GOD, WHO RAISES THE DEAD

God won't bless us if He can't change us. We can't stay the same. Some of us may be wondering why we haven't had a spiritual breakthrough. One reason could be that we've not yet been broken. God makes it very clear that He only relates to those who are humble and contrite in heart. Isaiah 57:15 says, "Thus says the high and exalted One who lives forever, whose name is Holy., ‘I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.'" The Most High God hangs out with the lowly and the humble. He cares for those who acknowledge their need for Him. God has to grind away at our pride until we realize we are not self-sufficient.
If you are facing tough circumstances right now, you are a prime candidate for a breakthrough because God is at work through your trials. Paul said, ‘We do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life." (2 Corinthians 1:80. Paul was burdened beyond his strength to bear it - it was such a deep, piercing, and exhausting struggle. But we know that even if we are in a bad place, it is a wonderful place for God to do an amazing work in our lives.
"Indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead; who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will deliver us, He on whom we have set our hope." (verses 9-10). When you are beyond all earthly help, you are better able to trust in God - the God who raises the dead and saves us from death. God lets us get so low that we understand that He is our only real option

When You Want to Throw a Red Flag Out on God

Romans 8:32

 Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else?

Psalm 12

¹ Help, O Lord, for the godly are fast disappearing!
    The faithful have vanished from the earth!
² Neighbors lie to each other,
    speaking with flattering lips and deceitful hearts.
³ May the Lord cut off their flattering lips
    and silence their boastful tongues.
⁴ They say, “We will lie to our hearts’ content.
    Our lips are our own—who can stop us?”

⁵ The Lord replies, “I have seen violence done to the helpless,
    and I have heard the groans of the poor.
Now I will rise up to rescue them,
    as they have longed for me to do.”
⁶ The Lord’s promises are pure,
    like silver refined in a furnace,
    purified seven times over.
⁷ Therefore, Lord, we know you will protect the oppressed,
    preserving them forever from this lying generation,
⁸ even though the wicked strut about,
    and evil is praised throughout the land.

When a head coach on an NFL team perceives that the referee has made a wrong call, awarding a key play to the opposition, he throws out a red flag. This red flag signals that the referee needs to review the play again. Obviously the coach believes that the referee has made a mistake.
There are times in our lives, especially when we are caught between a rock and a hard place, when we want to throw a red flag out on God. We want to stop the game and throw down the red flag because it looks like God has made a wrong call. It looks like He has missed something. It looks like He didn't know what He was doing because if He did, He wouldn't have called things that way.
We think thoughts like - If God had known how this was going to affect me, He wouldn't have allowed that thing to happen. If He had really known the pain that I was going to have to go through in dealing with this, then He would have made a different decision.
We want to reach into our pocket and pull out our red flag and yell, "God, you missed this one! You blew it. Review it, because you're obviously wrong." It is during those times that we need to remember that God often does some of His best work in the dark. He is also often the nearest when He seems the furthest away. It is during those times that our faith needs to carry us through. Because it is in those times that God is often waiting to see what we are going to do.