MyFaithNow

Here is a quick thought for today.  If God uses trials and tribulation to teach us and bring us closer to Him, why doesn’t it always work.  Here is the scenario.  One person can go through a troubling time in their life and they are drawn closer to God.  The other can endure this and it drives them away; even against God.  Yet in one of these situations, we praise God for his goodness and in the other we rarely acknowledge His existence.  In other words, we don’t see Him in the situation at all.  We count it as just a fact of life.

Does that make sense to you?  Me either.  When I was in prison, I grew tired of people telling me that God put me in there to draw me closer to HIm.  No.  The truth was I put myself in there.  God had been trying to reach me all of my life.  I wouldn’t listen to the warning and finally got myself in a mess.  Just glad I decided to finally look up.

I think our problem lies in the fact that we can not accept the fact that God is good; that He loves us.  We are innately wicked and negative.  That’s how the flesh works.

For instance, if I told you that someone had been raised from the dead, automatically you would doubt it.  Some of you that read this would give me doctrinal stands on why that could not have happened.  But it I told you a lie that 100 people had been killed down the road from your house in a freak accident.  You would immediately believe me.  Why?  Because the flesh works that way.  It is for this reason that we have a hard time comprehending a good God.

I live every day thanking God for His goodness; knowing that He is the author of every good and perfect gift which comes down from above.  I suggest you try something new today also. Instead of seeing Him as the old man in the sky ready to strike you down for your transgressions, see Him rather as the good Samaritan who found on the road after you fell in among thieves.  Imagine Him cleaning and dressing your wounds.  See Him as Jesus portrayed Him; washing your feet.  See all of us have to walk through this wicked world.  Isn’t it good to know we have a Father who will wash our walk?  Isn’t it good we serve a good God?

Tomorrow, we are going to ask the question.  Did God change between the Old and New Testaments?  Hope to see you back here.

Shane Creech

1Th 1:10 and to wait for his Son from heaven,whom he raised from the dead–Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath. NIV

I love this scripture so much because it aptly describes who we are and how God deals with us.  We are the redeemed of the Lord; saved from the wrath which is to come.  Delivered from the evil of this present world as the first chapter of Galatians teaches.  We are God’s favored.  Get the picture?

God is not mad at you.  He is not the author of your confusion.  Quite the opposite.  He is trying to get you to enter in to the deliverance He purchased for you on Calvary.

Religion has given us a wrong mindset where God is concerned.  God is not in the business of hurricanes, earthquakes and famines.  He is not destroying your marriage or giving you sickness to teach you a lesson.  He is not the author of curses. When the Angels appeared to the shepherds they declared that peace and good will had come to man.

Theology calls this the dispensation of Grace.  But because we are so negative and wicked in our mindsets, we can ‘t handle a God who is out only for our good; intent on saving us from the curse that sin and satan have brought into the Earth.  He is here to deliver us not only from the evil of this present world, but also the Wrath of God that will come upon the wicked when Grace has ended and judgment has started.

Be blessed today.  May God lift up His face upon you and give you peace!

Shane Creech