Our Awesome God

I usually awake early in the morning and drink some coffee and pray a while and write this blog. Most times I find inspiration in the scripture or something that has happened recently comes to mind or there is something in the news that prompts me to write. The purpose of writing this blog is, after all, to provide some point of contact for those who want to continue on their life journey with God. This morning nothing came to mind after an hour or so. I could get no inspiration that I thought was what God wanted me to do. So I went back to bed for a while. After a little deep meditation; what I call a nap; I began to think about how awesome God has been in my life and generally in the cosmos.

I can find from my own life experience a testimony and a witness that God is awesome. I think that for me the most awesome characteristic about God is that He loves me. Not just that He loves me but that He sees me as lovely. God sees me as someone who is worth dying for. He gave His life for me.

How can I describe me? I wrote a little autobiography a few years ago called “The Farm Boy from Pennsylvania.” I was actually born on a farm in Pennsylvania within sight of the highest point in Pennsylvania, Mt. Pisgah. Mt. Pisgah was named, of course, from Deuteronomy 34: 1: “Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. There the Lord showed him the whole land—from Gilead to Dan . . .” It is certain that I did not know that at the time. My grandfather had collected farms from that area until he had 640 acres in one tract. It was on one of those farms that I was born and it was on those 640 acres I spent many of my summers. What a journey I have had!

Just the geography alone is astounding. I have visited Norway, England, islands in the Caribbean, New Zealand, Australia, Switzerland, and Africa. We will return to Kissi, Kenya, Africa this summer to continue building churches and working toward the establishment of a Bible School. I will go to Papua New Guinea this fall to participate in the Executive of Victorious Ministry through Christ as the Secretary. I have been sent by God all over the world to see His awesome creation.

I have witnessed healing in my own life and witness healing in the lives of those around me almost every day. The reading of the Bible has overflowed into my life and experience on a daily basis. I do not physically see into the spiritual realm. I have not had experiences like John as recorded in Revelation. I don’t actually feel that I need to have such experiences because I sense the spiritual realm as real and active all around me all the time. I know from personal experience that I am spirit. When I read the words of Jesus in the conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well, “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and the truth,” I know what that means.

In the very small church, Church on the Way, that my wife, Helen, and I lead in Bayfield, Ontario, Canada, we have seen people healed on a regular basis, financial events that can only be considered providential intervention, and a growing sense of becoming one in heart and mind that has made us truly reflective of the New Testament church described in Acts. Each week we hear testimony of the actions of God in all of our lives.

I am a ten year survivor of prostate cancer. When I went through that diagnosis, treatment, and recovery; it felt very much like I was not even involved. I was truly carried. I was a sheep in the arms of my Good Shepherd all through the events. Honestly, I was so carried that it would have made absolutely no difference whether I had lived or died. I don’t believe that there is any death in God. I will never experience death. I will only experience the ending of this physical existence and a more sharply defined spiritual existence that is already all around me.

Another way of looking at what I am experiencing on a daily basis is called, “walking in glory.” You see, God exists in glory. The few descriptions we have of the heavenly realm reveals God surrounded by unapproachable light. Those who try to describe it speak of fire, and astoundingly bright jewels, and rainbows. It is obvious that what is witnessed can’t really be described in language. Terms are always used that include the phrase, “like.” They are seeing something “like” something they can talk about; but it is really beyond description. When Jesus was on the Mount of Transfiguration his clothing became so bright that “no bleach could have made it so.” Well, that is what I live in. I live in the glory. The spiritual being I am lives in that glory. I actually already reside in heavenly realms. I live in the description Jesus gave in great detail in the Gospel of John chapters 13 through 17. Study it, contemplate it, see it as a reality in your life.