More than a website...
Well, thank you for visiting jmwaters.com. This site is somewhat unique in that it is a mixture of my personal blogging and professional design portfolio. I look forward to and welcome your comments on both.
Mike
God is Good All the Time!
Think about the power of this statement for a moment.
If God is Good All the Time, then:
He is Loving – All the Time!
He is willing to Forgive – All the Time!
He is Just – All the Time!
He is Available – All the Time!
The people of Africa, where this statement of faith and praise originated, understand this power – Specifically in the African Nation of Liberia.
To the Liberian Christian Community this greeting comes out of times of real distress and turmoil. Through years of civil war, entailing violence, hatred, and separation from loved ones, this community of believers has not wavered from the from the promise that “All things work together for those who love the Lord and are called according to His Purpose!” They do not waver because they know that “God is Good – All the Time!”
To the Liberian Christian, this statement “Explodes from the Heart,” it is their way of telling the story of what God has done and continues to do for them both as individuals and as a people.
If we as believers, as partakers in the Goodness of God, if we really hold this statement as true, then we should be motivated in an uncontrollable way to share this Good News with a lost and dying world!
Hear again the words we so often sing, “We were sinners, so unworthy, still for us He chose to die. Filled us with His Holy Spirit, now we can stand and testify that His Love is everlasting and His mercies, they will never end.”
This verse of song causes the words of Romans 5:8 to jump off the page, “But God demonstrates His Love for us in this: That while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
Do you have goose bumps yet? Is the Holy Spirit tugging and prompting a desire deep within you to rush out and share the message of God’s Goodness with everyone you meet? If so, then do it! The Great Commission challenges us all to “Go into the entire world and share the Good News.” The Good News we are to share is that God is so good and He loves each and every person; He sent His Son as the ultimate and final sacrifice for our sin; That a secured eternal future awaits those who accept Christ; And that no matter where someone finds themselves, no matter what they have done, God loves them and is waiting for them with open arms!
Share this with someone today. So that they too may someday exclaim the hope found in the words of the American Quaker Poet, John Greenleaf Whittier:
“I see the wrong that round me lies,
I feel the Guilt within;
I hear, with groan and travail – cries,
the world confess its sin.
Yet, in the maddening maze of things,
and tossed by storm and flood,
To one fixed trust my spirit clings;
I know that God is Good!”
In closing, let me share a story with you that you may have heard:
Charles Spurgeon tells of a time he vacationed in a remote area of England because he had been told that many nightingales lived there. To his disappointment, just as he arrived it began to rain. The weather turned cold and Charles Spurgeon fear that the purpose of his trip had been spoiled. However, sitting by his open window, he suddenly heard a delightful melody – A nightingale began to sing its beautiful song while perched on a branch just outside. The only light was a dim lamp, burning at the entrance to the hotel. The nightingale, oblivious to the rain and cold was singing its song in that glimmer of light. This is what Spurgeon wrote of that night, “I do not expect to listen to anything so sweet again until I hear the angels sing in glory. The God of that nightingale is the same loving savior I serve. In spite of darkness, storm or thorns, he always provides some ray of light and gives a song in the night.”
Friends, in spite of your own dark night, storms and thorns, you can always hear the sweet song of a nightingale in your own life because…God is Good – All the Time!
Do People Bore You?
May 10, 2008
By: John PiperI’m working on a book on the new birth. The final chapter is designed to give encouragements for personal evangelism. I just added a quote by C. S. Lewis that I love. Here’s the whole section to help you move toward people:
Find People Interesting
Be encouraged that simply finding people interesting and caring about them is a beautiful pathway into their heart. Evangelism gets a bad reputation when we are not really interested in people and don’t seem to care about them. People really are interesting. The person you are talking to is an amazing creation of God with a thousand interesting experiences. Remember the words of C. S. Lewis:
It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would strongly be tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. (The Weight of Glory, 14-15)
Yet, most of us don’t think this way. The gods bore us and we return to our video games. Very few people are interested in others. If you really find their story interesting, and care about them, they may open up to you and want to hear your story—Christ’s story.
It is estimated that on average 1,202,000 abortions are performed monthly worldwide. Some studies show there are approximately 2 million gay men living in the United States and almost 1 million lesbians (I think that estimate is probably low). One study showed that on June 30, 2006 there were 2,245,189 prisoners held in Federal or State prisons or in local jails in the US.
So what?
Here’s my question: As Christians, are we really willing to love these people? Are we willing to hold the mother who just aborted her child against our chest while she sobs? Will we put our arm over the shoulder of a man who has lived so many years in the confusion of homosexuality and show him Christ love? Can we look with compassion into the eyes of a murderer and say “God loves you and still wants you to be His.”?
There is a popular saying, “Hate the sin but love the sinner.” Exactly! This is what I’m saying. The problem as I see it is too often we hate both. It is almost as if we say “God loves you, but that does not mean I have to.”
Come on Christians!
It haunts me to think where I would be heading if Christ would have said that about me: “Mike, my Father loves you, but I can’t. I can’t love someone who has been addicted to pornography and cigarettes. So I won’t endure Calvary for you.”
So you do not think I am on a soapbox here, let me share something with you. I’m writing this for me as much as anyone. There are many homeless who have been passed with a judgmental look from me. For years I have thought of mothers who would have an abortion as unforgivable murderers. If all of the stones I have thrown were tossed back at me, I would be crushed beneath their weight.
John 3:16 begins, “For God so LOVED the world…” At that moment in history, with His creation having built a wrap sheet filled with evil and vile; knowing that His Son would be spat upon and crucified, God still LOVED the world. Let’s do the same Christians. Let’s Love. We know Our Father will judge each and every man, woman and child He has ever created. Let us be about the business of bringing more in to that Saving Relationship with Him through the reflection of His Love in us.
