Where's the power of prayer?

I know that God will give you whatever you ask him - John 11:22

That was Martha to Jesus, when Lazarus had died. We all know what came next. God really did give Jesus whatever He asked for. Wouldn't it be amazing to have that same authority and access that Jesus had, to ask for anything of God, and have Him listen to us!

Oh, hang on... isn't that what we do have?

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him. - 1 John 5:14-15

And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive - Matt 21:22

If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it - John 14:14

Ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you - John 15:7

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours - Mark 11:24

...I think we get the picture.

Ok, well, I've asked for lots of things... but where are they? If I can ask, if God hears me & if anything I ask in Jesus name will be done... why does it so often seem like nothing happens.

If God is the one "who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us" (eph 3:20) - why does it seem even less than I ask or imagine happens?

If healing the sick and more is mean to be a part of life for those who believe (Mark 16:17-18), and I am meant to do even greater works than Jesus did one earth (John 14:12)... where are these great things? 

How can it be true that I have, through Jesus, the same authority in prayer that raised Lazarus from the dead?

Maybe it is because I am not the body of Jesus. We are. We are the church - together we are the body. Together we bring Jesus to the world. Alone, maybe I'm just kind of like part of Jesus' fingernail. I need the rest of the finger, the hand, the arm, which needs to be connected to the shoulder, which is attached to a healthy torso, which is supported on strong legs...

You get the picture.

Now, don't get me wrong. There would have been a whole lot of power even in just Jesus' finger nail. Praying alone doesn't mean God doesn't hear you or your prayers don't work. He does, and they do.

But alone our spiritual life is never going to be as full and alive as when we are connected the fully functioning body. When the church seeks unity and spiritual growth and maturity together, when we see health restored to the life of the church, I believe we will see greater power in the prayers of Christians, both  collectively and individually. 

For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them - Matt 18:20

And this is a good thing! We need each other. We were never meant to carry this power or authority alone. God knows how much we benefit in seen and unseen ways from relying on, serving, praying with, praying for and worshiping with each other. 

If we want the same power and authority and results from our prayers as Jesus had, we need to come together as one body and do what Jesus did.

And what did he do?

- He prayed - a lot. He was always taking time away to spend it with God. Both together with others and when we are alone, we need to take this time and spend it with God. Jesus knew the Father heard Him and knew His voice intimately.

- He was moved by compassion. We ask and do not receive when we ask with the wrong motives. (James 4:3) We want to spend it on ourselves. But Jesus asked because He was moved with compassion for the needs and suffering of others. Jesus wept! When need to open our hearts to love others as He did, from deep down inside. (And we definitely need each other for that - we cannot pour out love when we do not receive His love, and one huge way that happens is through others.)

- And what did Jesus do with his power and authority? He humbled himself as a servant, to not condemn the world but to save it. As a body, we need to do the same. We need to worry less about what the world is doing wrong, and start giving out this transforming love through our actions towards lost, oppressed and hurting people.

As this intimate prayer, compassion and servanthood begins to increase in the body, the Church, I believe we will also see an increasing in the power and effectiveness of our prayers to see miracles, to heal and to set people free!!

Don't Be a Potplant

We used to have two pot plants at our front door. I say used to because they aren't there any more.


This was back before we had moved in to our house, and it was newly built welcoming us only on weekends. We picked out some nice green plants in dark grey pots and set them either side of the door.


We also had a door mat there, but because we live on hill near the sea, it gets windy and the mat is always blowing away. Several times when I was putting the mat back after retrieving it from half way down the hill I thought, "Something looks weird about our front door."


It wasn't until one morning that I woke up and suddenly it came to me - "The pot plants are gone!"


It's not that windy at our place. I can only guess someone took them. Good luck to them - I hope the plants are getting more water in their new homes than they did in ours.


But pot plants are like that - easy to pick up and move. Unsecured and easy to do whatever you want with, really.


I'd like to see someone drive sneakily away with a full size oak tree.


And yet a lot of us are pot plant Christians. We have shallow, pot bound roots, and will never really grow to our full potential. We're easily moved and uprooted; we rely on someone else to remember to feed and water us.


We only get the Bible read to us at church. We only have fellowship on Sundays and then we 'get on with our lives.' We only pray when someone else directs us, when we are wilting, or when something bad happens - like finding ourselves being carried off by an enemy who notices how small and unsecured we are and decides to take us for a ride.


Don't be a pot plant.


Be "strong, like a tree planted by a river. The tree produces fruit in season, and its leaves don't die. Everything they do will succeed." Psalm 1:3

A strong tree has deep and far reaching roots. It doesn't rely on someone with a watering can to come along and give it a drink. It is tapped into the river of living water, it's is nourished by the fertile soil in which it is planted. "Like trees planted in the Temple of the Lord, they will grow strong in the courtyards of our God. When they are old, they will still produce fruit; they will be healthy and fresh." Psalm 92:14


Grow deep roots in God. Get out of the little pot and plant yourself in God's garden, immerse yourself in His kingdom. Then nothing can touch you, nothing can carry you off, and you will bear real fruit.

Seek and you will find - but what are you looking for?

Have you ever sought hard, earnestly, til you hurt...and then nothing happened. It makes you wonder, where exactly is God? What about all that 'seek and you will find' business, huh?

God does say that we when seek after him, he will be found. So what's going on?

And at times like that, when we feel let down, we know that God says he'll never leave us or forsake us, but it can be hard to really understand it.

But it doesn't seem to "work" - when I seek and don't seem to find God, perhaps I was actually looking for myself and not for God at all.

Worship is about glorifying God, and yet how often do we come away thinking about what we did or didn't get from it, how we felt, what God did for us?

Seek and you will find. It's true. But what are we looking for? If we look for ourselves, we're always going to find it. And we'll always be disappointed. Because our spirit longs for God.

Just a thought...

God OFTEN gives us more than we can handle

One of the misquotations of the Bible that frustrates me most is when people say "God doesn't give us more than we can handle". It's meant to be a comfort, to tell us that things will never get so bad we can't handle it. And, oh, I know it's meant to comfort us that God is looking out for us. But it is an ill conceived and misleading comfort.

Firstly, nowhere in the Bible does God promise life will never serve us more than we can handle. In 1 Corinthians 10 it says that God will not allow us to be tempted more than we can bear, and when we are tempted he will provide a way out. This means that there is always the choice not to sin.

This has nothing to do with handling hardships and trials, which is what is implied in the misquotation.

It is no wonder people accuse Christians of simply having a god and a religion to make us feel better about the things that are out of our control, like God is a cosmic comforter blanket, when we ourselves treat him so. Like God is there to make sure, once we are Christians, that life is easy and cotton wool wrapped from the harshness of the rest of the world.

The fact is, God regularly gives us more than we can handle. He gives us responsibilities and challenges that are way beyond what we are qualified to deal with.

And while he doesn't give them to us, he also allows to experience events and circumstances in life that are heavy enough to crush us.

The important thing to remember in this is, along with what he gives us and allows us to experience, he also NEVER leaves us. We are too weak to handle much of what life will deal us - but God is not. There will be much we are given that we can't handle - but God can.

We have a responsibility to not be cotton wool wrapped Christians. We should know the words of God well enough to not misuse them and misquote them.

Saying God won't give us more than we can handle simply makes the people who feel like they are being crushed think that there is something wrong with them; it causes disillusionment with a god they think must have abandoned them.

It perpetuates an idea that Christianity is about being a safe distance from the world, on a fluffy cloud free from pain.

And that it is up to us to be strong. That there is something wrong with us if we are in pain.


If Jesus' life is any indication - and shouldn't it be every indication - being a Christ follower is not about a painless, cushy life. How can we expect treatment better than Jesus himself received?

But that shouldn't frighten us if we know the Rock on which we stand. When we know the Word of God, we know God. God may not have promised freedom from hardship in this life, but he is and has promised many things. Immanuel - God with us. Redeemer. Jehovah-Jireh. Almighty. Shepherd.

We have a God who is good. Who will never leave us nor forsake us.

Many are the afflictions of the righteous,
but the LORD delivers him out of them all.. Psalm 34:19

We will be given and experience more than we can handle. And why? Because the point is not to rely on ourselves, on our own strength, but on a God who has overcome it all.

For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. (2 Cor 1:8,9, emphasis mine).

Faith that He is and that He will

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
-Hebrews 11:6

Without faith, we cannot please God. And faith in what? That God exists. That's the first thing. But I just noticed something that I had never noticed in this verse before. It doesn't end with just believing God exists, but also having faith that God cares and will respond to us.

The Message version words it helpfully:

It’s impossible to please God apart from faith. And why? Because anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that he exists and that he cares enough to respond to those who seek him.

All this time I've believed and had faith that God exists, that God is there, that he is real. And I am seeking him. But where my faith has faltered, and where I think many people's does, is in really believing that God will actually come through if I earnestly seek him.

And so I've half-heartedly sought him, afraid that I'll just be wasting my time, that nothing will happen, that he won't be found and I'll just be left disappointed.

But to approach God, I can't just have faith that he is there - I know that - but also have faith that I actually can draw near to him and that he will draw near to me.

Why do we find it so hard to believe? The Bible is full of verses telling us that - come near to God, and he will come near to you. Seek, and you shall find. Call on [him] and [he] will answer. 'You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart'.

And therein lies the rub - that's risky, that 'all your heart' business. We are used to our hearts being breakable, fragile things. The thought of giving all of it - well, that's scary.

But if we want to approach God, that's what he requires. Not that we do enough good deeds and pray the right prayers. But that we earnestly seek him. That we give all of our hearts.

And our faith that he will respond.

Blogging through... Sharpening the Cutting Edge #2

I don't know about you, but when I imagine defending my faith and standing up to injustice I imagine the 'other' people being those who aren't called Christians, those who believe something different to me.

I forget that a counterfeit that is labelled the real thing can be even more dangerous.

John describes an encounter in the Philippines. The mayor of a village was bulldozing villagers houses for his own building projects. John and others with him ran in front of the bulldozers and attempted to disable them. That was when a vigilante pointed a rifle at John. But it was the t-shirt that drew his attention. The man pointing the gun and supporting the bulldozing of villagers homes wore a t-shirt reading "Kill a Communist for Jesus".

These people who called themselves Christians also later used scripture to justify asking these people to turn in those who had supported their opposition of the corrupt mayor.

It should remind us that our faith is not defined by going to church or knowing Bible verses, or by calling ourselves "Christian" - it is defined by our actions, our beliefs and the love of Jesus acted out in our lives. It's about a real encounter and relationship with God - because without that we open ourselves to twisting even the words of the Bible to suit our own purposes.

And isn't that what the devil loves. A counterfeit that looks like the real thing. The boundaries between the Truth and a warped version can get so much more blurry, than if we compare our faith to someone who believes something completely different.

The truth is not just knowing the words - even the devil knows the words. The Truth is Jesus. The living Word is Jesus.

That's an understatement...

The Bible is so wonderfully and frustratingly understated. A whole event, that may be several pages long in an embellished childhood Bible story book, can take place in a single verse. Often leaving us underwhelmed as to the true significance of what is contained in those few words.

Even the conception and birth of Jesus - a pretty important event, I think we'd all agree - is summed up in six verses in the first chapter of Matthew.

And so when we read quite sedately that an angel told Mary that she would have a baby from God, that Joseph thought of divorcing her, but then was told in a dream to marry her, and did - we just carry on sedately reading like thats all normal.

Wait, what? Hang on. First of all, an angel tells a girl she's pregnant even though she's a virgin. Just imagine your friend or daughter coming to you and telling you "I've never done the deed, honest, but I'm pregnant.".... Oh, sure, Mary.

And add to that, "God told me" and I'm sure that sort of thing has been grounds your family having you committed. Or burnt at the stake.

It sounds extreme. But seriously, imagine it. Would you have believed her, truly?

And then Joseph. Understandably, he comes to the conclusion that some other guy has made her pregnant. As far as he is concerned that leaves two options. One, quite legally, is to have her stoned to death. Horrific as it sounds to us, that would have been quite an acceptable punishment for what everyone would have considered adultery.

Joseph, though, was obviously a good man - he decided on the second option - to just quietly divorce her. As far as everyone else was concerned, he would have been well within his rights to get justice in the situation. But instead he chose to protect Mary and just quietly walk away.

But God - you know how he is, always turning our plans upside down - tells Joseph in a dream that Mary is telling the truth, and that the baby will be the Saviour, and his name will be Jesus.

Oh, ok. So off he trots to marry her. Off we go sedately reading again now...

Um, let's back up a little again. First of all, how convincing would a dream have to be to make you go against your instincts and forget what everyone else would think? Because this would have been scandalous! Imagine the gossip! Move over, Charlie Sheen.

Even in our society, where we hardly bat an eyelid and sex and pregnancy, we would wonder what on earth was going on with these people.

"Did you hear about Mary? My cousins friend's mum lives next to her mum, so I've heard it all."
"What you mean that crazy girl who thinks God got her pregnant."
"Yeah, that's the one. I mean, how silly does she think everyone is, to think we wouldn't know she's just been fooling around."
"Poor old Joseph, I wonder what he'll do."
"Well, you think he'd be at least happy to get out while he still can. Would have been a narrow escape, if you ask me. But, I heard he's going to marry her."
"What? When she's pregnant to some other guy? And crazy, to boot. Why would he...unless, it's not some other guy..."
"Exactly...why would he do that, unless he's got a guilty conscience. He got her into this mess, so he figures he better marry her."
"The whole things a mess. I'm just glad it's not my daughter! Can you imagine? I couldn't look my neighbours in the eye ever again with a family like that...."

And that's just a mild look at what we might think. Imagine the intensity of judgement that would have come from a society that stoned people to death.

Yet through it all, through what would have been a scandal and a stigma to follow them everywhere, through the danger and judgement...they were obedient to God no matter what it cost them.

And from that obedience came Jesus.

If Jesus was a store, the sign would read "Jesus Christ. Disrupting our comfortable lives since 6 B.C."

But aren't we glad he does.


Peace and joy. (Romans 5:1-11)

Jessie.


But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Read more posts at http://www.jessiecostin.com

Read more posts at http://www.jessiecostin.com

Familiar = True?

The other day I was walking down the hall way with a snippet of poetry going through my head - "Urge me away to bitter shadow. Always sweet love is one ache we need." I thought, I've heard that somewhere before, what poem is that from?

Turns out when I had been putting the shopping away in the fridge a few seconds before I must have glanced at the fridge door - which is covered in random groupings of words from our magnetic poetry kit. It sounds poetic, but it's not poetry. That group of words is sitting there in between "Read my cry you purple rain butt" and "Go cook rob in his moon bed". Funny. But not poetry.

They'll know we are Christians by our ________?

They'll know we are Christians by  our ________?

By our congregation size?

By our happiness?

By our prosperity?

By our fun youth group games?

By our professional standard of lights and smoke machines at church?

By our blog posts?

"By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

Oh, by our love. Really? That's it?

We complicate Christianity a lot more than we should. We add a lot to the Bible in our minds and views and then end up reading it like it was there all along. I think because the enormity and of God is difficult to comprehend, so we like to give Him more boundaries and restrictions ang guidelines.

So then we underestimate it because we've tried to package it and present it so neatly. 

Like love. Seems so basic. And yet it's actually the most important and the most challenging thing of all.

I think that's why God likes to remind us of it so often.

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing

 the greatest of these is love

over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind

Love your neighbour as yourself.

love your enemies

Above all, love each other deeply,

let us love one another, for love comes from God.

We love because he first loved us

God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us

God is love.

Verses:

(John 13:34-35

1 Corinthians 13: 2 &13

Colossians 3:14

Matthew 22: 37 & 39

Luke 6:35

1 Peter 4:8

1 John 4:7 & 19

Romans 5:8

1 John4: 8)

It's simple. But He never said it was easy. 

Think you might burst?

I remember getting back in the car after a Youth Alive rally, feeling pumped up and hyped like you do. I just wanted to talk about the night, talk about God, spout the joy I was feeling like a fountain. But everyone else was tired. It was late and we had to drive an hour home. Nobody else was talking. I remember sitting in the car staring out the window, feeling like I might literally burst... even in  a car full of young Christians, I felt like no-one else wanted to talk about God like I did.

I wonder if Jesus had other conversations. I wonder if some nights he was just like, "Hey, I've had a long day of healing the blind and the lame. Lets kick back and watch this episode of "The Real Housewives of Jerusalem."

Put on a happy face?

Sometimes we think we've got to hide our sadness and keep on going. Sometime we think we've got to have it all together and not show any signs of weakness.

Once I heard a girl at school say, 'The guy said, "Being a Christian is the way to be happy". But I know heaps of happy people who aren't Christians.' Inwardly I cringed.

I think it's the wrong idea if we say "Be a Christian, it'll make you happy." Happiness is a subjective emotion based on circumstance. And God doesn't promise that our circumstances are all going to be happy ones. He doesn't promise we aren't going to have any problems or that life is going to be easy.

People are watching us. They are not, as we might suppose, looking to see us living in perpetual happiness. That is fake. They are looking to see real people, with real hardships and real weaknesses - and they will then see the acceptance, belonging and redemption that comes from God in the midst of this. And a real, true joy. 



Don't put it off; don't frustrate God's work by showing up late, throwing a question mark over everything we're doing. Our work as God's servants gets validated—or not—in the details. People are watching us as we stay at our post, alertly, unswervingly . . . in hard times, tough times, bad times; when we're beaten up, jailed, and mobbed; working hard, working late, working without eating; with pure heart, clear head, steady hand; in gentleness, holiness, and honest love; when we're telling the truth, and when God's showing his power; when we're doing our best setting things right; when we're praised, and when we're blamed; slandered, and honored; true to our word, though distrusted; ignored by the world, but recognized by God; terrifically alive, though rumored to be dead; beaten within an inch of our lives, but refusing to die; immersed in tears, yet always filled with deep joy; living on handouts, yet enriching many; having nothing, having it all. 

2 Corinthians 6:4-10 (The Message)

Chosen, Called by Name

I have a memory of childhood. It's strong and indelible, but at the same time fuzzy at the edges and dream-like as some childhood memories are, floating unmoored to context and circumstance. I can't even remember how old I was, or what I was doing there.

I remember being a big, dark room. It was full of other kids and we were watching a live show about outer space. Like all shows for kids, they called for crowd involvement. Lollies were handed out for answering questions and a few volunteers were called to go up on stage. They got to act in front of a blue screen that made it look like they were flying in the milky way on the video screen.

I wanted to answer a question and get a lolly. No-one picked me. I wanted to volunteer and get to go on the special video. No-one picked me.

It's my earliest memory of that feeling, "Why will no-one choose me? Why don't I ever get picked?"

Without Excuse

I'm always hesitant to write about things that may be opinionated or controversial because I am very aware of my lack of authority or qualifications to talk about theology. The questions I have and topics I don't understand far, far outweigh the minuscule list of things I am sure of.

But I have read a few things lately about the topic of the 'final judgement'. I have not read it yet, but there has been a lot of talk about Rob Bell's book Love Wins and I read a blog by Rachel Held Evans and she discusses similar sorts of things.

There are many things that people question and struggle with, such as what about children who are too young to make a decision? What about people in remote places who have never had the chance to hear the gospel?

Pick 'n' Mix faith

I was searching for a bible verse in Google - what did we ever do without that handy tool? - and came across a page where someone had compiled a list of verses they took as proof that Christians pick and choose what they actually want to follow out of the Bible.

They were saying that Christians choose verses that suit them to attack others and support prejudices against homosexuals, but ignore other things the Bible says. They listed some examples such as what should be done to women who commit adultery, about women covering their heads when they pray, about slaves obeying their masters.

Two things made me sad...

Afraid that you ARE good enough

A lot of people recognise being afraid of failure, afraid of people thinking they are no good, or of feeling within yourself that you are not good enough to be successful.

Sometimes, however, I believe this is an excuse. I believe this because I was one I was using for years.

Even when I felt like I had dealt with any self-esteem issues I had - which many people do, when they are a teenagers and then carried over into adult life - I still felt afraid. I thought it was because I didn't feel good enough to be successful. I thought  it was because I was afraid of what people would think of me if they saw me fail.

But that actually wasn't the real issue. I was actually afraid that I was good enough. It seems silly. Why would you be afraid of succeeding. And because it seems silly, that's why I never considered it.
It wasn't until my husband pointed out to me one day "I think you're afraid of being good enough, because then people will expect it from you and you will have to live up to it."

Hope and Disappointment

The biggest complaint people have about hope is that it sets you up for disappointment when what you were hoping for doesn't work out. It can feel like more often than not we get let down by our hopes and expectations.

But a life without hope is a hard life to live.

Maybe is not hope that is the problem, but what we are hoping for.

New Every Morning

Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed,
   for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
   great is your faithfulness.
Lamentations 3: 22-23

God has great promises for us. His great love will never fail us. We do not need to be consumed by the troubles of today, but wait and rest in Him with the hope of new things.

This morning I woke up with worry and turmoil on my mind uncertain about what the outcome of the day would be. And in my email inbox was a gift of hope from God. (Not directly from God - I don't have his email address I'm afraid - but definitely a blessing from Him through someone else.)

When has God lifted your day with new blessings and compassion? Don't doubt that he will do it again. Great is his faithfulness.

The skies proclaim

 

The heavens declare the glory of God;
   the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
   night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words;
   no sound is heard from them. 

Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
   their words to the ends of the world.  


You don't have to look very far to see evidence of God. If he takes this much care to create sunsets so beautiful, how much more will He care for you, His child?

This photo was taken of the view from my house, where I'm blessed to get a beautiful reminder of God every evening. What reminds you of God's wonder?

No-one Knows...but the time is near.

I'm not quite sure what prompted me to start praying, but I often do when I am driving to or from work. It's a half an hour drive on straight highway, and so a perfect time to talk to God uninterrupted. Without closing my eyes, obviously.

So yesterday driving home from work I began praying. I was close to home when I started, and so when I turned into my driveway I wasn't ready to stop. Sitting in my car in the carport, I was overwhelmed by the presence of God. I hope my neighbours didn't choose that time to look over their fences, or they may have wondered why I was apparently sitting in my car with my eyes closed, talking to myself.

The "Old Testament God" is the same God as now.

People are confused by the old testament - people think the old testament God seems harsh, distant and impersonal. We don't like thinking of God as someone who would just strike us dead on the spot because we did something wrong. And because it's difficult, we often gloss over it, ignore it, or never try to actually understand it.

We like the nice side of God, the all forgiving, all loving, kind side. Which is of course all true, but without considering everything about the nature of God, the 'love' and 'forgiveness' we are thinking about is really just fluff and nothing. It loses any depth or meaning. We start to treat God like he's a nice little friend we can put in our pockets to pull out for help when we're in trouble.

The old testament tells us of a God who is absolutely, incomparably holy and righteous. A God who had to be hidden and who a very select few could even approach, only after very strict requirements were followed. A God who requires perfection beyond anything any human being can hope to even approach. Whose standards meant death to those who disobeyed him.

It's no wonder we don't like to think about this God so much - most of us already struggle with feelings of low self worth or inadequacy in our lives. Why am I reminding you how far short we fall of God's standards?

Because without grasping the righteous, holy and all powerful nature of God, how can we really understand the depth of his grace and love? If we don't realise how deep a chasm of sin separates us from God, how can we understand how utterly amazing the gift of Jesus was to bridge that chasm? If we don't get how sinful and far short we really fall on our own, how can we appreciate the gift of mercy? Without knowing the awesomeness, perfection and power of the presence of God, how can we even begin to comprehend the depth of God's love that he has provided a way for all of us, any one of us, to come personally into that presence?

If we don't see those things, and try to understand the God presented to us in the old testament, then we are missing half the picture - the half that provides us with the depth and gravity of what God has done for us. If you don't know why you needed redemption, how can you appreciate that you've been given it? Far from making you feel more unworthy and useless, it will convince you to your very core that God loves you, you personally, so much that he would save you. It will prove to you how much you are worth to Him.

Since God is the same yesterday, today and forever, the God of the old testament is the exact same God of today. Are we missing half the picture of who God is, in all his glory, majesty and righteousness, in all his amazing love and mercy, because we are afraid to confront those things that confuse, unsettle or challenge us? 

Read Hebrews 10, which started me thinking about this post.