought I would give a little snapshot into one of the ideas of tomorrows study, how “intimate” and involved the Lord is in our life.
Did you know that God actually thinks about you? It’s incredible.
King David wrote, “How precious are your thoughts toward me, O God!” This means that God has conscious moments, for which you are the subject. A thought is a conscious moment, coupled with an idea, a notion – it is intellectual activity!
You are the subject of a lot of intellectual activity of ALMIGHTY GOD!
And, the good news is, that the thoughts are really good toward you! Jeremiah 29:11 tells us “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Again, David wrote, “How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!” And, then, David gives perspective on the quantity of thoughts toward us saying, “If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand …” Psalm 139:17-18
Needless to say, this is mind-boggling. God’s thoughts (conscious moments) toward me are more than the sand of the sea. Can we even wrap our minds around this?
Interestingly, mathematicians at the University of Hawaii attempted to identify the number of grains of sand on the beaches of the world and what they came up with is 7.5 x 10 to the 18th power grains of sand, which means 7 quintillion, 5 quadrillion or 7.5 billion, billion. If you lived 80 years on planet earth that comes to some 2.5 billion seconds. If you divide that into 7.5 billion, billion you get nearly 3 billion conscious moments of intellectual activity of God, the content of which is, GOOD, toward you, per second, of your life.
There is more …
God actually had conscious moments of intellectual activity about you before time even existed, before you even existed, before even the universe existed!
Eph 1:3-4 tells us, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love …”
I hope that today you are enraptured by the wonder of our HEAVENLY FATHER
O’ HOW GREAT IS OUR GOD!
Our God is TRULY great!! When I think about the number of the grains of sand and how much he thinks about me, I’m in total awe of His immeasurable love.
Greg: Thank you. What a timely message. I truly believe God wants us to come back to a love affair with Him. It was great to hear your description of how much God thinks about us, even before there was an us! I think the most important thing about anyone, are their thoughts of God. What they think about the Almighty and, indeed, what they think about Jesus Christ. Indeed, I think it could be proven, if you were to study history, that no people, nation has ever risen above its view of God. We hear our world view being talked about a lot these days, but our God-view colors everything in existence. It affects our belief system, of course, but it also affects national laws and national politics. What we think about God affects the educational policy of our nation. What we think about God affects our own personal development as we go from childhood, adolescence into adulthood, into maturity – but, of course, what we think about God and specifically His Son, Jesus Christ, affects our own personal salvation.
The problem I see, even for many believers today, is that after their conversion to Christ they think very little about God. I’m afraid that’s to our disadvantage, and its even more tragic when we consider that today many people who confess to being Christians think very little about God at the expense of thinking quite a lot about themselves.
Christians today think about themselves and their situations, more than they have ever done, and the problems that they have more than upon their problem-solving God…who is majorly focused on them. Indeed, just a casual inspection of some of the Christian bookstores today shows where the emphasis lies. You can go to the self-help section of secular bookshops, but some of our Christian bookshops seem to have them as well. I recently happened to go into a Christian store and was looking at the titles of many of the books, and here were several of them: ‘Love Yourself – The Art of Learning to Love Yourself’, ‘Living In Your Own Shadow’, ‘You Can Feel Good About Yourself’.
Now I think we all know Isaiah 26 verse 3: ‘Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee’ – but too often our minds are focused on our own things, but Christian: our minds can be focused on right things at the expense of the right One, the only One who is worthy of our attention, and indeed the only One who can actually help us in whatever needs we have. And today we have problems that are enormous.
So….
Press on my friend, my brother, my pastor.
Preach the word; share with us what our almighty God is revealing to you. Fan the flame of your gift. God Bless your family with peace.
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Thank you, Jim! 🙂 Greg
Dear Jim,
That was so sweet, right and true. You prayed to Jesus before you wrote that didn’t you?
Marsha the Gallup kicking up dust
I thank the Lord for His rich blessings. I’ve been so strengthened being a part of Sunday morning worship at Calvary. I praise the Lord!
Greg,
We missed you Wed. Hope you feel better and were able to get some very well desreved rest. We look forward to returning to our study in Acts next week. I wanted to Thank You for sharing the Louie Giglio DVD with us. Kristen and I loved it so much and as God has put on my heart to share these messages with my younger children, I look forward to sharing this DVD with them. It is so AWESOME to see Jesus in the eyes and hearts of my children. Then for them to realize and grasp the concept of just how great God is and how much He cares about each one of us.
This is truly a Blessing!! Praise and Glory to God!!!!!
Thank You!
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Bill, this is GREAT NEWS! Praise the Lord and thank you for letting me know. See you Sunday! Greg 🙂
The DVD wed. night was amazing! I have thought about how “BIG” our God is like never before. I was thinking about the awesomeness of the things we know of that He has created. This led me to wonder like never before what heaven will be like. Oh my word!!!! My mind is much too small to begin to imagine all He has prepared!!
I would like to order a copy of the DVD we watched and share it with my family.
Hope you are so rested. I am encouraged in the fact that you take time to rest up before we dig in to more of God’s Word! The amazing thing is each time you bring forth the Word of God to us, it is like you are bringing us your most cherished possession! You present God’s Word with such enthusiasm and passion.
All of this to say, thank you for resting, for giving God your best!!
Blessings,
shelly
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Praise the Lord! I too was very touched by the realities that the DVD presentation revealed!! And, I can’t thank you enough for your kind and encouraging words. I’m excited about being with the church family Sunday and next Wednesday! Greg 🙂
Hi Greg =]
Wow. The message this morning was truly a blessing in my life …
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I’m so glad, Hannah! And, thank you for your message to me and your update on what is happening in your life. Onward! 2 Tim 4:7 Greg 🙂