ALL DIFFICULTIES ARE WITHIN GOD’S PURPOSES

A few years back, while going through a major difficulty, God gave me a simple spiritual axiom which I have lived by ever since. “All difficulties are within God’s purposes”. We are literally surrounded by God, like a golf ball surrounds its’ core or a basketball the air contained inside, the sovereign God surrounds us with Himself: This is the literal meaning of the phrase “peculiar people” found in Titus 2:14 (KJV, “special people” in the NKJV). Nothing happens to us that is not either willed or permitted by God - ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! Job understood this as did the Apostle Paul, James and others. This has been such a comfort to understand.  When difficulties strike I KNOW five amazing God things:

* God is faithful even when I am not - He cannot deny his love for me.

* God will never leave me or forsake me - NEVER!

* God has made a way of escape that I may be able to bear the difficulty.

* God is working in me both to will and work His good pleasure.

* God is working this thing, this difficulty, out for good according to His purpose.

* God is giving me an “overcoming” testimony.

God is not the “author” of bad but the “allower”, always producing good out of what the enemy meant for evil, in accordance with His purposes. Make no mistake... our God is fully in control, always has been... always will be! God is very intentional, He has a plan for us: Nothing happens to us (i.e., all things - all difficulties) that God doesn’t use to further His plan for us to be conformed into the image of His dear Son - to be perfected... God does not waste pain! This is the practical application of being “in the Beloved”, in Christ, where the circumstances of this life are used to transform our nature into Christlikeness, and approve our faith in preparation for our next life. “Narrow is the gate and difficult... full of adversity, is the way which leads to life.” Isn’t it good that God loves us too much to leave us the way we are!

It is normal during trying times to wonder why and try to pinpoint some specific cause, but God never answers the question why, and there usually isn’t a specific cause in our sense of the word. He who loved us too much to spare His only Son loves us too much to spare us - it is a great paradox. Jesus learned obedience through the things He suffered, and endured the cross for the joy set before Him. Both James and Paul rejoiced in the pressures and difficulties of life’s circumstances, realizing these produce patience which in turn produces Godly character and hope, and releases the lavish outpouring of God’s love into our heart. Obedience, Godly character, hope, joy, patience, love, these are all very good things!

What should we do during times of difficulty, when we hit speed bumps on the threshing floor of life? First and foremost this is a time to draw close to God, to rest in Him and love on Him - we simply cannot love and worship God enough - trusting in Him without fear or worry. And we should draw on all those saints God has placed about us, to unite in prayer for God’s grace and healing power to be released in us - that His kingdom would invade our circumstances in power. These things we should always do.

So we pray for a greater revelation in our soul of the awesome love of God and for a deep unquenchable hunger for His righteousness to spring forth, that peace and joy would flourish in us, and that God’s word would bring healing and wholeness, the Shalom of God, to any needs of our body, soul, and spirit...   that we would be the fragrance of Christ.

                                                                                            

GOD ALLOWS IN HIS WISDOM

WHAT HE COULD EASILY PREVENT

 IN HIS POWER

GOD IS MORE

The power of one word from His mouth can create a galaxy, and the name of every one of His children is written on His hand.  His promises for the church (our church) are beyond all comprehension.  Too many saints consider them to be God’s promises for the millennium or heaven, claiming that to emphasize God’s plans for the here and now instead of eternity is to dishonor the fact that Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us.  Our predisposition toward a weak church has blinded our eyes to the truths of God’s word about us.  We make excuses for God rather than seeking His Kingdom with a whole hearted determination fueled with burning passion to know Him... really know Him. This problem is rooted in our unbelief... faith in the inferior, and our death grip desire for the pleasures and riches of earth-life. Too often Self rules, diluting our hunger for God’s Kingdom... strangling the Christ-Life within. Jesus taught us how to live by announcing “the Kingdom of God is at hand”!  It is a present reality, affecting the here and now, and it comes fully equipped with the awesome power of God Almighty. We are admonished by Jesus to pray God’s Kingdom come... His will be done, bringing Heaven’s reality into our earth bound circumstances.

We lack understanding of who we are because we have little revelation of who God is.  As individuals and as a church body we desperately need to upgrade our perception of our God.  He is Big!  He is more!  More loving... more gracious... more holy... more kind... more merciful... more just... more compassionate... more joyful... more peaceful... more glorious, more good... more powerful, with resurrection power, and more still, more than we can ever know or comprehend. We can only walk out our spiritual life to the extent of the bigness of our perception of God. He is before all, after all, in all and through all, holding the very fabric of the physical realm and life as we know it together by His will. He thinks and it is so... or does He even need to think at all? Superlatives run dry when applied to God... language becomes inadequate... finite minds fail... comprehension vaporizes... mere words ensnare us in ‘littleness”, when faced with the infinite, eternal God. It takes the Revelation of Jesus Christ... to comprehend Jesus Christ! We should be filled with awe and wonder at this God who for some unfathomable reason known only to Himself... loves us... heals us... wants us. And who is to say which is more incredible, a God who creates galaxies, a God who raises the dead or a God who weeps over the plight of humanity... collecting our tears in His bottles?  

Our perception of God grows through diligent study of God’s word, prayer, stillness before God... Face Time, and worship. Paul prayed that God would grant wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Himself, that the saints might understand their eternal hope in Him, the spiritual riches they have in Him, and the immeasurable, unlimited and surpassing greatness of His power working in, through and for them. We need to be praying this prayer! As our perception of God grows we will begin to experience insatiable hunger and thirsting for righteousness... forsaking all to draw ever nearer to the More God, and we will be filled... transformed... becoming people of One Thing... ever hungering... always satisfied.

DRAW NEAR TO ME 
AND I WILL DRAW NEAR TO YOU

SIN, CHOICES, AND LAWLESSNESS

When we drive down Temptation Lane there are many detours into the Badlands of lawlessness. God does not tempt us, it is the tempter’s job, but it is our own desires that bait the tempter’s sin trap, drawing us into sin once the trap is sprung by our conceived desires. First John makes an important distinction between sin, singular, occasional sinning, and sins, plural, practicing sin. Jesus advocates Grace before the Father for all who occasionally sin... that would be all the saints, inviting us to boldly approach the throne of Grace in confession. When practiced sin becomes a habit of death, for habitual sin, be it a besetting sin or sinning in general, leads to lawlessness. The Apostle Paul’s strong repudiation of “over-abounding” Grace in the face of willful sin must be noted lest we cheapen Grace in our presumption: “Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?  Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it”? How indeed! Truly sin dead people... with nail scared hands and feet, don’t practice sin. Jesus spoke of professing Christians who said they did great things for God’s Kingdom... but they practiced sin... practiced lawlessness, and this lawlessness ultimately separated them from God’s covenant of Grace: “I know you not.” We can sin our way out of Grace, becoming “unknown” to God, lost in our lawlessness, not possessing that which we profess.

Sin, under The Law, is missing the mark... God’s mark, specific acts offensive to God. The Law defined sin by actualizing sin and revealing its true character, discharging its holy function by unmasking sin as sin. Under Grace the commands and precepts of the New Testament... the new will, define and actualize sin. New covenant sin has became an attitude of the heart, more subtle and pervasive, where, for example, mental lusting becomes adultery and anger in one’s heart becomes murder... the bar has been raised considerably under Grace. The “Holy Road” is much more difficult under Grace so God indwells us with His Holy Spirit to teach, guide, direct and comfort us... helping us stay on the narrow gated difficult Way to transformation... if, a big IF, we willfully want to be helped.

Sin under Grace is still missing God’s mark, but our loving Father only inputs to our account the marks we knowingly miss -- for sin to be sin to us it must be known as such -- stretching His awesome Grace to cover sins committed without our understanding. We are accountable to God to live within the revelation of His will that we have received; as God grows us from babies into mature sons and daughters our accountability changes with our progression of understanding. Sin then is a choice between demonstrating our love for God in obedience... turning from our desires that bait us, or demonstrating our love for Self by giving in to the desires and pleasures of this earth-life. When we take the devil for a ride... he’ll want to drive... you know. And he will take us farther and keep us longer then we really wanted to go... he knows all the back roads to nowhere! Frequent trips to the throne room will keep the Holy Spirit in the driver’s seat and us out of the Badlands of lawlessness.

OBEDIENCE IS A TEST OF LOVE

“IF YOU LOVE ME...