What do you see...

What do you see…

Whenever we see a miracle or an extraordinary event, it easy to see it as God’s work. We may even congratulate ourselves for having the eyes of faith to recognize it. It takes spiritual discipline to see God at work in the small details of life. Our secular world sees random events as coincidence or luck; the follower of God sees the so-called random events of life as God’s order unfolding in the universe. When we open our eyes in the morning, our spirits should be open to see serendipities of God’s grace and goodness everywhere and anywhere. – Ron Friesen

Where is life?

Where is life?

Where do you find life? We are all dead men walking. We have a semblance of life: we breathe, we talk, we walk. Yet we are all dead inside. Where is life to be found? There is One who conquered death. He is alive, more; he is LIFE. He entered our state of death to destroy its power. Ever conquering, he enters our tombs to bring us life. – Ron Friesen

Waiting for God...

Waiting for God….

“What are you waiting for?” “I am waiting for God.” Many of us wait in apprehension and anxiety and perhaps even in anger. Our waiting proves we do not really trust in God. Our faith is not in God. True waiting on God is a waiting that makes us stronger, more faith-filled and fuller of hope. Our impetuous waiting will not bring about the purposes of God. It will cause God to watch us until we finally come to the end of ourselves and collapse in resignation. When we release from God from our demands, we find that we do receive that which we seek. In our self-renunciation, we are open to being fully filled with God who is in all, over all and above all. – Ron Friesen

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Trusting God's Will and Ways

Trusting God’s will and ways

Our American Christianity owes more to Christian culture than a divine Gospel. We seek a God to bless our sporting events not a God who calls us to believe in his divine will. We want a God but not a God and providence in our world. When one goes, the other goes. There is no place for a God who reigns but does not govern. Yet, it is exactly this which we want. We want to trust in God without trusting His will. It is true that we cannot discern the plan of God from the events of the every day. We cannot see the grand picture. We cannot understand God’s mind, however, we trust God’s will. St. Augustine was right, “where God’s judgments are not discovered, God’s counsel is not to be neglected.” What we have is God’s purpose and God’s heart. We have God. Though mountains may fall, our candidate lose, babies die, yet our trust is in a God whose ways are beyond finding out. – Ron Friesen

The victory of the will

Do we find ourselves gaining no ground in our walk God? Do some days feel like we are going backwards instead of forward? We are stuck not because God has stopped speaking or because we have stopped hearing from God. We have engaged our ears and our hearts but not our wills. We have not acted on what we heard or felt. The weakest follower of Jesus finds that the moment he says, “Yes” all of the almighty power of God is available to him. The truth of God comes to us, we hear, we confess our wrongs and then we go back again. We open ourselves to the Word of God again and turn back again, until one day we find that we have no business going back. At that moment, we must move directly toward God and do our business with him. We have heard the call, “Come to me” and acted on it. Yet, the very last thing we want to do is to come. We know that the moment we give our wills to God, the supernatural power of God will be released into our lives. The dominating power of the world, the flesh and the devil is now broken; not by our act, but because our lives have been joined with God and we have connected with the power that raised Jesus from the dead. At this moment we become fully alive. – Ron Friesen

The power of a personal relationship

As followers of Jesus, you and I have been called to a personal relationship but not a private relationship with our savior. There is no such thing as a private faith or life for those who understand that they are called to share in the sufferings of the Christ. We will experience many trials in our lives that will have no meaning unless we see them within the purposes of our identification with the sufferings of our Lord. We are not being sanctified or purified for our own purposes. When we are called into an intimacy of the Good News, we discover that those things that happen to us have nothing to do with us. God is doing his work to bring us into a closer relationship with him. We must let God have his way with us. If we refuse to let go and let God, we will find that our lives are of little use to him; God uses the broken and foolish things of our lives to bring glory to him. In fact, to refuse to let God work in and through us will make us a stumbling block to those who are seeking healing and life. – Ron Friesen