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The Constancy of God by Graham Cooke

The Constancy of God by Graham Cooke

Last updated on: December 16, 2012 at 9:19 pm by editorconvergingzone

The Constancy of God by Graham Cooke 2012-12-16T21:19:50-08:00 editorconvergingzone

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Recently, I was looking through my meditation journals from around ten years ago, when my world, as I knew it, was coming to an end. What saved my everything was what I was learning about who God wanted to be for me. I didn’t

know it then, but those crippling circumstances actually became the basis for my reinvention as a man and a ministry.

I found a few quotes that I wrote about the nature of God to me. The learning that we enter into in the Kingdom is primarily concerned with what we actually experience in God’s personality. This is what changes us into His image. In the world learning is often more academic or functional. We learn enough to resolve an issue or understand how to do something. It’s about facts and what we know mentally.

In Christ everything we learn is firstly, relational. We learn about who God wants to be for us, and also who we are becoming in Him. In the Kingdom we learn from the heart and it brings reformation. The Holy Spirit helps us to realize who God is for us specifically in these circumstances. Relational learning is never general. It is designed to empower us to become what He sees in us.

In crushing circumstances, I learned about the constancy of the Lord. I began to grasp the idea that whatever He is, He is relentlessly. He is massively, enormously, incredibly unchanging. His love is ceaseless, endless and everlasting. His great heart is fixed, steadfast and immovable. He became my North Star. For a long time

my circumstances never changed. They remained difficult, obdurate and hellish. I changed, on the inside. In the worst of times we discover the best of God and it changes us.

We discover that He is faithful, unfailing and trustworthy…and, we come into a deeper place of loving Him. We explore Him joyfully and we forget to be anxious, resentful and bitter. The “why” question eludes us because we are seeing

something so wonderful that we are captivated. My heart was in pieces. Twenty-nine years of ministry on the floor. I could have filled an average church building with the friends who walked away from me. The constancy of God not only healed my heart but also enlarged it. I learned about the power of the one with the One.

These were the quotes that I wrote in my journal in that period:

• When life is unstable, Jesus is the only constant.

• No circumstances can compete with the relentlessly, unchanging, steadfast

love of God.

• God’s persistent goodness is the foundation of all trust.

• I have won more battles depending on God’s constancy than I ever have by

trying to generate faith.

• Faith works by a love that is proven to never fail.

• Life changes, only God is constant.

• Every situation must bend to God’s unchanging nature.

• We persevere best when we rest in God’s devotion to us.

• It’s the unchanging constancy of God that fixes our faith.

• Nothing fills me with more peace than the constancy of God.

• The faithfulness of God is relentless in its opposition to all of life’s variables.

• Astonishment in the Father is rooted in His constancy.

Don’t seek to escape your circumstances, those who do never grow up into all things in Christ. Use your circumstances to go deeper into God’s affections. After all, if you are in Christ then so are all your circumstances!

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