Do you trust in God's providence?

The providence of God is written on the pages of time, and is displayed ever second of everyday in our lives.

Just as God provided everything for Is real as He led them through the wilderness He does us, our faith may be stretched but do not lose heart, God is faithful always.

Trust in Him and His providence.

God's providence is shaping our lives, and shaping history. We are not at the mercy of a cyclical, happenstance repetition of events or ideologies, moving aimlessly through time and space. Our destiny is not controlled by powerful nations, great men or circumstances. It rests securely and comfortably in the hands of God.

For the Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He has watched over your journey through this immense wilderness. The Lord your God has been with you this past 40 years, and you have lacked nothing.’ Today I will begin to put the fear and dread of you on the peoples everywhere under heaven. They will hear the report about you, tremble, and be in anguish because of you.’ “Then the Lord said to me, ‘See, I have begun to give Sihon and his land to you. Begin to take possession of it.’ The Lord our God handed him over to us, and we defeated him, his sons, and his whole army. There was no city that was inaccessible to  us, from Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Valley, along with the city in the valley, even as far as Gilead. The Lord our God gave everything to us.

Deuteronomy 2:7, 25-25, 31, 33-33, 36

My way

Frank Sinatra sang it so did Elvis Presley and many others have recorded this song, and every person ever born except one has lived this out.

The song, the life choice is My Way.

The chorus goes

I've lived a life that's full

I've traveled each and every highway

And more, much more than this

I did it my way

So many live this way and in the end they reflect over life and see where and how they missed it.

Jesus said we don't need to do life alone, that He would take our yoke and we can take His. For His easy.

Let me ask are you tired, weary, broken, hopeless?

Are you missing joy, peace, comfort, security?

How is that working out for you?

Are you ready yet to surrender, or do you need to continue on your path?

Come rest in the Lord and see what He has planned for you today.

At that time Jesus said,  “I praise   You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to infants.  Yes, Father, because this was Your good pleasure.   All things have been entrusted to Me by My Father. No one knows   the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son desires   to reveal Him.  “Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  All of you, take up My yoke and learn from Me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yourselves.  For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

Matthew 11:25-30

There is a better way

One of my favorite stories in the Bible is here in John 21, the disciples return to their lives before they met Jesus, they had given up on themselves they failed and had deserted Jesus when He was arrested and crucified.

But Jesus had not given up on them, this is the 3rd time He comes to them after His resurrection, and He wants them to know how much He loves them.

He sees them fishing and says to them , did you catch anything?

For they had not caught anything all night. (Jesus was asking a rhetorical question, He knew the answer)

Then Jesus says cast your net to the other side, what He is saying is hey there guys there is a better way, My way.

They then recognize it is Jesus and come to Him.

Jesus is saying stop doing what your doing it is okay, I can't rely just on you, but you can always rely on me.

How about you, are you still doing things your way?

If so read John 21:1-17 and see that Jesus way is the only way.

When daybreak came, Jesus stood on the shore. However, the disciples did not know it was Jesus. “Men,”  Jesus called to them, “you don’t have any fish, do you? ” “No,” they answered. “Cast the net on the right side of the boat,” He told them, “and you’ll find some.” So they did, and they were unable to haul it in because of the large number of fish.John 21:4-6 

At that time Jesus said,  “I praise   You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to infants.  Yes, Father, because this was Your good pleasure.   All things have been entrusted to Me by My Father. No one knows   the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son desires   to reveal Him.  “Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  All of you, take up My yoke and learn from Me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yourselves.  For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
Matthew 11:25-30

Are we living as priests of God?

God set Israel aside to be His priests to the world, to be set apart to show the world His power, love and grace. He set the entire nation apart not just the Levite's.

But they became spiritually proud and failed even though time and time again God warned them and they swore they would listen.

God set Israel to the side because of their disobedience and hard stubborn hearts, He has blinded them to His truths but has kept a remnant for Himself for the end of days.

God called the Church to be His priest to the world through the complete work of Christ through His life, death and burial and resurrection from the dead and ascension into heaven. He has called us to be set apart to obey His word and to take the gospel to the world.

We can see what happened to Israel for their spiritual pride, and disobedience but we do not see that we the Church are following the same path.

It is time that the Church get back to repentance and obedience, that we stand on the word of God, out of love not throwing down the law as a weapon but using it in our lives and to others to show that there is a  need for forgiveness and God has taken care of how we may be reconciled to Him and made to be with Him through Christ.

Take God at His word, trust Him and obey Him not in word alone but in every aspect of your life.

God will not be mocked, if we live outside of His ways and will, we are taking His name in vain, and that will not go unpunished.

Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”

Exodus 19:5-6

So put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.  As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”  So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,”  and “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense.” They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.  But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.  Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.

1 Peter 2:1-11 ESV

“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

Exodus 20:7 ESV

Lingering in sin.

Sin, a word we are all familiar with. But it is more than a word it is a heart condition. It is a silent killer that daily destroys lives, marriages, and families

It dwells in each of us, we are born with it by nature and there is only one cure. Jesus Christ and His atonement, redemption and reconciliation with God the Father through Faith and Grace.

But we are resistant and we are stubborn and hooked on our sins. Like Lot in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, we want to stay where we are we linger when God says run, we negotiate with sinful desires when God says to stay away, we are blinded by our desire to please our selfish ways.

Read Genesis 19 today look at the entire picture here of how far sin will take a person, at some point people go beyond response and God turns them over to their gods, themselves.

Are you lingering around a certain sin today that God has told you to flee from? No matter how big or small it is , sin will hold you back from what God is doing, it will take you further than you ever thought you would go, and it will leave you for dead once it has used you as it's slave.

Then the men said to Lot, “Have you anyone else here? Sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or anyone you have in the city, bring them out of the place. For we are about to destroy this place, because the outcry against its people has become great before the Lord , and the Lord has sent us to destroy it.” As morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be swept away in the punishment of the city.” But he lingered. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city. And as they brought them out, one said, “Escape for your life. Do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley. Escape to the hills, lest you be swept away.” And Lot said to them, “Oh, no, my Lords. Behold, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have shown me great kindness in saving my life. But I cannot escape to the hills, lest the disaster overtake me and I die.

Genesis 19:12-13, 15-19

What is your favorite sin?

What is your favorite sin? Is it big or little? Is it doubt, fear, gossip, lying, stealing, anger, lust, murder, pride, oh the list could go on forever.

Each of us are born into a sin nature, but in Christ we are not held there anymore. When we sin we choose to, and each of us are hounded by different sins, yet they all come from the same place, our wicked ways, we choose nothing and no one makes us except our own pride and selfishness.

But scripture is clear, about sin. Being one with Christ we pull Him into our sin, the bible says He who knew no sin became sin, that means every time we sin we are just as responsible for the death of Christ as those who stood and yelled crucify Him.

Knowing this when given the opportunity to make the right choice will you pull Christ with you into your sins for a moment of self seeking pleasure , or will you look to Him for help and ask Him to lead you from temptations and deliver you from evil?

He leaves this up to each of us, we must choose to trust and obey or keep looking the other way when we take Him back to our sins.

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never!

1 Corinthians 6:15

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

Galatians 3:27

and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.

1 Corinthians 3:23

From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

Living a life in the power of love

When we learn to live for our Lord Jesus from a stand point of love ;we will understand that our relationship with Him is not based on what we do, but how much Jesus loves us.

We get trapped in doing something to be loved many of us get caught here, when this happens our motives get skewed. And we focus on ourselves instead of Jesus.

God can never love you more than He did when He sent Jesus to live amongst us, and take our punishment for our sins,

Romans 5:6-8 HCSB

For while we were still helpless, at the appointed moment,  Christ died for the ungodly. For rarely will someone die for a just person — though for a good person perhaps someone might even dare to die. But God proves  His own love for us  in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us!

Do not let the enemy confuse you with noise, listen for the voice of God, He loves you, He always has loved you, and if you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth and call upon Him you shall be saved.

Start living today knowing you're already loved and cannot earn God's love you just need to accept it. Humble yourself and submit your life to Him.

1 Peter 5:6-11 HCSB

Humble  yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand  of God, so that He may exalt you at the proper time,   casting all your care on Him, because He cares about you. Be serious!  Be alert!  Your adversary the Devil  is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour. Resist him  and be firm in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are being experienced by your fellow believers throughout the world. Now the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory  in Christ Jesus, will personally  restore, establish, strengthen, and support you after you have suffered a little.   The dominion  belongs to Him forever.  Amen.