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Originally posted on Cindi Gale:
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.” Revelation 22:1 Imagine a dry riverbed. People stand in and near it, waiting. Hoping. Needing. Pleading. Finally, one day the river fills with pure,…
Humans are a needy lot. Beyond imperatives like food, shelter, and sleep, we need affirmation, hope, motivation, truth, non-fragmented thoughts, noble attitudes, competence, friendships, acceptance, wisdom, and on and on and on.
Do we rely on God to meet our needs? Our areas of lack dovetail with God’s provision. Our needs are a mortise filled with God’s perfectly-fitted tenon. It is a partnership, a melding of a finite human and the infinite God.
John 15:4- “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
Often our needy lives merit considerable restoration. If a piece of furniture could…
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This morning, I happened on some thoughts I jotted down several years ago. I am sharing them in case they might be relevant and helpful to others.
This concept has to do with opposites. A couple Biblical examples are brought to mind:
Matthew 6:24 – No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.
Matthew 25:32 – All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
Also, God sometimes escalates the conditions of what is good to become better. The word I “heard” from Him is ameliorate. He is also escalating the conditions of what is bad to become worse. He gave the word exacerbate.
| Ameliorate: to make or become better, more bearable… |
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2 Chronicles 7:14 “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
What is it to pray and seek God’s face? Listening for God’s direction first requires self-assessment and intentionally becoming a blank slate. It requires great care to not mistake our own pre-existing opinions, views, and desires with His voice. Let me suggest we go “all in” and forego our opinions and loyalties to people, parties, value systems, and even theologies before we seek Him.
We can ready our minds to hear Him by saying and meaning:
Then we are to listen. Truly listen.
If we hear nothing, then it’s our responsibility to not substitute that silence with our own or someone else’s thoughts. Until we hear, we need to remain neutral. If we move on before hearing directly from His Holy Spirit to ours, then that impetulance is ours to own.
Early on, when we don’t know Him yet, or have just begun to know Him, it’s tricky. There are other voices that sometimes impose themselves, posing as the Holy Spirit. Sometimes they aggress as far as overwhelming us with anxiety, fear, or guilt. It’s part of the learning curve — stay determined: The more you know God, the more obvious it is that those cunning “voices” are not of our Father, but from the father of lies.
It doesn’t end at “hearing from God”. What do we do with information once it has arrived? We have free wills. Do we reject his direction, argue with his knowledge or wisdom, or refuse to believe the gift of discernment He provided? It is always up to us to reject or choose his direction. It is always our choice to disagree or agree with His revelation, but if we continue to be “all in” with his “answers” to our praying and seeking, we can be secure in His truths.
The same is true of personal growth and change: You are free to do so or not. You can choose to conform to people or to conform to God. Slowly but surely it is to our advantage to be transformed by Him, to be more like Him. Let that be our goal.
Whether we hear from Him or not, we do ourselves and others a grave disservice by claiming God agrees with our unchanged selves. We undermine and wrong Him by claiming He endorses us as is. When people have safety in numbers, we are prone to forge ahead with our bold ambitions, but He does not endorse us unless we are following Him, not leading Him.
People are free to proceed without God at any point, while claiming God’s approval. Check out what is happening in the religious world we live in, and see if you can spot them. If you don’t know God, but know only religious law, theology, or cultural values, you are unlikely to discern that God is not there with them as they believe. But if you have invested the hours, days, weeks, months, years, and decades to know Him, you will discern it. You can discern such a mysterious thing as what is true and what is false in the society we live in, because you have done your due diligence; you wanted to know God’s thoughts, not your own; you wanted God’s will only.
When you’ve lived that life, and have been consistently willing to hear from Him and Him alone, it’s not your first rodeo to find yourself alone against the majority of even Christians — you’ve been there and done that a thousand times; He’s proved his words and revelations to you a thousand times as well. You’re a veteran. You spent the time with Him one-on-one to know Him more and more, so you recognize when groups of people are groundlessly claiming God’s endorsement. Though they disagree with you, a crowd against one, you know theirs is not the God you know. You trust your longtime relationship so much that you let Him alone be God.
If enough people do that — truly seek God and God alone — only then, does He promise to hear from heaven and heal our land.
In support of excellence, strength, abounding good works, fullness of life, and actually becoming all that God has had in mind for us to be:
Romans 5:1-2 (TLB) – So now, since we have been made right in God’s sight by faith in his promises, we can have real peace with him because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us. For because of our faith, he has brought us into this place of highest privilege where we now stand, and we confidently and joyfully look forward to actually becoming all that God has had in mind for us to be.
2 Corinthians 9:8 (NIV) – God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.
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Some days I can’t digest the day’s news; I know I’m at risk of giving up hope for something specific, or my belief in general that humanity is good. On those days I don’t partake in what damages my faith, and feed instead on words and stories of inspiration, beautiful music or art, nature, or memories of previous victories over fear.
As for my confidence in a God of compassionate intervention, a God who can and will bring miracles to fruition in our lives, I oftentimes must “go it alone” to sustain my faith. When people (including some preachers and many, many Christians) approach with metaphorical axes to hack at my belief in the mighty salvation of our God, I do whatever I must to protect what took so long to grow within.
Courage, faith, hope, love, and peace are precious. They are fine jewels. They are valuable gems. I can’t let them be stolen, mocked, quenched, smothered, damaged or destroyed. They weren’t acquired in a day. They didn’t happen overnight. They cost me greatly. They were forged in the fires of affliction and injustice.
They are gold.
I must do whatever is needed to sustain these gems. It’s up to me to protect them. It’s up to me to keep them alive.
Hebrews 10: 35 So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.
36 You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. 37 For,
“In just a little while,
he who is coming will come
and will not delay.”
38 And,
“But my righteous one will live by faith.
And I take no pleasure
in the one who shrinks back.”
39 But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.
If he had quit, like most people would do, this never would have happened.
God designed us to have free will. We are not meant to be puppets or pawns, not even of God who we have abandoned ourselves to. We are free to think and believe as we decide. Faith is ours to choose and ours to maintain.
Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith. Genesis 15:6.
Believe or not believe. Keep faith alive or allow it to slowly drift away or be suddenly destroyed byexplosive life circumstances. Soar above crises through confidence in the God who saves you, or be dragged to death through them.
God’s design is to implement his will on Earth through our faith. If we don’t remember that and stay diligent to determine to do it, we risk surrendering our lives to despair and evil.
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Hosea 4:6.
If we fail to do…
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An unprecedented number of Americans are declining to participate in organized religion.(See “America’s Changing Religious Landscape”, Pew Research Center, link below.)
Is it any wonder that people are rejecting church attendance, given the last decade’s convergence of religion and politics in a large sector of American Christianity? Why would people be drawn to religion when what they know about church (and therefore think of God) is what they witness on public platforms?Why would anyone be drawn to God when people who claim to representhimthink and behave as they do?
To you who are understandably and rightfully turned off from this growing branch of American Christianity …
I wish you knew that “those people” are nothing like God.
I wish you knew that unrighteous people sometimes affiliate with a religious institution for selfish agendas and personal gain, not to worship God.
I wish you knew unscrupulous people sometimes exploit religion…
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We all know people who don’t want to face the world on a given day. They are tired of being stepped on, and generally sick of the crap of life. Some are overwhelmed by the state of society—”The world is evil; there’s no point; evil is winning”—while some are direct targets of crushing injustice.
In either case, we hear it in their anger. It is evident in their depression. It has become personal. They’re buried under it.
To all those in a state of defeat, worry, frustration, reactive anger, or agony, know that hope is alive somewhere under the rubble. Love is in there too. Faith is recoverable beneath your personal landslide. We hear its life, its breath, its cry for mercy.
It’s true that corruption and oppression are real, powerful, suffocating, and sometimes deadly. But it hasn’t won. You’re not done breathing. You’re not done with faith, hope, and love. Those three have not flat-lined.
For all those not presently buried, help those who are. It was us yesterday; it could be us tomorrow. Dig to rescue those who are struggling for breath. Shovel the weighty debris off their backs. Get on hands and knees, and push aside the dirt and clay until victims have access to air, to faith, to hope, to love.
Together, let’s resuscitate faith, hope, and love. Those three do remain in people as individuals, and among humanity collectively.
1 Corinthians 13:13 And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Cindi Gale 