Trust our God!

On reflection over the last 27 years as a Christian I must confess that although at times my faith seemed to be strong I have lost my way far too often. Be that as it may, those detours as heart-breaking as they may have been have also taught me many valuable truths along the way…

The thought that now seem to resonate deep within my mind would be “faith” or the lack thereof!

Of late I have had the privilege of once again going through the book of Genesis with my better half Lisa and have noticed the vast difference of my application to faith in God, to those mentioned in that amazing book. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob all understood what it meant to live by faith; Joseph the son of Jacob, in type, a great forerunner to the person of Jesus Christ; a man who God blessed abundantly and yet it came at a very high price. But it was worth it all! Oh, if only I could now apply a small portion of his commitment and faith to the only true God! My God!

Here was a son who was favoured by his father Jacob and for this received great trouble throughout his lifetime. And yet he understood this verse; “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28) - Although because of their jealousy his brothers sold him into slavery, God turned it around for his good. His whole family saved from starvation because of that one selfish act; “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!” (Romans 11:33)

Joseph a man who loved God and was loved by God… we must remember that God’s ways are far above our ways; we have a puny brain in comparison. God undoubtable knows what He is doing. When people make statements like, “if your God is a God of love, why does he let rape and the like happen or why do such atrocities’ happen to innocent children?” Our God is perfectly in control of all things and a day of reckoning is just over the horizon. I would not for one minute with any certainty answer those questions as if I have the answers, but of this one thing I am convinced; God has a perfect plan which He is in the throes of unfolding. Trust we must, let us learn from Joseph’s example…

At a young age, when God, through a dream told Joseph that His eleven brothers would bow down to him, they hated him even more for it and sold him into slavery. From there he once again found favour from God as Potiphar, an officer of pharaoh, bought him and everything that Joseph did prospered, for God was with him and Potiphar promoted him to ruler over his entire household. But as time passed the officers wife enticed Joseph to lie with her, but Joseph would have none of it. Because she did not get her way with him she accused him of attempted rape. He was then demoted and thrown into jail where he then once again found favour from God and was elevated to overseer the prisoner’s. Two of those prisoners’ then had troubling dreams and Joseph in turn interpreted them correctly asking the cupbearer to remember him when he was re-instated to pharaoh’s house. Although the cupbearer once again found favour from pharaoh he forgot Joseph. It took another two years before God decided to once again intervene with favour. Pharaoh then had a dream and he called all the magicians and wise men in Egypt to interpret his dreams, they couldn’t! Only then did the chief cupbearer remember Joseph. God, through Joseph then interprets pharaoh’s dream. Once again God elevates Joseph’s position as second in charge throughout the whole Land of Egypt; from slave, to prison and then to second in charge under a foreign king. That is the God we serve! Who could ever have seen that coming?

Joseph then reunites with his brothers, the same who sold him into slavery and he forgives them with these words and with this understanding; “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.” (Genesis 50:20)

Trust in our God believer, do not question Him as if He has been caught napping, that has never happened and never will. Praise His glorious name!

Signing off

Tyrone

Crutch...

(Psalms 30:10)  Hear, O LORD, and be merciful to me! O LORD, be my helper!"

Because He lives I can face today, today is the day of salvation “do not harden your hearts in rebellion as some did…” and many have! Our glorious King is alive and He intercedes for all who would dare to acknowledge their sin, repenting in need of the eventual crutch, yes Crutch! I have heard many shy away from that word when referring to their Saviour, He is much more than any “crutch”, and at the very least we should all acknowledge that. He is the Aid of aids; which carries with it unwavering commitment.

How committed was He? Proving His commitment as He died on a cruel Roman cross on a hill called Golgotha! Unjustly accused of guilt and yet He was without guilt, yes that was His commitment!  

God’s very own Son, the very same who spoke creation into existence, yes God laid down His glory leaving the portals of heaven (in other words He laid aside immortality and took on a body of mortality), God choosing to impregnate a virgin named Mary and through the same process we all had to go through, conception and then birth, the Lord Jesus (God) was born as a baby with the cloak of mortality as the aging process had now begun, death looming for the very first time. Why? So that He could be “the crutch” for all those unable to achieve what He was about to accomplish…

God the Father who remained in the heaven with His cloak of immortality tasking His now immortal son with a quest, to live life for 33 years without ever breaking one of His laws, this was the requirement, an impossible task for all who had gone before. All the great men of God coming up short as each, one by one breached His law. They all failed to carry out His prerequisite and that was never to break one of His rules, the Ten Commandments, plus all the subsidiary by-laws, six hundred and thirteen to be exact.

Jesus Christ the Lord dying for sinners, paying the price for their sin, not His own, as He had no sin! What a glorious triumph!

Let us look at some of the opposition He faced along the way…

And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread." And Jesus answered him, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone.'"”(Luke 4:1-4) – a man hungry who hadn’t eaten for forty days was offered bread to eat, but in so doing he would have breached God’s law and in turn would of failed His quest, leaving every repenting sinner doom for a life without God and a final destination known as hell! What of the time when He was so tempted that he began to sweat drops of blood. Or the time when God His Father turned His back on the Lord as He bled out on that cruel Roman cross. You may ask why He would have done that. Because of your sin and my sin, the price had to be paid! And paid it was, praise the glorious name of Jesus!

I have needed crutches in times past and they certainly help in time of need, it is when we are self-sufficient and mobile without any need of their assistance that we cast them aside. Be Warned! God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Get the point? It is the sick person that needs the physician and not the healthy. In like manner it is not the self-righteous that seeks out Jesus Christ to save and forgive them for their sin but the sinner will call upon Him and be saved. “Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” (Luke 15:7)  

Without His garment of righteousness covering us we have no chance of getting to heaven… What will you do with Him? Today is the day of Salvation, call upon Him with heartiness and you will be heard.

Signing off

Tyrone

From the snare of the fowler

(Psalms 91:3) “For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence.”

There will come a day in the not too distant future when we will all have to give an account to the Lord; no differently to a steward accounting to his master. If I consider that truth and spend too much time here I will soon be walling in self-pity. A life filled with so much apparent failure… BUT GOD!

Did you know that we will all have to give an account to the Lord for what we have done in our lives? Each and every one of us will stand before this great God and have to explain why this or that. The unrepentant sinner will be judged for his sin while the repentant sinner will be judged for his stewardship. What he has done with the free gift of life! Although this is a fact of life and without minimizing this reality, let me rather shift in reflection, let me ponder with gratefulness what I now have in Christ! How much do I take for granted? Far too much I would suggest and for this ingratitude I ask for forgiveness: Thank you Father God for everything you have given me; you are the great deliverer; how often you have delivered me from the snare of the fowler. You Word is a light unto my path; with so much uncertainty surrounding my current job predicament I am persuaded of one thing that all who belong to you will never have to beg bread.  

I suppose there have been times when that truth has been obvious but what of the times when I have been oblivious to the certainty of doom and gloom and yet I have escaped with my life intact! A victim or armed robbery gone awry… there will be numerous times where one day all shall be revealed. 

What comes to mind? I vividly remember as a young boy crossing the street when a voice called out to me saving me from certain death. Whether it came from the heavens or across the street I cannot say, nevertheless my life was spared, with that clear distinctive voice stopping me in my tracks as a truck whizzed pass my face with centimeters to spare. What about the time of my horrific accident, at the tender young age of eighteen, how I survived can only ever be attributed to the grace of God; as the fowler looked to finish his quest, keeping me from ending my life on a note of obedience to the Most High! And what of another time as I lay mangled in a heap after a very serious head-on collision; and yet my God once again coming to my aid as I woke up in hospital with weights dangling from my leg with traction my companion for the next six weeks. How great is my God and yet how foolish I have been! Let no one kid you into believing that we in ourselves determine the future. I would agree that many of the choices we make along life’s journey in reflection should have been avoided, however with that said; it is the brilliance of God with His ingenious ability to turn disasters into valuable lessons. Even the bad choices in life are also designed to mold us and come through and teach us this one truth, “fear God and keep his commandments”.  

I am thankful for having a leg shorter than the other, I am also thankful for having to live with the scourge of HIV, I am thankful for the continuous rescue of my great shepherd… He is forever watching over his sheep and for this I will forever be indebted to the greatest of God’s, the only true God! All hail king Jesus now and forever more!  

May God continue through His loving kindness to graciously teach us obedience in and through His beloved Son the Lord Jesus Christ! We may stumble and fall many times but so long as God places a resolve in our hearts to dust the dirt from our knees as we once try again to find His will in that area of our lives which needs tweaking. If we still remain here on earth, hope is our companion; it is available to all who would call upon the name of the Lord… … so “while we have breath we have hope.”

“God delivers his people from the snare of the fowler in two senses. From, and out of. First, he delivers them from the snare-does not let them enter it; and secondly, if they should be caught therein, he delivers them out of it. The first promise is the most precious to some; the second is the best to others.” (C.H.Spurgeon)

Signing off

Tyrone 

Have you lost your way?

(Song of Solomon 3:1) “I sought him, but I found him not.”

Throughout the throws of life we have all been so conditioned to do what is against God. Sin taking hold of our lives has caused us to live lives detached from God! What a dismal state! BUT GOD who is rich in mercy has found it in His heart to save so many sinners from that dismal state. I thank God for His beloved Son the Lord Jesus Christ my Saviour for His faithfulness, even after I had once been blinded by my own sin and not the sin of another. God has in accordance with His will chosen to call out my name and open my eyes to the filth of my life. How thankful I am for this free gift of salvation.

Nevertheless along life’s journey the “little foxes” have somehow reappeared and caused me to lose sight of this perfect gift. I fear I am not alone in my deliberation! In fact I know that many have encountered a similar experience! Those are the cards so many have been dealt! BUT GOD who is perfect in every way has made provision for all who belong to Him! Repentance and faith working together to restore what the cankerworm has eaten.

Cancer has surrounded me in more ways than I care to describe, death on every corner. Today I will attend a funeral of a man I knew who has died of cancer at the tender age of 54; my father’s struggle against the very same vermin; one of my best friends also struggles with a disease that takes no prisoners looking to destroy all that is good!

Be that as it may, it is no match for the only true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" (1Corinthians 15:55) – It is only a transition to something far greater; once we pass from this life into the next we will forever be with God our Father. Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour will be our king forever keeping those who belong to Him safe in His arms.

But until then we need to be diligent in trimming our sail, if we have lost our way we need with urgency to seek Him out. One may say, “I have lost my way and I cannot seem to find my way back to that glorious place of safety.” We no longer can with any confidence cry, IT IS WELL WITH MY SOUL!” I say go back to the place where you lost Him and you shall surely find Him!

Consider these wise words from someone that has already arrived on the other side…

“I sought him, but I found him not.”

- Son_3:1

“Tell me where you lost the company of a Christ, and I will tell you the most likely place to find him. Have you lost Christ in the closet by restraining prayer? Then it is there you must seek and find him. Did you lose Christ by sin? You will find Christ in no other way but by the giving up of the sin, and seeking by the Holy Spirit to mortify the member in which the lust doth dwell. Did you lose Christ by neglecting the Scriptures? You must find Christ in the Scriptures. It is a true proverb, “Look for a thing where you dropped it, it is there.” So look for Christ where you lost him, for he has not gone away. But it is hard work to go back for Christ. Bunyan tells us, the pilgrim found the piece of the road back to the Arbour of Ease, where he lost his roll, the hardest he had ever travelled. Twenty miles onward is easier than to go one mile back for the lost evidence.

Take care, then, when you find your Master, to cling close to him. But how is it you have lost him? One would have thought you would never have parted with such a precious friend, whose presence is so sweet, whose words are so comforting, and whose company is so dear to you! How is it that you did not watch him every moment for fear of losing sight of him? Yet, since you have let him go, what a mercy that you are seeking him, even though you mournfully groan, “O that I knew where I might find him!” Go on seeking, for it is dangerous to be without thy Lord. Without Christ you are like a sheep without its shepherd; like a tree without water at its roots; like a sere leaf in the tempest-not bound to the tree of life. With thine whole heart seek him, and he will be found of thee: only give thyself thoroughly up to the search, and verily, thou shalt yet discover him to thy joy and gladness.” (Charles Spurgeon)

Signing off

Tyrone

PS It is well with my soul!

Wise or Foolish?

(Matthew 25:2)  “Five of them were foolish, and five were wise.”

It would be fair to conclude that foolishness has had a large role to play throughout my life. So many foolish choices along life’s journey! But without looking through the specifics let me rather conclude that I too, like Solomon, would have to conclude that the sole purpose of man is to fear God and to keep His commandments; “The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” (Ecclesiastes 12:13) -  Easier said than done, that is why God has so graciously made provision for a sinner like me; Jesus Christ paying the ultimate price for my sin, so that I could go free, or put another way; so that I could escape God’s judgment!

God’s call has gone out and very few, if any, have not heard these words, “For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."” (Romans 10:13) – Or at least the story of the gospel…

Yet even after my eyes were open to God’s plan for my life, mankind, this world and the universe I still filled my life with so many foolish choices. BUT GOD, who is rich in mercy, has once again opened my eyes to understanding the importance of confessing my sin and calling out to Him.

For those who understand what I am saying, take heed to the warnings in Matthew 25; if we are filling our lives with foolishness, we need to change gears, we need to call on God our Father in the name of Jesus Christ and seriously seek out oil for our lamps. For there is a day just on the horizon when darkness will fall upon the earth and all who reside on it will need the oil of Jesus Christ to light their paths; this time of trouble will be very unpleasant. The Bible has this to say about it; “For many will come in my name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains. "Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” (Matthew 24:5-13)

Having said that, fear not, for our Saviour has overcome, He has conquered all! He will protect those who belong to Him, yes we may lose our heads, but we have a home just over the hill that is glorious. A place that cannot be tainted by sin or anything evil, a place where the Lord Jesus will welcome us with open arms, a place where faith would have run its race and no longer be needed; for we shall see Him for who He is, we will embrace Him and love Him not with the eyes of faith but in person. O how I long for that day, even so come quickly Lord Jesus…

There are the foolish and then there are the wise…

Let our cry then echo through the heavens, “help me to serve thee O God!”

Signing off

Tyrone  

Ask and ye shall receive...

(John 16:24) “…ask, and ye shall receive…”

The bible is full of instruction concerning the faith and the application of it for the believer, many have failed dismally in this area of their lives, but before I look to point a finger, which somehow seems so easy to do, let me first take the log out of my own eye and then I will see clearly and only then may I possibly help others that may be struggling with “splinters”.

What needs to be understood about this specific instruction the Apostle John gives us in this portion of scripture. “Ask, and ye shall receive” – this could possibly be the most misunderstood verse in the Bible! Why? Not that it is hard to understand, in fact there is nothing mystical about it… on a daily basis we often ask and receive…

Why then in the past have I asked God my heavenly Father, the greatest of all father’s for this or that and not received it? The answer is a simple one, pay careful attention to the answer… “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” (James 4:3-4)

What then is the question I should be asking to receive God’s blessing? I need to begin to see through the eyes of the Creator of heaven and earth; I need to trim my lens so that I become more accurate in defining the shapes of the will of God in my life. I need to put Him first, just as the Lord Jesus put Him first and cried “not my will but thine be done”; easier said than done, too true! However I am persuaded of this truth; this then is the request one needs to make along life’s journey; “renew a right spirit in me” must be the cry of every believer and watch God work…

No wonder then when Elijah prayed for rain it rained and when he prayed that it would stop it did exactly that. There was no doubt in the man’s mind or in God’s mind. He asked and he received.

Signing off

Tyrone