ADVERSITY KNOWS OUR ADDRESS

Saints are appointed to “afflictions” (1 Thess. 3:3), walking the narrow and “difficult” way (Matt. 7:14), as they go through many “tribulations” to enter the Kingdom of God (Acts 14:22). These three words, affliction, difficult, and tribulation are translated from the same Greek word thlipsis, which has as its origin the act of squeezing and crushing grapes. Simply put thlipsis means the adverse pressures of life.

All is not well on planet earth for in this fallen world adversity and affliction are a reality.  God gives us power to deal with the works of the enemy, but we are not immune from the works of the enemy.  God does not give us overcoming life. He gives us life... His Life, as we overcome. And nothing happens... absolutely nothing, to God’s children apart from His caring presence… nothing! The difficulties of life test and try our faith which requires some degree of doubt.  Struggle strengthens faith by burning out the dross of doubt as we choose faith over doubt, leaving only pure proven faith... overcoming faith, developing “the word of our testimony”, developing trust. It is most important to remember during the storms of life who to fear, and who loves us.

TO FEAR GOD IS TO TRUST HIM

Life’s circumstances will always present things that elicit fear: illness/disease, impending death, loneliness, financial problems, rejection, abandonment, failure, the unknown, loss of control... pressures of every kind abound. Whether physical, financial, relational or emotional, we will face hardships, and in these times we have a choice of what we will fear: We can fear God, or fear everything else.  To fear God is to trust Him when everything around us is saying He can’t be trusted: to revere, respect, honor, extol  and trust Him enough to believe by faith that He is good, sovereign and present when life is hard, cruel and out of control. (B.M.) To fear and trust God in the face of adversity takes living faith, a steadfast pursuit of God through thick and thin, through the mountain top of blessings and through the valley of adversity, never despairing, even when everything around us says He isn’t there, to continually pursue God, and not merely pursue answers, resolution or a desired outcome.  This is faith in the face of adversity: Trusting God’s goodness in spite of any apparent evidence against it, recognizing His ways are above our ways. (B.M.)

THE CROSS IS PROOF ENOUGH: GOD LOVES US

Jesus is the ultimate expression and proof that God cares for us and desires to be with us.  Christ is Emmanuel…God with us.  The cross of Christ is proof enough that God loves us beyond measure…beyond comprehension…beyond explanation, regardless of what happens to us, and He is good... always good!  The cross of Christ finishes the love debate: God loves us!  The resurrection of Christ proves whatever is happening to us is not the ultimate; death does not have the final say for Christ conquered the grave... He lives and is coming again to fetch us home.  God has the final say: There is coming a resurrection of the dead and living, an undoing of everything that is wrong.  The adverse pressures of life...painful speed–bumps that threaten to derail us, do not happen apart from our Father’s caring presence.  Rather than put our faith and trust in a certain outcome, we need to put our faith and trust in a certain Someone.  Nothing happens apart from the Father…and that’s enough.

“FEAR NOT, FOR I AM WITH YOU”

DIVINE STEW

There is a popular notion that salvation, becoming a follower of Christ, is just adding Jesus to our life, like adding potatoes to a stew. This could be called “cheap grace” for it requires nothing in the way of transformation – the passion of God’s heart. Jesus came and died for us that we might have His life, not ours. We are not the chef, and we do not control the stew our life becomes. God’s word clearly states we are either slaves of sin or slaves of righteousness by our willful choice: One or the other, there is no third choice.  Hear the Apostle Paul speak: ^“Do you not know that if you continually surrender yourselves to anyone to do his will, you are the slave of him whom you obey, whether that be to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience which leads to righteousness (right doing and right standing with God)”? The continuous action of the Greek text indicates a lifestyle (not an occasional act) of obedience... obeying the commandments of Christ, which leads to righteousness... right standing with God, juxtaposed with a lifestyle of sin... disobedience to the commandments of Christ, which leads to death... separation from God. The three personal pronouns (i.e., anyone, his, him) indicate one’s real enslavement is to the power behind the lifestyle, not the lifestyle, the lifestyle is the product of our surrender to someone’s will. Someone is making the “stew” we call our life. The extent of our control over our life is found in the basic choice of who will be our chef, God or satan. Only in our submission can the Lordship of Christ come forth. Only in our death to Self can the Life of Christ come forth.  True freedom is found in divine slavery, the freedom to be the stew God desires.

(Rom. 6, AMP)

DO YOU NOT KNOW THAT TO WHOM...

OUR END WAS FIXED BEFORE OUR BEGINNING

God lives in eternity which has no time, no past, present, or future. Eternity only has “now.” God sovereignty works out His divine purposes through election, the selection of prescreened people who have a heart and passion for God. Election is God choosing the people in time who already chose Him in eternity: This is God in eternity past prescreening people by looking into time future and seeing who would say yes to the call of the Father. God’s foreknowledge always precedes His choosing, “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined ... these He also called.” Predestination sets the boundaries of our meandering within the framework of God’s saving grace as our “steps”, our life, is ordered by the Lord. Our end was fixed before our beginning. The “now” we live is simply God’s plan being executed. Ever wonder how your name was written in the Lamb’s Book of Life before the foundations of the world? Well... now you know...

Before the first “Let there be” in Genesis God, in eternity past, looked at my heart as a man living in time.  He looked beyond my sins, my short comings and my weaknesses because He had a decision to make and it would be based on only one thing; would I say yes when He called me to be one of His children?  Would I give my life, my heart and my very soul to Him?  When He seen in my heart that I would willfully serve Him, he wrote my name in the Lambs Book of Life!  Then He planned and decreed every aspect of my life to be, setting boundaries and orchestrating events of my life to make me receptive to His call, to justify me with the righteousness of Christ, to grow in me the spiritual nature and attributes of Jesus and, finally, to glorify my body with a heavenly body like His.  Then on December 7, 1999 at 7:45 p.m. like a bolt of lightning out of eternity into time the call of God came to my heart and I said yes.  At that very moment I was justified, declared righteous and placed in right standing with God through the precious blood of Jesus.  Since that moment I have been on a journey with God; the Holy Spirit is implementing God’s plan, the plan He made eons ago, and as I behold the glory of Jesus I am being transformed into His image, from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:18). This is the Holy Spirit doing His job, manifesting Christ in me. As I learn to abide in the Spirit, setting my mind on things above , the holy nectar of God’s presence envelopes me more and more in intimate fellowship. My “steps”, my life, is ordered by the Lord. My end was fixed before my beginning. The “now” I live is simply God’s plan being executed. And someday soon this old body of mine will also be glorified as I am changed and caught up to meet my Lord in the air.

OUR “STEPS” ARE ORDERED BY THE LORD