“Jesus said unto them, My meat (food) is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work.”
In John 4, while Jesus ministered to the Samaritan woman at the well at Sychar, Jesus’ disciples went into the city to get food. When they returned, they asked Jesus to eat and He told them that He had “meat to eat that you know not of.” Jesus added that His food was doing the will of the Father. Not only did Jesus do His Father’s will, He has called us to do the same. We need to ask ourselves how carefully we follow God’s will for our lives – or if we even think about it. It is important that we know and do God’s will for our lives. God wants us to know and to do His will. God called upon people in the Bible to do His will. Abraham left his native Ur of the Chaldees in order to obey God’s will for his life. Moses left a comfortable shepherd’s job in Media to lead Israel out of Egypt because it was God’s will for his life. Moses was initially reluctant, but he did it anyway. We could cite many times in the Bible when people did God’s will, but we must remember that doing God’s will wasn’t just for people in the Bible. Both Abraham and Moses were flesh and blood people like we are, but they surrendered to God’s will. We should do the same. In His “Model Prayer” in Matthew 6:10, Jesus prayed: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." All of us should pray for God’s will to be done, not just in a general sense, but in reference to our own lives. Jesus is the prime example of doing God’s will. We not only have the statement that He made in John 4, but we also have His prayer in Gethsemane, where He prayed: “…nevertheless not my will but your will be done.” Because of the will of the Father, Jesus did what was necessary for our salvation. All of this being true, we should take God’s will for our lives seriously as well. We need to know and do God’s will for our lives. The first step is for us to know God’s will for us. It is as simple as asking God what His will for you is. He will give you an answer in your heart and mind. Jesus knows what His will is for you, and He is ready to let you know what it is. Perhaps you need to know that He wants you to teach a certain Sunday School class, sing in the choir or be the outreach leader in your church. You just need to ask Jesus what He wants of you and listen with heart, mind and soul. The next step for us is to do God’s will for our lives. Obviously, it is not enough just to know what God’s will is. We must put hands, feet, hearts and minds to that knowledge and actually do God’s will. I remember that when I had to make a public decision concerning my call to the ministry, I was so nervous that my hands were sweating. I don’t recall a lot of what the preacher said that day in his sermon, because I knew that in order to do God’s will I had to take the next step. I knew that when I made that decision, my life would change and the way that people viewed me would change. There would be no turning back. That was fifty-three years ago, and I still remember the nervousness and excitement of following through on God’s will for my life. To be in God’s will, I had to do what I had to do. Though God’s will for you might not be as radical for you as it was for me, it will still be the same for you. Determine that once you know God’s will, you will do whatever it is. Are you presently living in God’s will for your life? Is what you do each day in your life now God’s will for your life? Reflect for a few moments on what you just read. Are you ready to do God’s will for your life? Bro. Joe
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“….The Spirit also helps our infirmities: for we know not what we should Pray for as we ought: but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”
We hear a lot about power today. We have power politics, power plays in sports and business, and in many churches. “Power” is a good Bible word. Our main power concern is the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 8:26 gives us a good picture of the power of the Holy Spirit at work in our lives. I want to illustrate His power in our lives by giving examples of it, e.g., we depend on the power of the Holy Spirit for our salvation, and we are enabled to live the Christian life by the power of the Holy Spirit. The power of the Holy Spirit enables us to be saved. The Holy Spirit convicts us that we are sinners in need of a Savior. We are not equipped to see ourselves as lost in sin. The Holy Spirit alone is able to help us see this truth. The Holy Spirit convicts us of our need for Jesus as our Savior. After convicting us, He invites us to come to Jesus. Revelation 22:17 reveals this: “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And; let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely." People come to Jesus because they have been drawn by the Holy Spirit, and because they surrendered to Him. He is the final persuader, not the witness or the preacher. When a person is saved, we cannot claim that we did it. It was the work of the Holy Spirit. It really aggravates me when I hear someone say that it was brother so and so who saved them. We take the people to the water fountain, but the Holy Spirit allows us to drink “the water of life freely.” The power of the Holy Spirit enables us to live an authentic Christian life. The power of the Holy Spirit enables one to have a Christian disposition. Paul mentioned the nine-fold fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance.” We do not intrinsically have these attributes; they are given to us by the Holy Spirit. The power of the Holy Spirit enables us to have a deep and powerful prayer life. (Look at Romans 8:26 above.) We sometimes get this turned around, and for this reason we need to remember that we do not direct the Holy Spirit when we pray, but we follow His direction. The power of the Holy Spirit enables us to live a holy life. Every person has a sinful nature and because of this they tend to resist the power of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes we just do what we want to do. Only the Holy Spirit can keep us from living according to our sinful nature. If we try to live the Christian life on our own power, we are bound to be defeated. The power of the Holy Spirit enables us to understand the deeper things of God. In 2 Corinthians 2, Paul informed us that we are not able to understand the deeper things of God, but they are known because of the Holy Spirit – period. There are many things that the Holy Spirit does not reveal to us about God. If He did, we would not be able to understand Him. He does, however, let us know what we need to know.” If we know anything about God, it is by the power of the Holy Spirit, not our own mental power. The power of the Holy Spirit enables us to witness. Acts 1:8 plainly teaches that before we can witness, we need to be empowered by the Holy Spirit. He reveals to us, “But you shall receive power after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you: and you shall be witnesses unto me…” We should lean on and depend on the power of the Holy Spirit in all aspects of our lives. Bro. Joe “Take heed, you senseless ones among the people; you fools when will you become wise? 9. Does He who implanted the ear not hear? Does He who formed the eye not see? 10. Does He who disciplines nations not punish? Does He who teaches man lack knowledge. 11. The Lord knows the thoughts of man; He knows that they are futile.”
As this text informs us, people’s ignorance of the knowledge of God is not a new thing. It really makes sense when you think about it that the God who created the ear can hear, and that the God who created the eye can see. Surely, we understand that the God, who is all-knowing, knows what is going on in the world and in our lives. I think that millions of people today are oblivious to the fact that God is aware of what is going on in their lives. God, indeed, knows what is going on. This is a warning, but it is not altogether bad news. God is aware of every detail of our lives because He cares about what is going on in our lives. Jesus illustrated this over and over again in the four gospels as He preached, healed, and ministered to people. Sometimes He even told people what they were thinking, and it was always for their good. The Bible points out that God is aware of the sinfulness of people, and that He judges sin, but it also points out that God loves us in spite of the fact that He knows everything about us. The rich young man in Mark 10 who asked Jesus how he could have eternal life, was told that he would need to sell everything that he had, give it to the poor and come follow Jesus. The young man could not do that. Jesus knew what his decision would be, but the Bible tells us in Mark 10:21 that, “Jesus beholding him, loved him." This doesn’t mean that Jesus didn’t care that the young man refused to do what He told him to do, but it does mean that Jesus loved him. God knows everything about us, but He does not badger us. He gives us freedom. For example, when God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and told Adam not to eat the forbidden fruit, He did not put a high fence around the tree, nor did He place it so high on the tree that they could not reach it. He simply told them not to eat it and what would happen if they did. Adam and Eve disobeyed God and paid a steep price for it. God gives us freedom of thought and deed, but He exacts a price for our disobedience. We need to watch our thoughts and actions because God is aware of what is going on in our minds and hearts and in our lives. The good news here is that while God exacts a price for our sins, He also is willing to forgive us for our sins. When we misuse our freedom and disobey God, He does not cast us away forever. He longs for us to repent and to seek His forgiveness. What I am trying to relate here is something that I have written in these pages before, and that is that God wants the best for us. He wants us to surrender our wills to His will and live in obedience to Him. He is always ready to forgive us. That is why He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus, to die as a sacrifice for our sins. I don’t know where you are in your relationship with God at the present time, but I do know that God wants you to “draw near to Him and He will draw near to you.” (James 4:8) Many people today are “deists” in their thinking about God. A deist is one who believes that there is a God, but that He does not care about us, and that He is oblivious to what is going on in our lives. Deists believe that God created the world, put things into motion and went His own way. I guess He just disappeared into the universe. This is not what the Bible teaches us about God. Throughout the Bible we are made aware that God is involved in His world, and that He is involved in our lives. It is really true that God knows what is going on. Bro. Joe “I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
Paul wrote the church in Galatia to keep them from falling prey to the “judaizers,” who taught that one had to become a Jew before one could accept Christ as Savior. This meant that one was saved by keeping the laws of Moses, and for all practical purposes, saved by works instead of by the grace of God. Our text is Paul’s alternative to being saved by keeping the law. He could not save himself by keeping the law. He needed salvation as a gift of God. In Galatians 2:20 Paul gave what I will call components of salvation by grace. The first component is crucifixion. Paul wrote: “I have been crucified with Christ.” When we are saved, the old person dies and is buried. Baptism is a symbol of the death and burial of the old person. Look at Romans 6:3-4a: “Know you not that as many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death? Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism unto death…” This death, called “the death of the old person,” was certainly evident in Paul’s life after his conversion. After his Damascus Road experience in Acts 9, Paul was definitely not the same person. The old “Saul of Tarsus” who hated Christians and who spewed out venom toward Christians, was now preaching the Christ that he had hated. By the grace of God, the old Saul became Paul the apostle, and subsequently became the most effective preacher of the gospel in all of Christian history. This death should be evident in our lives as well. I hate to think of what my life would be like now if I had not been crucified with Christ. Think of your own life in this way, and thank God for His grace that “crucified” the old person and made you into a new person in Christ. Mosaic Law, or legalism, could not have killed the old person that you were. By grace we don’t just “turn over a new leaf,” rather we become new in Christ. (When you“turn a leaf over ”all you have is the other side of the same leaf.) Romans 6:6 points out this truth: “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.” The second component is resurrection. Paul wrote: “Nevertheless, I live…” The death of the old person is not the complete picture. When the old person dies, a new person emerges, i.e., a spiritual resurrection takes place. This is illustrated in 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold all things have become new.” As crucifixion is symbolized by baptism, resurrection is also symbolized. Romans 6:4b: “That like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” We have been made new, resurrected, by the grace of God, which means that we didn’t earn it, or deserve it, but we got it anyway. The third component is incarnation. Paul wrote: “Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of god, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” We have literally“infleshed” (incarnated) Christ in our lives through the Holy Spirit. Keeping the law could not have accomplished this – only the grace of God. “And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God.” We are not only saved by grace through faith; we live by faith in Christ. If you have been saved by grace, you have “infleshed” Christ and you have a life to live for Him. Don’t ever be led into legalism, for it is a dead-end street. You have much more than the law can give you. The old you died and the new you has been raised to “newness of life.” Bro. Joe “May our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who loved us and by His grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, 17. Encourage your heart and strengthen you in every good word and deed.”
Some verses in the New Testament paint a portrait for us about our relationship with Jesus Christ. 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17 does this for us. Let’s put our brush to the canvas and see what comes of it. We have a relationship with Jesus because of God’s love for us. God’s love for us through Jesus is a fact that cannot be removed from the portrait. Without God’s love for us, none of what we have in Jesus would be possible. John reminds us of this truth in 1 John 4:9-10: “In this was manifested (revealed) the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. 10. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to the propitiation for our sins.” The big word “propitiation” reminds us that Christ took our sins upon Himself on the cross, making it possible for us to be saved. The conclusion that you must come to at this point is that God loves you. We have a relationship with Jesus because of God’s grace. A good definition of grace is that we don’t deserve His love and the salvation that God gives through Christ, but He gives it to us anyway. Without grace we would be eternally lost. The Bible tells us that not a one of us is good enough to be saved on our own. Jesus died on the cross for us in order for us to be able to live for Him now and spend eternity with Him in the future. He did this not because we deserved it, but because we needed it. Don’t ever underestimate the power of God’s grace. Thank Him for His grace, because without it you could not have a relationship with Jesus Christ. We have a relationship with Jesus for encouragement and hope. When we accept Jesus by faith into our lives, He sends His Spirit to live within us who gives us encouragement and hope. Life can be tough sometimes, and it surely was for the Thessalonians because of the persecution that they were experiencing. We have tough times too, and they will get tougher, but because of our relationship with Christ we should not despair and give up. The KJV translates encouragement as “consolation.” I love that word because it tells us that in encouraging us, God consoles us by His presence day-by-day no matter what is going on in our lives. I know that the world situation looks bleak to us today, but we are not hopeless and we are not without encouragement and consolation. Satan wants to discourage us and make us give up because of opposition to the glorious gospel that we believe in and serve. Don’t let him get by with that. Even in the midst of the bleakness of the unbelieving world, Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, encourages us and gives us hope. Apply this to your life. It is not a wish; it is a fact! We have a relationship with Jesus, so that we can be strengthened “in every good word and deed.” The presence of Jesus in our lives assures us that we have God’s strength in our lives, and that He will strengthen us in what we say and what we do. According to Ephesians 2:10, we have been saved by grace through faith, and have become “His workmanship created through Christ Jesus, unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” Jesus makes a difference in what we say and do. There is our portrait of our relationship with Christ.. Believe it! Bro. Joe “Be not thou afraid when one is made rich, when the glory of his house is increased; 17. For when he dieth he shall carry nothing away: his glory shall not descend after him.” (Beauchamp translation: “He can’t take it with him…”)
Echoing the above text, Job said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will leave this life. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, praise the name of the Lord.” Job 1:21 (CSB) The Christian comedian, Dennis Swanberg said: “Here’s a simple test: if you can see it, it’s not going to last. The things that last are the things you cannot see.” The great figure of the Reformation, Martin Luther, wrote: “Many things I have tried to grasp and have lost. That which I have placed in God’s hands I still have.” The point here is that there is nothing that you can amass in this world that you can take to the grave or to your eternal destiny with you. One of my favorite sayings is that: “You never see a U-Haul behind a hearse.” Two men were talking about one of the men’s wealthy relatives who had died. The friend was asked, “How much did he leave?” His answer was, “all of it.” I want you to stop and think about this with me: When we die, it will not matter what kind of clothes they bury us in. It will not matter what kind of house we lived in, whether a mansion or a hovel. It will not matter whether we were considered winners or losers. It will not matter whether we were rich or poor. The only thing that will matter is whether or not Jesus Christ was our Savior. Some of you might not agree with this, if you do not believe in Jesus or in the Christian faith. In all candor I will tell you that I would not take your place for all of the wealth in the world. If I should be proved wrong, I would have nothing to lose. If you are proved wrong, you have everything to lose. The stuff that we accumulate here will lose its significance to us if we will just stop and think of how temporary it is. I read about a preacher who had been in the ministry for over fifty years. He had all of the paraphernalia of those years in the ministry stored in his basement. This would include sermon notes, records of marriages and funerals, awards that he had received, etc. One day a water pipe burst in his basement and everything stored there was totally destroyed. He wrote that he sat on the basement stairs and looked at the mess and cried. As he did this he began to think about what had really counted in all of these years of ministering to people. He decided that all that he had lost in the basement was just “stuff.” It was stuff that he had accumulated, but the fact that it was destroyed by water proved that it was not eternal. What really counted was all of the people who had become Christians during his ministry. What really counted was all the lives that God had used him to touch through personal ministry, e.g. preaching, teaching, weddings, funerals, etc. He was then able to drain the water from the basement and clean up the mess without a great deal of regret. He just realized that if he could hold it in his hands and call it “his,” it was not eternal and would not go with him to heaven. Thinking of this, I remembered that no one has ever come up to me years after I left their church and said, “Bro. Joe I will always remember the second point of that gem of a sermon that you preached thirty years ago.” What they do remember, and were blessed by, was that I was there, for example, when their father died, or when they were having problems in their family and I came and prayed with them, or when I witnessed to their children and they accepted Jesus as their Savior. These are the things that are “written up” in eternity. What is the “stuff” that you hold so dear to your heart? They might be precious family heirlooms, or expensive baubles, but you cannot take them with you when you go. It's like the fellow mentioned above when asked how much his wealthy relative left when he died sad, “all of it.” Exactly!!!! Think about it. Bro. Joe “Yet now, if you will forgive their sin: and if not blot me, I pray thee, out of your book which you have written.”
The text verse came at the culmination of the rebellion of the Israelites that God had delivered from Egypt. While Moses was on Mt. Horeb receiving orders from the Lord, especially the Ten Commandments, the Israelites thought that he had forsaken them. Because of this they had Aaron, Moses’ older brother, build them an idol of gold. Then they began to have a wild party with all that worship of idols entails. God told Moses that he would destroy these people and start over with him. This would mean that the covenant would no longer be with Abraham, but with Moses. Moses refused this honor. (You can read about it in Exodus 32:9-14.) Moses went down from Horeb or Sinai into the camp and dealt with the situation. It was after this that Moses made the statement in Exodus 32:32. What I see in this is that Moses really and truly loved these people in spite of their rebelliousness. I want to take a look at this love, and recommend that we learn from it. The first thing I noticed is that Moses loved these people in spite of their rebelliousness. This was not the first time that they had rebelled against Moses. They murmured and complained all along the way. One would think that this incident at Horeb would have been the last straw for Moses, but it wasn’t. Moses was called of God to lead these people to the Promised Land, and he intended to see it through to the end. The only conclusion that I can come to is that Moses loved and revered God enough to know that this whole thing was not about him but about what God was doing with His people. No matter how hard-headed and hard-hearted they were, Moses loved them anyway. Think about it: This is how Jesus loves us and how He wants us to love others. As The old saying goes: “It ain’t easy," but if it means carrying out God’s purpose for our lives, we should learn to love people in spite of themselves, even as Moses did. The second thing I noticed is that Moses' love for them did not mean that he wasn’t aggravated with them and that he would not discipline them. We call this "tough love" today. In verses 19-20, Moses burned the golden calf up, had it ground into powder, put it in the water and made the Israelites drink it. Love that is truly God’s kind of love does not just look at sin and think that it does not matter. It is not God’s kind of love if we just wink at sin – other's sins or our own--as if sin doesn’t matter. What Moses did might have seemed harsh, but I think that it was done out of love to make them realize the consequences of their actions. This is how God disciplines us. (If you think that was harsh, read verses 26-28.) We do not do ourselves, or others, any favor by ignoring that sin is a stench in the nostrils of God. Real love will try to remedy the situation, beginning with our own lives. The third thing that I noticed is that the Israelites must have known that all that Moses did was out of love, because they did not rebel against him in this matter. I mean they outnumbered Moses three million to one, but they sensed that Moses was chosen of God, and that he only had their best interests at heart. When we truly love people, they know that we love them, and they will respond to that love positively. I want you to get the point here: When we love people with God’s kind of love, we don’t have to compromise our biblical standards to make them love us. It is only when we deal with people out of hatred and bitterness that they will ignore us. Let’s commit ourselves to love people like Moses loved the Israelites. Bro. Joe “Serve the Lord with gladness; come before His presence with singing.
When we accepted Christ as our Savior, we became servants of God. Paul often referred to himself as a servant of God. In fact, the Greek word that is usually translated “servant” is "doulos," which can also be translated as slave. There are a lot of things that we serve in this world, but our greatest service should be for the Lord. We can perform His service while doing all of the other things that we have to do in life, because we are His servants wherever we are. What I want to consider in this article are some things that we need to know since we are His servants. Why do we serve God? This question can be answered in several different ways. First, we serve God because He is God, and He has called us to be His servants. When I use the word “called” I am not referring to a call into full time ministry, but all Christians are called to serve Him in every aspect of life. When we call Him “Lord,” we mean that He has dominion over our lives. Second, we serve God because of His great love for us. Throughout the Bible, particularly in the New Testament, we are reminded that God loves us. The greatest proof of God’s love for us is that He sent His Son, Jesus, to die for our sins. Jesus was God incarnate, God in the flesh, and he called people to serve Him. It is because of God’s love for us that we can be saved and serve God. Third, we serve God because it is the greatest fulfillment that we have as Christians. What I mean is that we are God’s servants in everything that we do. We do not just serve Him at church, or through the church, but we are His servants at work, at school, on vacation, wherever we are. We find fulfillment in every aspect and detail of our lives because we are servants of the God who loved us enough to become man and die as a perfect sacrifice for our sins. How do we serve God? First, Psalm 100:2 informs us that we are to “serve the Lord with gladness.” In our vernacular we would say “serve the Lord joyfully.” Serving God is not odious service. It is not something that we dread, but something that gives new meaning to our lives. Serving Him gives us a clearer vision of why we are on this earth for the brief time that we are here. In Matthew 11:28-30 Jesus said: “Come unto me all you who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. 29. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest unto your souls. 30. for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Jesus calls us to rest by serving in His yoke, which is an instrument of service. Second, we serve Him in large part by serving people. Think of the service of Jesus when He was on this earth. Everything that Jesus did had to do with people. We serve people by loving them, ministering to them, praying for them and showing them the love of God. We do not have to have a program to serve people in the name of Jesus. We just need to be loving, helpful people who are led by the Holy Spirit. Third, we serve Him willingly. We do not begrudge what we do for Him. When do we serve God? First, we serve Him wherever we are. Being God’s servant is to never forget that we are His servants in whatever we are doing. For example, you are aware of a person in your community who is lonely and depressed. You can serve God by befriending that person in some way. Serving God is not always that simple, but quite often it is. Second, we serve Him by paying attention to the Holy Spirit’s leadership in our lives. He will make it plain to us when there is a need for us to minister to. Third, we can serve Him through His church. There are many things that need to be done at your church and you can seek God’s will for whatever it is that He would have you do there. All of this, and more, is what it means to be a servant of God. Bro. Joe “The eternal God is our refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms: and He shall thrust out the enemy from before you, and shall say destroy them.”
You are probably familiar with this text. Its context is a message to the Jews by Moses as they were nearing the time that they would get to the Promised Land. It was God’s assurance that He would see that they were able to take the land. That is the immediate context of the text, but we can also apply it to our lives, for God still looks out for His people. It is a great promise that I quote to myself many times when I really feel the need for God’s help. Let’s see what a great promise it is. It promises us that the “eternal God is our refuge.” The American Century Dictionary defines refuge as “shelter from pursuit, danger or trouble.” It is good to know that when we have problems in this life we can take them to God and find refuge in Him. David had the right idea about this in Psalm 23:4: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me, your rod and your staff they comfort me.” God is our refuge as we walk through the crises of life. Many times He will escort us around them, but He also often takes us through them and makes us stronger in the long run. I know that it is a comfort to me when I am going through hard times to know that I can find refuge in God and that He will be with me in whatever I have to deal with. Of course, there are those times when He will just come to our rescue and take us around the hard times. I think that the spirit of the text is caught in Psalm 57:1: “Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusts in you: yea, in the shadow of your wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast.” When you are facing life’s difficulties run to God, run to Jesus and you will find refuge in Him. Deuteronomy 33:27 promises us that when we seek God’s refuge, we find that “underneath are the everlasting arms." In other words, the Lord is our safety net. We don’t ever need to fear that we will be without that safety net, for His are “everlasting arms.” That means that there is nothing that can keep God from catching us. We will never have to worry that He will be asleep, that He will ignore us, or that He will be indifferent toward what we are encountering in our lives. We will have to encounter hard times in this life, but we will always have our safety net. It is good to know that even when we are very ill, God’s everlasting arms are there to catch us. In 2011/2012 as I was going through cancer and the treatments for cancer, I felt those “everlasting arms” as I’ve never felt them in my life. I think that I felt more secure in my faith than I ever have in my life. There are times that the presence of God is so vivid that it is almost like He is sitting next to us. I would not want to be one of those people who say that they do not need God, or that they don’t trust that Jesus can save or help them. We, who claim Christ as our savior, should thank God every day for His “everlasting arms.” How can we know that He will catch us in those arms? Well, because He promised this and because He is real and His “everlasting arms” are real. Deuteronomy 33:27 promises that He will “thrust out the enemy before us.” In our case, the main enemy that we face is Satan. As Peter wrote in 1 Peter 4:8: “Be sober, be vigilant: because your adversary the devil walks about, like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” Only God can be our defense against this powerful enemy. In Ephesians 6:11 Paul reminds us to “put on the whole armor of God that you might be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” (You can read about the armor in Ephesians 6:11-18.) The great promise of Deuteronomy 33:27 is that we are not alone, for God is ever-present in our lives to watch over us and be our refuge. Take God at His word and trust Him. Bro. Joe “Now if any of you lack wisdom, he should ask God, who gives to all generously and without criticizing, and it will be given to him.” CSB
James 1:5 tells us something about God that we need to know: He is interested in us and wants to give generously to us. Perhaps you are one of those people, of whom there are many, who have given up on the God of the Bible. You might be asking, without realizing it, “What has He done for me lately?” It could be that you have been convinced by the world that He does not exist, and if He does exist, He doesn’t matter. It could be that you are a believer who is just jaded by the trials of life and just feel that God is distant from you. You can’t read James 1:5 and believe that God is indifferent about your life. The text made me think about some things about God/Jesus that I want to share with you. Hopefully, these thoughts will help you to either look at God, as He has been revealed through Jesus in a different light, or that you will rejoice in the fact that you know Him. Either way you will be blessed. First, there is the fact that God loves us. John 3:16 tells us this: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Look at the words that I underlined. “For God so loved the world" means the people of the world. You probably remember the old chorus: “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world.” (He loves the adults of the world too.) This simple little chorus reminds us that God’s love reaches out to every person in the world. If you have not discovered His love, it is time that you did. Someone wrote: “When we lift our hearts to God, we open ourselves to a never-ending source of divine wisdom and infinite love.” I cannot convince you that God loves you, only the Holy Spirit can do that. If you want to realize God’s love for you, lift your heart to Him and you will know His love. Second, is the fact that God is available to us? One of the most important things about the Yahweh of the Bible is that He is not remote from His creation. Throughout the Bible we see Him reaching out to people, making His great love and power available to them. Also, throughout the Bible, we see people running away from God, not really believing in His availability. It is difficult for us to understand a God Who is everywhere all at the same time. He can bless someone in Japan at the same time that He is blessing someone in the USA. The wonderful fact is that God is always only a prayer away. He is available to enter your life to save you for all eternity. He is available to help you through all of the trials of life. Third, He will be our ultimate judge. No matter what people think of us, it is more important for us to consider what God thinks of us. The Bible says that, “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” (Hebrews 9:27) We are accountable to Him for how we live our lives. You can ignore God, but you cannot ignore the fact that He is interested in your life, and that He wants to be a part of your life. This is what Jesus is all about. Consider these things about God and give your life to the God who loves you, is available to you and to whom you are accountable. If you have given your life to God, rejoice in His great love and care. Bro. Joe |
AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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