Can You Imagine?

How many books or movies when you were a kid opened up your imagination?  I use to feel like I was right there in the book.  I somehow became one or the characters or was in whatever place they were describing.  Sometimes I might imagine I had some kind of special power or ability.  Sometimes I would imagine that a series a doors were in front of me and each one could take me to some place different.  Sometimes I would imagine I could wish for whatever I wanted and it would appear.   Can you imagine how great as adults  it would be if we could do that now? As Christians, the good news is, that we do have the ability to ask for things from our Heavenly Father who loves us.  He never yells at us when we ask for something outside of His Will, instead he lovingly gives us what is best for us.  How could you not want what is best for you?  To actual receive the best answer to our question, is far better most of the time than what we could have ever asked for. Read Matthew 7:7 -8.

 ⁷ “Keep asking, and it will be given to you. Keep searching, and you will find. Keep knocking, and the door will be opened to you. ⁸ For everyone who asks receives, and the one who searches finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

As we learned in previous devotions the key is persistence.  Keep asking, seeking and knocking.  We also learned that it is 100% guaranteed that we will get an answer.  We could write the President of the U.S. and ask him a question and there is no guarantee we would even get an answer.  So that is wonderful to know that our Heavenly Father will guarantee to answer us.  He will open the door when we knock.  He won’t hide out in the dark behind closed drapes and wait for us to give up and leave.  He will come to the door and open it.  He will help us find what we are looking for.  He will give to those who ask.  I find these verses very encouraging.  I can depend on God.  I know He will answer my prayers in the best possible way.  These verses encourage me to be persistent and encourage me to wait for the best answer from God.  I will remember that my requests might not be the best for me and that they are merely suggestions to God.  I will let His genius figure out what is best for me. 

Balancing Our Self-Worth

Sometimes as Christians we let our egos or our lack of egos lead us astray when judging our worth.  We start trying to figure out where we fit in to the scheme of things.  Are we as good as our fellow Christian brother or sister?  Or are we better?  When in reality we should be using some good common sense and faith supplied to us by our Heavenly Father to determine that we are not better or worse than anyone else.  Romans 12: 2-6 says,

“2 Don’t be like the people of this world, but let God change the way you think. Then you will know how to do everything that is good and pleasing to him. 3 I realize how kind God has been to me, and so I tell each of you not to think you are better than you really are. Use good sense and measure yourself by the amount of faith that God has given you. 4 A body is made up of many parts, and each of them has its own use. 5 That’s how it is with us. There are many of us, but we each are part of the body of Christ, as well as part of one another. 6 God has also given each of us different gifts to use.”

We can balance our self-worth by using the good common sense God gave us to realize that He created us all the same.  We are all humans with the ability to do good or to do bad, to make mistakes or to learn from our mistakes, etc.  We can finish balancing out our self-worth with the faith that God has given us.  He has not played favorites and given gifts to some people to do His work, but He has given one or more gifts to each of us to use for His glory.  We just have to choose to use them.  When we do, He will bless us and we may even receive more gifts from Him.  So it is up to us.  No one has a better chance to please God.  We all have equal opportunity to love and serve Him.

So when determining your self-worth by balancing the scales with sense and faith you will soon realize we are all the same on God’s scale.