I don't trust me with Myself

 “I would rather walk with God in the dark; than go alone, and walk in the light

As I know with him by my side, the darkness will be ever so bright” Debbie Looney.

I was so intrigued by this poem when I first read it a few years ago, not only because it so beautifully articulated what we believe in the Christian faith, but the depth of faith in God instead in self. It can easily be misunderstood as a human need for company, but I reckon it expresses man’s deep need for guidance, because regardless of how bright it/you may be; human beings will intentionally take the sinful path anyway. I suspect that part of the reason people do that is the misunderstanding of what is more valuable between the body and what the body contains, the spirit. We like to feed the container and totally disregard the content. We feed the outside which only helps us to be more arrogant, proud, greedy, and we forget the spirit which can produce of love, peace, kindness, joy, gentleness, self-control, faithfulness and patience which we would all agree that we need in our lives. When human being have problems which commonly have to do with the heart, they often try to fix it with something that is far from being the solution; alcohol, drugs, sex, etc which ends up hurting them more. Clearly we are our own worst enemies and cannot be trusted with ourselves, hence we need God. There is something that has gone terribly wrong in the human spirit and it needs to be dealt with spiritually, any attempt to deal with it physically will lead to more frustration because “flesh gives birth to flesh, but spirit gives birth to spirit” 

The tragedy of a life led by self is that self is conditioned to live in the dark without realizing it.  So when I follow self’s lead, I am moving in a direction which seems right but has devastating repercussions in the end; hence the proverb “there is a way that seems right in the eyes of man, but in the end leads to destruction”.  Self has a way of messing things up when he has all the resources to do the right thing. Self lives for NOW and wants to be satisfied NOW and seldom considers the future.  He does not consider that “whatever you do today will affect your future”.  Self is all about pleasure and will always reminding you of things like “you are still young, you need to enjoy your life to the fullest” and intentionally forgets to let you know that “God will judge you for all that you have done”(Eccl. 11:9). I gave up following him; I woke up to the truth, that I cannot continue playing God. God is the only one that knows the end of the beginning, knows the path to everlasting life that we all so yearn for if we were all to be really honest with ourselves.  I realized in Christ that life was far deeper than what meets the natural eye, the physical.  Part of following Christ for the disciples was letting go of self so that they can receive the gift of God who was the Christ.  They had to trade something small for something bigger than themselves, which was Christ; the son of the living God.

Moses refused to leave without the presence of God. In Exodus 33:15 he says these words: “... If you are not going with us, please do not let us leave this place ...” Moses knew where he was going, he knew how to get there but he acknowledged that he needed God who knows everything. Moses could have just said; “well, if you don’t come I will just get a map and find my way to the Promised Land.” But knowing that he was helpless leading the Israelites himself, he acknowledged his need for God to go with them. This was not for companionship; he had Joshua and Aaron who were close to him. This was a different kind of need; he needed guidance from God which Joshua and Aaron could never give because they need it themselves.

 

Joshua 24 ... Joshua gathers all the tribes of Israel and gives them a history lesson. He reminds them of Abraham their father.  He tells reminds them of how he parted the red sea and made them walk on dry land. How they crossed the Jordan River without drowning and many other miracles that he performed.  Then in v15 he says something that I think is still relevant for the modern Christian,

 “... Choose today whom you will serve ...” It’s almost as of God was reminding them of the times when he was with them and the times they worshiped other gods (relied on self). And from that history lesson, there was some homework ... CHOOSE WHOM YOU WILL SERVE. I had my one on one history lesson and the same question was asked as homework, and I have chosen to let go of self and serve God.  Won’t you attend your one on one history lesson and do your homework and give your answer to the master teacher, Jesus Christ...

God Bless You

Prayer

Lord, I acknowledge that too often I try to work it out myself

And neglect the call of your spirit to a life of righteousness and

Justice.  I pray that you rid me of myself and fill me more

with yourself that I may reflect you more than myself.

Today I choose to follow the lead of your Holy Spirit. Amen

If only they knew ...

It was Paul who birthed this thought in me in his first letter to the church in Corinth. In chapter 2, he explains the hidden plan of God which has been revealed to all saints through the spirit.  I often tell students that when I speak to them during a life skill lesson, I am not trying to tell them what to do or how to live their lives, but that I am giving them information to make informed decisions. I believe that this is helpful because the next time they make decisions, they will remember what the consequences are which may ultimately affect their choices. For instance you are more likely to change/stop bad habits if I told you of their long term consequence on your life holistically, than if I just told you to stop your bad habits. Because of this knowledge, my eyes got stuck on a specific verse which says quite a lot about how people’s actions and probably even thoughts could change “if only they knew” the plan.  “... what we are setting forth is a wisdom of God once hidden [from the human understanding] and now revealed to us by God – [that wisdom] which God devised and decreed before the ages of our glorification [to life us up into the glory of his presence]. None of the rulers of our age or world perceived and recognized and understood this, for it they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” If only the rulers of the day knew that Jesus would rise from the dead and establish the biggest movement in history, they would not have killed Him. Their ignorance of God divine plan led to the victory over death through the death of Christ, which they thought was a goal on their team, but in essence; they had just scored an own goal. 

There are actually a few “if only they knew” moments in the events towards the crucifixion of Jesus.  When Jesus was questioned by Pilate and did not respond, in attempt to intimidate him he said: “do you not realize that I have the power to release you or to crucify you” to which Jesus replied: “You would have no power over me at all unless it were given to you from above.” It’s almost as if Jesus is saying “No ... you have it twisted, you are the one that needs to realize here, not me. ‘if only you knew’ that my father has actually given you the power, you would not say that.” Pilate seemed to be the one in the position of power, but would soon realize that it was the other way around. At the arrest of Jesus, Peter draws his sword and cuts the ear of one of the soldiers. Jesus immediately rebukes his ignorance by ordering him to put away his sword and he said these words to him: “don’t you realize that I could ask my father for thousands of angels to protect us, and he would send them immediately? But if I did, how would the scriptures be fulfilled that describe what must happen now?”  Peter himself did not understand the plan, it was not yet revealed to him even though Jesus had spoken to them about it.  If only he knew/understood that Jesus had to go through the struggle and the pain for the purpose of God to prevail, he would not have struck the soldier’s ear off.  It is much like our lives sometimes, we want the pain and struggle to go away and we don’t realize that the pain is there for a lesson that we must learn. Some of the struggles that we go through were divinely planned for our character to be built, in preparation for all the responsibilities that God has for us in the future and if only we knew that, we would; just like Christ endure the struggle/pain with hope in Christ who has plans to prosper us and not to harm us.  Romans 5 clarifies that we rejoice in our struggles because they develop in us “perseverance; perseverance character; character hope.”

In John 4, Jesus meets a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well and asks her for a drink. This simple request turns into a racial issue and Jesus; knowing exactly what the woman really needs says these words: “if only you knew the gift of God for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.”(Emphasis added). The woman did not know that she was talking to the promised Christ, the Son of the Living God.  She was ignorant of the fact that he was able to satisfy her deep need for love and acceptance.  I bet you that if she knew that Jesus was the promised Messiah, her response to Jesus would have been different.  This is a classic example of how the plan of God is hidden and can only be known through the Spirit of God that is in us.  As soon as the woman realized who she was talking to, she left her jar there and went into the city to tell everyone of the man who told her everything about herself.  You see, Joseph’s brothers would never have sold him if they knew that they would need him in a time of famine.  The people would never have drowned if they had listened to the counsel of Noah when he announced the coming of the flood.  Nebuchadnezzar would never have thrown the 3 men in the fiery fire if he knew that the Son of Man would save them, neither would they have thrown Daniel in the Lion’s den if they knew that God would shut their mouth. All the things that happened above were all in the plan of God to show his greatness to man, but when they happened it was tough and seemed like God was not in them at all. Regardless of them being hard, people endured and in the end reaped the benefits of enduring hardship.  Won’t you have a different view of pain and struggles, now that you KNOW that it all is in the divine plan of the Most High God who cannot be mistaken?

God Bless You all and Thanx for reading

Sello Scalo Mmane

Self Sufficiency Vs Dependence. Part II

When human beings are left to themselves, they are a danger to themselves.  Sundar Singh puts it this way; “it is possible for the sheep to wander from the fold and the shepherd, and find in the jungle good pasturage, but they are all the time in danger of being torn to pieces by wild beasts, which will be their fate in the end.  But those who abide in the fold and with the shepherd, though they may appear to be sick and feeble, are certainly free from anger and in the shepherds care. This is the difference between believers and unbelievers.” Most of us would agree that this is the story of our lives; we wandered off into the jungle called “I want to do it MY way” and as a result we were almost torn to pieces by beasts and we have the scars in deep in our hearts to prove it.  For some us, we are still in this jungle and have no intention of getting back to the shepherd because the pasturage that we have found by ourselves is a bit too nice to let go of. Our experience can attest that commonly all the things that are not nice are good for us, and all the nice things are commonly not good for us.  Think of how you don’t like your veggies (that are good for u), but love your sweets (which are not so good for you) or how abstinence from sex until marriage is such a tough thing than just doing it now.  When we are relying on ourselves to get by, we end up hurting ourselves.  Ultimately, self-reliance is covert arrogance which says to God; thanks but no thanks. It is like saying to God: “Look I know you created this world and you know everything about it, but frankly I don’t need you to get around, I can be my own navigator.”  I used to live like this until I met Jesus and I realized that I needed a spiritual navigator whose batteries will never go flat, after all it was Jesus who said “without HIM we can do nothing.”

I was going through my bible the other day and came across a very interesting story of a man who demonstrated dependence in God instead of self-reliance.  It is found in 2 Chronicles 20, where 3 nations unite to attack the Israelites in attempt to annihilate them all.  At the word of the messengers about the coming of the army and how close they are, King Jehoshaphat immediately calls for a fast and enquires of the Lord. This struck me because I know that whenever I am faced with a struggle, the first person that I consult is ME, and if I don’t succeed; then only do I consult God.  But this man of God does not even look for the power within himself because he acknowledges that he is weak without God.  While they are fasting, Jehoshaphat makes this prayer of total helplessness to God (v:12b) “... we are powerless against this mighty army that is about to attack us. We don’t know what to do, but we are looking to you for help.” Notice that this is not only an acknowledgement of physical powerlessness, but also that of Intellect. He says that they do not “know” what to do, they have no clue how to deal with this. What he basically says in this prayer is “Lord if you don’t save us, we are doomed!”  I was shocked at the Lord’s instruction from there, he orders them to march against them, for he will fight on their behalf; all they have to do is march against the enemy (with no weapons). The Lord fights on their behalf and they did not even lift a finger in the battle, all they did was praise and worship God.  Their helplessness moved God to fight on their behalf; He could not stand and watch his helpless children be defeated by pagan nations. Now these people took God at his word and did not carry some swords or any other artillery to protect themselves just in case God does not show up, they fully relied on him to come through for them and he did, because the bible declares that those who trust in the Lord will never be put to shame.

You know how your life is right now, and you know if you are part of the fold that is under the care of the shepherd, totally relying on Him to take them to greener pastures or if you are the sheep that wandered off in the jungle to enjoy your OWN pasturage which you found by yourself.  What is stopping you from depending on God? How about you give Him a chance to prove that he takes care of the sheep that is under his care?

God Bless You stax and thanx for reading.

Sello “Scalo” Mmane

Self-Sufficieny Vs Dependence Part I

It has become a common trend for the human race around the whole world to have alternatives for the probability of failure in our initial plans. While this may be a good practice and probably being; "realistic", it certainly does not do us any good when it comes to our walk with Christ Jesus.  Jesus does not do half jobs that are insufficient to meeting our needs, but instead; all that is created by Him for our benefit is able to thoroughly meet our needs.  Manufactured alternatives will always fall short of the satisfaction that comes from the original thing that God has created for us.  For us to embrace this truth, we need to be willing to let go of our alternatives. In the book of Jeremiah 2:13; God spells out two sins that they have committed: "My people have done two evil things; they have forsaken me the fountain of living water. And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns that can hold no water at all". This was during a time when the Israelites had totally forgotten about God and were worshipping Baals. As a result of this, God sent Jeremiah to announce the 70 year Babylonian rule over Israel. What makes it worse is that they do not think that they are at fault in any way. We see this in Jer 2:35" ... I am innocent; surely His anger has turned away from me ...". So, according to them; there is no fault in having a "plan B" if the initial one does not seem to work out. Are we not like this with God sometimes?

Let us go deeper into this scripture in Jer.2:13. for us to understand this scripture, we need to understand the difference between a fountain and a cistern.  A fountain is a natural spring of water from the ground whilst a cistern; is a man-made tack used to preserve rain water. Now, there is nothing wrong with having a cistern, but there is something wrong with making a cistern your main source of water(life) when there is a fountain available for use. This is exactly what the Israelites had done. The problem with a cistern is that it can break or crack, which was the case in this instance. I bet they tried everything in their power to try and fix this cistern and for some time got it right, but because water is an inevitably unstoppable force; they would find themselves trying to fix it again. Just like how we forget God and when life is not going well for us, we try and fix it with our own strength; we sometimes get it right and for a while life seems good. But because life's troubles are inevitable(John16:33), we find our cisterns leaking again and this become a vicious cycle; simply because we will not let go of our unhelpful "self-sufficient" mentality.  I imagine the Israelites blaming the cistern's inability to hold water on everything else but themselves.  Much like us human beings, we forsake God (the fountain) and we make our own plans (cisterns) and when they fail us, we blame it on everything and everyone else but ourselves. All they had to do was to forget about the cisterns and embrace the fountain of living water, which will never run dry. We need to rely on God fully for us to enjoy the pleasures that are at his right hand. God provides the fountain and all we have to do is "feast on the abundance of his house and drink from his river of delights" Psalm 36:8. 

As i read through the bible, I realize that God has a soft spot for people who admit their faults. I personally hate it (and I bet you hate it too) when someone trys to put me at fault for something that they did wrong. You know when someone says:"yeah I did it, but I would not have done it if hadn't done ..." or "I did that because you didn't ...". Those are some of the worst apologies that we hear from people these days. I guess that is why we even struggle with repentance, we just cannot see ourselves at fault. In the bible we see that God loves it when we admit our faults and ask for forgiveness. David understood this hence he said "a broken and CONTRITE heart you do not despise" in Psalm 51. In John 9;after Jesus healed a man who had been blind from birth. The pharisees did not believe it and even through the man out of the synagogue for believing in that Jesus was the Messiah. after the man accepts him as the Messiah and worships him, Jesus says these words: "For judgement I have come to this world so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind" to what the pharisees replied "what, are we blind too?" to which he replied "if you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin, but now that you CLAIM that you see, your guilt remains" This suggests to me that, if the pharisees had admitted their spiritual blindness, they would not be guilty of any sin. So, the first step of moving out of your self-sufficent state to total dependance in God, is by admitting that you have dug your own cisterns and forsaken the fountain of living water.

join me again in the next post as we look at other instance in the bible on this vital matter.
God bless you all and thank you for reading!!!!!!!

Allowing God to be God Part II

Ever had that moment when you were doing something with a lot of people observing but not making sense of what you were up to, but you knew very well what you were doing and that it will all turn out great? Well, in the previous post, we spoke about things that God will ask you to do that do not make sense. In this post, we are going to look at the things that he will do that will not make sense to you. While the previous post comes mainly from the problem of human being’s obsession with control over “their” lives, this post is about the human being’s need of being certain/sure about the future.  We all want to be sure that our future is secure.  This is evident in us paying for insurance, should anything happen; we know we are covered.  This need becomes a problem when we meet Christ because, unlike insurance companies; He does not follow our template of how life should go.  This requires us to understand a truth which may seem “unfair”, but is essential for us to understand in order live in harmony with our LORD Jesus Christ.  God’s will, not yours; will always prevail. If you do not understand this truth, you will forever be angry at God for not doing what you asked Him to do for you. You cannot twist God’s arm into doing what you want, even if you fill a bucket full of tears; the Lord’s will shall prevail, not yours. 

Because of Israel’s rebellion of worshiping false gods, God sends Jeremiah to announce Babylon’s invasion in Judah and their 70 year long reign over Judah (Jer. 5:15 – 17). When we read this text, we find out that God does not hide the fact that He has willed this.  He openly says “I am bringing a distant nation against you …” Now to the Israelites, this does not make sense because everyone knows that Israel is God’s chosen nation.  If the enemy wins, it would weaken the testimony of a God who once opened the red sea for the Israelites to walk on dry ground.  People will think that the God of Israel is dead and cannot defend them anymore.  To the Israelites this does not make sense because according to them, this is not how the story should go; the children of God cannot be suffering and worst of all, be slaves to a foreign nation again. It seemed as if God had lost control, but they did not know that even though life and everything around us can be uncertain, God is never uncertain and is always in control.  God never loses control of any situation, even when it does not seem like it. We know this because this is what God says in Jer. 29:10 – 11 “when seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come and fulfil my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future”  I imagine the Israelites rolling their eyes at these words saying “yeah right”. Some of us probably know how the story goes. Israel is invaded and captured by Babylon for 70 years. God speaks to the Israelites through Ezekiel through visions like the valley of dry bones, assuring them of restoration.  At the end of it all, Israel is restored and God fulfils his promise to his people.  He had been in control all along, even in their captivity He was God and nothing had changed about His sovereignty.

Shadrack, Meshack and Abednigo; like Jesus Christ, understood that only God’s will must prevail regardless of how senseless and “unfair” it might seem.  Before Shadrack, Meshack and Abednigo were thrown in the burning furnace, they uttered these words: “If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the fiery furnace. He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But even if he does not do it, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”  These were men that understood that God’s will must prevail, not theirs. They understood that crying and sulking will not change the fact that His will prevails.  In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus is about to be captured and he also utters words that affirm His father’s will: “Father, remove this cup from me. But please, not what I want. What do you want?” The message.  If it were up to Jesus, the suffering that he was going to go through was just too much, so he would rather opt out. But because of the big picture which included you and I being a part of his Father’s kingdom, He opted to be the sacrifice for our sins; which was planned by His father a long time ago. God might seem like a unloving father for letting his son die a brutal death on the cross when he had all the power to strike everyone with lightning and instantly kill them. It might have seemed as if he lost control of the whole situation, but in the end; Jesus rose from the dead, conquered death and because of his obedience we are called children of God.  Regardless of all uncertainty surrounding us, God is always certain and HE NEVER LOSES CONTROL!!!!

God Bless and Thanx for reading.

Allowing God to be God

The problem with man is that he always wants to be in control of his life.  Man wants to live according to what is right in his eyes and does not appreciate it when anyone tells him that he is wrong.  Commonly what he sees as right is what the majority has deemed RIGHT.  I have the privilege of working is schools and asking young people questions that expose their understanding of who God is and their view of morality.  I have met some “smart” young people who gave me “smart” answers that seem to justify their moral decay, but in the end; they all agree that their behaviour is immoral and sinful before God.  The problem is not so much that they are addicted to these things, but the willingness to stop doing it.  The reason it is hard is because stopping means accepting that there is a superior, unseen being whom they need to trust; which ultimately means not being in control of their lives.  I thought that this was interesting because I realized that one can be “saved/born again” but still have part control of their lives.  Living with God is about allowing him to be God in your life so that you can be who you truly are. I know that it is not as easy as I say it, but it should happen if we are to live a life of abundance with God.  We need to trade in something small (our control) for something bigger than us (life in abundance) to superior being who cannot be wrong. 

My team and I were having devotions and we had a time of silence before God to hear what he is saying to us about the scripture that we had just read.  We had read Galatians 5 which speaks about the battle between the spirit of God and our sinful nature. When you look at the sinful nature, you find that those are the things that are easy to do and do not require much thought.  These are things that we do impulsively and give us sensual pleasure. A juxtapose of the spirit and the flesh exposes that the spirit man fulfils the inner man (content) and the sinful nature satisfies the flesh (container).  Life is far deeper than the physical and for that reason; a life led by the sinful nature is not sustainable.  We always want to do what we want to do and often morality or God’s laws are like a rude intrusion in our lives.  As I was sitting there silently before the Lord, he said: “Forget the little off ramps of your sinful nature, stay on the highway of righteousness and I assure you of this: you are headed towards a glorious destiny.”  Now this hit me hard because of the last sentence which mentions DESTINY.  Often when we do these things that we want to do, we never think of the consequences.  If staying on the highway of righteousness leads me to a glorious destiny, it means that the off-ramps of the sinful nature will lead me to the opposite of that.  Deep inside every human being is a desire to reach the glorious destiny but the there is a discrepancy in this desire and their behaviour.  To reach the glorious destiny, you need to stay on the highway of righteousness.  I then asked God: “what if I get stuck?” to which he responded: “it is better for you to be stuck on the highway of righteousness because I you will be closer to me. If you are on the off-ramps; you will not get sustainable help because it will not be from me.” He then closed it off by saying something that he knew that I struggle with, and this is what he said: “If someone passes you at top speed, do not worry about keeping up with them because you do not know what my plan is for his/her life.” 

Part of walking with God and allowing him to be God in your life consists of being willing to do things that do not make sense to your fickle mind.  There are things that will not make sense to you that he will ask you to do.  It did not make sense for the disciples that he could multiply the five loaves and two fish to feed five thousand hungry souls.  It did not make sense for Noah to build an ark that will accommodate all living creatures.  It did not make sense that Jesus will rise from the dead after 3 days.  It did not make sense that Sarah would have a son in her 90’s. It did not make sense that David would kill Goliath with a slingshot and a stone.  It did not make sense that Samson would slay 1000 soldiers with a jawbone of a donkey.  It did not make sense to Martha to move that stone from Lazarus’ grave.  It did not make sense for Moses to use the rod to part the red sea.  Above all, it did not make sense (to me at least) why a holy God would care so much about a sinful man like me.  God loves us and he wants the best for us, if only we would submit our will to him so that he can do as he pleases with our lives. 

There is a monkey trap that is used all around the world to capture monkeys. It is a staked container with a hole cut into it just wide enough for the monkey to stick its empty hand into it.  The container is baited with something attractive to the monkey.   The monkey reaches for the bait and then will not release the bait and cannot pull its hand out of the container with the bait in its hand.  It is then captured.  Is this not how we are sometimes? We are baited with sensual pleasure that make us feel nice, so nice that we are not willing to let them go for the freedom that is in Christ Jesus.  If we let the sensual pleasure go, the trap can no longer capture us, we are free and I am so sure that all of you want freedom. 

God Bless and thanx for reading. 

Does God Really Care? Part II

The Israelites are not the only ones in the bible that were like chameleons in the bible.  There was another group of people that were just like them; the disciples of Jesus Christ.  We read in the word of God about all the miracles that Jesus performs in their presence. In Matthew 14, Jesus feeds five thousand people with only five loaves of bread and 2 fish.  Right after this, the NLT says that Jesus “insisted” that they go ahead of him and cross to other side of the lake while he dismissed the crowd. Some other translations say that Jesus “made” them go ahead of him. The KJV says that Jesus “constrained” his disciples. The mentioning of Jesus insisting/constraining his disciples go ahead of him suggests that they did not want to leave.  While Jesus stayed behind to pray, the disciples were in trouble far away from land, because a strong wind had risen and they were fighting heavy waves.  The bible does not say this but I can imagine what was going through the minds of these guys at that moment.  I imagine them thinking that the reason why Jesus insisted they leave ahead of him was so that they drown and die in the belly of the sea.  I mean if he is all knowing; surely he should have known that there would be a great storm in the sea, so he purposely led us there to die.  Sometimes that is what we think, that God has led us to a place so that we can die.  It could be a job which you sure that God told spoke to you about taking, and things don’t go as smooth as you thought it would and you start thinking that he led you there to finish your career.  When all these things are happening in our lives happen, we forget about what he just did and we think of how he is failing us (or so we think).  Now in the midst if the storm, Jesus appears walking on water and the disciples think that he is a ghost.  And I thought that at this moment the disciples thought “oh no, things cannot get worse than they already are” “I mean it is enough that our “Lord” has abandoned us to die in the belly of the sea, but now a ghost. Shoo.” 

We all know that in the end Jesus reveals himself as Lord once again and after Jesus gets onto the boat; the wind stopped.  When Jesus came into the boat, the disciples started to worship him saying “You really are the son of God.”  Now their faith is restored.  I imagine that all the thoughts they had about him were all erased in their minds, more like “gulp … I take that back, you’re the Man.”  One would think that after witnessing such great miracles, the disciples would never ever doubt him again. Especially since they said that they realized that he “… really is the son of God.” But in a couple of days, we read in the bible that Jesus heals multitudes of people on a mountain.  Then Jesus called his disciples and told them he feels sorry that the people had been there for 3 days and had nothing to eat. The disciples ask where they would get enough food to feed the people as they have 7 loaves of bread and a few small fish.  I am stunned by this because if I was them and I saw what God did with the 5 loaves and 2 fish; I would say: “well … you multiplied the bread and fish a couple of days ago, sure you can do that with this that we have now … right.” I probably wouldn’t have thought that I can do it, but I sure will put some faith in him.  This shows that Jesus was just another “man” to them at that moment, they had really grasped that he was God. So Jesus does the same miracle that he did a couple of days ago and feeds four thousand hungry souls. 

Is this how we would our relationship with God to be like?  We give him tests to prove himself, and even when he does we still don’t believe.  How about we give ourselves to him and allow him to do what he wants with or lives?  Won’t you just allow him to be God and do what he does best … “working everything together for our good.”  You can only do this if you TRUST him and we trust when we are sure that we are loved.  If you still do not trust him, you most likely are not sure if God loves you.  The sooner you admit this, the sooner you can deal with it. 

What does this mean then? Does it mean that we are hopeless? Is there is no cure for our doubting disease? Well … the Israelites and the disciples were just examples of how we are as Christians; it doesn’t have to be that way because there are models in the bible of what we should do in such situations.  One of the models is Paul (Saul of Tarsus.) In the book of Acts, Paul gets a vision of someone calling out for help in Macedonia and immediately gets on his way to go there and preach the gospel as he believed that God was leading them there.  Now he gets to Philippi and there was a fortune teller who made a lot of money for her owners through telling the future.  Now Paul got irritated with this woman and drove out the demon that gave her the ability to tell the future.  At this, the owners were angry and accused Paul and Silas of disrupting the city.  Paul and Silas were stripped and beaten with rods and imprisoned.  If we look at the situation we might say that Paul has every right to be angry at God, right.  I mean God led him there, now where was he when he was beaten and thrown into jail after doing His work? Well, thank God that he does not think that way because his trust in the Lord then shows us another one of the many miracles that God performed in the Bible.  While Paul and Silas were in jail, they were singing hymns and praying to God.  I don’t know about you, but I do not imagine them praying like this: “Lord break these chains and get us out of this place in your mighty power in Jesus name, Amen!!!!!” No, I imagine them just giving God the praise for who he is and what he has done.  I imagine them affirming God’s power and just thanking him.  We all know that there comes a great earthquake and all the chains were broken and doors flew open.  To cut the story short, the guard is saved through this and Paul and Silas don’t break out of the prison, instead they wait until they are released by the magistrate.  Paul did not look at this as torture, but an opportunity for the Mighty God to reveal his power through him.  I love that!!! Imagine if Paul and Silas were moaning in the prison cell and all the other prisoners were listening, the testimony of a great God would be killed, but they praised him and his glory was revealed.  The question is: In your trials and struggles; would you like God to be glorified or the testimony of his goodness and love to be nullified and made void?

You have asked God a lot of questions in your walk with him, now allow him to ask you these questions from his flawless word:

 “What, then, can we say about all of this? If God is for us, who can be against us?” Rom 8:31

 The one who did not spare his own Son, but offered him as a sacrifice for all of us, surely will give us all things, along with his Son, won't he? Rom 8:32

Who will separate us from the Messiah's love? Can trouble, distress, persecution, hunger, nakedness, danger, or a violent death do this? Rom 8:35

Let us close this with what Paul assures us of in Romans 8:37-39.

In all these things we are triumphantly victorious due to the one who loved us.

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor anything above, nor anything below, nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God that is ours in union with the Messiah Jesus, our Lord.

I once thought that if Paul had to mention all the things that cannot separate us from God love, he would run out of ink.

God Bless Ya Staxxxx