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REMEMBER Remember to put God back in the equation. As I hear about layers of the shadow government controlling everything, I remember God is still over all of them, and that brings me peace. Prov. 21:1 “The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever he will.” Dan 4:35 “All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does what he wills with the host of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth. There is no one who can stay his hand or say to Him, "What are you doing?" Remember the Scriptures are about Jesus and getting to know him, not for idle speculations. He is there in everything we read in the Word. “You search the Scriptures thinking that in them you have eternal life, but they testify of Me.” John 5:39 Luke 24:27 “Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He interpreted to them the things about Himself in all the scriptures.” Remember nature and Scriptures are the two bookends of the revelation of truth. Ps 19:1-4 “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky displays what his hands have made. One day tells a story to the next. One night shares knowledge with the next without talking, without words, without their voices being heard. Yet, their sound has gone out into the entire world, their message to the ends of the earth.” John 17:17 “Your Word is truth.” Remember all creation functions according to God’s principles of wisdom and truth. Everything built on lies will destroy itself, and and everything built on truth will last. Right now evil is in the process of destroying itself, and has a built-in DEATH WISH Prov. 8:35 “For whoever finds me (wisdom) finds life, and wins favor from the LORD; But those who pass me by do violence to themselves; all who hate me love death.” At the same time, the kingdom of God is filling the whole loaf. I do not have to resist the evil in the world. I can overcome the evil by doing good. (Rom. 12:21) Remember everyone is forgiven, but many just don’t know it. 1 John 2:1-2 “Jesus Christ the righteous is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” Jesus does not just cover our sins, but takes them away as far as the east is from the west. (Psa. 103:12) Sins are not just covered but remitted (“taken away”). When people see they are forgiven, they no longer need to hate good people. Evil no longer has a need to put down the good to make themselves look better or bring others down to their own level. John 1:29-30 “The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, "Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” Our job is not to convince people to receive what they don’t have, but to give them the good news of what they already have. Remember all people are my brothers and sisters. 1 Tim 4:10 “He is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.” Col 1:19-20 “…and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross. As I look at pictures of famous people in the sports and political pages, gaze around a restaurant or mall of strangers, talk with neighbors and family, I am with my brothers and sisters - even the ones who are hard to love and those who are spewing hate. It is like Jesus said, “Forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” Remember all judgments and circumstances are for purging and reconciliation. Those who are off the rails will eventually see the truth and come home. The whole process of sanctification involves God taking us from the visible to the invisible, from the physical to the spiritual, from the past and future to the NOW, from illusions to reality, from lies to truth so we can see from God’s point of view. Gehenna is not hell. It is the place where the trash in our lives is burned up. When the sacrificial lamb was slain and burned up, it was the sin that burned not the sinners! God purges with the fire of the law (Deut. 33:2, 3), and the fire of his word (Jer. 23:29), and the fire of his presence (Deut. 4:33). God is a consuming fire and he baptizes us with the Holy Spirit and fire (Matt. 3:11, 12). Fire will test our works (I Cor. 3:13-15). God purifies with the fire of trials (James 1:2-4). The great white throne judgment is when God will judge by the fire of his law and the world will be returned to righteousness (right-doing) – Psa. 94:15. Remember the ultimate goal is the restoration of all things. Eph 1:9-10 ‘And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment — to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.” Remember god’s wrath is being turned over to ourselves to see the end and turn back to God. When humans do not glorify God as God, and think they are wise when they are stupid, God pours out his wrath. And what is that? Is he standing over us with a baseball bat ready to hit us? No! He turns us over to ourselves! Rom 1:24-25 “Therefore God gave them up (or gives them over) in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.” The wrath of God is letting us do what we want to do. His wrath is allowing us to do what we prefer and to follow our own carnal desires. God allows us to go our own way, make our own plans to see the end of our own stupid decisions. God does not punish sin. The punishment is in the sin itself. God does not stand apart from us as a critic. He stands with us with his arm around our shoulder helping us to overcome the sin. He says, “We are in this together.” Remember not to mistake religious systems with the kingdom of god. The first will destroy itself, the latter will be permanent. Hugh Kingsmill has written, “What is divine in Man is elusive and impalpable, and he is easily tempted to embody it in a concrete form - a church, a country, a social system, a leader - so that he may realize it with less effort and serve it with more profit. The attempt to externalize the kingdom of heaven in a temporal shape must end in disaster. It cannot be created by charters and constitutions nor established by arms. Those who set out for it alone will reach it together and those who seek it in company will perish by themselves.” Remember to let god handle what we can’t. Say: “Lord, I can’t handle this. I am not going to try and handle it. You handle it.” Then enjoy watching Him do marvelous things. Remember it is finished. We are completely forgiven “once for all.” (Rom 6:10; Heb. 7:27) I do not need to keep confessing sin already forgiven. Our old man is dead and we are raised as a new creation sitting at Father’s right hand. (Rom. 6:6) Eph. 2:6-8 “He raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. We are dead to the law. (Gal. 2:9) We can stop measuring and figuring out how we are doing, and focus on how he is doing. And he is doing just fine. We have everything we need for life and godliness. (II Pet. 1:3) We don’t need to get God to pour out more good stuff, we already have it all. |