Just Continue That Thought...

A thought by Mark Batterson (2014-09-02) from his book, The Grave Robber: How Jesus Can Make Your Impossible Possible (p. 216). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) That can be a problem to realize when we are going through an impossible situation and we are looking for a miracle but that is the real goal.   But that can be a very difficult prayer to pray.   I’m sure it was difficult for Jesus when He was facing the cross, and prayed to His Father, “Not my will but Your will be done.” Marks says, “And if you forget that, it’s difficult to get through difficult circumstances. So let me offer this reminder: the will of God is the glory of God. That’s why cancer can’t keep you from doing the will of God. Nothing can. You can glorify God under any and every circumstance.” We prayed that prayer when we found out my wife had thyroid cancer.   He took care of the cancer but she still lives with some of the complica

A thought by Mark Batterson (2014-09-02) from his book, The Grave Robber: How Jesus Can Make Your Impossible Possible (p. 213). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) As Rick Warren has said. “To blame is to be lame” but it is an easy thing to do.   It started way back in the Garden of Eden where Adam blamed Eve and then got around to blame God.   Their eating the forbidden was really God’s fault because He created the woman. So are you a blamer?   When something happens that really is your fault do you strive to find someone to blame?   I mean you are really in debt but it’s your spouce’s fault.   They just need, need, and want, want, want so you have to spend, spend, spend.   Or it’s the Democrat’s/Republican’s fault when it really it is your fault.   But as Mark says, “But no one wins at the blame game! And it’s usually followed by a postgame pity party. At some point, we must recognize that the circumstance

A thought by Mark Batterson (2014-09-02) from his book, The Grave Robber: How Jesus Can Make Your Impossible Possible (pp. 175-176). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) Here is what Mark says leading up to this thought, “We have a natural tendency to explain away what we cannot explain.”   He then says, “The reason many of us miss the miracles that are all around us all the time is because we don’t have a prior memory to associate with them.”   Mark is looking in this section of his book of the experience of the apostles out in a boat on the Sea of Galilee and the miracle of Jesus walking on the water. They had never seen someone walking on water and so there was no way that their mind would come up with that as a fact.   They first thought He was a ghost.   And wouldn’t that be true of you and me?    My first thought wouldn’t be that Jesus would be walking on the water.   I haven’t seen it so it can’t be true.  

A thought by Mark Batterson (2014-09-02) from his book, The Grave Robber: How Jesus Can Make Your Impossible Possible (p. 141). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) Mark in this chapter of his book is dealing with the feeding of the 5,000 with five loaves and two fish.   Now if we crunch those numbers, 5 + 2 does not = 5,000.   No way.   And we do that over and over in our lives don’t we?   But the equation had another variable to it that makes all the difference and it was 5 + 2 + God and that does = 5,000.   And that is true in your life too. As Marks says, “Your job is not to crunch numbers and audit the will of God. After all, the will of God is not a zero sum game. When you add God to the equation, His output always exceeds your input. And your two fish can go a lot further than you imagine if you put them into His hands.”   Just remember that as you face whatever you are facing this week.   The equatio

A thought by Mark Batterson (2014-09-02) from his book, The Grave Robber: How Jesus Can Make Your Impossible Possible (p. 131). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) The first part means that we should spend a lot of time in the Bible trying to see how God thinks, how He reacts, and what He wants.   That goes a long way in building our faith.   It also means to think, to stop and remember what He has done in our lives in times past, and to read of other’s experiences.   That also strengthens our faith but we also need to do some unlearning. Mark says, "The second half is far more difficult than the first half. That’s why Jesus repeatedly said, 'You have heard that it was said . . . but I tell you.' He was uninstalling Old Testament assumptions with New Testament revelations. Going the extra mile or turning the other cheek was more than behavior modification. Jesus was reverse engineering the old rule

A thought by Mark Batterson (2014-09-02) from his book, The Grave Robber: How Jesus Can Make Your Impossible Possible (p. 119). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) And that is so easy to do. I have been overweight a big part of my life but I have striven to not make that define me.   Now it may define what some people think of me but that is their problem not mine.   As I see myself today I see myself as a healthy person who is striving to be healthier. Now there was a time a few years back that I saw the potential if I didn’t start doing something with my weight problem of living my later years as an invalid.   And I knew that I had the potential to do something about it so I changed my eating and exercise habits.   So how do you see yourself? Mark has some very good thoughts on this.   He says, “When my children lie to me, I don’t call them liars. I remind them that that’s not who they are. I certain

A thought by Mark Batterson (2014-09-02) from his book, The Grave Robber: How Jesus Can Make Your Impossible Possible (p. 113). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) But the problem is, we really don’t want to.   Oh we may wish to but want to is a different thing. Mark says, “No matter what goal you’re trying to achieve or problem you’re trying to solve, you have to want it more than the pain that will be inflicted upon you in the process of trying to attain it. That’s where nine out of ten of us fall short, according to Dr. Edward Miller, the thirteenth dean of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. More than one and a half million Americans undergo a coronary bypass graft every year. And while angioplasty effectively relieves many of the symptoms of clogged arteries, it’s a temporary fix. Without a change in eating and exercise habits, the health benefits are short-lived. And patients are told that poi