My daughter travels all over the world as a flight attendant and often comes home with some fascinating tales. One such story is about former heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali, who was seated in an aircraft that was preparing for takeoff. A flight attendant, noticing that he did not have his seatbelt fastened, asked him kindly, "Excuse me, sir, but would you mind fastening your seatbelt?"
As the story goes, Muhammad Ali looked up with that saucy grin of his and said in a slow, gravelly voice, "Superman don't need no seatbelt!" Without missing a beat, the flight attendant packed a punch with this quick reply: "Superman don't need no airplane, so how about fastening up?"
Of course, Ali was only joking. If a person really believed he was Superman, he would be seriously deluded. He would be like the ancient Edomites in today's Scripture who had been self-deceived by their own pride. The truth is, we all have the same tendency.
A. W. Tozer aptly described the kind of Christians the Lord longs for us to be: "Men and women who have stopped being 'fooled' about their own strength and are not afraid of being 'caught' depending on their all-sufficient Lord."-- Joanie E. Yoder (from Our Daily Bread, Copyright RBC Ministries, Grand Rapids, MI. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved)
Sift the substance of my life,
Filtering out the sin and strife;
Leave me, Lord, a purer soul,
Cleansed and sanctified and whole.
-- Lemon
To experience God's strength, we must admit our weakness.
Obadiah - John Wesley is said to have remarked that he read the newspaper “to see how God was governing His world,” and this is certainly a biblical approach. God rules over kingdoms and nations (2 Chron. 20:6; Dan. 5:21); and as A. T. Pierson used to say, “History is His story.” This doesn’t mean that God is to blame for the foolish or wicked decisions and deeds of government officials, but it does mean that He is on the throne and working out His perfect will.
The eminent British historian Herbert Butterfield said, “Perhaps history is a thing that would stop happening if God held His breath, or could be imagined as turning away to think of something else.” The God who knows the number and the names of the stars (Ps. 147:4) and who sees when the tiniest bird falls dead to the ground (Matt. 10:29) is mindful of the plans and pursuits of the nations and is working out His divine purposes in human history.
Knowing that the Lord reigns over all things ought to encourage the people of God as we watch world events and grieve over the decay of people and nations. The sovereignty of God isn’t an excuse for believers to be indifferent to evil in the world, nor is it an encouragement to slumber carelessly and do nothing. God’s ways are hidden and mysterious, and we sometimes wonder why He permits certain things to happen, but we must still pray “Thy will be done” (Matt. 6:10) and then be available to obey whatever He tells us to do. - Warren Wiersbe
Happy Saturday
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