August 17, 2006
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What good is a Bible study if you just listen, take notes, and do not apply it in your life? Zip. So this morning as I was beginning to do my lay in bed and say a few words to God routine I realized that wasn’t worshipping a holy God. The Holy Spirit reminded me of a teaching I heard years ago by Pastor Don that he rolls out of bed in the morning and kneels by his bed to pray, and he rolls into bed at night from a kneeling position. While this is not necessary to talk with God or a law about how we are to pray to God, for ME it is what I needed to do today to remind myself that God is worthy. So many of our traditions start out as reminders of the Holy Spirit – and then they lose their savor like salt, if they become rote. Even kneeling can become rote. I suspect that we need to be led by the Holy Spirit and make our prayers an adventure with God, not a list of rules.
Remember the advertisement they used to have about a laxative pill, showing a bowl of prunes – is one enough, is six too many. We cannot treat prayer that way either, is one minute enough, six too many. It isn’t a formula. Now this was not what I planned to sit down and write. The following is what I had intended to start with.
I got into the shower after I prayed and was thinking on the Bible study. I had written the first half last night and figured I would try to get to the second half, even though I won’t post it until late tonight. I wanted to give a copy to Pastor Don, as I will probably see him today. And in the shower a full blown picture came to mind and I knew that I have to share this with you.
Many of you know my past – that I was in the occult. One of the groups I belonged to was a witchcraft coven. It was different from most in that it was a teaching coven. The priestess and priest taught witchcraft with the same intensity and depth that Pastor Don teaches the Bible (talk about satan imitating God). We learned every aspect of the craft with great detail. As a neophyte (beginner) one of the first lessons had to do with the magical tools and how to use them and how to cast a circle. This course took three months. In casting a circle in the tradition I studied, the priest and priestess had specific jobs. The priestess cast the circle. It involved taking the various elements around the circle, starting at specific points in the compass with each element, and saying certain prescribed words. In our minds, and the minds of all the people who were participating in the circle casting, we were to see these elements cleansing the circle. then we would draw the line in the spiritual realm that comprised the circle and see the circle keeping us in, the bad out, and holding in our power until we released it. Then we would invoke the god and goddess in the circle – hand gestures, the priest bidding them in and certain words said. We were taught that a circle, like a chain, was only as strong as the weakest link, so we all had to focus and bend our minds to the task. We also invoked the specific deity we wanted - pick any god and goddess of the many pantheons. There were always serious debates in the occult circles about mixing and matching various gods from various pantheons. Traditionalists vs more free flowing occultists. But the main brunt of the occult was training our minds. We were god, we were the master of our destiny, it was us who did what we did, we were the ones in charge, we were the ones who cast the spells, trained ourselves, etc. If we did things wrong, we opened up the possibility of psychic attack, of a spirit controlling us, not us controlling a spirit.
Reminds me of the lyrics of a song, “I, me, me, mine…” This is not worship of a sovereign God, this is self. Notice how much it is “I” or “we” who do this. Worship is when we place God as the focus, and we are humble. There is no humility in the above scenario.
THAT IS THE BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE OCCULT AND CHRISTIANITY. In the occult WE, I, did things. In Christianity, we have a SOVEREIGN GOD, who allows us to participate with Him, but realize this, GOD is GOD. He is in charge. Nothing we do can make Him not be in charge. God is bigger than us, worthy of worship, worthy of praise, worthy, oh so worthy.
The above came to mind because in Bible study we looked at how the Temple of Solomon was dedicated, and we will see that it is far, far different from how occultists work. Understand my heart when I say that sometimes Christians can worship in a similar way to the above, in that we think it is what WE do that makes the spiritual experience happen. I have thought that myself at times. WE do NOTHING, it is the Sovereign God who does and is EVERYTHING.
1 Kings 9:1-3 And it came to pass, when Solomon had finished building the house of the Lord and the king’s house, and all Solomon’s desire which he wanted to do, that the LORD appeared to Solomon the second time, as He had appeared to him at Gibeon, and the LORD said to him: “I have heard your prayer and your supplication that you have made before Me; I have consecrated this house, which you have built to put My name there forever, and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually.
Pastor Don asked us when the building was consecrated. It was consecrated here, BEFORE, the elaborate ceremony that Solomon did with the people. God is the one who consecrates the Temple, what Solomon and the priests did was to remind the people that the Temple was holy. All their prayers, sacrifices, songs, did not consecrate the Temple – it was consecrated BEFORE the ceremony began. God is the one who consecrates.
God is the one who makes a physical house of God Holy. God keeps it Holy. That is our body (Temple of God), our church, our homes, our car. We are to remind people that it is consecrated and holy, to remind ourselves in our own temples that we are consecrated and holy. satan wants us to think that we can mess up God’s place by our actions, or that others can come in and curse God’s place. An impure person cannot do that. God can take care of Himself and His places. He can do that in many ways, throwing the person out, shutting down the building, letting the building be destroyed, and in some instances letting the person die. We must remember that these places are God’s, and that they are holy. And remind each other that they are holy.
When we were saved, satan was bound up. satan has no power in our lives unless we give him the power. The Holy Ghost, the Lord, consecrates everything we have, our bodies, houses, church, car, etc. Our body is the temple of the Living God, it is Holy and consecrated. We must remind our body of who it is. God lives inside of me, inside of you, and we walk in divine health, holy, acceptable, approved.
And in 1 Kings 9:3 how long does this consecration occur, perpetually.
1 Kings 9:4-5 Now if you walk before Me as your father David walked, in integrity of heart and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and My judgements, then I will establish the throne of your kingdom over Israel forever, as I promised David your father, saying, ‘You shall not fail to have a man on the throne of Israel.”
Notice that it is the integrity of the heart, of uprightness that we are to walk before God. David walked before God, but he missed it in different situations in his life, yet God considered him a man after His own heart. God is looking at our hearts. We will all miss it in our physical lives, but God is looking at the INTEGRITY OF OUR HEARTS.
God set himself perpetually in the Temple, what is outside of the throne of the Kingdom of God is conditional. God does not have to bless what does not flow in line with His Word.
2 Kings 9:6-9 “But if your sons at all turn from following Me, and do not keep My commandments and My statues which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land which I have given them; and this house which I have consecrated for My name I will cast out of My sight. Israel will be a proverb and a byword among all peoples. And as for this house, which is exalted, everyone who passes by it will be astonished and will hiss, and say,’Why has the LORD done this to this land and to this house?’ Then they will answer, ‘Because they forsook the LORD their God, who brought their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, and worshipped them and served them; therefore the LORD has brought all this calamity on them.’”
Israel did this in A.D. 70, and the temple was destroyed. It was destroyed so badly that today we are not even sure of the exact location of the temple.
God requires us to stay in covenant with Him. If we stay in covenant with Him, but mess up, make a mistake, He will not remove Himself from us, our heart is still right. But if we cast aside God’s covenant, seek other gods, and do not honor God, He is not required to keep covenant with us.
What does Worship look like?
2 Chronicles 5 and 7 give us an idea of this.
2 Chronicles 5:1-2 So all the work that Solomon had done for the house of the LORD was finished; and Solomon brought in the things which his father David had dedicated; the silver and the gold and all the furnishings. He put them in the treasuries of the house of God. Now Solomon assembled the elders of Israel and all the heads of the tribes, the chief fathers of the children of Israel in Jerusalem, that they might bring the ark of the covenant of the LORD up from the City of David, which is Zion.
Notice that there is a specific order, the Elders, then the heads of the tribes. Just like in our families, there is Jesus who is head over the father, who is head over the mother, and all are head over the children. It would have been improper for Solomon to have gone to the individual families without first going to the elders. There is an order in God’s kingdom.
1 Chronicles 5:3-6 Therefore all the men of Israel assembled with the king at the feast, which was in the seventh month. So all the elders of Israel came, and the Levites took up the ark. Then they brought up the ark, the tabernacle of meeting, and all the holy furnishings that were in the tabernacle. The priests and the Levites brought them up. Also King Solomon, and all the congregation of Israel who were assembled with him before the ark, were sacrificing sheep and oxen that could not be counted or numbered for multitude.
Pastor Don reminded us that the Ark of the Covenant had the mercy seat – which is the only means by which we can come to God and not be destroyed. He pointed out that right now our mercy seat is Jesus, and it is only through Him that we can come to God and not be destroyed.
Within the ark is the Ten Commandments – the Law, and the Law was the taskmaster that allows us to see how short we fall from God’s laws. We break the covenant of the law, and it is only through Jesus that we are restored to God and to covenant with God.
Also there is the bowl of manna – to remind the Israelites of God’s provision for them in the wilderness – and now we take communion with God, we eat of this bread and drink of this cup. Jesus is the Bread of Life.
And lastly, there was Aaron’s Rod – the symbol of High Priesthood. Jesus is our High Priest – and He is a High Priest of the order of Melchizadek. In Solomon’s time, it was the High Priest who made sacrifice in the Holy of Holies for the sins of the congregation – Jesus sacrificed Himself to atone for our sins.
Jesus is our Ark of the Covenant. For our praise to be effective, we must bring our praise to the Ark – to Jesus. When we come to Him, we are bringing in the Ark of the Covenant to our temple (our bodies). It is only by the blood of the Lord that we can come to Him, eat of Him everyday, and be under covenant.
Notice in the above verses that the sacrifices were unable to be counted. There is no amount of sacrifice that we can do on earth that is sufficient to cover our sins, only Jesus is able.
There is a two fold sacrifice here:
OXEN – which symbolize work, harvest, they are driven, not led, they are yoked together, and are strong, but need guiding.
SHEEP – we are the dumb sheep. Sheep are led, and they can be led to slaughter if they are not following the right shepherd.
We lay down ourselves and our works when we worship God. When we praise and Worship God, we lay down our hearts of flesh, and turn to His heart, our heart no longer is a heart of stone. We lay down our works – for it is easy to become prideful in our works.
Pastor Don asked us if we have ever been worshipping and forgot you have to go to the bathroom, if you are hungry and forget to eat, or tired and forget to sleep, upset and forget what you are upset about. That is when you have laid down yourself and focused on God.
Pastor Don’s wife said that many in the church, instead of lifting their hands in holy praise, reach out to God with their hands in their pockets.
Prophetic gifts are not loosed until you are in the proper position to receive them, humility.
Then we skipped down to 2 Chronicles 5:13-14″ ….indeed it came to pass, when the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the LORD, and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and praised the LORD, saying:”
”For He is good, For His mercy endures forever,”
“that the house, the house of the LORD was filled with a cloud, so that the priests could not continue ministering because of the cloud; for the glory of the LORD filled the house of God.”
Notice that they made ONE sound (not a lot of individual sounds), and all worshipped together. and what was their praise song:
“For He is good, For His mercy endures forever.”
Pastor Don said that if a group stood up and sang just that, and only that, people would be bored rather quickly. This is a praise song that solely focused on God, not on the flesh.
2 Chronicles 6:1-3 Then Solomon spoke: “The LORD said He would dwell in the dark cloud. I have surely built You an exalted house, and a place for You to dwell in forever. Then the king turned around and blessed the whole assembly of Israel, while all the assembly of Israel was standing.
The King speaks a prayer, and that prayer pulls the rest of the congregation to where the worshipers have gone, and they are of one accord. Then the prophet stands up and prays, and all worship God.
2 Chronicles 7:1-2 When Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the LORD filled the temple. And the priests could not enter the house of the LORD; because the glory of the LORD had filled the LORD’s house.
Praise God, He responded gloriously to the praises of His people.
Chapter 6:40-42 Now, my God, I pray, let Your eyes be open and let Your ears be attentive to the prayer made in this place.
“Now therefore, Arise, O LORD God, to Your resting place, You and the ark of Your strength. Let Your priests, O LORD God, be clothed with salvation, and let Your saints rejoice in goodness. O LORD God, do not turn away the face of Your Anointed; Remember the mercies of your servant David.”
That was the prayer that was prayed before the Glory of the Lord fell. God is not looking for us to talk at Him, He is looking for relationship with us, and when we get to this relationship, blessing pour out, and we behold God’s glory.
2 Chronicles 7:3-4 When all the children of Israel saw how the fire came down, and the glory of the LORD on the temple, they bowed their faces to the ground on the pavement, and worshipped and praised the LORD, saying:
“For He is good, For His mercy endures forever.”
Then the king and all the people offered sacrifices before the LORD.
Notice that it is the same praise and worship song – “For He is good, for His mercy endures forever.”
Many in our church are concerned about time, and being entertained, how many of us are going to be willing to get so deep into worship in our personal lives that we will bring others along with us on the wings of our worship?
There is worship to teach, worship to evangelize and bring salvations, worship to inform, worship to heal, and snot and tears worship.
God is seeking Worship and relationship.
(Heather’s comment: Are we going to board the SHIP with Him? – Holy Spirit put that comment in my mind).
Have a blessed and worshipful day!
Heather
Comments (18)
I am just happy to be with the One true God! He is Might and Worhty of all our prayers……In Christ’s Love……Monic
On our discussion of truth, you have seven weak arguments and 3 strong ones. As for your post, Solomon is not only a wise man, but he is also a warlock. Warlocks conjure spirits and demons to do their work, but Solomon is different. He dispels demons for God. Solomon, being a warlock, is not mention in the bible because as you know, during the reign of Constantine, stories that are deemed unacceptable are not included in the bible. Moreover, the Book of Enoch is not included in the bible, but part of the story within the Book of Enoch is in Genesis. I have questions for this post. What’s the point of evil if God forgive our sins? If god forgive sinners then that means heaven is filled with people who used to sin. We are with killers, stealers, rapists, etc. If God forgive sinners, morality is totally useless, and that, there is no such thing as the consequence of evil actions b/c we will go to heaven if we are truely sorry. So what do you think? About the temple of Solomon, the story has it that he ordered the demons to build it. Your post ”Praise and Worship taught by Pastor Don Moore” is very persuasive. Within that post, I tried to find many weak arguments and contradictions, but cannot.
First of all, witches and warlocks are not acceptable to God. God would not honor Solomon or respond to him if he was a warlock. Evil was brought in the world by satan, and we all fell for the lies of satan. Evil has no point – it is not of God. Absolutely Heaven is filled with people who used to sin – the only one on earth who never sinned is Jesus. Sins do not have to be big sins, little white lies are also sins – anything that is not obedience to God is a sin. God is ultimate good, ultimate truth, ultimate purity, ultimate love - anything that is not God will look dingy next to God. The only way we can approach God is through the Jesus, through the covering that Jesus provided when He died for our sins. Of our own power we could not stand. Morality is not totally useless. God gives us our moral standard – the Ten Commandments. We all fall short, because the commandments are not just what we do, but what we think and our heart too. How else will we know that we need a savior, except by measuring ourselves against a perfect standard and realizing that we fall short. I trust that my Sovereign Lord and Savior can make sure that nothing evil enters Heaven – and that includes the sins that we have committed on earth. He washes them clean. The book of Enoch is not part of scripture – it is filled with lies and untruth. What you are reading sounds like tenents of ceremonial magic, not of God. By the way, in the left hand column of my blog is a link to In His Name Ministries. That is a link that you can go to and even email Pastor Don. I am sure he, too, would welcome your questions. And there are teachings there to listen to. Regarding your comment that we will go to heaven if we are truely sorry is not true. There is only one way to Heaven, and that is through Jesus. Romans 10:9 says, “That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” There is no other way. The gift that Jesus offers is salvation, and it is our choice to take it or not. I struggled so with accepting God into my life, and some of the same points you made I debated vehemently with Pastor Don. My heart goes out to you.
Think about a counterfeit one hundred dollar bill. In order to get it to pass undetected to other people it has to look very much like the real thing. If a counterfeiter created a pink one hundred dollar bill it would be detected in a snap. When a person is trained to detect counterfeit bills, they are put into a room with thousands of real ones, and after inspecting them, a counterfeit stands out sharply. I went into Pastor Don’s office when I first met him and told him I was a good witch, I only did healings and good things. It is true, if works could get someone to Heaven, I had done many good works. But it isn’t works. When you start reading the Bible, not the books that are counterfeit gospels and texts, the lies of the counterfeit texts stand out. I challenge you to read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation – in my Bible it is 1,119 pages less pages than a Mitchner novel and in some Bibles there are even less pages. Do it twice, and you will begin to see how well it hangs together, and you will see that there is an inherent truth in the pages, and that the false texts do not stand up to the truth in the Bible.
I am going to pray for you. Please do not let yourself be deluded, God loves you, and wants you to know His love. He is reaching out toward you, accept His gift, His love for you.
Heather
Hi Heather . . . I just finished reading all that you wrote from yesterday and today. I hadn’t thought that I was so far behind, but then I looked back and found out that it was just two days’ worth! I am so full ~ blessed, encouraged, thrilled, convicted, challenged, ~ for each of the sections you wrote, I could have written many comments. Thank you so much for your diligence, faithfulness, and scholarship ~ to God be the glory for you, dear friend. Praying for you just now ~ Love in Christ ~ Carolyn
You have misinterpreted me. I have more questions, but I guess you are tired of it.
I have a question for you. As I was reading your post and with your past involvement in the occult, what do you think of the Harry Potter books/movies? I have seen Christians on both sides of the spectrum with that.
interesting
I am not tired of you, ask away!
Heather
Wonderful post. We need to revisit these truths often so that we don’t fall into mundane routines. God is awesome and so deserving of our worship and praise!
you have an awesome testimony! Thank you for sharing it!
As usual this is a great entry. It reminds me of my husband, he starts the morning out and ends the evening on his knees by the bedside in prayer and Bible reading. He shared last night, that through trials and tribulations he has learned this was the way to go. : ) You feeling like you should get on your knees sounds like one of those tests doesn’t it? : ) Once when I was in a huge store I knew my dd was in a very serious telephone conversation concering a possible lifemate. My heart was so burdened, and I felt the same thing….to get on my knees and pray where I was…so I wrestled with it but sure enough I knelt there in the computer program department of all places and prayed a silent prayer. I appreciate your uncompromised stand Heather.
ryc, on driving lessons. I had to chuckle….we used to live down the street from a family with several boys. They were a nice family but I was so tickled one day as one of the boys drove off he punched it! If he wouldn’t have been on gravel I’m certain he would have squealed away!
Wonderful sharing post!
I never realized the importance of kneeling until I could no longer do it. A total knee replacement makes it uncomfortable to kneel at all much less for any period of time.
And yet…….
……one Sunday a woman needed me to go to the altar with her and pray. The knee held……it was that important to kneel for that prayer.
You seem to possess great knowledge by the fact that all of your statements are in a declarative sentence, and you switch from being a wiccan to being a Christian. Please make me understand, and do not hide anything from me. If it takes to instruct me like a little child for me to understand then please do it. I have questions regarding the existence of evil. You said that the existence of evil is not from God. This statement leads me to question: what things God did create, and what things God did not create. How can God create one thing and not the other, and if God did not create that particular thing then how does it come into existence? If you agree upon that God create one thing and not the other then you go against the popular belief that God created everything in which all of his creation is part of his plan for us. Now, if you accept that God created everything including evil then you contradict yourself. Moreover, this signifies that your knowledge and belief is not consistent. When it is not consistent, you do not stand steadfast with your belief, and that, deep within your subconscious mind you doubt your belief. And if you admit that you don’t know God’s creation or His plan then why are you following things that you don’t know. It is more logical to follow things that you know. Let’s tackle these questions first before we move on to the next. I hope you will enlighten me. I can’t wait
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I have a question for you. When you want to evaluate something, do you compare it to an absolute standard. Darkness is the absence of light. We can only know that something is darkness if we know what light is. Take one tiny match is all it takes to banish darkness. We detect evil by comparing against Good. God is absolute good. In order for us to recognize evil, we also have to know what good is. Do you have a Bible? If you read in Genesis you will see that God created the earth and it was GOOD. God created man – Adam and Eve. He gave them instructions – that they could eat of all in the garden except from two trees. You may ask yourself, why two trees and such instructions. God is also absolute love. If you love someone, even your own creation, you have to give them a choice – to love you back or not. God could have forced Adam and Eve to obey, He could have forced them to love Him. He could have made them like robots, completely obeying Him. But that would not have been real love. Real love requires the person to make a choice to love back. God’s criterion was obedience to a simple rule. Adam and Eve chose to disobey God – they listened to a liar (satan), and decided that they wanted to rely on themselves, not on God. By their action of disobedience, they gave evil (satan) permission to take over the dominion of the earth. Because God is also absolute truth and places His word even above Himself, He had to honor this. But He also made a plan to claim back the earth from the evil that was allowed. In order to do this, to play by the rules He set down, He needed to send His Son (who is also God) to the earth in Human form, who willingly loved us so much that He was willing to die for our sins, and bring us back into communion with God. It was the only way He could come back to relationship with us. God permits evil right now because He is hoping that all on earth will accept His gift of salvation and come back to Him. God is also a just Judge, and one day He will judge us. We will all stand before Him. Our only hope is the salvation that Jesus died to give us. No one on earth has ever not sinned. We have all done at least one sinful thing, and even one sinful thing is enough to condemn us. God does not grade on a sliding scale. We are all sinners in need of a savior.
I hope this helps. Thanks for asking,
Heather.
Pastor Don really has good thoughts… Does he record on CD’s? Love to hear one of his messages while I drive! I love old testament typology. Many believers in Thailand do not have any knowledge of the temple, sacrifices and tabernacle (Which were shadows of the real thing…)
Interesting conversation taking place too with Demetrian…
I believe that you think those questions are easy, but please, do not evade them. The main premise of this discussion, in which you evade, is the statement: Evil was brought in the world by satan, and we all fell for the lies of satan. Evil has no point – it is not of God. From this statement, I asked you, “What things God did create, and what things God did not create? How can God create one thing and not the other, and if God did not create that particular thing then how did it come into existence?” You answered it by saying that God created everything good, and “in order for us to recognize evil, we also have to know what good is.” From the statement “God created everything good”, I can deduce that goodness exists because of God, which means, God exists before goodness for him to determine what is good; and not, goodness comes before God and goodness determines God (for example, my parents exist before me, and not that I exist before my parents). If God create everything good and goodness only comes from God then who created satan (the evil one)? If God created everything good and “it is not of God”, it totally go against the popular belief that God created everything including Satan (which by the way, Satan is God’s #1 angel before he disobey God. God, being all-knowing, allows it. That means, God has a part in it by allowing his #1 angel to turn away from him because he has a plan for us). If you agree that God has a part in allowing evil because of his plan for us, then you contradict yourself when you said, “Evil has no point – it is not of God.” Also, you contradict yourself when you said, “Evil has no point.” following “In order for us to recognize evil, we also have to know what good is.” The latter statement means that evil has a point- that goodness is able to be recognized because of evil.
I have a question for you. When you want to evaluate something, do you compare it to an absolute standard.
Yes, I evaluate things by comparing them. Ummmm, what are those absolute standards?
I was listening to an old Keith Green CD earlier today and was struck by a particular song which asked why we can’t get out of bed when Jesus got up from the dead. Wow. That’s an impactive statement….
I am not evading your questions. I think that you are not hearing what I am saying. God created Good – yes, God created satan, and satan was once one of God’s chief angels. But even angels had a choice – and satan chose to defy God, to set himself on par with God. The problem that we have is that God is far beyond anything we can think or imagine. Have you ever read the book FLATLAND? It is about a group of two dimensional figures – square, triangle, etc. and some of them begin to contemplate the third dimension. The problem is, they are considered insane because most see only the two dimensional world. And the third dimension, when it intersects a two dimensional world does so only at points. It takes a leap of imagination to see the third dimension when you are a two dimensional figure.
The same is true about God. The absolute standard is God – God is love, God is good, God is not evil. When we hold God up as the absolute standard, than we can have a sense of what Good is – and when we compare anything with that absolute good, then we will be able to detect evil. Disobedience is evil. Good is what has a point – evil is the opposite of good. God is the creator, it is He who created all things. He gave all people and angels free will, they have the right to choose. They can either choose to obey God or not obey God. To obey God is good, to not obey God is evil.
Do you really want a God that you can fully pin down with your limited understanding? I sure don’t. That would not be comforting in the midst of great challenges. Tomorrow I will be continuing the writing of the Friday Bible study – and we will see that what God wants from us is belief and faith. God is sovereign. While we cannot understand how free will and God having everything in control can really work together, it doesn’t mean that in another dimension far beyond our limited understanding that this isn’t perfectly logical. What it boils down to is that you have a choice – believe God or not believe God. Accept Jesus or not accept Jesus.
I don’t know if you ever read my testimony – it is on 3/24/06 – second entry down, it is long. I spent a lot of time struggling with God and evil – I could not understand how a “so called loving God allowed the kind of abuse I received”. I struggled with that very much, and it was not an easy struggle. I was very angry at God for a very long time. I am now beginning to see where God was in some of my past. See, when we look at God and figure what He should be doing, we limit God. We put Him within the confines of our own understanding. But God sees far more than we do. When I get back to the study of Joseph in Genesis you will see that if you were looking at the life of Joseph from Joseph’s immediate point of view, being sold as a slave, being in prison, having to serve a pagan Pharaoh would not seem much like God taking care of Joseph. But God will use those experiences to prepare Joseph for leadership of His people, the time in Egypt will place Joseph in a position to preserve the lives of his family and ultimately the nation Israel, and Joseph will realize that all the evil that happened, really turned out to be good. We don’t have God’s 5th or 6th dimensional perspective, just our limited one.
I used to be angry at God when people would tell me, “God will take the abuse you received and turn it to good.” I thought that his recruiting plan stunk. But, now I am seeing layers upon layers of why God did not act then. God is sovereign, his plan will occur, whether or not we cooperate. If we do not follow God’s direction, He will make something happen through someone else. We see this in the Bible story of Esther, where her uncle tells her Esther 4:14 “For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
We can torment ourselves with questions, debate ad infinitum, but ultimately it will come down to just one point – do you or don’t you believe Jesus died for your sins. And your eternal future rests on that answer. I will continue to try and answer your questions, but you will ultimately be the one to make your decision.
Heather