God Has a Wonderful Plan for Your Life...

Hello Friends!

The world’s most popular “gospel” message in recent times has been drawing in lost souls by promising God’s wonderful plan for their life. But behind the façade of the “wonderful plan” message is the often neglected and stark reality of the trials, temptations and persecution…

In fact, Jesus Christ promised to His disciples:  

Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in their synagogues – Matthew 10:16-17

The Apostle Paul certainly would not agree with the “wonderful plan” false mesage. In fact, here is just a small taste of the “wonderful plan” which was promised to Paul by the Lord via Ananias (see Acts 9:16):

Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep… – 2 Corinthians 11:25

Does Paul’s testimony of severe persecution sound anything like the “Best Life Now” foolishness that is being promoted throughout modern-day evangelicalism? I don’t think so – and I’m quite certain Paul wouldn’t think so either!

Here are a few more very important questions to consider: 

• Why do 9 out of 10 children raised in Christian homes leave the faith? 
• Why do many “professing” Christians show little or no evidence for their faith? 
• Why do 80–90% of those making “decisions” for Jesus Christ fall away from the faith?

In consideration of those telling questions, does today’s common “wonderful plan” Gospel approach align with the true Christian’s faith walk? How can we reconcile these two completely antithetical messages? These are all eternally important questions to ponder… And the Scriptures provide the answers!

The Ten Commandments will force us to reexamine our ideas about the true Gospel message and will convict us to reach unbelievers the way God intended – through His Righteous Moral Law found in the book of Exodus…

The Ten Commandments - Exodus 20:1-17

And God spoke all these words, saying: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage…

1. You shall have no other gods before me.

2. You shall not make for yourself any carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

3. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.

4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, or your son, or your daughter, or your manservant, or your maidservant, or your cattle, or your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

5. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

6. You shall not murder.

7. You shall not commit adultery.

8. You shall not steal.

9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”

Loving and compassionate Biblical evangelism has always been “Law to the proud” and “Grace to the humble” – Old Testament and New Testament:

Surely He scorns the scornful, But gives grace to the humble – Proverbs 3:34

God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble – 1 Peter 5:5

In our evangelism efforts, let’s be certain to share all of God’s Attributes – His Character and Nature – when presenting the true, Biblical Gospel message – His Love and His Law!

May the Lord Jesus Christ continue to bless you with His perfect love, mercy and grace!

Keep looking up and sharing the Gospel while there is still time… Hallelujah and Maranatha – come quickly Lord Jesus!

Blessings!

Shane <><

God vs. Science

9 “When Pharaoh says to you, ‘Perform a miracle,’ then say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and throw it down before Pharaoh,’ and it will become a snake.”  ...

17 This is what the Lord says: By this you will know that I am the Lord: With the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water of the Nile, and it will be changed into blood.Exodus 7

Have we stopped seeing miracles?  Some things may happen that we have scientific knowledge as to why it happened, and we don't see it as a miracle any more, we see it as science.  We see a rainbow and may think, "How nice," or "It's just the reflection of light in water droplets."  Do we see it and think that it was something designed by God?

What about life?  We may call an unborn child a miracle of life, but we tell ourselves that God didn't really put that child in the mother's womb.  We know the stages of cellular development that happened that formed the embryo, fetus, and child.  So what happened to the miracle?

God made everything around us, including the science that governs everything around us.  God didn't just create the earth, the animals, and man, but God created each of those down to the molecular level.  He knew every piece of every thing he was creating.  There's no way I will believe that it was a random roll of the dice in the universe that happened to put proteins together and *Bang!* there was life.

I love science.  Really, I do.  When I was in school, I loved to study things to find out how and why they worked as they did.  This is why I had a hard time with some of the miracles in the bible.  When I was younger, I'd still want to know how these things happened.  For instance, the Nile turned from water to blood.  The study Bible I'm reading right now gives a scientific reasoning for this.  There are algaes present in the Nile that can change the water to a red coloring.  So, it may have been a sudden abundance of that algae that changed the color and consistency of the Nile, so much so that it killed the plantlife and animals around the Nile.

Is that something I can logically reason?  Absolutely!  About a month ago, the same thing happened outside of Toledo, where an algae bloom cropped up, and the city put a ban on drinking water.  It made people sick, and it harmed the local ecology around Lake Erie.

The point is this: We have all at times asked God for a miracle in our lives.  We don't see any way out of a situation and need God's intervention.  We receive a miracle, but don't see it as a miracle.  We reason it away and don't give the credit to God.  What miracles might you have overlooked because you tried to assign a logical reason to them?  We need to remember that God is the force behind everything, even behind things that have scientific reasons behind them.

Who do you identify with?

Would you risk your life and job to identify with a person who had been sentenced to the death penalty by your co-workers? Beyond just identifying with that person, would you and I go to the judge and beg for the person’s body so we could handle their burial?

That’s what Joseph of Arimathea did.

Matthew 27:57-60      ⁵⁷ As evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself become a disciple of Jesus. ⁵⁸ Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him. ⁵⁹ Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, ⁶⁰ and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away.

The book of Luke has a few more details:

Luke 23:50-52             ⁵⁰ Now there was a man named Joseph, a member of the Council, a good and upright man, ⁵¹ who had not consented to their decision and action. He came from the Judean town of Arimathea, and he himself was waiting for the kingdom of God. ⁵² Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body.

Joseph was one of the 70 members of the council, or Sanhedrin. They are the ones that arrested Jesus, tried him, and convinced the people and Pilate to have him crucified. Apparently, it wasn’t a unanimous vote. As Luke stated above, Joseph hadn’t consented to their decision. Instead of giving up, moving on, wallowing in his own sorrow, or thinking he couldn’t make a difference at that point, Joseph chose to identify with and serve Jesus (even after Jesus’ death at the hands of his own co-workers). In fact, Mark 15:43 says he “went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body.”

Are you and I that bold?

Are you and I identified as followers of Christ?

How will you and I identify with and serve Christ this week, even when a situation seems hopeless?

Understanding Discipline

Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.  Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years.  Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you.  Deuteronomy 8:2-5

The topic of corporal punishment has come up over the past week.  Many have questioned whether it is child abuse or not.  My belief is that it is necessary in certain situations.  No, I do not endorse any type of punishment that either injures or causes physical harm of children.  However as a parent who as a child saw other children that lacked responsibility and control when those forms of discipline were not in the household, one could understand why my view is what it is.  No matter which side your view on the topic might be, we all agree that in rearing children, discipline, corporal or not, is an absolute necessity.

This brings me to discuss how God disciplines us.  Just as we remember the discipline we were given by our parents to aid in our growth to becoming more responsible, God disciplines us for our spiritual growth.  There are numerous times I suffered at the hand of God’s discipline.  Poor choices led to feelings of emptiness or dealings with the consequences of those choices.  Often we live in the moment where we question God’s goodness when things are not going are way.  However, God always is faithful showing us love and protection not just in the moment but forever and always!  It is with this knowledge that Moses spoke to the Israelites as they were well into their long journey to the Promise Land.  We should embrace the Lord’s discipline the same way as Moses did; with understanding and appreciation that God loves us and does things on our behalf.

Discipline is hard.  No one wants to feel the stinging pain and heartfelt disappointment that comes with it.  However, true spiritual growth cannot happen without it.  While we should never look forward to it, we should be grateful that God loves us enough to deliver it and feel good knowing that both our faith in and relationship with God will be strengthened by the experience.  How can you be more accepting of the Lord’s discipline?  What spiritual growth can you recognize from past discipline?  My prayer is that we take the Lord’s discipline with clear knowledge of its necessity for our own spiritual growth.  Amen.

Tues Devo: Send in the backup!

Exodus 32: ”Now when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled about Aaron and said to him, “Come, make us a god who will go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” (NASB)

Hello,

As we come to football season, we come to the time in life where the backup quarterback is everyone’s favorite player! We don’t like what we see from the starter – performance is off, too slow to develop, doesn’t make smart decisions – and we are ready to pull them out and put in the backup. We don’t seem to have much patience for those out their performing. We have our way that we believe things should be happening –and anything less is assessed quickly and judged.

This is what Israel decided they wanted – but not only did they want the backup for Moses, but they wanted to fire the coach too! We have to stop measuring our satisfaction with God on terms related to human timetables. All that does is leave us frustrated. His timing is not ours. If God wants to move quickly, He will. If God wants to take more time, He will. That decision we are able to ask Him to change – but it is His decision. Just because He is not moving in the time or at the pace we would prefer doesn’t give us reason to look for the backup, or try to get the coach fired.

Have a blessed day,

Will Hill