Jennifer and I have been in a season where we have depended on the Lord’s leadership over our lives more than previous seasons. Although this isn’t something that we have mastered and have complete confidence in, its rather something that we are struggling to work out. In my journey through the Old Testament I came across a passage in Exodus that encouraged me and inspired me to write a quick thought. In Exodus Chapter 13:17 the Bible says this;
Then it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God did not lead them by the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said “Lest perhaps the people change their minds when they see war, and return to Egypt”.
In the days that we live in and those that are approaching our level of trust in Jesus’ safe leadership must increase. The Church and those that love Jesus must move into a place where we are not leaning on our own wisdom but in Jesus’ safe leadership. Although a vast majority of this principle (Jesus’ Leadership) must be gained through personal experience we also are strengthened through the written Word Of God. In this passage we get a glimpse into Jesus’ safe leadership over our lives.
As God is leading the Children of Israel out of Egypt he makes this statement about their direction and His foreknowledge concerning the path they are to take. There is a path that is closer than the one He chooses but its important for us to understand why He chose the one He did. We get the answer to His decision within this passage. God says that He lead them the way He did because He was concerned that if they went the short way they would have to engage in battle with the Philistines and He was worried that they would become discouraged and want to return to Egypt. Even though the way He lead them was going to take a little longer He was doing it out of love and His complete understanding of the future. He was at His core looking out for their interest and the safe arrival of the Children of Israel to the promised land. Sometimes in our lives God may lead us in a way that seems out of the way and its in this place that you and I must trust His safe leadership over our lives. The devil comes to try and convince us that He isn’t safe and that He’s not looking out for us. We must make a choice in whom we will trust.
Maybe the path your taking is a path that seems longer than another path that could have been taken, but if you are in the will of God we must trust that He knows what He’s doing. Jesus is more interested in you and I arriving safely at the end of this life and being joined with Him in the age to come then we are. To this end He is committed. Let us learn to trust His safe leadership over our lives more than our wisdom to navigate through the complexities of this fallen world we live in.
I was reading in the book of Romans yesterday and came across something the got me more then any other time I had passed through that chapter. I even had it underlined cause its a pretty common statement in the Body of Christ and have heard it quoted many times, but this time as I was passing it like I said it got me. I was struck by this love that has been shown towards me even when I was far away from God. So I guess your wanting to see what I’m talking about. Well its in Romans Chapter five and verse’s six through eight. It reads like this:
Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit uses these two examples to show us just how far Christ went in showing us His love. He says that not for righteous people and not for good people did He die but for sinners who were still in sin. The Bible speaks of Christ from the Old Testament in the Book of Isaiah saying that little did they know, that He was dying for the very ones that were nailing Him to the Cross. This Jesus has shown you and me a love that has never been demonstrated on the earth, or will ever be demonstrated again. When Jesus breathed some of His last breath He said it is finished. This will never happen again, and all you and I have to do is receive it. We welcome it with open arms and say we don’t understand it, but it feels so good. Jesus we are forever grateful for this love that has been shown toward us, in that you loved us while we were still sinning. Thank You!!
I was reading this morning in Luke chapter 1 and saw something that I have looked at and even looked into many times, but saw in a different light this morning. Often times in the place of prayer I remind myself that God is a God who sees, and hears. Not only do I think about these realities but I speak them out loud so that I hear them with my ears and they become part of my emotional make up. I have talked to some people about the things I do as far as speaking different things over my life, and they say that’s new age and you need to be careful. All that I am doing is another form of reading the word or rather getting the word into my head, so that my heart can connect with it and release change into my physical body. What we are to do is agree with what the Word says concerning our life in Christ and then declare that over our selves changing our emotional makeup so that we live out what the Bible says we can live out.
So in speaking things over my life, I daily in the place of prayer remind myself that God is a God who is not disconnected from His people. I would say something like “I thank You that You always hear me”. “I thank You that You are a God who neither sleeps nor slumbers.” Even now as I am praying before You, You are seated on the throne, and You have eyes, and ears and a heart”. “Your real”!! These are some of the phrases that I use in reminding myself that He sees and hears me. So often I think you and I lose heart in the place of prayer because we forget that He is listening and cares about our prayers. We forget that our weak prayers, and the weak movements of our heart move His heart. In Revelations Chapter 2 and verse’s 1-5 it says that He is the One who walks in and out of the golden lamp stands. What that means is that His complaint with the loveless Church was a complaint that He complied from His own experience with this group of people. There’s powerful truths in that. The powerful truth is that He is not a God who is disconnected from His people, but rather a God who has been acquainted with the ways of man and sees us up close and personal and has something to say from that vantage point. We must remind ourselves of this reality.
So back to what I was reading this morning and how all this is connected. In Luke Chapter 1 and Verse Number 13 the Bible says this:
The Urgency of the Hour is a topic that was covered time and time again in the New Testament as well as the Old Testament. Its a topic that asks you and I to take a serious look at it. Some of this conversation that I am typing out right now is really underdeveloped and not fully concrete in me, but its rattling around inside and I need a place to get some of it out.
I have been thinking about this topic for a while now, and have been looking at some different places in the Bible and in books that cover this topic. In fact I am in the middle of doing a study in the Gospels right now thats documenting how many total scriptures are in each chapter from Matthew to John and how many of those scriptures speak about the end-times in compairision to how many speak about other topics. When I am finished with it I will be making some diagrams and charting the information some how, and in different forms. What I am finding is that there is a lot of information as to what it will look like in that generation in which the Lord returns, what that generation is supposed to look like, the things we should know and how we should be living.
Lots of people want to talk about the specific time in which Jesus will split the sky and enter into time and space or the exact moment He will come to earth, but thats not really what all these scriptures are speaking about. Jesus even said Himself that no one knows the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man will return, but only the Father in Heaven. So either people take the standpoint that we should know the time and the hour and try to figure out the exact moment, or the other camp that says no one will know and you aren’t supposed to know. Both of these concepts are not found in the Bible. The idea that you will find in the Bible from Jesus’ teaching’s is that we are to know the season in which He will return. The Bible says in Matthew 24:32-33
When it’s branch has already become
tender and puts forth leaves, you know that
summer is near. So you also, when you see all these
things, know that it is near-at the doors”.
At some point you and I must get over the fear of man, and what the powers of the earth will say as you and I declare the message of Jesus’ soon return to the earth. Not only declaring in but giving ourselves to prayer, fasting, reading the Bible, fellowshipping with other believers and loving those that don’t know Jesus. Holy Spirit help us take serious this moment of history that we are living in.
Recently while spending time with God speaking in tongues and communing with The Holy Spirit I was quickened to a scripture in Galatians chapter 6 and verse eight. It reads like this
“For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap
corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.”
This is a powerful scripture that is used in many different areas of the Christian walk, but I want to zero in on a specific area today. You may say I don’t sow anything, that’s for farmers, and people with a green thumb. I would beg to differ. The truth is we all sow to either one thing or another. To make it simple just like the verse we read, we are either sowing to the flesh or the sprit. We are either sowing to the carnal side of our bodies the flesh, or the spiritual side which is the Spirit inside us, everlasting life. And the result of sowing to those is this; death or life. You are sowing to one or the other. Not sowing to the spirit is sowing to the flesh. I often hear people say, I don’t have time for the God thing, or I don’t have time to read my Bible, or I don’t have time to pray. Listen to this scripture in Ecclesiastes Chapter nine and verse eleven.
“…..the race is not to the swift, or the battle to the strong……but time and chance happened to them all.”
The Bible says in this passage that time and chance happens to all of us. Each of us have time and many chances every day and the question is what do we do with that time and those chances. A Pastor friend told me recently that he would like to go into a low income community and tell them that he might have received 100 opportunities in his life because of where he grew up, and those of you in the low income community may have had only 30 opportunities to get ahead in life. So the question is no longer did you have an opportunity, but rather what did you do with that opportunies that you were given. The same thing is true with time. Its not that we don’t have enough time, it’s what we do with the time that we have? With the choices we make we are deciding what we are sowing into, either life or death. The problem is, when the harvest shows itself from what we have been sowing, and we are unhappy with the fruit, not realizing that it wasn’t the field that was wrong or the time of year but rather what we sowed into the felid. Making time for God, is something that you have to do. It doesn’t just happen. It takes time, and after time sowing the Bible says that we will reap a harvest of goodness if we won’t loss heart in the process. Ask God for forgiveness, and redeem the time that you have from now on. Be serious about building your relationship with God. Go after this thing and reap a harvest of goodness.
