Brown's Daily Word 2-26-13

I praise the Lord for the way He has blessed me in my life and walk with Jesus in and through so many servants of our Lord from around the world. One of those servants of Jesus is John Richards. I first heard him speak was during my Post High School days at a youth confernce In Orissa, India. I also heard him later during my college days. After many years we reconnected. Our daughter Laureen graduated with his granddaughter from Grove City College. We were all invited for her wedding in Syracuse few years ago and I was able to meet the whole family after almost 40 years. I have met John Richards' son, Dr. Ramesh Richards, who is professor at Dallas Theological Seminary. Dr. Ramesh Richards used a a sentence in one of his prayers, “Lord, do things we’re not used to.”

Simple. Clear. Concise. And definitely dangerous. If God ever truly begins to do things we’re not used to, the world as we know it will be turned upside down. It’s a good thing–and a frightening thing–to ask God to blast us out of our comfort zone, to pull us away from the status quo, and to do with us things that make us very uncomfortable.

Jesus specialized in making people feel uncomfortable. He told the rich young ruler to sell all that he had, give it to the poor, and then come follow him (Matthew 19:21) The God of the Bible is not the God of the status quo. First he shakes us up, and then he uses us to shake our world. That’s always been God’s method.

When God wanted to change the world, he told Noah to do something he had never done before (build an ark) to prepare for something he’d never seen before (a mighty rain). When God wanted to bring forth a great nation, he called a successful, middle-aged businessman named Abram and told him to leave Ur of the Chaldees. When God wanted to deliver his people, he found a man slow of speech named Moses and sent him to talk to the Pharaoh. When the Lord needed someone to hide the spies in Jericho, he found a prostitute named Rahab. When God needed someone to defeat Goliath, he chose a shepherd boy named David. What God wanted to deliver his people from destruction, he chose a young girl named Esther. When Christ wanted some men in his inner circle, he chose fisherman and tax collectors, a loud mouth named Peter and two brothers called the “sons of thunder,” and told them to drop everything and follow him. These were definitely not done the way people were accustomed to. God does not conform to the Status Quo.

“If you want what you’ve never had, you’ve got to do what you’ve never done.” Most of us know that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for different results. Sometimes God looks down from heaven and says, “It’s time for a change.”

In Christ,

Brown

http://youtu.be/CP4JSVMBdZg