Why Didn't God DO Something?

In the midst of great tragedy and despair, many people ask, "Why didn't God do something?  If God is so loving and powerful, why didn't He intervene and keep this from happening?  How can a loving God just watch all this unfold and do nothing? Where was God?  Does He even care?"

These questions were asked again after the horrible heart-wrenching massacre of little children and loving adults in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings that occurred on December 14, 2012.  I think it is important to know the answer to these questions, especially for the distraught ones closest to the tragedy.  No one wants to feel abandoned by God or to feel like tragedy is somehow amusing or entertaining to Him.  Many of us were brought up being told that God loves us. When something like this happens, it's easy to doubt that.

But here's the thing:  We've been taught that God is omniscient and omnipresent, i.e., that He is all-knowing and everywhere at once.  The Bible teaches that He knows the very number of hairs on our heads, He knows thoughts before we speak them, He has foreknowledge of events.  Since we can't predict these events, since we don't have the power to intervene and stop the horrible from happening, we think God should.  In fact, because we basically trust Him, most of us would give Him unilateral and unqualified power to act on our behalf when it comes to such major tragedies, so that they could be avoided altogether.

The problem, however, lies in drawing a line.  Do we want Him to intervene only in the most devastating disasters  (tsunamis, hurricanes, mass shootings)?  What about accidental shootings or car accidents?  Fender-benders?  Falls from ladders? Cancer???  Wait!  What about colds and flu? Bumps and bruises?  A cut when we're slicing vegetables?  What about a lie that would harm someone's reputation?  Or running up the national debt by our government?  What about thoughts that could turn into evil deeds?

Just where do you draw the line?  Can you tell God, "It's okay for You to intervene  in cases that would end in major catastrophe, but otherwise, no."  Even this is difficult to clearly define in real life.  What is a major catastrophe to some people (the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) may not be for others (all who were thrilled that World War II came to an end).  Problems, problems, problems.

I believe God is deeply, deeply grieved by our tragedies.  I believe He wishes He could cancel every one of them out.  But when He created us in His image, along with that came the right for each thinking human being to make his or her own decisions, and the right to live a life that is not manipulated or predestined.  Without this, we would be slaves or puppets, with no personal dignity or responsibility.  This is why God never forces us to serve Him.  Free will is incredibly precious and without price!

It simply boils down to this:  We cannot have it both ways.  We cannot have God's intervention only when we think it serves our best interests.  Free will comes with the option to act in a loving, kind, supportive manner as well as a selfish, hateful, revengeful manner.  It also comes with the right to experience life without God orchestrating our lives, like in the movie Truman.   Unfortunately, this means tragedy will happen and horrible pain will sometimes be inevitable.   But you cannot give up just a little free will or a little of your destiny any more than you can die just a little death.

God loves us enough that He just will not subject us to slavery, either through manipulating our choices or our environment.  But that isn't to say He never intervenes.  The Word teaches that He protects and provides for His children.  How this happens is material for another blog! 


   

Healing Scriptures

Reasons Why I Can Expect Healing

*The sower sows the Word.  (The Word is the seed).  Mark 4:14

*He sent His word and it healed them.  Psalm 107:20

*The Word effectually worketh in them that believe.  I Thessalonians 2:13

*The Word is health to all their flesh.  Proverbs 4:22

*Who forgiveth all our iniquities, who healeth all our diseases!  Psalm 103:3

*Resist the devil and he shall flee!  James 4:7

*He (Jesus) healed all who were sick.  This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet

  Isaiah, “He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.”  Matthew 8:16-17

       Note:  This verse does not say He will heal us; it says He already has!

*For ye are bought with a price:  therefore, glorify God in your body!  I Corinthians 6:20

*I am the Lord, your healer.  Exodus 15:26

*I am the Lord, and I change not.  Malachi 3:6

*Jesus Christ the same, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  Hebrews 13:8

*Be attentive to My words, incline your ear to My sayings, let them not escape from your

  sight, kept them within your heart, for they are life to him who finds them, and health

  to all their flesh.  Proverbs 4:20-23

*Surely He has borne our sicknesses and carried our diseases; yet we esteemed Him

  stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.  But He was wounded for our transgressions,

  He was bruised for our iniquities, upon Him was the chastisement that made us

  whole, and by His stripes we are healed!!!!!!!

*Behold, I give you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of

  the enemy; and nothing shall by any means harm you.  Luke 10:19

*And the Lord said to Moses:  Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and every one

  who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.  Numbers 21:8  (This was a type of Christ.)

*He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to

  righteousness.  By His wounds you have been healed!

*All things are possible to him who believes.  Mark 9:23

*And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit, soul,

  and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  He Who

  calls you is faithful, and He will do it.  I Thessalonians 5:23,24

*Any one who eats and drinks (communion) without discerning the body eats and drinks

  judgment upon himself.  That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.

  I Corinthians 11:29,30

*Seven Redemptive Names of God (names that God has called Himself):  1.  Presence

  2.  Peace  3.  Shepherd  4.  Provider  5.  Victory-giver  6.  Righteousness  7.  Healer

*He delighteth in mercy.  Micah  7:18

*Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and turn away from evil.  It will be healing

  to your flesh and medicine to your bones.  Proverbs 3:7,8

*And great crowds came to Him, bringing with them the lame, the maimed, the blind, the

  dumb, and many others; and they put them at His feet, and He healed them, so that the

  throngs wondered, when they saw the dumb speaking, the maimed whole, the lame

  walking, and the blind seeing, and they glorified the God of Israel.  Matthew 15:30

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The above are the very same scriptures that I have used to receive many healings in my body.  The Bible teaches that the devil, not God, is at the root of sickness and disease, and it teaches that our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit.  (I Corinthians 6:19)  What right has the devil to afflict a temple of the Holy Spirit?  None!

What to REALLY Do if You Get Sick

Read this post yesterday by a precious Christan friend on Facebook:

"Just learned a dear sister in Christ has cancer. Please join me in praying God's healing power over her. He is a God of miracles. Let's claim this for her and her family. Dear God please intervene. May your perfect will be accomplished in and through this!"

I find it sad and frustrating that so many beloved people in the body of Christ do not understand healing, or what to do if they do get sick.  Prayers such as this are akin to begging God to do something, and yet, in case He decides not to, resigning any outcome whatsoever to His "perfect will".  

I used to serve a God I thought had to be begged to do something.  I never was sure whether He would but in fact, from rarely experiencing the answer I really wanted, I nearly always doubted He would.  I was like those praying for Peter's release from prison, but they really didn't believe he would be released, because when he actually showed up, they accused Rhoda (who met him at the gate and ran ahead to tell them he was released) of being insane.  (Acts 12:12-16) 

Since I've fully accepted the finished work of Christ at the cross, Who bore all my sins and all my sicknesses (Isaiah 53:5, I Peter 2:24), I've come to see God as a loving God, Who wants the very best for me in every single area of my life.  (Wouldn't a loving earthly father want that for his children?  How much more God!)

So what are we missing?  I think even those who are willing to trust God for healing get discouraged because it doesn't often happen, as my friend wished, as a miracle.  There is often a span of time during which nothing seems to be happening.  The pain is still there, the symptoms are still there, and the fear that God is sitting on His throne doing nothing, and perhaps even being amused with our struggling, takes over--and we quit.

I understand that, I really do.  I am not saying receiving healing is easy as pie.  Most of the time, I've found, it's not.  But I have found that healing really does manifest, if I'm willing to have faith and not expect absolutely instant results.  Which is not to say that at times I haven't had instant results.  I have!  That part is still unpredictable and relatively unexplainable to me.  But anyway, here, for those of you who are interested, is how to receive healing from God.  As far as I have been able to ascertain, by the way, it works every single time I am willing to apply my faith until it manifests.

• Most important, first off--Do not fear!  I read somewhere but have never validated it that "Do not fear" appears 365 times in the Bible (once for each day).  On the contrary, we are only told to fear one thing, and that is not entering His rest, Hebrews 4:1.  (How beautiful is that?)  Kellie Copeland, when her daughter came down with spinal meningitis in 1995 from which other children were dying, insisted from the start that she would not fear!  (Her daughter miraculously recovered.)  David Oyedepo of Nigeria, when his brother died, insisted to his mother not to fear, and his brother came back to life.  Dodie Osteen, mother of Pastor Joel Osteen, when she was diagnosed with metastatic cancer of the liver and given just weeks to live, refused to fear and fully recovered to live a long life. These are wonderful stories of miraculous healings, but I swear I have prevented colds and disease from taking hold in my body for years and years by refusing even the thought of sickness.  My confession is always, "That disease will not touch me!"  I guard my body by slamming the door of my mind on even the tiniest inkling of disease.  Go, disease, in Jesus' name!
• If, if, if disease begins to manifest, such as with a sore throat or any other symptom...(and this has definitely happened to me), it is critical to rest...except I am not talking about the kind of rest prescribed by well-meaning doctors and friends, even though it is not necessarily wrong to get some physical rest.  The rest I am talking about is the rest that is referred to in Hebrews 4:1-3 that I mentioned in the above bullet:  "Therefore, while the promise of entering His rest remains, let us fear lest any of you be judged to have failed to reach it.  For good news came to us just as to them; but the message they heard did not benefit them, because it did not meet with faith in the hearers.  For we who have believed enter that rest.  Read those verses "backwards":  We "enter that rest" because we "have believed" by exercising "faith" which "benefits us" because we heard and believed the "good news".  Yes!  And what is the "good news"?  The "good news" is the gospel of Jesus Christ, that through Him each man receives total and complete forgiveness of every single sin, past, present, and future (Acts 13:38), and so we can stand unashamed and cleansed in the presence of God and...
• Receive the benefits of that salvation!  Just what are the benefits, you may ask?  David, in Psalm 103, foretells the benefits of the generations who have been blessed by the sacrifice of Jesus:  "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits:  Who forgives all your iniquity, Who heals all your diseases, Who redeems your life from the Pit, Who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, Who satisfies you with good as long as you live, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's."  (Psalm 103:2-5)  I love these verses; however, we need to remember that they were written by David who lived hundreds of years before Jesus came to earth and they were a foretelling of a future event.  Now things have changed...Jesus has already come, already taken our iniquities and diseases, already redeemed us.  So as those verses apply to us today they should be read, "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits:  Who forgave all your iniquity, Who healed all your diseases, Who redeemed your life from the Pit...All in the past tense...Jesus already did it, it is a finished work, no longer something that is going to happen in the future.  So can you see that it is incorrect to expect God to heal you?  The fact is, He already has, through the sacrifice of His precious, wonderful, amazing, awesome, holy, generous, sinless Son, Jesus.  You cannot ask, as my friend did, for God to intervene.  He already has!  I Peter 2:24:  "He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree (cross), that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.  By His wounds you have been healed!  Have been, have been, have been!  I know it is contrary to the way the human mind works, I know it requires faith, I know it takes a renewing of your thinking, but the truth lies in the finished work of Jesus, and it is your responsibility, not to try and believe it, but to rest in it.
• Having said that, let me say this.  God designed the gospel to be so simple and uncomplicated that anyone could believe it.  Some people easily simply believe.  Others, especially perhaps those faced with a frightening, life-threatening, or stubborn disease gain power to believe by reading and meditating healing scriptures.  (That was me, when endometriosis prevented me from conceiving a child, which I desperately wanted; see my former post, "A Baby by Faith".)  There's power in the very word of God to give you faith to believe!  If you need this, in my next post I will list the healing scriptures I used to tap into this power.
• And finally, you might ask, teach me how in the world I "rest" in the finished work of Christ.   How on God's good earth do I move from knowing to receiving?  God (Who thought of absolutely everything we would need in order to help us receive all of His benefits) provided for that through communion.  If you've taken communion as a ritual at church and mostly understood it as a time for you to think about your sins and repent, you might be surprised that this isn't taught in the Scriptures.  For reference, let me quote I Corinthians 11:23-30:  "For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when He was betrayed took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, 'This is My body which is broken for you.  Do this in remembrance of Me.'  In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in My blood.  Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.'  For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death (not your sins) until He comes.  Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner (which would be not proclaiming the Lord's death and all that that death accomplished for you) will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord (rejecting that it is finished)...Let a man examine himself (to see if he believes in the finished work), and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup.  For any one who eats and drinks without discerning the body (that He bore all sins and sicknesses) eats and drinks judgment upon himself.  That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died!!!!"  (And in fact, despite books that have been written on "Reasons Why Christians Are Not Healed", this is the only reason the Bible gives for New Covenant believers being sick...they have not received and rested in the finished work of Christ!)
• So, communion is a time to cast your worries, fears, and concerns onto Christ (I Peter 5:7:  Cast all your anxieties on Him, for He cares about you.)  It is a time to place that sickness and disease, that worry or concern, that stress and discouragement onto Him, mentally, visually, and even with your words.  It is a time to breathe a sigh of deep relief.  It is a time, thank God, to rest.  And you can do it (take communion and rest) as often as you like.  
• Just as a brief testimony (and this is absolutely true), about six months ago I was being attacked with a respiratory infection.  My throat was tremendously sore, I felt awful, and I was tempted to see myself as sick, coughing, and with a runny nose.  Instead, I "slammed the door of my mind" on all these thoughts and said, "NO!"  I said, "Jesus bore this sickness so that I wouldn't have to."  I was very tired and fell asleep that evening quickly, but kept waking during the night because of my raw throat.  Every time I did, I would mentally see and appreciate the cross, cast the care of the sore throat onto Jesus, and fall back asleep.  About 5 a.m. I woke again, still having trouble swallowing.  I decided to get up and take communion.  I took a large hunk of matzo and a small glass of wine and went and sat down in my living room.  I concentrated on Jesus hanging on the cross and worshiped and thanked Him for taking my sin and my sicknesses when He hung there.  I mentally crawled up on that cross and clung onto Him, feeling the extreme love He had for me, and blessing Him for what He did.  I gratefully ate part of the communion bread and drank a bit of the wine.  Then I laid my head back on my chair and fell asleep.  I woke about a half hour later...still felt awful...took communion in the same way again.  When I woke an hour later, every single symptom was completely, 100% gone, and I was healthy and energetic just as if nothing had even happened.  Praise Jesus!

I sincerely hope that this helps you to understand how to really receive healing, which was secured for you and me through the brutal death of Jesus, our Lord and Savior, and is now yours and mine for the asking.  Take and receive!  God is good, and He loves you so much!

Are the 10 Commandments for Today?

Going to the Word on this, I Timothy 1:8-11 says this (Message Bible):  "It's true that moral guidance and counsel need to be given (RSV says, 'We know that the law is good, if anyone uses it lawfully...'), but the way you say it and to whom you say it are as important as what you say.  It's obvious, isn't it, that the law code isn't primarily for people who live responsibly, but for the irresponsible, who defy all authority, riding roughshod over God, life, sex, truth, whatever!  They are contemptuous of this great Message I've been put in charge of by this great God."

It is obvious to me (and I think this passage supports this) that responsible laws do have a place in society.  Their purpose is to maintain order.  The best of our civil laws are based on the moral code that we intuitively sense as right (the most important of which are clearly listed in the 10 Commandments.)   But I also think that the law has a purpose way beyond being a guideline for behavior.

The Bible calls the law "good", and it is.  But have you ever read how detailed and miniscule the interpretation of the broad 10 commandments gets in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy?  (And they ARE commandments, not "guidelines".)  Deut 26:16: "This day the Lord your God commands you to do these statutes and ordinances; you shall therefore be careful to do them with all your heart and with all your soul."  (By the way, I don't see where He cares one hoot about reasons why we keep them, just that we do.)  Beyond that, yes, there are blessings and curses attached to the keeping of these commandments.  Deut 28:1:  "And if you obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all His commandments which I command you this day, the Lord your God will (bless you)."  Deut 28:15:  "But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God or be careful to do all His commandments and His statutes which I command you this day, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you..."  Also Galatians 3:10:  "For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, 'Cursed be every one who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, and do them."  And James 2:10:  "For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it."  It really was about following His rules.  Even minutely.

But God knew His people would not/could not keep His commandments.  Just read them, and see if you think anyone (even the best-intentioned) could.  Never!  Which is why God provided a way for the Israelites, through animal, blood, and other sacrifices, to obtain forgiveness. 

Why then even have the law?  Good question.  Galatians 3:19 says, "It was added because of transgressions, till the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made."  Verses 23-26:  "Now before faith came, we were confined under the law, kept under restraint until faith should be revealed.  The law was our custodian until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith.  But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian; for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith."

Paul said (Romans 7:7)  "If it had not been for the law, I should not have known sin.  I should not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, 'You shall not covet."  But sin, finding opportunity in the commandment, wrought in me all kinds of covetousness.  Apart from the law, sin lies dead.  I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died; the very commandment which promised life proved to be death to me...so the law is holy and the commandment is holy and just and good.  Did that which is good (the commandment) bring death to me?  No!  It was sin, working death in me through what is good (the commandment), in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure."

Those who evaluate themselves by the 10 Commandments have one of two choices, since we all have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23):  They either excuse themselves ("Well, I'm not as bad as many people...I've never murdered anyone...I never stole anything; well, yes, maybe a paperclip, once, but never anything big like a car!...Yeah, well just show me any man that hasn't looked at a woman and thought thoughts..."); OR they are constantly frustrated, begging forgiveness, resolving to try harder, and worried that Matthew 7:21-23 will be true for them:  "Not every one who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father Who is in heaven.  On that day, many will say to Me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and cast out demons in Your name, and do many mighty works in Your name?' And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you evildoer."   Sigh!!!!

Paul says that we can will to do what is right, but we cannot do it.  (Romans 7:18)  We will always fail.  But "God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do:  sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us!  (Romans 8:3-4)  I think that's why it really is true that the purpose of the 10 Commandments (and the "law" in general) is to bring us to the end of ourselves so that we will see that the only way to God is through faith.  Faith has always been the way.  The 10 Commandments just make it really clear to us that we can't earn our way in.

Charles Colson (of Watergate fame, after he got saved) says that God gives us enough light to see, but not enough light to remove all doubt.  If He allowed us to see Him in all His glory, we wouldn't have a choice except to worship Him.  He wants us to have a choice, to come because we want to, because we've chosen to trust Him, to believe Him by faith.  When we see how much God loves us, how much He sacrificed for us, how much He has forgiven us and given to us, how much He has set us free from the law, when we understand that He has given us everything for nothing, we end up loving Him.  Love cannot be compelled, in which case it is not love.  The Word says, "By this we know love, that He laid down His life for us."  (I Jn 3:16)  When we see that we are not capable of bringing anything to Him, even obedience, then we are ready to trust in the substitutionary work of Jesus, and we end up loving, because He first loved us.  (I John 4:19)  "The commandments, 'you shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,' and any other commandment are summed up in this sentence, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself...love is the fulfilling of the law!"  (Romans 13:9-10) 

So, in summary, I do believe that the purpose of the 10 Commandments was to:
    *provide a moral framework for civil laws for defiant citizens
    *show just how holy God is and how perfect you have to be to be to please Him
    *show that we can will what is right, but we cannot do it
    *prepare men's hearts to receive His greatest gift of love by faith, His son, Jesus Christ,
     in Whom we live and move and have our being!  (Acts 17:28)
  
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ Who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, Who LOVED ME and gave Himself for me.  I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification were through the law, then Christ died to no purpose.  Galatians 2:20-21

How Long is Eternity?

Can't remember where I got this from, but I love this illustration of eternity:

There is a huge mountain, bigger than you can ever imagine.  There is a tiny baby bird that comes to the mountain once every million years and takes a little peck at it.  When that mountain is 100% worn down from those little pecks, one second of eternity will have passed.

"When we've been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing God's praise than when we'd first begun..."  Amazing Grace

So He Has Mercy upon Whomever He Wills, and He Hardens the Heart of Whomever He Wills: Romans 9:18

I have never liked Romans, chapter 9, for the verse in the title and for verses 19 through 21, "You will say to me then, "Why does He still find fault?  For who can resist His will?"  But who are you, a man, to answer back to God?  Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me thus?"  Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for beauty and another for menial use?  (RSV)

Part of the reason these verses have always been so disturbing to me is that they have always seemed impossible to reconcile with a loving God, who says He "so loved the world" (John 3:16) (...ahem, not just those He arbitrarily picked) and "No one who believes in Him will be put to shame."  (Romans 10:11).  How can it be true that God loves all sinners and showed His love for us "in that while we were yet sinners He sent Christ to die for us"  (Romans 5:8), if there are some sinners on whom He chooses not to have compassion (see Romans 9:14)?  It never made sense.  The nagging question was always there, "How do I know if God made me for "destruction" or "mercy"?  Really, how does one know?  This morning I finally found the answer, by reading with my "grace glasses" on!  Understanding that righteousness comes by faith is the key.

Verse 7 starts out by telling us this:  "...not all are children of Abraham (the father of righteousness) because they are his (blood) descendants."  Verse 8:  "...it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are reckoned as descendants."  Earlier in Romans (3:16) God tells us, "That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants--not only to the adherents of the law, but also to those who share the faith of Abraham, for he is the father of us all."  So it is by faith that we are made descendants of Abraham, that is, children of God, not by birth or by "election".  I like the way the Message Bible puts verse 11:  "What God did...made it perfectly plain that His purpose is not a hit-or-miss thing dependent on what we do or don't do, but a sure thing...." We are His when we believe. 

Verse 16 confirms this, saying, "So it depends not on man's will or exertion, but upon God's mercy."  At first glance, though, it looks like this was not true for Pharoah, because it says "I have raised you up for the very purpose of showing My power in you, so that My name may be proclaimed in all the earth" (verse 17).  Note that it does not say showing My power to you but in you.  In other words, God did not create Pharoah as a human puppet to accomplish His goals.  His desire was really to work with Pharoah and through Pharoah, giving him power in response to his faith, but Pharoah chose to resist this opportunity.  What verse 18 is actually saying is that God willed mercy for Pharoah, but Pharoah refused it.  The trust was up to Pharoah. The consequences (hardening of his heart which leads to destruction) were not.

Verse 22 says that God "endures with much patience the vessels of wrath made for destruction...."  If God had predetermined who was a "vessel of wrath" and who wasn't, why would He need to have patience with them?  In truth, we are all "vessels of wrath made for destruction" because of our sin.  But verse 23 says that He endures us with patience "in order to make known the riches of His glory for the vessels of mercy, which (riches, not vessels) He has prepared beforehand for glory...."!  He patiently tries to reveal to sinners the riches of His glory prepared and available to them, if only they will receive His mercy!  Hallelujah!

The whole remainder of the chapter is devoted to driving home the fact that righteousness comes by faith, and those who refuse to receive what God has through for them through faith alone ( and rather trust in themselves, their own power, position, or works) receive, instead of grace (unmerited favor), a hardened heart, leading to destruction.  The last verse says, "He who believes in Him (including Pharoah and any other human being) will not be put to shame.  Again, the trusting is up to us.  The consequences are not.

One last thought regarding this:  Atheists assume they are "free thinkers", choosing what they will and will not believe.  In actuality, their choice ends with whether or not they choose to let God bless them and have mercy on them.  After that, the condition of their hearts is a natural consequence, not something over which they have control.  They think they have power, but like for Pharoah, God always has the last word.  It does bear repeating one more time:  The trusting is up to us.  The consequences, good or bad, are not.

Does God Really Care?

In Body-Soul-Spirit Praying, I wrote about emotions as a sort of a gift God has given us to connect spiritually to Him in prayer.  Love seems to me, at its core, to be an emotion, with care, concern, passion, etc. being fruits of that love, also manifested as emotions.  These "positive", life-giving emotions appear to me to be what melds my body, mind, and will together to more effectively focus my prayers, which at times (at least according to my experience) end up producing miraculous results.

Today in our morning devotions, I was considering my "negative" emotions (e.g., fear, frustration, despair, hopelessness), which I have formed the habit of entertaining when it comes to certain things in my life (foremost a large, seemingly impossible-to-pay-off debt that has loomed over our family for decades.)  It occurred to me that if "positive" emotions can open me up to God's faith flowing with power through me for a miracle, "negative" emotions might be the very things that are keeping a miracle from manifesting. 

I have often wondered why, why, why we haven't been delivered from this debt, despite much generous giving (which once held my only hope for deliverance), much (okay, probably mustard seed-sized) faith entered into because of God's loving promises in the Bible, and much of our own efforts to attack the problem with our own strength.  Along these same lines, I have also often wondered why parents of sick children sometimes don't seem to get answers to their prayers, when it seems perfectly clear to me in God's Word that His will is ALWAYS to heal.  Does He really care?  If He did, wouldn't He do something?  (Age-old questions, for sure)

In homemeeting last Tuesday we were discussing Paul's thorn (II Corinthians 12).  From the Message Bible, verses 7-10:  "...I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations.  Satan's angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees.  No danger then of walking around high and mighty!  At first I didn't think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it.  Three times I did that, and then He told me, 'My grace is enough, it's all you need.  My strength comes into its own in your weakness.'  Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen.  I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift.  It was a case of Christ's strength moving in on my weakness....And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become."  (Italics mine) 

Just for the record, I don't think, as some do, that God was concerned with cutting Paul down to size.  Neither do I think God gives us tragedies (like sick and dying children) to get us to trust Him.  Those viewpoints don't line up with His Word.  But here's the thing:  focusing negatively on my problem, whatever it may be (sickness, debt, etc.), feeding it with my emotions of fear, frustration, despair, hopelessness and the like, causes the problem to remain.  It is when I can begin appreciating the problem as a gift, letting it push me to my knees, and reinforcing in myself the knowledge that the weaker I get, the stronger (through Christ) I become, only then can I let go of my negative emotions, which very well might be the very things that are keeping a miracle from manifesting.  He says His grace is sufficient, it's all I need. So I let go of fear, hopelessness, and self-effort, and rest in Christ's strength, His completed work.  It's all I need, not just to be relieved from my mental burdens, but to solve my problem, to bring my miracle to pass.

At this point I'm not sure if my thinking and applications are the answer to all of the "age-old questions", but I definitely want to feed on this for awhile.  Could my greatest weaknesses really be my greatest strengths?  Could negative emotions be that powerful?  It sure seems like Paul thought so.  This is good stuff to contemplate.

The Verse I Wish Did Not Exist

If there's one verse I wish weren't in the Bible, it's I John 1:9, "If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." For 34 YEARS it kept me thinking that I am only righteous as I confess each and every sin. WRONG! The acknowledgment of my sin and my need for Jesus is what cleansed me THE DAY I GOT SAVED. From that point on, my righteousness is NOT dependent on ME, ever again! It is my faith in Jesus' finished work that cleanses me now, NOT my confession! (I John 1:7) This is why the gospel is GOOD NEWS and because of it, daily I fall more more deeply in love with Him :) 

I believe this verse was written to non-believing, but "hearing" Jews who needed to understand their sin and their need of a Savior. I understand now that it does not mean that believers have to confess every sin in order to be cleansed. There is nothing wrong with confessing sin or taking responsibility, for sure; but the act of confessing each sin no longer cleanses, and we have to be careful. The verse before this says "...if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin." This cannot mean, "If we walk in the light (walk without sin) as He is in the light, then...His blood cleanses us." Studying the Interlinear Bible text (original Greek) and Young's Literal Translation, as mentioned above, the verse more accurately refers to the initial understanding and acceptance of the GOOD NEWS/gospel, which is that Jesus released us from the law (earning our own righteousness by consciousness and confession of sin) and freely, by grace, took every sin so that we might reign in life through His righteousness. In other words, I think I John 1:8-9 refers to one's initial salvation, NOT one's daily life. Amazingly, as we accept His finished work, we reign in life, dead to the sin that once held us captive. THANK YOU, JESUS, FOR YOUR SACRIFICE.