Fear of Suffering!

Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt at all by the second death.

Revelation 2:10-11

The fear of germs can be an all consuming passion. I had a great aunt who was obsessed with washing her hands. Aunt Lula had a wash basin in her room which she used off and on, mostly on, all day long. Then there was a neighbor lady who discovered the convenience of Lysol in a spray can. She sprayed door knobs and I’m told just about anything that would not be discolored by the germ killer.

Our fears can control us in many ways. In a sober sense you become the slave of your fears. If you fear suffering you will live your life doing whatever is necessary to placate that threat in your life. If you fear suffering you will make daily decisions to avoid any consequences that include an element of suffering. Paul Harvey summed it up perfectly in the first two words of one of his memorable radio commercials. The words were “PAIN HURTS!” Then he skillfully presented the benefits of a product that would attack the pain in your body.

Suffering is painful. Suffering hurts. But if you live your life as a slave to suffering so that you do whatever is needed to avoid it and you will indeed be poor. Even suffering that comes from the Devil himself will make you stronger in the Lord. Jesus tells us not to fear that suffering.

Jesus says that Satan can only make us suffer for a few days and then we will be given a Crown of Life.

Remember your entire life on this earth is only a few days compared to Eternity! While you are here, fear God and serve Him with all your heart. Let God be your master and do not fear the suffering that Satan may bring your way.

To Be Like Jesus!

For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah 53:3-6

Jesus had a hard life here on this earth. Isaiah 53 clearly states some things about the life of Jesus that are usually ignored.

Jesus was not “good looking.” Have you ever seen an ugly baby? They say there is no such thing, but Jesus had “no beauty that we should desire Him.” Have you noticed that portrayals of Jesus in dramatic presentations always cast Him as a handsome man? He is never played by someone who is “beauty challenged.” Yet the Bible clearly describes Jesus as unattractive.

Jesus was despised by men and He was a “man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” Grief is a very difficult thing to deal with in life. It means you have lost something very precious to your very existence. The Bible does not say what Jesus lost that caused him to know the intimacy of grief. Grief touches every thread in your cloth. It wakes you in the morning and puts you to bed at night. While others laugh you hurt “like Hell!” Grief is not a repairable circumstance. When grief arrives it stays until you learn to live with it. Grief is not for things you can “get over.”

And then, Jesus was wounded for my transgressions. None of the suffering in the life of Jesus was because He had done something wrong. Jesus never sinned and yet he suffered the penalty for every sin that has ever or will ever be committed. The justifiable pain of every life on earth was heaped on Jesus. For my mind that is impossible to grasp, but with God all things are possible.

And so I pray with great fear and trembling, “Lord let me be like Jesus. Let me live as Jesus did. Let me be used by You like Jesus was used as He walked among men and blessed them with Your Word and healing power.”

Come quickly, Lord Jesus!

Equal Pay for Equal Work!

Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. Then there will be equality, as it is written: "He who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little."

2 Corinthians 8:13-15

My mother spent a lot of her time making sure that she showed no favoritism between my brother and me. I remember her talking about the fact that our birthday and Christmas presents had an equal dollar value. To be perfectly honest, and this is not a complaint about my mother, it seemed she was more interested in equality than in meeting out blessings according to our needs.

Of course, a parent does not want to lavishly bestow gifts on one child while ignoring another, but the other extreme is problematic as well.

These verses in 2 Corinthians 8 provide fuel for those who want to construct society in a way that “redistributes the wealth.” It sounds great on the surface but when you look below the skin it is reprehensible. The sharing of wealth associated with the Gospel of Jesus is not mandated nor is it directed by regulation. It happens because brothers see the needs of brothers and out of love they strive to fulfill the needs of others.

When you go to a Broadway play and watch a perfectly scripted romantic relationship being portrayed, you can know for sure that it is not real! Sharing of wealth based on command and regulation is as unreal as all husbands being commanded to tell their wives they love them and kiss them at least once a day. It is like government printing money and pretending that they have created wealth by doing so.

That is the counterfeit, so what is the real? In Jesus Christ, there is equality which is beyond your comprehension. You have been given the Holy Spirit the same as every other believer. There are no “super Holy Spirit” Christians and then the regular ones. Your salvation is not “coach” class! There are no bargain tickets to heaven. And all the first class seats are paid for not by your effort, but by the Blood of Jesus. It is not easy to comprehend.

So as we live in this world as citizens of the next we find these two worlds colliding. We try to force the realities of this world on Heaven or we try to impose Eternal truth on this world system. Here is the difference in the temporal world and the eternal one. The cancer of Sin is eating this temporal world and has imposed a terminal status on everything we know here. Eternity has rid itself of the problem of Sin through the Blood of Jesus. And so we wait and hope for our translation into Eternity where you will be paid what Jesus is worth! That is truly equal pay for equal work!

Things You Cannot Share!

The LORD confides in those who fear him;
       he makes his covenant known to them.

Psalm 25:14

The words “confidence” and “confide” are quite obviously close relatives in the world of your vocabulary.

The word “confidence” is defined as:

1. Belief in your own abilities.

2. Faith in someone else to do right.

3. Something that is told to another and is to be kept private.

4. A trusting relationship.

When one person confides in another he tells something that is to remain secret or private.

If you pray beyond simple thank you or request prayers then you confide in God. You let Him know what you think about your current situation and you fully expect that He will tell no one else what you have confided in Him. You may plead with Him to relieve you of some suffering. You agonize over the plight of some loved one who is walking away from God. It is not strange to consider that we confide in God, but how can it be that God confides in me?

The prerequisite to being in the confidence of God is to fear Him. If I do not fear God He will not confide in me. So if you are not a God fearing person you will not hear from God things that are to be held in confidence. But if you fear God, then listen up! God will speak confidences to your heart. You will receive knowledge from Him that He does not want you to share with others.

That is the nature of an intimate relationship. The best picture of that on earth is the marriage relationship. It is a continual confiding in each other, but it is not to be shared with others. It is the same in your intimate relationship with Jesus. He will confide in you things that are not to be passed on to others.

Of course, there is plenty that is to be shared as we proclaim the Gospel of Christ to all men. But, if you want to know for sure how you stand with God then ask yourself what are the things you cannot share?

If you think I have lost my mind and don’t know what I am talking about, then spend more time sitting quietly with Jesus and listen for His voice.

Jeremiah 33:3 says “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know!”

Day of Abandonment!

My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Why are You so far from my deliverance and from my words of groaning?

My God, I cry by day, but You do not answer, by night, yet I have no rest.

But You are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.

Our fathers trusted in You; they trusted, and You rescued them.

They cried to You and were set free; they trusted in You and were not disgraced.

But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by people.

Everyone who sees me mocks me; they sneer and shake their heads:

"He relies on the LORD; let Him rescue him; let the LORD deliver him, since He takes pleasure in him."

Psalm 22:1-8

It is all part of the Cosmic War that has been going on ever since Satan rebelled against God. Some day in Eternity I imagine God gathering us around like Glenn Beck with his chalkboard while He explains the whole thing. He will answer all the “why” questions and it will all become crystal clear.

A good illustration of our current dilemma is that we are on the backside of a beautiful tapestry. We see all the colors but the picture being woven on the other side is not apparent, at least not yet.

When Jesus was here on earth He struggled with the same lack of eternal perspective. It is the nature of a human being. We are stuck in the fish tank of life as a mortal man and cannot clearly see the eternal perspective. Let it come as no surprise that you ask God why He has forsaken you. If you did not then you would not be living life as Jesus did.

The main issue of life for every believer in Jesus comes down to the day of abandonment. When you are overwhelmed with the feelings of rejection what will you do then? That is the real test of a believer. The test is not when you feel strong and boldly proclaim the Glory of God to everyone. The test is not when you are basking in spiritual sunlight and warming your soul with the truth of Scripture. It is when you feel all alone and face the forces of Hell that are bent on destroying you.

Know this: It is then that you have the opportunity to truly be like Jesus! And when you stand before the Lord in Heaven you may indeed see that what happened to you was to make you look like Jesus in every way. It is all a part of His plan for your life!

The End of the Story!

The ten horns are ten kings who will come from this kingdom. After them another king will arise, different from the earlier ones; he will subdue three kings. He will speak against the Most High and oppress his saints and try to change the set times and the laws. The saints will be handed over to him for a time, times and half a time.

But the court will sit, and his power will be taken away and completely destroyed forever. Then the sovereignty, power and greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be handed over to the saints, the people of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him.

Daniel 7:24-27

When you are a spectator to a sporting event you don’t want someone to spoil the excitement by telling you how the game will end. Of course, no one can do that, but if they could you wouldn’t want to know unless you were wagering on the event!

But if you had some way of knowing how every Super Bowl would end before the game even began you could parlay that knowledge into great wealth.

A great advantage that followers of Jesus have over everyone else is that they know how this life will end. No, they don’t know the day and hour or even means of their departure from this world, but they do know where they are going when they do.

As the turmoil in the world increases Christians need to be reminded of one very important thing. That thing is simply this: RIGHTEOUSNESS WINS AND EVIL LOSES!

There are those who think they know who the Anti Christ is in today’s world. If they are right and he is alive today and beginning his reign of terror, then know this for certain, in the end the Anti Christ loses and Christians win. He will not win the war. He will not prevail over Jesus Christ and His followers. That is for sure and you can trust that it is true.

Here is the real end of the story: “Then the sovereignty, power and greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be handed over to the saints, the people of the Most High.”

Will the battle be fierce? Oh, yes it will. Will there be much suffering? Most certainly there will be. But in the end evil loses and righteousness wins. You can bet your life that those who trust in God will prevail! So today, be about the battle and don’t worry about who will win the war. Remember the end of the story has already been written!

Thunder!

And I heard a sound from heaven like the roar of rushing waters and like a loud peal of thunder. The sound I heard was like that of harpists playing their harps.

Revelation 14:2

When a bolt of lightning heats the air hotter than the surface of the sun a thunder clap reverberates through the atmosphere. It is awesome and can be startling, even frightening. Everyone within the ten miles of the lightning can sometimes hear the thunder. Thunder is really good news in a storm because if you can hear the thunder then the lightning did not kill you!

Why is there thunder in heaven? Why would the voice of God be compared to thunder in some parts of the Bible? Thunder is the sound that is made when extreme power is unleashed. Imagine the power that is released when Almighty God says or does anything.

Static electricity is a tiny bit of lightning. When the tip of your finger gets close enough to another person who has the opposite electric charge in their body you can see the spark and sometimes even hear a crack when they receive the shock.

So if you see lightning and hear thunder in your life you can know for certain that the Power of God is being released around you. If you are living your life with an “opposite electric charge” from God, then you should be afraid, very afraid. God’s lightning will come down and burn away everything that is against Him. There is only one place to hide from the lightning of God and that is in the arms of Jesus Christ. If you embrace Jesus in every way and in every moment of your day you are safe. If you decide to venture out into the storms of life without Jesus you will run straight in to the judgment of God.