Suffering ( Habakkuk 3 v16-19)

A friend of mine said this,'Can't help wondering about the purposes of God,but still we must surrender to His wisdom'.Yes we all must wonder at times,why many of God's children are suffering terrible things by evil regimes and evil people. It hits a person hard when something evil happens to someone you love,I do not know how I would react if it happened to me,would I curse God and die? .It is easy to mouth words ,the fact is we do not know how we would react.In the daily devotional,Our Daily Bread, one of the contributors wrote the  following,'' You deceived me,Lord''the prophet Jeremiah cried (20 v7) ''Will you forget me forever?'' David wrote ( Psalm13 v1) ''God has wronged me'' Job said (19 v 6) The writer said, God never rebuked them.Those three men were not perfect but they were honest as to how they felt,I believe God wants honesty from us, for he loves us,and understands why we are angry at him,in that darkest place He is there with us,yes standing somewhere in shadows is Jesus,who by His grace will bring us through this trial of our faith to a brigther day.

                                                                         A prayer

                                                        'Let no incident of life,pleasing or

                                                         painful,injure the prosperity of my

                                                         soul'. Amen.

                                                             From Valley of Vision.

                                                             

It is no secret ( Ephesians 3 v 20)

 One evening Stuart Hamble visted John Wayne,and they were discussing how people solved problems, Stuart said,'It is no secret what God can do in a man's life'.As he was leaving John  said,'Stuart you should write a song abou that',and he did just that,and it became a very popular song,Here are the words he wrote.

                                                    'The chimes of time ring out the new's,

                                                     Someone slipped and fell, was that someone you.

                                                    You may have longed for  added strength

                                                     Your courage to renew

                                                     Do not be dicouraged,for I bring news forbyou.

                                                     It is no secret what God can do,

                                                     What He's done for others,He'll do for  you,

                                                     With arms wide open He'll pardon you,

                                                      It is no secret what God can do.

                                          'Look up to our God ,who can do the impossible'

                                                  

Unique. (Genesis 1 v26-27)

I read recently how certain people before they make important decisions consult chicken bones, why do they do that?, simply because they are Animist, who believe that animals,plants,rocks,rivers and weather systems possess a distinct spiritual essence.Hinduism incorporates signifcant elements of animism. I suppose that's why they turn to chicken bones.I remember reading of a man shouting at a rock,wanting a response.There was an song with the following words,'I spesk to the trees but they don't listen to me,of course they don't,because they are trees. Only man was made in the imsge of God,only man exsits after death,only man or humanity can have a relationship with God.But the question is this,where will we exsist after death ?,will it be heaven or hell?,that depends if they we  have come to a right relationship with God,that comes about when we come to know Jesus as our Saviour, that is why He came into this sinful world,to save sinners.

                                                          'In loving kindness Jesus came,

                                                          My soul in mercy to reclaim

                                                          And from the depths of sin and shame

                                                          Through grace He lifted me'    

A cloudy mirror ( Isaiah 55 v 8-9)

I have a little book called,'The  Valley of  Vision',it contains,'Puritan Prayers and Devotions',I read it occasionally ,I read the following,'Nothing can befall me,without God's permission,appointment,and administration'. These are very challenging words,and because God is sovereign they must be true,as you read this,you mind find it hard to accept those words.Consider Job and what happened to him,he had 10 children,they were all meeting together ,feasting and drinking and a very strong wind blew the house down ,and they all died.He lost servants when they were attaked by people called the Sabeans ,he had a vast amount of livestock he lost them also,then lastly he became seriously ill.God permitted all that ,and his wife told him to curse God and die,he replied, 'shall we accept good from God,and not trouble'His answer fits in with the opening words,what God permits what comes into our lives.I was praying for Christians who are suffering greatly,and I read how a believer was beheaded by Islamic extremist,it really upset me,and I cried.Let us not judge God whose ways are past finding out,All I can say is what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13 v 12.'Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete,but then I will know everything completely,just as God now knows me completely'

                                                      

                                              

There is hope.( Colossians 1 v 27)

 Humanity has accomplished so much ,they sent a rocket into space with people in it and went round the moon and back again,a tremendous achievement.There are cars that don't need a driver,most of us have wonderful TV's,of course there are countries that  are not so well off.There are still many homeless,and violence is everywhere,in so many countries there are serious conflicts going on.In Bob Dylan's song,'Blowing in the wind',he asks a lot of serious questions,like ,'How many deaths will it take 'tll he knows,that two many people have died?'.Inspite of all humanities achievements,it will never change,I wish I could say it will change,but it won't,the kingdoms of this world will not change,they will only invent more sophisticated ways of destroying one another and cheat one another.Is there any hope?,yes it comes through Jesus,who came to bring people into a kingdom that's not of this world,it is called the kingdom of God,it offers to everyone a wonderful opportunity to be a citizen of that kingdom by trusting Jesus as their Saviour.They will live and reign with Him for all eternity,in perfect peace and harmony.

Our great high priest ( 1 Timothy 2 v 5)

Writing on Jesus our great high priest in Hebrews 4 v14-16,the writer declares,'Therefore,since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven,Jesus the Son of God,let us hold firmly to the faith we profess' Hebrews is written to Jewish believers,who were struggling,the new covenant had come in, replaced by Jesus,who is the Son of God,in otherwords He is divine,no more sacrifices,no more trying to be justified by keeping the law.A new way has opened up before them, the way of faith ( Genesis 15 v6) ,The old covenant is absolete it was but a shadow of the good things to come (Heb 10 v 1) That goes for the Aaronic Priesthood it was never meant to be permanent,it would replaced  by a new Priesthood Cp  Gen 14 v18/Psalm 110 v4. and that is Jesus,who is now in Heaven,interceeding for us before God.This is what we read about Him,'For we do not have a high priest who is unable to feel sympathy for our weaknesses,but we have one who has been tempted in everyway just as we are,yet He did not sin.Let us then  approach God's throne of Grace with confidence,so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need'. (Heb 4 v15 -16)

Being presumptuous. (Psalm 19 v14 )

                                                     'Keep back your servant from presumptuous

                                                      sins; let  them not have dominion over me!

                                                      Then I shall be blameless,and innocent of

                                                       great transgression.  (Psalm 19 v 13)

So wrote king David,and it's good instruction,he is asking God to stop him from deliberately disobeying him.He is asking God for strength to stop sinning willfully.In the devotional 'Word for today' published by UCB) the writer is dealing with prayer where he asks for grace that he may walk neither in self-doubt nor in self- confidence because we know that apart from Christ, we can do absolutely nothing'  (John 15 v5 ) No one is immune from sinning,David was guilty,Peter was guilty,the list goes on.We often hear of ministers falling ,the nicest people can fall,you and I can,you may have.Count the cost of sinnig,whatever reputation you had as a man or woman of God will be no longer.People will remember you not for the good you have done,but the sin you have committed.The good news is God will forgive your sins no matter how bad they have been,and He will not hold that against you if you trully repent.