God is all I Need
Cherished role models from Florida
August 7First of all, please don't take offense that I am inferring that any of you reading this devotional site are old! :-)
I'm sending it because I think it is one of the most insightful teachings I have received this summer and I like to share GOOD things with people I love!
Especially those of you who love God and what he is up to! A mentor of mine says,
"God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good!"
A mentor of mine and her man dancing at one of our son's weddings.
Because I am older I couldn't sleep the other night and was up reading emails at 2AM. There is a gentleman in his 90's, who lives in Minneapolis, whom I befriended several years ago in an Apple store in MN. Reading an email from him, which explained he may have to leave his condo and move to a nursing home, I could hear the disappointment over leaving his home in the words he typed. He wrote, "The space is 470 sq. feet and I cannot take all my things or all my pictures on the walls."
I began praying about ways to encourage him. Later that day, I stopped by a friend's home. She and her husband have been facing aging issues this summer and her son had sent her a John Piper quote and the following article (of unknown source) related to aging being a sanctifying process. It was an answer to pray, for I knew it would minister to my friend.
Dear friends, loved by God, there is no need to be anxious, instead we should rejoice in the sanctification taking place in our lives.
Love, love, love this! God is all we need! Each day we are a step closer to heaven and that's where the real rejoicing is going down!
Hope this blesses you!
John Piper stated, "I want to learn that God is all I need, before God is all I've got."
"Although society considers growing old to be a curse, the Bible speaks of old age as a blessing from God. (Ex. 20:12; Deuteronomy 5:33; Proverbs 16:31)
Aging provides an opportunity to experience God's power in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:7-10).
In an article titled "Thank God for Aging," professor Chuck Dolph shows how God uses aging to sanctify us: "Aging strips us. If we live long enough, we lose our beauty, our strength, our wealth, our independence, the control of our bodily functions, our pride, and perhaps our very self. These are our idols, all the things that we trust in life to make us attractive, valuable, and self-sufficient. If our aging is successful, we will end our lives stripped of everything but God, totally naked and helpless, utterly dependent on Him and the love of others. Everything that we trusted in life for our worth will have been stripped away. What a blessing to finally find our right relationship to God! Thank God for aging."
"The elderly and the weak have opportunities to experience God's power being perfected in their weakness."
Honor your father and your mother, so that
you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. Exodus 20:12
Walk
in obedience to all that the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may
live and prosper and prolong your days in the land that you will possess. Deuteronomy. 5:33
Gray
hair is the crown of splendor; it is attained in the way of righteousness. Proverbs 16:31
Therefore,
in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a
messenger of Satan, to torment me.
Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said
to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in
weakness.” Therefore I will boast
all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on
me. That is why, for Christ’s
sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in
difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:7-10
