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Saturday, August 23, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
Divine Escape
2 Timothy 3:11
I teased you a little with the title. There is no escape from life except through the will of God. And since He is an Omniscient, Omnipresent, Omnipotent being, He ultimately knows what is best in all situations. However, if you have been like me, you do agree that we all look for an escape because we do not want to suffer. As children we were at the mercy of adults. If they were principled, mature, unselfish people, we fared well, if not we were abused. I would say there is not one person who reads this that has not had some form of abuse during childhood. As adults, we live out our childhood experience by using the same coping devices we learned during that time to avoid pain and suffering. Now this is the good news. When Jesus the Christ comes into our lives a healing process begins and we are eventually delivered. It does not happen all at once in most cases but the deliverance from our past experiences does take place.
As I read this verse, I become even more convinced deliverance, the only escape, is found in trusting God THROUGH it all. I do agree that He often protects us and I have no doubt that every evil that could have taken place did not. But, for the most part I would conclude that we all experience trouble, suffering and pain in this life in one form or another. There is a song from the 70's or was it the 80's called Through it all. One of the phrases says....If I had never known a struggle, I would not have learned I could trust Him. That I believe is the answer.
Since the goal is to be conformed to His image and that takes place when we surrender and trust Him in everything, then I would dare to say we do not escape life. The escape and deliverance from all our struggles and troubles, as the verse talks about, is an escape through it all once we are on the other side of it all. This is the Divine Escape.
I teased you a little with the title. There is no escape from life except through the will of God. And since He is an Omniscient, Omnipresent, Omnipotent being, He ultimately knows what is best in all situations. However, if you have been like me, you do agree that we all look for an escape because we do not want to suffer. As children we were at the mercy of adults. If they were principled, mature, unselfish people, we fared well, if not we were abused. I would say there is not one person who reads this that has not had some form of abuse during childhood. As adults, we live out our childhood experience by using the same coping devices we learned during that time to avoid pain and suffering. Now this is the good news. When Jesus the Christ comes into our lives a healing process begins and we are eventually delivered. It does not happen all at once in most cases but the deliverance from our past experiences does take place.
As I read this verse, I become even more convinced deliverance, the only escape, is found in trusting God THROUGH it all. I do agree that He often protects us and I have no doubt that every evil that could have taken place did not. But, for the most part I would conclude that we all experience trouble, suffering and pain in this life in one form or another. There is a song from the 70's or was it the 80's called Through it all. One of the phrases says....If I had never known a struggle, I would not have learned I could trust Him. That I believe is the answer.
Since the goal is to be conformed to His image and that takes place when we surrender and trust Him in everything, then I would dare to say we do not escape life. The escape and deliverance from all our struggles and troubles, as the verse talks about, is an escape through it all once we are on the other side of it all. This is the Divine Escape.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Delivered
Psalm 34: 17-18
Some days life crowds in so much we want to cry out, Lord deliver me. Just exactly what do we need to be delivered from? So many things. We get into a jam with relationships, or finances or we get discouraged by looking at past mistakes. Troubles with our health or identity theft or you name it; the world is full of troubles.
Jesus said, "In this world you will have troubles but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."
No positive thinking, or meditation or drugs or addictions or people or religion can change or lighten troubles in our lives. He said come onto me you who are heavy laden and I will give you rest. He is the answer. He is the only deliverer.
What does all this mean? Well first of all, it means that He will deliver us, as it says above, out of all our troubles. It means, as it says, that He will be close to the broken hearted. Believe it or not, all our troubles and challenges are rooted in our decisions. Decisions based on lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and the pride of life. We just need to let Him handle all our troubles. We do this when we trust Him with our lives and allow Him access to our heart and soul so He can make us 'whiter than snow' (Isaiah) and guide us through life. I mean, lets think about this a minute. If we are in a lot of trouble, and we are lost in what ever situation is upon us, who would we want to guide us out? RIGHT! The one who knows the road map. The one who wrote the manual on life. Our saviour, our Creator, our God, Our King, our Deliverer.
We need to come to Him and repent. We need to allow Him to heal. We need to surrender and give our lives away to Him, the only one who can deliver.
The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; He delivers them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
Some days life crowds in so much we want to cry out, Lord deliver me. Just exactly what do we need to be delivered from? So many things. We get into a jam with relationships, or finances or we get discouraged by looking at past mistakes. Troubles with our health or identity theft or you name it; the world is full of troubles.
Jesus said, "In this world you will have troubles but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."
No positive thinking, or meditation or drugs or addictions or people or religion can change or lighten troubles in our lives. He said come onto me you who are heavy laden and I will give you rest. He is the answer. He is the only deliverer.
What does all this mean? Well first of all, it means that He will deliver us, as it says above, out of all our troubles. It means, as it says, that He will be close to the broken hearted. Believe it or not, all our troubles and challenges are rooted in our decisions. Decisions based on lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and the pride of life. We just need to let Him handle all our troubles. We do this when we trust Him with our lives and allow Him access to our heart and soul so He can make us 'whiter than snow' (Isaiah) and guide us through life. I mean, lets think about this a minute. If we are in a lot of trouble, and we are lost in what ever situation is upon us, who would we want to guide us out? RIGHT! The one who knows the road map. The one who wrote the manual on life. Our saviour, our Creator, our God, Our King, our Deliverer.
We need to come to Him and repent. We need to allow Him to heal. We need to surrender and give our lives away to Him, the only one who can deliver.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Do Good
Psalm 34:14
Turn from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it.
Turn from evil. Evil? As a Christian I assumed an evil heart, a heart of iniquity no longer existed in me because I am now a new creation. I assumed right. God did deliver me and every one who who repents and receives Christ as Savior and Lord. He at that time removes iniquity from our hearts and we become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus because of His death and cleansing blood.
So what is the problem? We do not always choose to do good. Even though a change of heart has taken place we can still revert back to those old ways, those old habits and coping devices that use to work for us, even though they no longer work for us or satisfy us as they did in the past. So why do we choose to do evil actions instead of good. Why do we think, talk or even act outside our new nature. The words of our mouth are often faithless and filled with worry. Thoughts filled with the same. We slip into unprofitable worldly thinking often. Why?
We are at times blinded to the truth of who we are in Christ. We are new creations. We have the mind and heart of Christ. Let us choose to discipline the thoughts in our mind and cause the impressions in our heart to be conformed to His. Let us decide to act like children of the King, to do good, seek peace and pursue it.
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