October Pastor’s Chat
I hope that this year’s theme, “God is Worthy!” has challenged you to think more about our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. To help us in this endeavor we have been focusing on Revelation 5:12 which says, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.” God is all this in superlative abundance. He is our supreme authority. He has all riches. He is all wisdom. He is all-powerful. He is all honorable and glorious. He is worthy to be praised, worship, and reverenced.
The amazing thing is that when God created mankind in His own likeness, He gave us a measure of His authority, riches, wisdom, strength, honor, and glory. All these blessings and gifts are entrusted to us and come from God. Therefore, we must conclude that God is worthy of everything in our lives. Our God is worthy to receive them back from us in the form of thanksgiving, praise, and the dedication of our lives to Him. He created us for His pleasure (Revelation 4:12).
The fact that God created us for His pleasure might seem a little odd to us until we realize that there is not one speck of selfishness in God. His pleasure is always right. He is kind and loving, pure and holy. In His pleasure we will truly experience the pleasures for which He created us. The paradox of life is that when we selfishly seek pleasure for ourselves, it is only for a sinful season (Hebrews 11:24-25); but when we seek to bring pleasure to God by loving and obeying Him, we experience pleasure in Him for eternity. This is related to what Jesus was saying in Matthew 16:25, “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.” What are you doing with your life?
With love and prayers, Pastor Mark
Selected Bible Verse on Selfish Pleasure
Hebrews 11:24-25, “By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.”
2 Timothy 3:1-5, “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. 2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.”
2 Thessalonians 2:10 -12, “And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
Selected Bible Verses on God’s Pleasure
Philippians 2:13, “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”
Ephesians 1:5-9, “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence; Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself.”
Hebrews 10:38-39, “Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.”
