With all of my heart

So fearfully and wonderfully made,
How could they say there is no God?
Reminded every breath that I take,
It´s by Your hand I have been formed
So what am I going to do with this life You gave me?
What could I do but live for Your praise?

You gave me this breath,
And You gave me this strength,
And every day I´ll live to obey You.
With all of my heart,
With all of my soul;
Let every breath I´m breathing display You God.

There´s elegance in all you create
Your grand designs leave us amazed.
The wonders of the way we´ve been made
Speak of Your power, tell of Your grace.
So what am I going to do with this life You gave me?
What could I do but live for Your praise?

So what am I going to do with this life You gave me?
What am I going to do with this life?
What I am I going to do in these days You´ve ordained?
What am I going to do with this life?

Matt Redman

^{WARNING: I have no control over what ads appear on my sites, and some of the ones to appear are from Scientology, a dangerous cult that I would not recommend to people. They tend to target Christian articles, so be wise as a serpent and gentle as a dove.}

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Today I had a long drive from Málaga to Seville and back, about 500 km round trip, and in torrential rain to make matters worse.

I had a Matt Redmond cd with me and one song just stuck in my brain; 'Fearfully and wonderfully made', I played it on repeat for much of the drive, it just spoke realms to me about how we walk with God, as opposed to how we should walk with God.

The words are set right for you to read, I've added the video below, and a link to the Amazon page where you can sample the music, and download if you wish.

The words are obviously inspired by Psalm 139, one of my favourite Psalms as it contains such strong statements of who we were created by, and what our relationship with Him should be.

Thinking about 'our' walk during the six hour trip, I realized that there seem to be a wide spectrum of believers in Christ, and especially here on the Hub.

I've been on the web since 1996, but for most of that time my fellowship has been with other believers who basically were in unity of belief concerning the major tenets of faith that form the bedrock of Christian Orthodoxy in a fundamentalist evangelical mode.

OK I've also spent time in forums, but basically 'alien' forums, that either had no other believers in them, or had other believers who shares a like faith.

I was in a Hare Krisna forum debating for months, claiming back the name of Christ, which they seemed to beleive was the same entity as their god. Many of their members wanted me banned.

To give them credit, their moderator refused to simply block me out on the grounds that if their newbies were not able to stand the challenge they should leave

Eventually they closed it down to stop their younger believers having serious doubts and exploring who Christ was rather than Krishna.

Here we see a plethora of believers of every shade and hue.

Former believers, people who seem to have invented their own doctrines of one, those who think Christ was a spaceman, people who think the whole bible is a conspiracy to hold the world in subjection, and many who want to cherry pick the bible to select the bits that they agree with and reject those that cause any discomfiture.

For someone who totally rejected the bible for the first thirty years I was conscious of it's existence, then consumed it five hours a day (at least) for the first three years that I came to accept it's truth, those are strange concepts to try and understand.

My debate over the bible was a cold hard decision between is it truth, or not.

• If it's the truth, then I owe my very life to it, for Christ bought me with a price.
• If it was a lie, then it was not worth anything but toilet paper.

It can ONLY be one or the other answer.

My logic reasoning for this was simple.

If God is who He says He is, then the bible He gave us will be sufficient to achieve it's purpose no matter what.

Even the worse translation available should be able to bring a person to conviction of sin and lead to their entry into Christ's body of believers, they may be the worst, saddest believer ever created, but they would still receive Gods Grace and Mercy and Salvation.

The whole reason of the bible is to point humanity towards Christ, and having done that to bring believers to the 'fullness of Christ'.

We don't start out full, we start out empty, and if we are not empty, if we are still full of the world, then God will empty us out first before He starts bringing us to the fullness.

So all the false trail straw man arguments that people try to throw at scripture in order to avoid feeling convicted by what the bible states, become meaningless.

The very tactics they use to wriggle out of accepting that the bible does have authority over their lives proves the point that they are trying to deny; the very thing that they secretly fear.

God exists, is real, and did create them, therefore He does have the final say in all things.

O Lord, you have searched me and you know me.

You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.

You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.

Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord.

You hem me in - behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me," even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.

When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body.

All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!

How vast is the sum of them!

Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.

When I awake, I am still with you.

If only you would slay the wicked, O God!

Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!

They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name.

Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord, and abhor those who rise up against you?

I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies.

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Psalm 139 was written by King David, possibly before he was king, but that's not relevant.

David is one of my favorite characters in scripture, from his appearance as a shepherd boy to his slaying of Goliath he entrances children of all ages.

Once he joins the royal court he portrays a good role model of what to expect as you rise through management to leadership.

We have all had spears thrown at us by our 'kings' for being too popular..... and been at their beck and call to sooth their troubled brows 24/7.

You probably know someone who married the bosses daughter for mutual convenience and job security, and most of us have met our Bethsheba at some time, though hopefully we have not done any Uriah deeds to retain her favors.

David loved God, and God loved David, they were as close as could be, yet David still committed some grave errors of judgement that would have most of us thrown out of whatever church we belonged to, and cost David, and those around him, dearly.

But David had the advantage of knowing two things:

• Get so close to God that you know what His reaction will be on anything you do right or wrong.
• Repent early and often, with a genuinely broken spirit and contrite heart, when you do wrong, and stay humble when you do right.

With these two points committed to memory one can get to dwell under the wings of the Lord Most High and live in peace and security, and more importantly, move in power to do Gods commands.

Put simply God will use anyone who is to be trusted, and like with us humans, trust needs to be earned and we need to be seen capable of being relied upon.

Davids life shows that being perfect or even trying to be perfect is no use whatsoever, God knows our every though, so we could never be perfect before God in this life.

Read the words written right and think them through.

If they are the truth (and they are) then where are you standing with God, do your thoughts and deeds match you confessions to God about your failings?

Or are you fooling yourself in believing that God does not know ALL about you.

I had an atheist try to ridicule me once on a chat show by mocking Gods ability to hear every prayer uttered all over the world in real time and approve or refuse them.

I asked him if he had an ATM or credit card, which he did, then wondered how he could accept that billions of transactions were being carried out from 5th Avenue in NY to small shops in third world countries, (and I have used Amex in a Medina market in Morocco) and yet the banks could keep track of all of them in real time, yet he doubted that the creator of the universe would have such abilities.

If God exists, then He has powers vastly superior to anything that any scientist has ever though of, or ever will think of.

Yet He is available to be close to anyone who wants to have that deep a relationship with Him.

If we take the bible as literal, if we decide to make our confession and lives fit to what the bible tells us, rather than attempt to make the bible fit our lives, then God will bless us with His presence and empower us to do His works here on earth.

Smith Wigglesworth was one of the few modern men of God who lived the life 100%.

He never read ANY book except the bible, he believed completely in what the bible stated, and although sick many times himself, he had a successful healing ministry and did 'all these things and more' as Jesus promised us would be the case for those who believed.

He is credited with raising 20 or more people from the dead, when Wigglesworths' wife died he raised her only to have her say "Smith - the Lord wants me." ...."If the Lord wants you, I will not hold you" was his response.

He once attended a 'wake' and when alone with the corpse, who was propped up in his coffin, Wigglesworth laid hands on the body and commanded him to come back to life, he released the corpse and it slid to the ground.

The mourners and family began to get upset, but Wigglesworth continued picking the body up and commanding him to arise in the name of Jesus.

On the fifth attempt the man came back to life.

His own credo was;

There are four principles we need to maintain:

• First, read the Word of God.
• Second, consume the Word of God until it consumes you.
• Third believe the Word of God.
• Fourth, act on the Word."

We should expect to do no less.

He also said; "Everybody has to have testings. If you believe in Divine Healing you will surely be tested on the faith line. God cannot bring anyone into blessing and into full co-operation with Him except through testings and trials."

The question is, are we prepared to believe the bible and act on the word