He was fully convinced that what God promised he was also able to do. So indeed it was credited to Abraham as righteousness. But the statement it was credited to him was not written only for Abraham’s sake, but also for our sake, to whom it will be credited, those who believe in the one who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. (Romans 4:21-24)
Recently I watched a television program that touted the numerous complications that could occur in women who, after the age of forty, “choose” to have children. For Christians, the very premise of the program is in error. What woman is it that chooses whether an egg will be released, whether it will be viable, whether it will be fertilized, whether it will attach or miscarry, whether it will develop, whether it will remain singular or split into identical twins? Here in America we can legally choose to end a life, but no human being can initiate life. That is the prerogative of God. This is what we believe. As we say in the Nicene Creed, “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of life.”
Pastor Richie reminded us that if we don’t understand God’s makeup, we won’t understand His power. And, from time to time, the Lord confounds the world with His power to do the impossible. I know women who have had children at age fifty (for one of them it was her first child), with no complications. But even that does not compare to the life of Sarah, whose prophetic promise of having a child was not fulfilled until she was far past the age of childbearing. Her husband, Abraham, merited this testimony that we read in Romans 4:21: “(Abraham) was fully convinced that what God promised, He was also able to do.”
What a comfort to know that our chronological age is no deterrent to the activity of God in our lives! We can still sing and preach and pray and give. We can still be recipients of miracles. We can still be participants and agents for the cause of Christ in the world. And we can still bear fruit, physically and figuratively, in our old age. God simply asks us to believe Him, and to take Him at His word without backtalk or doubting. God will never run out of time to do what He chooses, using whomever He wants.
Do you understand this?
A comment from Rev. Ronald Benjamin:
ReplyDeleteAll of this is what happens when we engage life from the perspective of the Kingdom of God! The Kingdom does not operate by the laws of "nature". They overrule them. They are not subject to the findings of scientists or biologists or economists or any "ists" for that matter. Oh that the people of the kingdom would just get a glimpse of the dimension into which God has called us. "My Kingdom is not of this world".