16.7.08

God Sustains

I've recently started reading Trusting God (Even When Life Hurts), by Jerry Bridges. I'd heard good things about this book from several sources, and so far I haven't been disappointed. :)
Last night (when I probably should have been sleeping, but there's something so enticing about a book on your nightstand when you climb into bed!) I was in chapter 2, titled Is God in Control? Amazing chapter, and one of the concepts just...blew me away, I guess! Excuse the long quote, but I have to share it!

God Sustains

"The Bible teaches that God not only created the universe but that He upholds and sustains it day by day, hour by hour. Scripture says, "The Son is...sustaining all things by his powerful word" (Hebrews 1:3), and "in him all things hold together" (Colossians 1:17)...

All things are indebted for their existence to the continuous sustaining action of God exercised through His Son. Nothing exists of its own inherent power of being. Nothing in all creation stands or acts independently of the Lord's will. The so-called laws of nature are nothing more than the physical expression of the steady will of Christ. The law of gravity operates with unceasing certainty because Christ continuously wills it to operate...

The stars continue in their courses because He keeps them there. Scripture says,

He...brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name.
Because of his great power and mighty strength,
not one of them is missing. (Isaiah 40:26)

God's sustaining action in Christ goes beyond the inanimate creation. The Bible says that He gives life to everything (see Nehemiah 9:6):

He supplies the earth with rain and makes grass grow on the hills.
He provides food for the cattle and for the young ravens when they call. (Psalm 147:8-9)

God did not simply create and then walk away. He constantly sustains that which He created. Further, the Bible teaches that God sustains you and me: "He himself gives all men life and breath and everything else...'For in him we live and move and have our being'" (Acts 17:25,28)....
He has not left us to our own devices or the whims of nature or the malevolent acts of other people. No! He constantly sustains, provides for and cares for us every moment of very day....
If we are to trust God, we must learn to see that He is continuously at work in every aspect and every moment of our lives."

That really spoke to me. I haven't been realizing (to the full extent) how much God really is interested in even the smallest details of life. How His power is constantly at work. He didn't just create the world, set the laws of nature in motion and walk away - the world functions because of his continuous exertion of power. I don't know about you, but thinking about these things just ignites such worship in my heart. God is so amazing...

3 comments:

A Joyful Heart said...

Amen!

I just found your blog off of Sara's. I love the look to tour blog, so pretty!

Stephanie said...

Under Southern Skies:

Thanks for visiting. Hope you'll be back. :)

Ramsey said...

That’s very true Stephanie. Not only does God continuously sustain the universe but he also continuously with surgical precision brings about every circumstance in our lives, every single thing that unfolds before us in the present. (Romans 8:28) And he wants us to see and recognize this. But we fail to do that because our mind makes us either live in the past or in the future. We never have time for the present. Past and future are only thoughts in our mind. They don’t have a reality. Only the present does. But our mind is so conditioned that we only live in a conceptual world and our thoughts are like a thick veil that obscures the present and we never live in the present. If we don’t think of the past or future and don’t identify with anything or attach ourselves to anything or person, and just live in the present, we become totally aware of God’s presence. Jesus lived like that all the time. He had no thought for the next day. That is why he was able to see his Father communicate with him through all the things that happened around him - A man sowing seed in a field, a woman kneading some dough, birds flying in the air, children playing in the market place, laborers waiting to be picked up for work - these were all communications from his father.
If you recognize that it is God who has with surgical precision brought about the entire circumstances that has unfolded before you this very minute and surrender to that moment and just accept and allow the situation to continue to unfold without resistance and without bringing any thought process into it and feel completely at home, totally content, without any attachment to anything or person, you will feel his very presence. You will enter the eternal now, the only place we can meet God, a place of peace and rest, the Sabbath of God.