Things God Can’t/Won’t Do Round squares and four sided triangles. What do you think God looks like? What do you think He acts like? Is He powerless to stop things like tsunamis and earthquakes? Is He like a security guard watching the surveillance tapes of all our lives? What do you think God is like? These are good questions. No matter where we are on the our spiritual journey it’s worth taking the time to explore what God’s characteristics are like. Faith Service Worship Vision There may be times when you find it difficult to reconcile God’s truth to your own opinion or worldview, God’s truth is eternal, it does not change, our understanding of the truth does change as we allow God to work in our hearts and minds. These sessions are not about opinion, they are about learning truth, the truth contained in the Bible, together we are going to focus on how we apply God’s truth, black & white in a grey world. To set godly priorities, grow in Christian character and live according to God’s standards so that we are a living witness to others.
The basis of our belief: Session 6
Ashingdon Elim Bible Study 18 May 2010
Many Christians assume God can do anything since the Bible represents Him as all-powerful. Is this a correct assumption? This assumption is incorrect. Before you call me a heretic! The God who created the physical universe is not physical - His existence is metaphysical and transcendent of the Universe. Skeptics and atheists often pose questions that seem to nullify the notion of God’s omnipotence, based on physical attributes for example, “Can God create a rock so large that He, Himself, cannot lift it?” It’s like asking, “Can God create a round square or a four-sided triangle?” No, He cannot—but not for the reasons implied by the atheist (that He does not exist or that He is not omnipotent) it is because the question is, itself, self-contradictory and incoherent. It is nonsensical terminology. Rather than saying God cannot do such things, it would be more in harmony with the truth to say simply that such things cannot be done at all! God is infinite in power, but power relates to what is possible —not to what is impossible! It is wrong to speak of any power (even infinite power) being able to do things that simply cannot be done. Logical absurdities like round squares or four sided triangles can not be possible and are not subject to any power, even the infinite power of God. Does this mean that God can not do the impossible? What about when Jesus said in Luke 18:27 “What is impossible with men is possible with God.”? The verse from Luke is speaking about salvation accomplished by God rather than man. Not things that would cause God to violate or destroy His will, ways or purposes. In reality God can do whatever is possible but He will only do what is in harmony with His nature.
God can’t go against His own nature While there is nothing that is impossible for God, God cannot be inconsistent. Another way to say this is God can’t not be God. God has to be Himself – if He is not Himself, He is not God. The decisions God makes, the way that God acts spring from His own character, from who He is. He doesn’t just do things because He wants to, He does things because that is who He is. There are loving acts that God does. Why? Because God is love. That’s his character. That’s who He is. God can’t change that and if He were to change it, He wouldn’t be God any more. 1
This is true in your own life. You’re wired with certain DNA that make you a human and make you the individual that you are. Your DNA gives you certain characteristics and traits. You can’t change that you cannot change your DNA. You could pretend. You could put little contacts in your eyes, change the colour of your eyes. You could dye your hair, your eyebrows. You could pretend that you have blond hair or purple hair. But you can never change your DNA. You can’t change who you really are – everything you do would only be pretending. God’s the same. He cannot change the nature of who He is. He cannot change His basic characteristics. And because of this, there are some things that God is not able to do.
when you do it he’ll say, “I can’t believe you did that. Who could love you now? You’re pathetic.” Satan loves to put us down and if we are down he’ll kick us. The devil loves to whisper into our thoughts we constantly need to guard against his lies and deceit.
God does not contradict Himself He’s consistent because that is what His character is. God can’t lie, because to do so would mean going against His character. And God can’t not be God. The writer to the Hebrews says. God wanted to make his plans very clear to Abraham: “When God made his promise to Abraham, since there was no one greater for him to swear by, he swore by himself, saying, “I will surely bless you and give you many descendants.” And so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what was promised. Men swear by someone greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument. Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. God did this so that, by two unchangeable things (The unchanging nature of his purpose and His Oath) in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, where Jesus, who went before us, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.” (Hebrews 6:13-20).
Propositions that God would create a rock that He cannot lift, or create a four-sided triangle, or make a ball that is at the same time both white all over and black all over, or create a ninety-year-old teenager, or make a box larger on the inside than the outside, are absurd contradictions of logic. The more we study the Bible to examine the attributes and characteristics of God depicted there, the more we are struck with the inspiration of the Bible and awe at the infinitude of God. Nothing in the Bible reflects adversely upon the reality of God’s omnipotence.
Four specific things
Our study is going to focus on 4 specific things God can’t do. At the end of this study is a list of some other things for your personal study and reflection.
These plans were the plans God had from the creation of the world. They were plans to bless Abraham and his descendants. These plans are described as the “unchanging purposes” of God God’s plans for us are unchanging.
God can’t lie
“God is not a man that He should lie or the son of man that He should change his mind. Does He speak and then not act? Does He promise and then So what did God do to reassure Abraham that his plans would come to pass? He made an oath not fulfill?” (Numbers 23:19). or a promise. The writer to the Hebrews says it Why can’t God lie? God is consistent. He doesn’t is impossible for God to lie. What God says He say one thing and do another. He is open and means. What God promises will happen. His honest. What God promises He will accomplish and promises are reliable. God makes a promise in His He means what He says. On the spiritual battlefield own name - He doesn’t swear on something He has the total opposite of God is Satan. Satan is totally created! He swears on Himself - His own nature that deceptive, totally inconsistent, will say one thing doesn’t change. God made a promise to Abraham and do another. The Bible calls Satan the father of and Abraham could be sure that that promise lies, the deceiver, and the devil. The devil is unstable, was trustworthy because it was based on God’s illogical and crazy. Satan will keep at you to do unchanging nature and on God’s unchanging word. something – “You know you want to do this.” Then There is nothing more certain or stable than God. 2
heard nothing. You were desperate for an answer and prayed day and night, but to no avail.
Why is it important to understand that God does not lie? God has made many promises to us and we want to know they can be trusted! Thank God He is the truth, it’s impossible for God to lie. If He lies it would go against his character and He would cease to be God.
What do you do in situations when God appears to be silent? Sometimes it doesn’t seem fair does it? In the Old Testament, the people of Israel, God was with them. He delivered them and they praised God for it. They only had to cry out to Him and he came to save them. They only had to trust Him and He delivered them. Okay for them, but what about us? Have you ever thought like this? How do you feel when this sort of thing happens? Does it shake your faith?
Maybe you find it difficult to imagine someone who can not lie. All of us have been lied to by other people many times. I’m sure that we have also lied on occasion. Lies pervade our culture, our society and it is part of our life. We don’t fully grasp know what to do when we come into the presence of a God who will never ever lie to us. Society says that lying is often necessary, for manuy it is part of every day life. In the world we are surrounded by lies, but that is not what God is like.
A teacher thought up an exciting new thing for her Sunday School class. She wrote a song about popcorn, taught it to the children, and had them crouch down on the floor to sing it. At appropriate points in the song, all the children would “pop up.” The teacher soon had them “popping” all over the classroom. The popcorn song was in full swing, when the teacher noticed one child remained crouching on the floor while the other children “popped” all over the room. “Why can’t you ’pop like the other children?” The little child replied, “I’m burning in the bottom of the pan.”
“But as surely as God is faithful, our message to you is not “Yes” and “No.” For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by me and Silas a and Timothy, was not “Yes” and “No,” but in Him it has always been “Yes.” For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.” (2 Corinthians 1:18-21)
While the world goes merrily along around us, we can be burning in the bottom of the pan. Where is God when this is all going on? Where is He when we need him the most?
God can’t abandon you
Have any of you ever felt abandoned? I know of a family with six kids who would regularly leave someone behind after going to a church service – there was never any sinister intent - the parents had driven separate cars and each assumed the other had a specific child in the other car.
Even King David felt as though God had abandoned Him, David comes to realise that although He feels this way, that is not the case. The fact is that God has not hidden his face, he has not left us wondering where He is. He is there, in our suffering, in our pain. Because God can’t abandon you.
Rejection or abandonment by people is a fairly common experience. Friends leave us, families have feuds, and marriages break down. Feelings of abandonment often cut deep.
How do we know that God will never abandon us? He said he would always be with us because we are his. When Moses was dying, he spoke to Joshua and gave him this commission: “Be strong and courageous, for you must go with this people into the land that the LORD swore to their forefathers to give them, and you must divide it among them as their inheritance. The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” (Deuteronomy 31: 7-8)
What about being abandoned by God? Have you ever felt that God has left you? Maybe you were in desperate need and He seemed to have just abandoned you. It may have been that you were ill or maybe had a friend or a parent or child that was desperately ill and you were crying out to God, asking him for help. Maybe it was a situation at work or school that was just too hard to take maybe you were in a new school with no friends and just hated it; maybe there was conflict at work and you could not cope and prayed to God that He would deliver you from that situation, but you 3
God was going to be with the people always. He wasn’t going to abandon them half way through their journey. He wasn’t going to leave them in the lurch when the going got tough. No. God loved them too much for that.
these little pacts – I’ll accept you if you accept me; I’ll look after you if you look after me. We go through life in little acceptance pacts. We crave acceptance.
He was there for them when everything else seemed hopeless. And God is there for us when everything else seems hopeless. When our enemies surround us, when all hope is gone. God is there because God can’t abandon us. No matter what you are going through today, God is there.: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. 2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. 3 For I am the LORD, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior;” (Isaiah 43:1-3)
Do you remember the TV show Cheers. Do you remember the tag line for that show? It was set in a bar where “Where everybody knows your name”. The world craves that kind of acceptance, where everybody knows your name, where everybody loves you and where you’re acceptable. Because of this, because we struggle for this acceptance, we have to deal with insecurity. This insecurity is heightened when we experience rejection in our lives. We’ve all encountered rejection in one form or another. Some people experience it almost constantly and that hurts. You need to grasp that it’s impossible for God to reject you.
How do we know that God is with us always? The last thing Jesus said before he returned to heaven after rising from the dead is this “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in a the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20).
A point of clarification The bible teaches that there will come a time when God rejects people. It will occur in heaven at the final judgment where Jesus identifies those who have chosen Him and those who have rejected Him. Jesus will judge people based on their decision and for those who have rejected Him, He will reject and sentence them to an eternity away from his presence – we call that place hell. Although they will cry out in distress and even plead for mercy, it will be too late for that. God will have no other choice than to reject them as judgment for their own choice. This judgment will take place after you die or after Jesus comes back – which ever comes first.
Often in life we can start to give up hope, to feel that God has forgotten us, abandoned us to dark and hurtful experiences, but the cross of Christ reminds us, “No, you’re not forgotten” and the resurrection gives us the assurance that some day we too will see our rescuer face to face and be liberated from the distresses of this life. When he returns we too will hear him say, “I’ve come for you.”God can’t abandon you because He loves you too much. God can’t abandon you because He has paid such a high price for you already to leave you. God can’t abandon you because He has promised to be with you to the end.
What we are dealing with here is whether God will accept us here and now if we want to accept Him while we am still living. Will He find us repulsive? Will He accept us regardless of what we have done? Will He unconditionally welcome us or will He put conditions on our coming to Him?
God can’t reject you
God loves you as you are now
Paul raises an interesting question on this topic in Romans 8:35, “Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love?” If you take a look at that question you will see that at the very heart of that question is a human dilemma - Am I acceptable to God? Am I acceptable in who I am?
The Living Bible translation of Romans 8:38-39 reads “For I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels won’t, and all the powers of hell itself cannot keep God’s love away. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, or where we are—high above the sky, or in the deepest ocean— nothing will ever be able to separate us from the love of God demonstrated by our Lord Jesus Christ when he died for us.”
All of us want to be accepted We have friendships that are formed based on who accepts us in our life. We get together with people who accept us on one level or another and we form
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There’s nothing that can separate you from God’s love. This doesn’t say that nothing can separate us from Him because we ourselves can make that choice to separate ourselves from God. What it does say, though is that nothing can separate us from God’s love.
Jesus paid the ultimate price so that you and I could receive this gift for free. He was willing to pay this because He loves you and He loves me. He loves you exactly where you are but He loves you way too much to leave you there.
God will not give up on you
There is nothing that can make God stop loving you. God will not reject you because He loves you. He’s always loved you. Right from the beginning of time, God loved you and wanted to have a deep and intimate relationship with you. He doesn’t expect you to do anything to earn this love. His love is unconditional.
Is there anything too big for God to forgive? “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9). “I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake and remembers your sins no more.” (Isaiah 43:25).
God will not leave you the same!
God says when I forgive something I forget it. It’s gone. That’s incredible. There’s nothing too big for God to forgive. It’s impossible for God to reject you. He won’t reject you no matter if you rejected him. No matter how many times you lie, God won’t reject you. No matter how many times you’ve cheated, He won’t reject you. No matter how far you’ve gone sexually, He won’t reject you. No matter if you have killed people. He won’t reject you. No matter if you’ve killed an unborn child, He won’t reject you. No matter if you’ve rejected yourself, God won’t reject you. It’s impossible. He won’t give up on you. He won’t give up on you until you breath your last breathe – when it’s too late for you to repent.
“As for the person who hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it. There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day.” (John 12:47-48) Jesus’ plan of salvation involved 2 parts. He had to save us from our sins – that is why he died for you and me. Then He wants to help us move on from a sinful lifestyle. He wants to transform us into the people that we could be and that we should be. God loves you way too much to leave you as you are.
God wants to offer you 3 things
There’s nothing too big for God to forgive. He will never reject you based on what you have done.The question has never been “Will God reject me?” But the question is, “Will you reject God?” It is impossible for God to reject you, but you certainly can reject God. That’s your freedom of choice. The deal’s on the table, an open invitation. But I will tell you this, the longer you remain in indecision, the more comfortable it is to be there. And ultimately if you just stay in indecision, ultimately the indecision itself becomes the decision.
He wants to change you in ways you cannot change yourself. All of us have stuff in our life that we’re not proud of, stuff that we have tried before to cut out, or habits we have tried to generate in our life and we can’t do it. We fail. God can change you in ways that you can’t change yourself. God wants to give you a reason and purpose to live life. He wants to empower you to do the right thing, to give you strength in your day to day life. He wants to infuse you with a heart for others. He wants to give you a new heart so that your vision is not like a microscope where you’re only focused in on you. God wants to broaden your perspective. He wants you to see the world like He sees it.
God’s offer is on the table, 24-hours a day, sevendays a week for the rest of your life. God wants you to accept him. He wants you to accept his gift of love. There’s nothing too big for God to forgive. He’ll forgive you but you’ll have to accept it. Allow him to forgive you.
God wants to save you for eternity. He wants to save your souls forever. The cost to you? Nothing it’s completely free. You can accept it today. But just because this gift is free doesn’t mean it’s cheap. This gift cost Jesus Christ everything – his life, his death, his blood, his sweat, his tears – all of it.
That’s a huge truth. These are all huge truths. God loves you as you are. He loves you too much to leave you there. He will never, ever give up on you. 5
So how do we respond to this truth?
Children have status. They have direct access to their Fathers. They don’t need appointments, they walk straight on in. Children get everything that their fathers own. God wants to bless his children. Everything He has He wants to give to his children. What a unique position to be in.
Accept God’s free gift of love It’s as simple as saying yes to Him. All of us in our lives have done things we are not proud of – they cause us shame and guilt. God wants to take those things away from you. He wants to take care of our sin problem. He wants to relieve us of the burden that we carry. That’s what God’s plan is.
Be free to accept others The last thing that this means for us is that we need to allow this love that God’s poured into our lives to spill out on those around you. There’s two kinds of relationships in this world. There’s a vertical relationship that you can have with God. And then there’s a horizontal relationship that you can have with other people. When God loves us vertically, we can live confidently start allowing that love to spill over on those that are around us. We don’t have to reserve our love just for those who accept us. We can love all manner of people because our value and identity are not dependant on who else accepts us – God accepts us and that is enough.
“When you were spiritually dead because of your sins and because you were not free from the power of your sinful self, God made you alive with Christ, and he forgave all our sins. He canceled the debt, which listed all the rules we failed to follow. He took away that record with its rules and nailed it to the cross.” (Colossians 2:13-14 ) Our record of our sin is nailed to the cross with Jesus Christ. We’re free from that burden. God’s offer of love leaves the burden of responsibility on you. He is waiting for your response. Will you accept his gift?
Unfortunately a big criticism against the church in general is that there are people that go to church that don’t love other people – they judge, they criticize, they gossip and they condemn. The world looks at the lifestyles of people who go to church and see that there is no horizontal love and therefore question whether there can be vertical relationships. Jesus said this, “The world will know that you’re My disciples if you love one another.” Our horizontal relationships bear witness to my vertical relationship and our vertical relationship should affect our horizontal relationship.
Live life with new confidence When we get our heads around the truth that God’s love is totally unconditional, He accepts us just as we are, He’s working in our lives to make changes, all of a sudden it doesn’t really matter what people around us think. It doesn’t really matter if I’m impressive to those that are around me, if I have the right clothes on, the right haircut or whatever. Those things don’t matter. The creator of the universe, the king of this entire playground – loves you. In fact God is crazy about you! Do you know that He accepts you right now just as you are? You don’t have to impress him. In fact, you couldn’t impress him if you tried. His love for you is that unconditional.
Will you accept him? Will you reject him today? It is impossible for God to reject you. But will you reject him?
God wants to make you His child. “We were like children ruled by the powers of this world. But when the time was right, God sent his Son, and a woman gave birth to him. His Son obeyed the Law, so he could set us free from the Law, and we could become God’s children.” (Galatians 4:3-5).
God Can’t Fail
We were ruled by powers of this world. What does that mean? It means we’re walking the world’s way. We try to gain acceptance from all many different groups but we’re never sure where we stand. We are controlled by peer pressure and the need to impress. God wants to take us away from that. God does not want us to be slaves to that. God wants us to be children – His children who are accepted. 6
It’s impossible for God to fail. Usually when something bad happens we love to blame God. Most people have an insurance policy either for a car or a home, they always cover most things, but there are always exceptions. One of the things they never cover is what they call “Acts of God.” – earthquakes, lightning, flooding, exploding poodles, and other “Acts of God”. The insurance companies blame God for these things and we often shake our fist at Him too. So often our behaviour is wrong yet we look for someone to blame, many love to blame God to make God seem like a failure.
When bad stuff happens we love to blame God. Somebody gets drunk, they are driving erratically and hit a child and kills them. And people blame God for it, “God! Why did let this happen?” Imagine someone cheats on a test, gets caught and are expelled. They say - “God! I thought you were all loving and taking care of me and now you let me down!”
Has God failed? Believing that God fails leads to a loss of hope. Today we’ve got a whole world of people walking through life with no hope. When we have no hope we easily get discouraged and we live as though life is being sucked out of us. Can you relate to this? You hunger for something, anything which will give you a little bit of life and with it a bit of hope.
It’s impossible for God to fail no matter how you or I feel. I believe that many of us have feelings of failure that cut deep or feelings of disappointment because we think God has let us down. Here are three examples:
The world thinks: maybe that drug will help; maybe that relationship; maybe a little sex; maybe if I drink this or hang with these people; maybe the lottery will give a better life. People in the world are open to anything and everything because they’ve lost hope.
Sometimes we feel like God has failed me because of the way that we are designed. We’re not happy with how we are. We wish we had smaller ears or bigger ears or a bigger nose or a smaller nose. Most people wish something was different- that’s why there is such a huge business in plastic surgery and botox. Even “beautiful” people have things about themselves that they would like to change.
Feelings come and go If you base your life on feelings, on how you feel, you will up one minute, down the next. There is something so much better to base our lives on – truth. What is the truth in God’s word? In Jeremiah 29:10 we read about the heart of God for his people. The Israelites had thought God had failed them. They had been carted away into slavery. Their city Jerusalem had been destroyed and with it their temple. What was God doing? Where was He? Had He failed? Was He too weak to stand up to these foreign gods? Here’s what God says to those feelings: This is what the LORD says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfil my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. [Remember we learnt that God can’t lie. He will fulfil his promises] For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. [God can’t want your worst. He wants your best] Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. [God can’t reject you] You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.” (Jeremiah 29:10-14).
Sometimes we feel like God has failed because of our pain. Most of us seem fairly happy, fairly content with life. That’s on the outside anyway. On the inside of many there is pain. Many people have a lot of pain in their lives. Often we try to hide it with how we look. Girls put their make up on. We may keep up the routine and hang out with other “happy people”, but we and they are crying on the inside. Do you find it easy to share issues with others? Do you have someone that you can ask to pray with you? Unless you open up and share with other people nobody knows your pain. Some people cry themselves to sleep, some families are broken, some feel totally alone. Is it easier to say “God! What are you doing?” or asking ourselves the question “What do I need to do?”? Sometimes we feel God has failed because the world is so messed up. The world is so messed up. People are idiots. There’s some bad stuff happening. What is your television program of choice? I enjoy watching the news. Maybe enjoy is the wrong choice of words. The first ten minutes is all about who stabbed who, who shot who, who blew up what, who murdered or raped… it’s all about how evil our world is. Good people get caught in the crossfire of stupidity. Our world is messed up. There’s racism, there’s fighting, there’s hatred, road rage, terrorism. We look around and it is evil. Many look at this world and wonder where God is.
The people were questioning whether God had failed or not and God answered … “For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord. ‘They’re plans for good and not for disaster, plans to give you a future and a hope.’” He is saying the same thing to us. 7
“In the midst of your feelings, in the midst of you not liking the way you’ve been designed, in the midst of you feeling some pain in your life, in the midst of us living in a wacky world”, God says, “I’ve got good plans for you. You may not know what they are but I do. The are plans to give you a hope and a future.”
For personal reflection
An original masterpiece
God’s word can’t change. Psalm 119:89
God can’t accept less than my whole heart. Deuteronomy 6:5 God Can’t be stopped. Daniel 4:35
Out of the six billion people on this planet there is not another person like you! You are an original masterpiece. There is nobody like you.
God can’t be fooled. Hebrews 4:12 God’s plan for my life can’t be bad. Jeremiah 29:11
Psalm 139 says, “I praise you because I’m fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. I know full well… While I was still in my mother’s womb you began to knit me and form me.” Some peope aren’t quite sure that God made them – they believe in the theory of evolution that we came from slime and grew from fish, lizards and monkeys. It takes a lot of faith to believe that we are here because of chance rather than trust there was a loving and intelligent designer behind this whole thing. God did create you as an original masterpiece, regardless of whether you believe it or not. God hasn’t failed.
God can’t be selfish. Romans 8:32 God can’t be the author of confusion 1 Corinthians 14:33 God can’t be silenced. Psalm 50:3 God can’t be prejudice. Acts 10:34-35 God can’t lie. Hebrews 6:18 God can’t lose anything. John 6:39
God’s wisdom is not man’s wisdom You’ve got to accept that you don’t know everything. You may be sitting there thinking God has failed you but you don’t understand God’s plan. God’s wisdom is so far above ours; His plans are so complex and intricate that we’d never be able to comprehend them; His purposes are far greater than we could ever even imagine. We don’t know everything and we don’t know everything about God.
God can’t give us a spirit of fear. 2 Timothy 1:7
Some people say, “I’ve got plans for my life, great plans.” Good. Here’s what the Bible says about human plans, “Human plans, no matter how wise or well advised cannot stand against the Lord.” (Proverbs 21:30 ).
God can’t be impressed by us. Isaiah 64:6
God can’t stand sin. Isaiah 59:2 God can’t be given less than all. Romans 12:1 God can’t be worshiped enough. Revelation 4:8
God can’t make junk. Genesis 1:31 God can’t lose. Psalm 98:1
My prayer is that we would have the confidence of the Psalmist, in Psalm 33:11, “But the plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations.”
God can’t stop thinking about you. Psalm 139:17-18 God’s church can’t be defeated. Matthew 16:18
Right now we can say: “God, you haven’t failed me. I’ve just misunderstood. No one can stop you. No one can disrupt your plans.”
God can’t be given a problem He can’t solve. Matthew 19:26 God can’t stop loving you. Jeremiah 31:3 8