God Accomplishes His Purposes

*The Caption for this picture is "No Other God"

Good Evening to All!

I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou has not known me: (6) That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else. Isaiah 45:5-6

This Devotional comes from "Voices of the Faithful Book 2 by Beth Moore. Commentary by myself.

God Accomplishes His Purposes.

"Rafael" was a tough guy in town, but he had Christian family members who faithfully served the Lord. He chose to make life miserable for his family's pastor, ridiculing and trying to humiliate him. Eventually, Rafael's bullying manner and lawless lifestyle took him to prison.

One day, a family member went to visit Rafael. Rafael bragged to his relative that he was the "king" of the prison. Because he had taken over the prison black market, the other prisoners came to Rafael to purchase whatever they wanted from the outside. He boasted that he could sell anything in the prison. "By the way," he said to his surprised Christian relative, "the next time you're at church, pick me up some of those Christian music CDs and tracts that you give out to people. I can even sell them in here!"

On his next visit, the relative took Rafael some CDs and Gospel tracts. A few weeks later, he visited Rafael again. This time the relative heard prisoners singing Christian songs from those CDs, and he met people who told him they had read the tracts and trusted Christ. As in the case of the pagan king, Cyrus, God sometimes uses nonbelievers to accomplish His purposes.

Father, I rejoice that all across the world, you are using creative ways to engage people with the Gospel. Help me today to respond to the opportunities I have to share Your story with those You bring into my path. In Jesus' Name, I pray, AMEN.

I cannot count the times when I have said "I wish I was good at giving Bible Studies, or Witnessing. I seem to have it in my head that I have to have a "set platform" of which to teach, meaning a formal way of doing it, and be an eloquent speaker. I have taken a few classes, but I still don't think I could walk up to someone and say, "Hello, may I give you a Bible Study on the importance of the Plan of Salvation?" For me, saying that would sound "fake", or like I know all there is to know, which is DEFINITELY NOT the case.

The question is in what "forum" do we because He is my Favorite subject and somehow the conversation more times than not turns to Salvation. I also feel that my blog is another forum. I know there are probably thousands if not millions of blogs out there witnessing or preaching the Gospel. Yet there are many different forms. There are those which subtly plant seeds by typing a few verses then going to a regular format, there are those who are informal like mine and have a variation of witnessing tools such as devotions, inspirational stories and the like. Then there are the more formal type of formats in which the blogger is more knowledgeable and maybe even a pastor of a church using his blog as an outreach. We all have the same goals, just going about reaching them differently.

We all like to think that we know our purpose in life. To raise our family to the best of our ability, to provide for our family and so on. What we fail to realize is that while that is an important "goal" God put us here for a different reason. He told the disciples to go out into the world and preach the Gospel. While our "personal purpose" is to do the above mentioned family thing, God's purpose is more important. If we perform his task and accomplish His purpose then our personal purpose will be met as well, because He Will provide and keep His hand upon our lives, as we are doing His Will.

I feel that God has answered my prayer and let me know what my purpose is in this life. I hope that you will find it in your hearts to pray and ask Him to reveal HIS purpose for you also. Let Him know that His Purpose is the one that is the most important, and that by accomplishing His PURPOSE, your's will be met also.

Good Night to All and May God Bless!