Many of us go through life with a mindset that God’s ultimate purpose is to bless our life and sustain it for as long as possible. And when God doesn’t, many blame God, and some bail on God. So our mindset must change! Instead, we must see our lives (and the lives of our loved ones) along with our deaths, as belonging to God.

Gabriel was notorious for causing others to have serious “What the what?!” moments as he provided guidance or protection. And in each instance, these moments were handled very differently. And the truth is, God currently uses angels to provide guidance or direction to us, and faith is still the best reaction to any encounter with them.

If our country was being led by a narcissist like Nebuchadnezzar, could you still enjoy God and glorify Him, while maintaining respect for that leader? Doing so might cause a What the What?!, moment that could change someone's life! This is exactly what Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and Daniel did with Nebuchadnezzar (not to mention his officials). 

Like Gehazi with Elisha, Judas with Jesus, or Ananias and Sapphira with the disciples, some people associated with “the work of God” are actually looking for an opportunity to further their own plan while appearing holy. All of them tried to hide their actions from God and others, and all of them found out it's not possible...

David refused to kill Saul, even though he could have claimed it was self defense and justified it because he was anointed.

Instead, he let God deal with Saul and during this entire time of waiting, God proved to both David and Samuel that He was with them, and that they could trust in God’s promise to David even though things didn’t make sense.

It took twenty-two years for the promise of Joseph’s dream to become a reality. This begs the question, do we let What the What?! moments stop us from believing in the things God has promised us? We can trust God to keep His promises even when things don’t make sense. Which means, no matter what it is that each of us have been called to as individuals, or as a church, we can be confident God’s going to take care of everything.

When facing persecution, Jesus doesn’t want us to worry or fear. In fact, Jesus wants us to feel happy and excited about it because our reward will be amazing! So we must be careful that this world doesn’t make us lose our saltiness or our light!

God wants us to be productive and useful in His plan for redeeming the world, but to do that we must first be committed to our relationships with others in the church. However, to do that we must have the same attitude that Christ had, which means all of us have to figuratively burn our “Bill of Rights”.

Why miscarriages? Why cancer? Why mosquitos?

The truth is, when our focus is on this life, we’ll never stop asking those kind of questions. But when we realize how to view hard experiences from God’s perspective, it can change everything about the way we show empathy and compassion and care for others.

All followers have been given the general “call” from God to be a “part” of the body of Christ, or the church. But beyond that, we’ve each been given gifts, or certain things we do well, for the benefit of the church. And when we learn to use these gifts for the good of others, it helps prove to the world Jesus is for real.