I am because You are.  We are because God is.

On Mother’s Day this year, one of my daughter’s gave me a mug on which was written “I am because you are”.  She is in this world because I gave birth to her but ultimately the reason she is here is because God ordained her birth thousands of years ago.

The reason any of us are here today is because God ordained our lives.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations”  (Jeremiah 1:5)

The above promise that God gave Jeremiah became a promise to each one of us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

To ordain means to consecrate – to make holy, to sanctify
A prophet is someone who speaks by divine inspiration

Every Believer in Jesus is set aside, is ordained, is consecrated and has prophetic powers because Jesus said “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole of creation.”  (Mark 16:15)

By proclaiming the gospel we are prophesying that we are set apart by God to live Holy lives in His grace and ultimately to spend eternity in His Presence.

So why are so many of us living mediocre lives weighed down by the demands of the world?  It all boils down to a lack of faith and fear…

In his inaugural address Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke these famous words:

“the only thing we have to fear is…fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance”

Because we are afraid to trust God we fail to “convert retreat into advance”.

“A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it.” Ambrose Bierce

Stop doubting God…