What if?

Andrew Murray wrote this many years ago "You are in this straight place by Divine appointment." Second, he said, "You are here in His keeping. He will keep you by His grace and love in this situation." Third, Murray said, "You are here for His training and discipline. God wants to stretch you, to build you up, and He has brought you to this trial to test you by fire." Finally, he said, "You are here in His time. You don't know how long you'll be here, or what your future will hold, but this is where God wants you now."

What if you and I approached every trial we face with these precepts in mind?

What if we viewed every hardship as His perfect plan for us?

Murray also said, "If there were any circumstance better for you than the one in which you find yourself, Divine Love would have placed you there."

That gives our trials a whole new meaning, doesn't it? If you are experiencing a time of difficulty right now, ask God to give you wisdom to see your situation the way He sees it. His aim is that you and I grow up. Trials are our ticket out of complacency and mediocrity. When we struggle, we grow. Like Job, we can be certain that the outcome of our pain will be a stronger, purer faith.

The Apostle Paul wrote this over 2000 years ago, how true these words are still today.

Romans 5:1-5 HCSB

Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith,  we have peace  with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.   We have also obtained access through Him  by faith  into this grace in which we stand,  and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. And not only that,  but we also rejoice in our afflictions,  because we know that affliction produces endurance,   endurance produces proven character,  and proven character produces hope. This hope will not disappoint us,  because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts  through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

God still dwells amongst His children

The Ark of the Covenant represented God's presence among his people, and His pure holiness. Though the actual ark is lost , today sadly we have lost what it represented as well.

We have lost the sense of God's holy presence among His people. Nothing is sacred anymore. Sexual immortality, and a culture of death rule our airways for ratings, ordinary people, politicians and celebrities mock God openly by words and deeds. We have lost almost all reverence of God that is critical to our very survival.

God dwells within His children, we are to have the same respect and awe of God as Israel had for the Ark of the Covenant, but like Israel we have almost lost it,we need to bring back the awe of God to our land, to recover our sense of the sacred.

We must repent, confessing our sin to the living God who makes ethical requirements of us. When we return to Him with our whole heart, acknowledging His authority over us.

Then we must remove the foreign gods from among us. That's right. "Little-g" deities like the god of comfort, the god of beauty, the god of gain and ease and activity all of these must go if the awe of God is to return. Then we are to serve God only, and God alone. He is not to be just a part of our lives, but our entire lives, He is to be involved in every endeavor, every relationship, every dream and desire.

Romans 14:7-9, 11-12 HCSB For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself. If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. Christ died and came to life for this: that He might rule over both the dead and the living. For it is written: As I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow to Me, and every tongue will give praise to God. So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.

What is truth?

Absolute Truth has been declared politically incorrect, morality is defined by politicians instead of God in our society today.

But there is a cry today in out families, our churches, and our communities for moral authority.

We need to turn back to the Bible , the Bible is and always has been the source to which we can look and say with confidence, "This is right," or "This is wrong."

You and I need authority in our lives.
And as we live among foriegners, we need it more than ever. I believe the Bible the Word of God is that authority we need. It is infallible. Even if others who call themselves brothers or sisters fall away we who believe must be steadfast and immovable when it comes to God's word. It's precepts give us a place to stand, and a foundation for right living that is unshakeable and true.

2Timothy  3:1-7, 9, 12-17 HCSB
But know this: Difficult times will come in the last days. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, without love for what is good, traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to the form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid these people! For among them are those who worm their way into households and capture idle women burdened down with sins, led along by a variety of passions, always learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. But they will not make further progress, for their lack of understanding will be clear to all, as theirs was also. In fact, all those who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Evil people and impostors will become worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed. You know those who taught you, and you know that from childhood you have known the sacred Scriptures, which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Stations on the road to freedom

Fear is a prison we are held captive in by choice, fear is the enemy of faith.

This from a sermon Dietrich Bonhoeffer preached about being free of fear.

" No one has yet believed in God and the kingdom of God, nor has one  yet heard about the realm of the resurrected and not been homesick from that hour, waiting and looking forward joyfully to being released from bodily existence.

Whether we are young or old makes no difference. What are twenty or thirty or fifty years in the sight of God? And which of us knows how near he or she is to the goal?

That life really only begins when it ends here on earth, that all here is only the prologue before the curtain goes up-that is for the young and the old alike to think about.

Why are we so afraid when we think about death?

Death is only dreadful for those who live in dread and fear of it.
Death is not wild and terrible, if only we can be still and hold fast to God's word.

Death is not bitter, if we have not become bitter ourselves death is grace, the greatest gift of grace that God gives to people who believe in Him. Death is mild, death is sweet, it beckons us with heavenly power, if only we realize that it is the gateway to our homeland, the tabernacle of joy, the everlasting Kingdom of peace.

How do we know that dying is so dreadful?

Who knows whether, in our human fear and anguish we are only shivering and shuddering at the most glorious, heavenly, blessed event in the world?

Death is hell and night and cold, if it is not transformed by our faith. But that is just what is so marvelous that we can transform death."

1 Corinthians 15:50-58 HCSB

Brothers, I tell you this: Flesh  and blood  cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and corruption cannot inherit incorruption. Listen! I am telling you a mystery: We will not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the blink of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed. For this corruptible must be clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal must be clothed with immortality. When this corruptible is clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal is clothed with immortality, then the saying that is written will take place: Death has been swallowed up  in victory.   Death, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting?   Now the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin  is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! Therefore, my dear brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the Lord’s work,  knowing that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

Do not be decieved

In our America deception has become the norm, very few seek the truth. We feel by denying the truth we are somehow not going to be held accountable for knowing it. 

Those who call themselves Christians are by far living by this standard, it comes down to spiritual pride. The same thing that Judah and Israel suffered from believing God would not punish them like the world for they are His chosen people.

Be not deceived God is not mocked whatever a man sows he shall reap.
Is what God says.

The hardest to reach sometimes is those who are spiritual prideful who go to church and think they are good. But like Israel and Judah God knows our hearts. He is giving warnings to the church first in America, before judgment.

Jeremiah 9:1-6 HCSB

If my head were a spring of water, my eyes a fountain of tears, I would weep day and night over the slain of my dear people. If only I had a traveler’s lodging place in the wilderness, I would abandon my people and depart from them, for they are all adulterers, a solemn assembly of treacherous people. They bent their tongues like their bows; lies and not faithfulness prevail in the land, for they proceed from one evil to another, and they do not take Me into account. This is the Lord ’s declaration. Everyone has to be on guard against his friend. Don’t trust any brother, for every brother will certainly deceive, and every friend spread slander. Each one betrays his friend; no one tells the truth. They have taught their tongues to speak lies; they wear themselves out doing wrong. You live in a world of deception. In their deception they refuse to know Me. This is the Lord ’s declaration.

The dark hours

The hour is late. Our nation is, in the the clutches of the days of Noah. We can no longer sit back comfortably and say, "There's always been a crisis in the world. Today is no different. Our society will go on, and our country is basically strong." Those who do so are only kidding themselves. 

We are at a late hour in our history. We are nearer to the coming of our Lord than we have ever been before. His return is the last great event yet to come before the curtain of time is brought down. In this world of darkness, we are to be a light to those around us. Only God knows the hour, and His return is certain and irreversible.

As in the days of Noah God is leaving the door of the Ark open, He let it stay open 7 days after it was completed and the animals and Noah and his family were on board. None entered , none believed until God shut the door and the water fell from the sky and rose from the earth. Then they all believed but it was too late. Don't wait another day, to enter into the glory of salvation through Jesus Christ.

Genesis 7:4-5, 7, 10 HCSB

Seven days from now I will make it rain on the earth 40 days and 40 nights, and I will wipe off from the face of the earth every living thing I have made.” And Noah did everything that the Lord commanded him. So Noah, his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives entered the ark because of the waters of the flood. Seven days later the waters of the flood came on the earth.

Luke 17:22-27 HCSB

Then He told the disciples: “The days are coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you won’t see it. They will say to you, ‘Look there! ’ or ‘Look here! ’ Don’t follow or run after them. For as the lightning flashes from horizon to horizon and lights up the sky, so the Son of Man will be in His day. But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man: People went on eating, drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day Noah boarded the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.

Christianity or Religion

Religion is discovered, Christianity is revealed, the revelation of Christianity is that we become like Christ and our lives reflect the very essence of who He is.

2 Corinthians 2:14-17 HCSB

But thanks be to God, who always puts us on display in Christ and through us spreads the aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. For to God we are the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.

To some we are an aroma of death leading to death, but to others, an aroma of life leading to life. And who is competent for this?

For we are not like the many who market God’s message for profit. On the contrary, we speak with sincerity in Christ, as from God and before God.