Stomach

Stomach

7/20/15

I learned a valuable lesson about God and how He views sin this week and the method that He used this week to show me the message that He wants His people to know was also quite different from His previous ways.  This message is a descriptive one and has its summation with one of the more commonly used phrases known in the Bible; it also will demonstrate how we as humans believe we can stand up to God in our own human circumstances and defend ourselves against the almighty Creator of everything.  This message also has a restoration point that God makes very clear through this process which everyone needs to understand because if we do not change now, life as we know it shall never be the same.

God has given me numerous topics to write about over the past few months, and through my slew footedness I have slowly progressed these important tasks into fruition.  I have no one to blame but myself and I cannot blame anyone since God has given me these topics on a personal level to share with His people.  So far this month I have made public three articles and still have many more to write, which I shall promptly continue as soon as God has finished with this specific topic at hand.  The subject of this message is how our sinful and shameful lives direct our everyday presence on this earth all the while trying to cry out to God for help and blessings yet still continuing in our voluntary sinful states.  We all know that we cannot change the physical and sinful state of our bodies, but it is our choice to either accept or reject God through our lives.

Last week I was in the middle of a few topics and as I stated above, just taking my time completing them.  I have never lost the urgency of the words of wisdom that God has given me to share with you but for the past few weeks I have just slowed down and began to crawl with His articles.  At the beginning of last week, God softly whispered into my spirit to take the rest of the week off and do not write a thing.  Those were His specific words to me, “not to write at all”.  I had no idea why He was telling me to stop for a while but it was clear as a bell and I knew that for some reason He did not want me to write.

His next word to me was simple and singular and that word was “rest”. I was to rest for the rest of the week.  This made sense to me because when I begin to write a message from god all hell breaks loose around my life and Satan throws so many distractions my way and in my family’s way that it becomes almost comical.  But for the remaining days of the week I was not to write but to rest, so I did just that.  And even though I was obeying God in this aspect, I found out that I was not resting but stirring my mind trying to figure out why God told me to rest.  It became frustrating to me and I then found myself constantly reminding myself that God wanted me to rest which was defeating the entire purpose of God’s spoken word to me.  This purpose from God would also settle harshly within my spirit down the road and in all honesty, God was teaching me a couple of valuable lessons about myself and His people all wrapped up into one week’s rest period.

As the week progressed, my mind tried its best to figure out what God was up to and why He placed me into a rest cycle.  I had even dreamed up that a huge event was going to occur at the beginning of this week and that I was to be witness to this event and then write about it afterward.  It became such an obsession to me I totally lost focus on what God told me to do and I found myself becoming anxious and so wound up that by Sunday night I could not even sleep; my focus of rest had become so self-centered that I almost totally missed what God was trying to show us.  Yes, this is a personal story but it has a direct meaning to everyone in the world especially to the Church because it describes how the Church views themselves and how God views the Church at the same time.

I have never claimed to be the perfect “altar boy” and there are some really rough edges about my life that God is still working on and through and it has to do with one of these rough spots in my life that God used in order to wake me up about how my life looks to Him when these rough spots show themselves to the public and to my God.  It is easy to smooth over our faults with other traits and to have these faults downplayed enough that they are either accepted by others or not readily noticed to make any waves.  But as I look back and think about how comfortable I have become with some of these rough edges in my life, instead of working on them they must have presented themselves at some point in time along the way; which brings me back to this week and my ridiculous attitude towards what God said for me to do and not do.

The reason that God told me to rest was to place me into a relaxed state through His peace and not through the rat race that the world offers.  God wanted me to rest assured through Him and not through the constant wondering and wandering that my “type A” mind wanted to run within, yet for the first part of last week I did exactly that, run constantly.  It was not until about Wednesday of last week that I began to rest in God’s presence and find out some of the differences that He wanted my body, soul and spirit to be in; yet, I continually strove to find out why and through this selfish decision of mind I probably did not receive the full extent to which God wanted me to rest because it was through this rest that He was showing me what He wants His people to understand.

God understands that humans are sinful creatures and that there is no way possible that we can ever change this condition about our lives.  God also knows that we try our best to seek out worldly answers and pleasures in order to “find” peace, understanding, and relaxation.  God continually knows that there is no way that we can achieve this utopia life through worldly means, only God can provide us with perfect peace in all circumstances.  It was through my constant wondering what God was going to do that allowed for my fall today and it was through God’s grace that He showed me my error and at the same time provided me with the topic of this article, stomach.

All throughout the Bible God tells us and gives us countless examples of why we do not need to be associated with the world.  God even specifically instructs us to be totally separate from the world and to live a totally and complete life away from the ways of the world.  In Matthew when Jesus was being tempted Satan took Jesus up to the high mountain and made a profound statement.  This statement said that Satan would give Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if He would just bow down and worship him.  Now, we know that Jesus would never allow His arch enemy to make any false statement while he was around so one would imagine that Jesus would call Satan out on this point, but He did not.  Which means that Satan was actually telling the truth when he made this statement, which means the kingdoms of the world belong to Satan; thus, explaining the reasons why we should have nothing to do with the world.

Another famous passage in the Bible that we use is where God says that He cannot stand lukewarm people that serve Him and that He would spew them out of His mouth.  This is a huge statement and it should strike fear into every Christian’s heart because no one would ever want to have this status in God’s eyes, right?  Well, over the past 47 years of my life God has been protecting me in extraordinary ways that some might find hard to believe but as I look back on this truth, I cannot have any doubts that God has had His hand on my life for a reason.  That reason is just coming to light and has only just begun, but some of my faults and rough edges still shine through at times.

Today I made the idiotic decision to present one of my rough edges to the public and to the spirit realm.  It was not really noticed by many but it sure did make waves in God’s heart and in Satan’s eyes, for both sides began to rumble within my life as soon as it occurred.  It was shortly after the rough edge had appeared, that God spoke to my heart about why He wanted me to rest, for God knew that through my actions of last week I had not completely rested in Him and that through my actions I would be vulnerable today.  God did not set me up nor did He put me in a place to fail but He did allow me to realize the difference between the world’s ways and His ways in order to teach me some eternal concepts.

It is the sinful ways of the world that we allow into our lives that cause us to be a stomach ache to God, for God cannot be around sin.  God walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden until sin entered into the lives of humans and God’s judgment for that sin had been dealt with.  It is the constant sin that His people (the Church) harbor within their lives that cause this spewing from God’s mouth and it was through my actions today that woke me up concerning this fact.  There is no way that Christians can be a part of the world, nor can they harbor ANY part of the world within their lives for if they do, just like my rough edge, it will appear at some point in time and prove to be a stumbling block to your life and to others who might be needing God.

It is through this belief of mixing with the world, that Christians are placing themselves in danger of being thrown up out of God’s stomach (protection).  This country along with many other societies around the world are in the same boat as the Church and it is time we understand that it is not our interpretations of how things ought to be that we are subject to, it is God’s laws that were placed into our lives in order to provide guidelines to separate us from the world, not to mix with it.  The only way that we can completely understand what God wants us to do is for us to fully “rest” in Him, so that we may know what our true state of eternity is at.  God wants no person to be eternally separated from Him, but He has no choice but to grant that separation if we choose it first.

As soon as I choose to show my fault today, God turned my stomach and I literally became nauseated.  Now, not much can turn my stomach, and unless I am sick my appetite usually does not wither at all, but almost immediately after I completed my fault, my stomach became upset and it was at that point that my heart was quickened with what God was trying to show me.  I was so wrapped up in trying to figure out what God was going to show me or to show the world that I did not obey His simple command to “rest”.  As soon as the “deed” was done I was shown why the rest was important for if I would have allowed God to fully rest me like He intended I would have both physically and spiritually known the meaning of true rest and relaxation, on both levels.  When I contemplate my behavior over the past week it is easy for me to see where I missed this truth about God.  While I did receive rest from Him it was not the full rest that He intended for my life.

God also showed me that even this simple disobedience of mine opened the door for me to fall down the road and to experience just exactly what God goes through when one of His children does the exact same sinful act.  This does not mean that God is finished with us and that He has given up on us, for even with my stupidity today, He still is showing me exactly what to write concerning this past week, my selfishness and how I can turn this rough edge of my life into a smooth rounded end that will be a complete testament of His will and knowledge for others to see.  I had to first come to grips of my sinful behavior and then I immediately asked for forgiveness and then God allowed the restoration process to begin. 

What was amazing was that the pains and aches in my stomach slowly went away after a few hours and even though my stomach is not hurting now, I remember the pain that I had when God pointed out my faults.  God loves us so much more than we can ever imagine, and it is His desire to see each of us live a glorious and fulfilling life with each breath we take.  But the only way that we can succeed in this perfect plan of God is for us to live through Him and through His commandments.  If we take to heart what God has shared with us today and apply this setting to our lives, we will begin to understand just what sin means to God and how much of it He cannot look upon.  It shall also open our eyes to the spiritual ugliness that we do not have to live with and that there is a way that we can be restored into God’s fold again.  Time is short and we need to turn our hearts back to God now!

There have been many times in my life that my stomach has been torn up with some kind of bug and it is not a pretty sight to witness.  Everyone of you reading this message know what I am talking about and while our bodies eventually overcome our physical sickness, our eternal sickness to God continues until we repent and then allow God to restore our spiritual lives back to the proper order.  I plan on allowing God to work on my rough spots; will you allow Him to smooth out yours?

DLB