The God we serve is so much bigger and better than our minds can conceive. If you try and comprehend how immense God must be in order to have spoken the worlds as we know them into existence, your mind will quickly short circuit, with smoke billowing out of your ears. His power and might are incomprehensible.

There are stars in the universe so massive, they dwarf our sun in comparison. And to think that the Creation account mentions their formation only as an afterthought; ‘He made the stars also,’ Genesis 1:16. There has never been nor will there ever be a problem too big for God to solve. God is all powerful.

God’s power was on full display when after three days and three nights, as Jesus lay lifeless in a tomb, He was resurrected, death to life, now to live forever. God is all powerful in the physical realm and in the spiritual.

He is not only all powerful; God is better than anything we can imagine. If we were to try and remember some of the greatest enjoyments over our lifetimes, we would undoubtedly recall some wonderful experiences. Perhaps your mind took you to a trip in which you saw some spectacular scenery; or a social event where you connected with some old friends. Each of us has enjoyed some wonderful experiences in our lives.

However, the very best of those enjoyments, even all of them put together, will pale in comparison to the incredible experience of God’s presence. Why? Because God is so much better than anything our minds can comprehend.

Paul referred to a passage in Isaiah that looked to the joy of the coming Messiah when he wrote in…

1 Corinthians 2:9 But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

For the Old Testament Jew, there could be no greater experience than being part of the appearance of the Messiah. Throughout the years, Jews longed for the coming of the Promised One, and even wrote songs expressing their passionate expectation.

The all-powerful God whose might is indescribable, is also the God who delights in pleasing His children. When the Lord Jesus went to Heaven to be with His Father, He went to prepare a place for us. With limitless power and might, and a burning desire to bless us, He has been preparing an eternity the likes of which words or even dreams could not do justice.

We have a God who loves us in a way that is far beyond anything we can begin to imagine. Praise His name!

Jesus spent a brief three and a half years in ministry here on earth, before going back to be with His Father in Heaven. During those years, Jesus preached to great crowds, and touched the lives of countless individuals. However, after His time on earth was complete, there were only one hundred and twenty followers left, meeting in an upper room.

It must have been an incredible sight, watching Jesus enter into Jerusalem presenting Himself to them as their King. A great crowd had gathered around Him even before He made it to the city. By the time he was only a short way down the road to the Temple, people were coming from everywhere. It must have felt as if the entire city was on the street with Him.

Of course, that same jubilant crowd, only a short time later turned on Jesus. He had come as their King, but that meant something completely different to them. They looked for a deliverer from Rome; Jesus promised deliverance from sin. Fueled by the hatred of the scribes and priests, the crowd that had hailed Him started to cry, ‘Crucify Him, crucify Him!’

After Jesus’ body was taken down from the cross, the disciples who had initially fled, drifted off to wonder how their Messiah had allowed them to kill Him. Many had still not fully understood the mission with which Jesus came in the first place. His death on the cross had been planned long before He came. It would be an act of selfless love for mankind. Without it, man would be left to suffer the consequences of his sin forever.

Jesus showed Himself to His disciples for forty days after His resurrection. During that time, their hearts were once again stirred, and their resolve strengthened. When Jesus ascended into Heaven, telling them that He would return soon, the meager band gathered were now ready for whatever was to be asked of them. We read of them in…

Acts 1:15 And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples, and said, (the number of names together were about an hundred and twenty,)

Of course, we know that the Holy Spirit fell upon them in the upper room, and they went out in the fullness of His power and turned the world upside down for Christ. That small gathering of believers, those few who had determined to remain faithful, were used to spread the Gospel around the world.

The impact of the church of Jesus Christ is now felt around the world, and has been for the last 2,000 years because of those few committed disciples of Christ.

We must not fall for the lie that our numbers are insufficient to make a difference for the cause of Christ. As we commit ourselves to the work of Christ, and yield our hearts to the Holy Spirit’s control, we could be used to make a lasting impact on our world, beginning in our little corner of the world.

Let’s determine to be more like those who chose to gather in the upper room; hopeful and dependent upon God for each step they would take. Let’s allow God to use us as well.

Man’s heart gets a pretty rough evaluation in the book of Jeremiah. There the heart is said to be deceitful and desperately wicked. Man’s response to such a negative appraisal is to doubt and even outright reject it. After all, think of the many times we have good thoughts, even to occasionally being truly concerned over the needs of others. True, we might have a few ‘down’ times where we are not as gracious as we should be, or times when we find ourselves enjoying our bitter feelings towards another; but that certainly doesn’t mean that our hearts are really ‘that’ bad.

Deep down, I think most of us recognize the accuracy of Jeremiah’s assessment. Our heart’s default condition includes selfishness, pride, and an unhealthy dose of greed. True, we have moments of light, where we reflect the light of Christ’s goodness, but that is not a consistent response.

Because of the unreliability of man’s hearts, God determines special times when he allows testing to occur, that the real deep-down condition might be revealed. His testings come in many forms, but most include seasons of worry, pain, deprivation, or loss. Our love for the world and its attractions makes his testings even more painful and challenging.

Paul mentioned God’s ingenious method of exposing the spiritual health of our hearts in…

1 Thessalonians 2:4 But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts.

God tries our hearts. The word for ‘trieth,’ here literally means test or examine. Just like the teacher who told us to clear our desks and take out a pencil, as she passed out another opportunity for our knowledge to be revealed, she also called the experience a ‘test.’ She would collect our attempts at answering the questions, grade them, and return them with red marks and a grade circled at the top. Some in the class would smile in satisfaction, while the rest simply moaned.

The heart of man is very important to God. He knows that all the issues of life originate there. He longs to hold the dearest spot in the heart, the one typically ruled by its owner. On the rare occasions when some believer gives to Him all that was previously denied, God is glorified, and man finds his greatest fulfillment in life.

When trials and testings reveal that our hearts are not fully controlled by our Lord, we need to spend time confessing our selfishness and self-centeredness as sin, and yield ourselves to Him afresh. A poor response to a test does not mean that God is finished with us; it only means that we now can more clearly see the problem, and with His help we can fix it.

When time a trial comes into your life, what comes out of your heart? What iss your reaction to the trial? Has your faith deepened or dampened as a result?

Let’s make sure our hearts stay in tune with our Lord.

There has always been a concerted attack against the church. Since its inception, the Devil has tried to undermine the foundational truths upon which the church is built. If the Devil can mess with the basic Gospel of Jesus Christ, he can cause the whole of the body of Christ to topple. It is the truth of salvation by grace through faith that is the cornerstone doctrine that establishes everything else. When anything is either added to, or taken from the simple Gospel of Christ, it no longer is empowered by God to save sinners.

The Gospel was attacked even in Jesus’ day. The Jews refused to believe that the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ was sufficient to cleanse one from their sins. They would not leave their trust in the Law; even though they had never been able to keep it themselves.

The Law had been a fierce and frustrating opponent for the Jews. They knew that it was of God, and they believed that there must be a way to obey it. The problem was, they knew of no one who had ever kept it. They could not understand that Jesus came to fulfill that Law, and by believing in Him, their condemnation under the Law could be satisfied.

Jesus offered a radical, new way to His people. No longer did they have to be enslaved under the Law; always striving, but never attaining. Through Him, they could find forgiveness and freedom from sin, and power to walk a new life. Jesus’ way was not by subjecting their wills, it was by yielding their hearts to him in faith.

Once a person came by faith to Jesus and received His free gift of eternal life, he was suddenly faced with a dilemma. He had been saved by faith and not works; but how was he to live his life from that moment on?

Paul answered that question to new believers who were facing that very problem. He wrote in…

Colossians 2:6 As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him:

So many young converts at the time had come out of Judaism. They had grown up under the weight of obedience to the Law. When they finally understood that salvation could only come through faith, they had gladly transferred their dependence from their previously unsuccessful attempts of keeping the Law, to trusting the finished work of Christ on the cross.

Paul told them they were to live each day of their lives, facing each problem and difficulty that arose the very same way they had been saved; by faith in Christ. The power that saved them was now available to them to live their lives. When an unexpected hardship came against them, they could now turn to Christ and depend upon Him for help and direction. No longer were they forced to rely on their fallible wills and elusive wisdom.

Christ died on the cross to pay for the sins of mankind, and now lives to provide for His children everything they need to live God-honoring lives for His glory.

Let’s choose to trust Him for everything, every day, and in every way.