Bethany Bullet - September 16, 2014

Dictionary.com defines the term: incognito

[in-kog-nee-toh, in-kog-ni-toh]

In the following way

adjective

1. having one's identity concealed, as under an assumed name, especially to avoid notice or attention.

___________________________________________

Our God is a God who is at work incognito. 

Few people passing Calvary on that Friday said of Jesus hanging on the cross, “Oh my, God is at work!”  He was indeed.  In fact God’s work for us was never more potent than in Jesus, and it was there on the cross that, as Jesus Himself said, God’s work was “completed, accomplished, and finished.”  God was at work for us!

That same God is at work in us; yet, incognito to be sure.  Most casual observers to the Sunday morning experience, i.e. non-Christians who watch what Christians do, would see the Christian at work.  We get up, get dressed, and get in the car in order to get to church.  We pray, listen, speak, and sing.  But we know what others miss, the greatest work being done in worship is not ours but His.  In our hearts, in our ears, in our minds, so that in our lives He might more so day by day, God is at work.  

This God who is at work for us and in us is also at work through us.  Incognito to be sure, unperceivable, unrecognizable to many, but He is at work, hidden under the “masks” of His peoples work; if you will.  Of course, means that God is also at work through other people.  Think about it, when God blesses us He almost always does so THROUGH other people.

When we pray the Lord’s prayer we are praying that we will be eating at some point. . .”give us this day our daily bread.”   Before you eat you probably give thanks.  How fitting that is as God is faithful to answer our prayers.   Yet when God does so, He almost always does so THROUGH other people.  Manna on the ground or loaves in the baskets have and can take place, miracles did and do occur.  Usually however, when God is at work providing daily bread He does so THROUGH others: the farmer who planted and harvested, the baker who kneaded, the trucker who hauled, the person who stocked, and the clerk who checked and bagged. THROUGH such God was at work…and each one had a role in the roll you had on your plate this morning, this noon or this evening. 

When we believe and seek to see God at work incognito, not only the momentous events but hidden in the mundane activities of life it changes everything.  As Gene Veith says in his book, God at Work, “to find him in the daily is to bring Him down to earth quite literally and realize just how close He is”, and how much He is a God at Work!    (Pg. 24, God at Work, Crossway Books) 

-Pastor Kevin Kritzer