Dwelling in God

‘God’ and ‘love’ are synonymous. Dwelling in God and dwelling in love are the same thing. Nothing will prevent God working out His purposes for you. So when you’re trying to figure things out, remember the context of the life He’s given you and what He’s done already. Will anything prevent God from blessing you? No. Is there any circumstance in my life that God cannot sort out for the good? No. He will make provision – God is love.

God is love. It is worth confirming to your heart constantly, the fact that God loves you because that’s who He is – He can’t but love, that’s His nature.

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1 John 4:15 - 16

‘God’ and ‘love’ are synonymous. Dwelling in God and dwelling in love are the same thing. You are a special human being because of what God has done in you. His love for you is so great that He sent His Son to earth to die for you.

Romans 8:28

All things work together for good to those who are the called, according to whose purpose? His purpose. When you become a Christian, your aims and ambitions are changed and your life is lived out for Him.

Romans 8:29

In a church you are brothers and sisters because you are united by that common purpose, to serve God and live according to His purposes.

Romans 8:31 - 32

There is no stint to God’s provision for you. It’s inevitable – you can’t stop it. For those looking for it, it’s on its way.

Romans 8:33 - 34

He is still involved in your life, minute by minute, constantly re-affirming what He has done for you on the cross.

Romans 8:35

Nothing will prevent God working out His purposes for you – He is love. So when you’re trying to figure things out, remember the context of the life He’s given you and what He’s done already. Will anything prevent God from blessing you? No.

Romans 8:36 - 37

The way He conquered things for you was that He conquered sin in your life. He took away the power of it and the outworking of it that was all wrong. Sin causes death but He conquered death. That is why the cross is empty – He was buried, put in a tomb and rose from the dead. Now Paul writes, “In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us”. So when you are involved and immersed in God’s love, inevitably you are more than a conqueror, because God is love and there is nothing on this earth that can prevent you from being blessed by God; there is nothing that can get in the way of God’s love for you.

Romans 8:38 - 39

It’s impossible for you to be separated from God, who is love. If you let this sink in in your situation it makes things different because you see things from a perspective of God in your life, not of you trying to work out the circumstances in your life. I’m a Christian – a Christ-one, as a result of what He has done for me. Is there any circumstance in my life that God cannot sort out for the good? No. Is there any provision that He can’t make for my needs? No. He will make provision. Why is it that sometimes I want things to be done sooner that it happens? Let me confirm to you that the timing of God’s provision in your life will be perfect and inevitable and certain and sure. God is love, and the more you think about who God is, the more it is imperative that we are open to allow His provision to come forth.

Don’t be bitter, don’t regret, don’t think He has missed you out, don’t think, “He always blesses that person but never me”. Don’t think like that. Rejoice in what is happening to another person because you can see how faithful God is and who He is to them. You may say, “Well that is all very well but you don’t know the circumstances of my life”. I don’t but I know that these words are timely for you. Why are they timely? Because anything which causes us to realise once again that you are a child of God, that He has called you: He’s given you faith and you can confess Him as the Son of God; as we read in 1 John 4, it is a result of what He has done. By rights we shouldn’t be involved with Him, but He persevered, fulfilled what God wanted, went obediently to the cross, gave His life so that I could be preaching here, conveying to you who He is.

Sometimes things happen and it throws you: step back. Who is in control? God is. He has started in my life something eternal. Is He going to finish what He started? Yes, by taking us through circumstances where each time, it will be a discovery of how much He loves you. That is what He does.

For Paul, everything that happened to him was evidence of how God would provide for him through every circumstance – and the same applies to us.

Look Unto Me

God is in control of everything. That has been particularly pressed upon me lately. God is interested in your life at this time. He is careful to organise things, so that He can prove His love for us.

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Isaiah is often referred to as a fifth Gospel and I will be particularly concentrating on the following verse.

Isaiah 45:22

At that point in time, Jerusalem was in ruins, and various prophets had foretold that worship would resume at Jerusalem, and the temple would be rebuilt.

Isaiah 45:1 - 4

Cyrus, the king of Persia, would outwork the purposes that God wanted for His people, the children of Israel. God knows the affairs of man. History is about God building His church at this time, in His way, worldwide. There are situations in your life, perhaps, where you’ve thought that you just don’t know the way forward. Your God is in control of your situation. He’s heard you. He’s not caused you to be washed up on a beach somewhere, stranded.

Isaiah 45:5 - 8

God is in complete control. Some of you have been wondering in your heart about the way forward in your life, and God, by His Holy Spirit will quicken to you that now is the time to just realise what Christ did for you on Calvary, and what the resurrection from the dead is going to mean to you personally at this time. What does it mean for me to be a Christian?

Isaiah 45:9 - 12

He’s the creator God. He gave you life and formed you in the womb.

Isaiah 45:13 – 15

It doesn’t matter what the situation is with the people around you. God specialises in changing things where the impossible to your mind becomes possible in Him. He specialises in that. When He was hanging on the cross, and everyone had written Him off, it was the end... and yet it was the beginning. He endured the cross for your sin and my sin.

Isaiah 45:15-17

If that isn’t clear, I don’t know what is. Through Isaiah the prophet, God is saying, this is what I am. This is who I am.

Isaiah 45:18 - 21

I am your Saviour. Look to me.

What is it that you’ve tried to put into your life to plug that gap? God is saying to you, I am your Saviour. Look to me.

Isaiah 45:22

Look unto me. There’s not some weird formula or some weird experience that you must have. Look unto me, He says. That’s all. All He wants us to do is to look. You don’t have to prove yourself or be somebody, you don’t have to do this or that so I can bless you. Look unto me, God says. Forget everything else you’re trying to fill your life with. Look unto me, and be ye saved.

This was the verse that converted Spurgeon. He was so conscious of his sin and his need of a saviour, and he realised it was so simple. He thought, I can do that. I can look. You can do that. There’s nobody that is of a different caste. There’s nobody that isn’t of the elite.

Who is He? He’s God. Who is like Him? No one. What can you somehow have as a replacement for God? Nothing. Would you want a replacement? I don’t think so. Why would you want a replacement? All that’s needed is for you to realise that you can’t do it on your own.

I was looking through various phrases that Jesus said in the Gospel of John.

John 8:12

John 10:11

John 12:32

John 14:6

He knows what He’s doing, and He loves you. He knows your inside, and He wants your inside to propel your outside. He’s the only one who can get hold of the inside of you and change everything. No one else can do that.

Isaiah 45:23 - 25

Philippians 2:5 – 11

Romans 14:11 – 12

It all ends there. There is a direct quote of Isaiah 45 in Romans 14. We will all give account of ourselves to God. There are some here today, who know in their hearts, right now, God is saying, Come on, look unto me and be ye saved. He loves you.