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The Devotional Diva - God Works With What We’ve Got Left!
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The Devotional Diva - God Works With What We’ve Got Left!
By Barbara Gobbs
Executive Assistant and Ministry Partner - Pocket Full of Change Ministries
“Come let us return to the LORD; for He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bandage us….So let us know, let us press on to know the LORD.” Hosea 6:1& 3a (NAS95)
Friday night, we went to a local church on the beach and heard testimony from Don Piper. You may recall that Don is the pastor who experienced “90 Minutes in Heaven.” Perhaps you have read the book. To be honest, I hadn’t but it’s publication didn’t escape my notice.
There are events I attend where I don’t expect too much and I get it. Then some events I let my expectation rise to “pretty good” then I get it that too. However, there are always those places I go expecting to receive an interesting, even valuable message, and receive beyond my expectations. Last Friday was that kind of night.
I’d like to share some of what I learned from the testimony of Don Piper. I’ll forego recapping the entire night for time’s sake. I’ll not venture into his 90 minute experience into the heavenlies – buy the book, I did. I must at least mention the power of prayer that displayed itself that fateful morning. But for the sake of background, you need to know that this man, this pastor, looking forward to sharing a Wednesday night message to his church, was in a horrific car accident and given up as dead literally.
His injuries so severe, there is no denying the power of God in his recovery. We are talking every bone but one broken, limbs dismembered and later reattached. No two ways about it, God was in on this situation BIG TIME!
Now Don stood and proclaimed to an overflowing crowd that while all body parts were back where they were supposed to be, not all of them worked as they did before. Yet, he decided his life was not going to be about what he couldn’t do any longer but what God could do with what he had left.
This message is worth shouting from the mountaintops! So let’s get right to the point for this morning. Many people today reside in a state where some things don’t work as they did before.
*The elderly whose bodies don’t function as keenly as in their youth
*Perhaps someone like Don, the accident victim who lost parts but not their life
*The addict who has lost control
*The emotionally distraught, the divorced, the abused or the one who suffered such loss – that nothing will ever be the same
*Can you think of your own example?
At some point in time, most all of us have suffered through some test in life, where the end-result was feeling like nothing will ever be the same or you just can do what you did before.
I offer you this: decide now that the issue will no longer be what you can’t do but what God CAN do with what is left in your life! It is God, through the grace of Jesus that can take tremendous losses and turn them into victories for the kingdom in your life and mine.
Don Piper shared - without a test there is no testimony. Let me encourage you, in Don’s own words, to take your mess and permit the Messiah to turn it into a message! Let the Great Physician transform your pain and give it a purpose in your life and perhaps even for your life!
I pray the Holy Spirit will feed your soul from this small bit of manna offered to you in His name. Press on my beloved!
In service to you, because of Christ
Barbara
Barbara Gobbs is a ministry partner with and the Executive Assistant of Pocket Full of Change Ministries. For more information, to schedule a speaker for an event, or to request a newsletter, go to www.pocketfullofchange.org or call Gail Golden, Publicist at 904 316-5462. This ministry is supported by donations. If this ministry helps you or others, and God calls you to help support this work, you can make a donation to Pocket Full of Change Ministry at POB 51205, Jacksonville Beach, Florida 32240.
© Pocket Full of Change Ministries
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