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GOD USES THE CRISIS TO DEEPEN

OUR DEPENDENCE UPON HIM
APRIL 21, 2020 | IN LIFE | BY ED TAYLOR

None of us want to be in deep crisis. Who does really? When I think of facing
troubling times or hard situations I think of fear, anxiety, pain, problems, and
a whole host of difficult emotions flooding uninvited into our lives. I think of
being blindsided by difficulties and being put into situations that I have little
to no control over. Yet as we live in this sin soaked world, will face crisis after
crisis. I also remember the words of my Savior, Jesus Christ:

John 16:33 (NLT) “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me.
Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart,
because I have overcome the world.”

There are times in our lives, all of our lives, where we are met with a severe
spiritual crisis.

They are always good. What? Always good? Hear me out. I don’t mean that
the situation is necessarily good. That’s foolish talk. But the overall work of
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 God in and through the situation? Always good!

We don’t like them. We don’t want them. But they are good. God uses
them. They’re a place where we’ve come to a spiritual fork in the road, a place
of great monumental decision where we come to the end of ourselves. We
don’t see the good in it too much if at all from our side but from heaven’s
perspective God is the potter is fashioning His clay! Once in a while God is
dealing with us and just wants us to stop and put everything out on the
table. He wants our whole heart offered afresh to Him. He wants to take us to
a whole new level of commitment and service and readiness and
ministry. There aren’t a whole of them in our lives, but just enough for God to
draw from us something that we didn’t even know was there. You’re not
alone. Many in the Bible had their crisis of faith.

Consider: ABRAHAM. What a man of worship and integrity. He loved God

and built many altars, a life filled with worship and sacrifice. But then there is
that time when God requested the sacrifice of his son, Isaac. Such a different
worship experience. My son? What a Crisis!!! I could never even think of such
a thing! And yet through it, God took Abraham farther than he ever thought
he could go.

Consider: MOSES. A man who sensed his calling at 40 years of age but
attempted to complete it in his own strength. Killing the Egyptian. That led
him to 40 years on the backside of the desert. He worshipped God, heard
God’s voice, yet came to place where a burning bush was before him. A point
of decision. A crisis. He looks at it and it speaks, and there is some
negotiation, but God is using this situation in his life behind the scenes to
fashion a man of deliverance! “Moses,” God says, “I want all of you something
that you and I have never had before! Trust me.”

Consider: DAVID. A young boy who loved God, worshipped God, obeyed his
daddy, and enjoyed so many wonderful experiences with the Lord. He’s the
one in the Bible that is described as the “man after God’s own heart!” Early in
his young life God brings him to the valley to look down on that giant. The
one from Gath, Goliath who challenges all that David ever worshipped,
blasphemes his God and calls him to battle. He had killed lions and bears but
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 here facing Goliath God was asking from David for more. I want it all. I want
you David.

Consider: JOSHUA. Here is a man who had been around a lot of military
campaigns, sat in high level leadership decisions, fought and led Israel in
many victories. Yet we find him looking over Jericho night before the attack
to be met by the Man with a sword is his hand. For us or against us?
“Neither”, says the Man! I stand before you as one sent by God! Joshua was a
man of worship and a man of faithful integrity. His worship had been regular
and routine yet, there are those times when God wants more! He uses them
for His purposes. It’s going to be all right Joshua. Go forth and fight!

Consider: DANIEL. We know Daniel a man of regular prayer, worship,

devotion and dedication. He loved God with all of his heart. Yet there was the
furnace heated 4 his friends, & the lion’s den prepared for him, and God is
saying Daniel I want more of you! I want you. I want you to have a deeper
dependence upon Me!

Consider: YOU. What you’re currently going through is another crisis God is
using to form you, to fashion you, to develop you, to grow you, and to draw
you into a deeper more intimate relationship with Him!

And so the trials come. The crisis arrives.

God is using them, we may not even see it until years after it passes, but God
is saying I want you, I want all of you, I want more of you! God is going to use
the crisis to get more of you God tells us.

These are wonderful times, very precious and dear.

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 Pat Barrett - Canvas and Clay (Live) ft. Ben Smith

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