This week Michael writes: Christians in every nation for the last three hundred years have suffered persecution. The only exception is the United States. It’s easy to lose heart and become disheartened about the recent state of affairs in America. In days gone by, it was an advantage in American society to be considered a Christian. However, today, the popular culture has maliciously relegated Christians to despised, intolerant, unenlightened second-class citizens. Christians used to be praised and revered. Today Christians are cruelly humiliated, ridiculed and dismissed by God-rejecting secular humanists.
If America finds herself far from God, who moved? There are paradoxes in the Word of God … from God’s perspective the world is upside down. Men and women call good evil and evil good. When God reveals the light of truth, then those who have eyes to see can flee from the darkness of this God-rejecting world to pursue the light of Christ and the kingdom of God. When we are born-again of God’s Spirit, He will open the eyes of our spiritual understanding so that we can perceive the truth from God’s heavenly perspective.
What men meant for evil, God meant for good. When a nation does not kneel voluntarily in reverence to the Almighty Lord, God allows the troubles, trials, and tribulation of this world to bring a nation to its knees. In God’s time, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the father. Following after the Lord Jesus Christ is a choice. It is an deliberate, intentional, and purposeful act of will. You choose what you love. What is it that you love the most? We love what pleases us. Do we love our Maker, our Provider, our Sustainer, and Savior? When we love God above all, our greatest desire is to please the Lord and do that which is acceptable in His eye and well pleasing unto Him.
The Apostle James said, whoever doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven by the wind and tossed … for a double minded man is unstable in all his ways. However, he that does the will of the Lord, happy is he. When we deliberately delight ourselves in the Lord, He will give us the desires of our heart, for our desires are aligned with His.
It’s easy to fall away from the path that God has prepared for us to walk according to His Divine design. When we are distracted, tempted and stray from the straight path … when we deviate into the side path to “Bypass Meadow”, how do we get back into the way of the Lord? As Paul said in Romans 7, that which I would do, I do not do, and that which I would not do, that I do. Who shall deliver me from this dead body? The answer to this question is in Romans chapter 8 … There is therefore no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.
Let's continue Michael's message on the real Jesus in the next post.
In Christ, Brian
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