Author: kezha1

Knowledge about God doesn’t equal faith in God. Just because you understand about Him doesn’t mean you actually believe & trust in Him…And Satan is a really good example of this concept. Satan knows God very well, well enough to come into His Presence and interact with Him. (Job 1:6) Satan knows that God is the one and only God Almighty, but he is void of personal trust. (James 2:19) Finally, Satan knows and can even quote Scripture, as seen when Jesus was tempted by him in the wilderness, but he lacks the clear perception of what the living Word is. We can possess all knowledge about God and have the entire Bible memorized but if we only believe intellectually and not by faith, we have nothing.

The only thing we can fully trust & believe in are the promises of God and His Word. We can’t trust our heart, for our heart can be duped and led to believe in untruths. (Jeremiah 17:9) We can’t trust our flesh, for our flesh fails us miserably to stand against falsehoods. (Matthew 26:41) Neither can we trust our mind, for our mind is depraved, corrupt, and evil. (I Timothy 6:5) We can’t even trust our conscience to correctly choose right from wrong when being led astray by false teachers. (I Timothy 4:2) Finally, we shouldn’t trust our friend’s personal opinions, biases, and slants/twists on God’s Word. (Psalm 41:9) The only thing we can fully trust in is God’s Word…for it is living, (Hebrews 4:12) fire, (Jeremiah 23:29 and flawless. (Proverbs 30:5)

This week I came upon a most interesting painting of Jean-Leon Jerome from 1896 entitled “The Naked Truth”. As legend goes, lies and truth met one beautiful day. Lies suggested that they take a swim in a well, so removing their clothing, down into the well they dove. Suddenly, lies leaped out of the well and stole truth’s clothing & ran off. A naked truth gave chase only to be seen by the crowds nearby who became angry & turned their faces away. A shamed truth quietly stole back to the well and hid, never to come out again. Meanwhile, lies traveled around the world dressed as the truth…satisfying the carnal needs of society…all because man could not look upon the naked truth. The Apostle Paul spoke of this in Titus 1:13-14…rebuking those who were following Jewish myths & legends rather than the truth of Jesus Christ and the Gospel Message. Even today lies, thinly veiled in the truth, can be found everywhere simply because man doesn’t want to acknowledge the truth.

The Lord has brought Ezekiel to a vast plain or valley… and he casts his eyes on an enormous field of destruction, covered with dried -up and dismembered skeletons…as far as the eye can see. It’s within this horrific & mind numbing scene that God asks Ezekiel if these bones can live. For Ezekiel, the obvious answer would be a resounding “No!”, yet Ezekiel chose to not look at the appalling evidence in front of him, but to rely solely on the Sovereignty of God. There will come times in all our lives that God will bring us to our own Valley of Dry Bones to view the “dead” in our life. It may be a body ravaged by disease, a confused mind, a hardened heart, an empty womb, a hopeless soul. For in this Scripture is a message of hope…that nothing is impossible for God for those who trust in His Sovereignty & Divine Will.

The Apostle Paul here grounds us in the characteristics of forbearance, forgiveness, and love, explicitly demonstrated in the redemptive work of Christ Jesus. Thus outlining the obligations all Christians have towards one another. But forgiveness is easier said than done, for the path to forgiveness has two distinct ways to go. We can release the hurt and relinquish the resentment to God…or we can relive the hurt over and over again in our imagination, coddling it & wearing it like some bizarre badge of victimization. The decision is ours…but if we choose to give it to God, He in His perfect love, can teach us how to love those who hurt us the most.

Charles Spurgeon once wrote, “Let us measure ourselves by our Master, and not by our fellow-servant: then pride will be impossible.” Anytime we compare ourselves to others in our service to the Lord, our Ministry, our holiness, our servanthood…we are measuring ourselves by worldly, humanistic standards… not God’s. That’s because our only standard-bearer is Christ. For we cannot represent Christ and conform to His principles when we are jealous and envious of other’s service to God . Our yardstick must be Christ only …otherwise pride and selfish ambition will usurp and decimate our representing Him to the world.

We can become very adapt at seeing other’s shortcomings, while putting blinders on our own areas of sinfulness. We pray for God to intervene in other’s lives for what we judgmentally see as disobedience, defiance, and conceit…but refuse to take a hard look at our own rebellion, resistance, and vanity. Proverbs 29:23 tells us that pride will bring a man low…that’s because, when we refuse to allow God to move in our lives, we are setting ourselves up to slowly move away from His Will, not closer.

It’s not the grind… your labor and toil that got you where you’re at today – it’s the grace of God. For no matter the amount of hard work, sweat & tears, it can never supersede the Sovereignity of God. You may hustle and work your fingers to the bone…but it still the Sovereign Lord and His supreme universal authority, and by His kindness & mercy that we can do anything. We are who we are, not by what we can do, but only by the King of kings and the Lord of lords. (I Timothy 6:15)

Psalm 84:11 is clear, “The Lord knows the thoughts of man”…even those secret intentions, selfish, inconsiderate, and rude thoughts hidden away in our heart. Part of this comes from our corrupt heart, (Matthew 15:19) and part comes from our Spiritual immaturity, (I Corinthians 14:20) But regardless, we are told to get rid of our stinking thinking, judgmental thoughts, and careless muses… and learn to control our thoughts and attitudes…for God is listening.

Turning from sin is a sincere decision to forsake evil and begin to obey God. There is the initial repentance leading to true saving faith (Mark 1:15, Acts 3:19) but more importantly, there’s the ongoing turning from sin on a daily basis in the life of every Christian. David wrote of this in Psalm 51:12, when his spiritual dullness had lead to moral bankruptcy…taking him far from his first love of the Lord. “Restore to me the joy of Your Salvation and grant me a willing Spirit to sustain me.” Repentance is a change of mind that leads to a change of action on our part and promises restoration, or as Isaiah wrote, “In repentance and rest is Your Salvation, in quietness and trust is Your strength…” (Isaiah 30:15)