Mike Browning

Tag: His Word Together

  • Don’t Assume God Wouldn’t Use You

    Don’t Assume God Wouldn’t Use You

    He’s used flawed people since the beginning. He has no choice.

    Even among professing Christians, many people’s exposure to the Bible mostly consists of whatever passage their pastor teaches from on Sunday, or from devotionals they read during the week.

    There’s nothing wrong with any of that. But it can leave you with a strange idea of what the Bible is actually like when read straight through.

    You mostly hear the stories where somebody trusted God, did the right thing, and things worked out in the end. It gets in your head that the people in scripture were kind of superheroes of faith. More disciplined. More obedient. More spiritually stable than regular people are.

    At least that’s how it felt to me.

    Then I actually read the whole thing straight through.

    Surprising to say the least. A huge percentage of the Bible is people screwing things up.

    Moses kills a man and runs away.

    David impregnates one of his loyal soldiers’ wives, tries to cover it up, then arranges for the man to die in battle.

    The sons of Eli the priest were corrupt and openly abusing their position.

    The disciples themselves constantly misunderstand Jesus, even while following Him directly.

    And this kind of thing keeps happening over and over.

    At first it’s confusing because you expect the “heroes” of the Bible to act differently. But most of them were not spiritual superheroes. They were regular people. Flawed people.

    In some cases, people who did things most of us have never done and hopefully never will.

    Yet God kept working through them anyway.

    That does not mean their sins were unimportant. Scripture is very clear that actions have consequences. But it also means failure was never automatically the end of the story.

    People sometimes disqualify themselves because of things they’ve done wrong. Or because they assume God only uses unusually gifted, disciplined, impressive people.

    The Bible really doesn’t support that idea very well.

    God uses regular people.

    It’s the only kind He has.

    P.S.- If you’d like to read through the Bible this year, you can join us at His Word Together.

    No commentary.
    No telling you what to think.
    Nothing to buy.
    Nothing fancy.

    Just steady time in the Word.

    Check it out here.

    PPS- If you’d like to receive these in your inbox, enter your info below:

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  • You’re Not Going To Break It

    You’re Not Going To Break It

    God’s plan was designed to account for the fact we are human.

    A lot of people are waiting to understand perfectly before they move.

    It may sound wise, but it’s really just fear with religious language wrapped around it.

    We all tend to want certainty. To know exactly what God is doing, exactly what the outcome will be, exactly how things are supposed to unfold before they take a step.

    But if you actually read the Bible, that’s not really how it works.

    Abraham is told to go somewhere without being told where.

    The disciples follow Jesus while constantly misunderstanding Him. Even near the end they still don’t fully grasp what’s happening.

    Peter gets corrected repeatedly.

    Moses loses his temper.

    David wrecks things more than once.

    Solomon is the wisest man who ever lived, but also screwed things up on an order we can’t really fathom.

    Notice a pattern?

    God keeps working through people who do not fully understand what they are doing while they are doing it. And they screw up repeatedly, yet God keeps working through them anyway.

    That does not mean mistakes don’t matter, because they do. Sometimes painfully. Moses still didn’t enter the Promised Land. David still suffered consequences for what he did. Actions matter, and scripture never pretends otherwise.

    But there’s another mistake people make.

    They act like one honest error can somehow derail God’s entire plan for their life.

    As if the outcome ultimately depends on them executing everything flawlessly.

    It doesn’t.

    Romans says all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose. Most people apply that only to external suffering, and things that don’t look like our fault.

    But it also applies to our mistakes.

    You are going to misunderstand things sometimes and make decisions that later look immature. You’ll move too slowly in some situations and too quickly in others.

    That’s being human. God has already accounted for it.

    A baby doesn’t learn to walk by studying for years. They just start moving, wobble around a bit, and learn through the movement itself.

    Faith works similarly.

    A lot of people are frozen because they are waiting for a level of certainty that they will never see.

    Meanwhile the people throughout scripture were often moving forward with partial understanding at best.

    The outcome was never resting entirely on them getting everything right. And it is not resting entirely on you either.

    God already knew imperfect people were going to be involved.

    Our mistakes don’t surprise Him.

    P.S.- If you’d like to read through the Bible this year, you can join us at His Word Together.

    No commentary.
    No telling you what to think.
    Nothing to buy.
    Nothing fancy.

    Just steady time in the Word.

    Check it out here.

    PPS- if you’d like these in your inbox simply enter your info below:

    Register to Receive Posts Via Email!

    By submitting, I understand I will receive marketing emails and blog posts from Mike Browning Realty and/or associated companies. Unsubscribe at any time.

  • Why Do We Keep Asking?

    Why Do We Keep Asking?

    If you think about it, you know why.

    We like to act like if God would just tell us clearly what to do, it would be easy.

    That’s what makes the story of Balaam so uncomfortable.

    Balak wants Israel cursed.
    So he hires Balaam, a man who actually hears from God.

    God tells Balaam the first time:

    Do not go.
    Do not curse them.
    They are blessed.

    Seems pretty straightforward, right?

    Then Balak comes back with more money and more honor.

    Balaam says the right words.
    “I can only do what God tells me.”

    And then he asks again.

    He already knew the answer. He just wanted a different one.

    God tells him to go ahead, but only say what He says.

    So Balaam goes.

    God’s anger burns against him on the way.

    Because even while his feet were moving in “obedience,” his heart was chasing money and honor.

    So God stands in the road against him.

    Balaam doesn’t see it.
    His donkey does.

    Three times the donkey turns aside to avoid the angel with a drawn sword.
    Three times Balaam beats the donkey.

    The only thing keeping him alive is the thing he’s angry at.

    God opens Balaam’s eyes and he finally sees what was right in front of him.

    He was on a road God had already warned him not to go down.

    But he kept asking until he got permission to go anyway.

    And even then, God opposed him on that road.

    That’s the lesson.

    We like to think our problem is that we don’t know what God wants.

    Most of the time, we do. (By most of the time, I mean pretty much all the time.)

    We just don’t like the answer.

    So we ask again.
    We look for a loophole.
    A technicality we can stand on.

    We want God to bless what we’ve already decided to do.

    Sometimes He gives us what we insisted on.

    That is not a blessing.
    That is judgment.

    We get our way.
    We get what we wanted.
    And it costs more than we thought.

    So what do you do with that?

    You don’t need one more conversation.
    You don’t need to “pray about it” again if God has already spoken clearly in His Word.

    You need to decide whether you are going to obey what you already know.

    Turn around while it’s still just a nudge.

    It’s a lot better than having to be stopped by force later.

    P.S. If you’d like to read through the Bible with us this year, you can join at His Word Together.

    No commentary, no telling you what to think.

    Nothing to pay for, nothing to buy.

    Nothing fancy. Just steady time in the Word.

    Check it out here.

  • We Are Never Going to Be Good Enough

    We Are Never Going to Be Good Enough

    Not on our own anyway.

    We are never going to be good enough.

    Anyone who acts like they are is lying, deluded, or both.

    The Bible does not flatter us.

    In the book of Numbers, it talks about unintentional sin and the sacrifices required to atone for it. That alone should tell you something. We are so bent that we sin without even realizing it, and even those sins carried weight.

    You can see it in other people easily.
    You rarely see it in yourself.

    Jesus raised the standard even higher.

    He said if you look at a woman with lust, you have already committed adultery in your heart.

    If you are angry with someone, you are in danger of judgment as if you had committed murder.

    That eliminates most of us pretty quick.

    Paul writes in Romans that there is none righteous, not even one.

    Not one.

    Jesus told the rich young ruler, “No one is good except God alone.”

    There is no honest way to read that and conclude that we can fix ourselves.

    Left to ourselves, we have no hope.

    But that is not where the story ends.

    In Revelation, Jesus says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.”

    He says, “Let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.”

    He does not say, “Clean yourself up and then come.”

    He does not say, “I’ll give you one more chance. Don’t mess it up.”

    If that were the deal, we would fail again before we ever finished trying.

    Fortunately for us, the work was already done.

    Once for all.

    So come.

    P.S. If you’d like to read through the Bible with us this year, you can join at His Word Together.

    Nothing fancy. Just steady time in the Word.

    Check it Out Here