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God’s love and God’s wrath! Two parts to the whole.

Apr13

Christmas!

What’s the character of God that defines this world encompassing holiday? I’m sure God’s love comes immediately to the forefront. Christ’s physical entry onto the world scene was fraught with great danger and close calls. Yet, God’s love for humankind prevailed! Christ, as a man, grew up and successfully, powerfully fulfilled the purpose for which He had been born. As we study the sacrificial life of Christ, we get a sense of the extreme measures God’s love was willing to take on our behalf. Measures that would ensure our eternal and permanent home in heaven, after our temporary earthly life concluded.

But what concerns me is that as we become so wrapped up in the love God gave us in the Christ-child, we fail to move forward and even acknowledge the purpose for which Christ was born. By failing to embrace both the gift of God’s love and the purpose of the Cross, we venture into a world of deception and falsehood.

Therefore, we MUST come to terms with the fact that it was God’s wrath that was poured out upon Christ as He hung on that cross. Wrath that was meant for us! God cannot tolerate sin because He is God. Therefore, there was only one way that we could even hope for a personal relationship with Him and seal our permanent residence in heaven. Someone, who was without sin, would have to be willing to stand in our stead, take our place, endure God’s wrath. There was a price to be paid for our sin and Jesus paid it. For a moment in time, Jesus was willing to allow Himself to be separated from God. As human beings, I don’t think we can even begin to imagine the horror of that moment for Christ. But He endured the cross for us in order that we would never have to experience such horror.

We don’t talk much about God’s wrath, do we. But understand we place ourselves in great peril by avoiding to come to terms with the reality of God’s wrath. For there is no greater love than what was displayed on the cross where the wrath of God was poured out on Christ.

Yet, I wonder, if by overly focusing on just God’s love, without the balance of God’s wrath, could we miss heaven?

Choose Easter’s Victory

Apr20

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“He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” – Genesis 3:15

It’s important to remember Easter is ultimately a spiritual battle between Christ and Satan

 

   When God created man and Satan tempted Adam and Eve, the great civil war between man’s spirit and flesh began. Then Christ came and as a man and as God, resisted Satan. Easter makes a way for us to resist Satan’s fiery darts. By accepting Christ’s death for ourselves, we can be assured that after our death, just like Christ, we will ascend to heaven. 

   As I grow older and move closer to my life’s end, the thrill of heaven, being with Jesus, becomes more intense. Therefore, I do not fear death. Nor should any believer.

You see that’s the victory we as Christians have over the plan of Satan’s to steal, kill, and destroy. 

   Satan’s plan to remove the influence of God’s Word and spending time with God in prayer, makes possible the fulfillment of his plan. Just look around at all the people in our country that see nothing wrong with abortion, homosexuality, divorce, or lying to gain an advantage, etc. When we remove what the Bible says about either of these, and have no personal relationship with God, Satan easily victimizes us. And you know what, we won’t even realize how we have been deceived and manipulated. 

   When the world accuses Christians for standing firm on these issues, we get accused of all sorts of hateful actions. And Satan will make sure that our accusers don’t open up their Bible. Why? Because he doesn’t want the world to know about God’s love, compassion, forgiveness, redemption of those involved with the sins I mentioned above.

   Remember, if you ignore the Bible and prayer, you are easy prey to the enemy. He will lie to you with such skill, that you can become convinced that right is wrong and wrong is right.

   This Easter, choose Christ. Choose victory. Defeat the enemy. Begin cooperating with God as He gives us the desire and power to do what pleases Him. 

   Refuse to allow ourselves to be manipulated, deceived, and blinded by Satan.

Satan has come to condemn us; Christ has come to restore us.

What Will We Believe?

Mar31

I read in my devotion time recently the following:

   “Evidence of Christ’s resurrection has been examined more carefully than evidence of any other fact in history. (The Word for you Today, March p. 19)” Yet, people continue to question this pivotal historical event.

   More than once, authors have set out to write books that disprove Christ’s deity, existence, death, and His resurrection. Only to end up embracing and defending the very Christ they set out to disprove. 

Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ

Josh McDowell, Evidence that Demands a Verdict

Dr. Frank Morison, Who Moved the Stone

Lew Wallace, Ben Hur

So I ask you, why in the face of such evidence, men & women continue to reject or deny Christ’s deity, existence, death, and resurrection?

Scripture is clear in describing Satan’s plan in John 10:10a (HCSB), “A thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy.” So what is it that the Enemy desires to steal, kill, and destroy? The answer is obvious—anything God has planned for us! p. 13, FD’s 3rd edition

   You see, Satan’s knows there is a God, he knows God sent Christ to redeem mankind, he knows Christ’ resurrection really happened!

   He also knows that if we believe in God, confess our sins and accept Christ as our Savior, then when we die we will go to heaven for eternity–(see page 2 of this blog)

   But Satan is jealous of God.  He will do any and everything he can to keep mankind from discovering the Truth. 

Satan takes full advantage of the struggle between the old nature (the flesh) and the new nature (God’s Spirit). His first attempt will be to weaken our new nature by tempting our old nature with distractions meant to diminish our desire to study the Bible or spend time with God in prayer. p. 46, FD’s 3rd edition

   I see people, playing right into Satan’s hands! Human reasoning, false arguments, and rebellious thoughts, are fiery darts Satan uses to destroy and deceive mankind. But choosing God’s weapons can set mankind on a different course, if we will only learn how to use them.

   We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments.  We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5

But we must make a choice. Will we believe God or Satan? Will we choose life or death?

Concerning Easter

Mar24

 

Easter!

If it had not been for Jesus’s resurrection, there would be no Christianity. Now note, I used the word resurrection and that’s significant.

BECAUSE

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Christ Lived

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Christ Died

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Christ Arose!

 

All of the world religions were led by someone who lived and died. But

ONLY Christianity

serves a savior who not only lived and died but

WAS RESURRECTED!

   Satan knows Christ’s resurrection sounded his defeat. But before he goes down, his plan is to take as many of us with him as he can. Therefore, he attacks Christians early on in our faith walk, by distracting us from prayer and learning from God’s Word.

   This is where he always starts.

For keeping Christians uninformed and by distracting us from prayer, he slowly (but most assuredly) leads us down a road inundated with distractions meant to set us on an alternate route. A route that will lead us away from God. Thus, Christians who open themselves up to these distractions find themselves being conformed to the ways of the world.

   Ever notice how with every Christian holiday, there has been offered by the secular world a substitute reason to celebrate? And as the world grows less tolerant of Christian reasons for celebrating these holidays, the idea of substitute reasons for celebrating increases.

   How do we avoid cooperating (albeit unintentional) with Satan’s plan? It’s starts with waking up to Satan’s attacks. We must realize we are engaged in a spiritual battle. God’s plan is for us to be victorious, and in the Bible He has put everything we need to know about how to defeat our enemy. By putting into practice what we learn from God’s Word, our ability to recognize and reject these attacks increases. As we become more familiar with His plan, He reveals the particular Truth thoughts with which we can replace the enemy’s darts.  

   Concerning Easter, focus on the resurrection, allow no distractions. By all means celebrate but with every aspect of your celebration make sure it points to Christ’s life, death, AND RESURRECTION!