Missing God's Beauty

Missing God’s Beauty

10/29/16

When we think of beauty it is usually confined to the physical atmosphere that our eyes routinely witness.  While there are many objects that are easy to look upon it is well known that it is the innermost portions of an object that should be the true reflection of the physical aspects of Creation.  Humans have this rare form of inner beauty that we often miss recognizing and it is this inner beauty that not only defines our life but God’s spectacular Creation as well.  The question must be asked of how often we miss the inner beauty of God’s Word in the same manner as the inner qualities of our lives, thus missing out of God’s true beauty of His Heart.

I cannot deny the fact that I live in one of the most beautiful places in the world.  Fall is upon us and this time of the year it is a specialty to have the opportunity to take a drive up in the mountains and spend hours just observing the colors of the leaves on the trees.  I also have to admit that in my 25 years here I have missed several opportunities to witness such beauty because I deemed other issues more important.  I cannot take those opportunities back and replay them, so my mind has to wonder about what I missed.  While these missed scenes may haunt me and make future settings more reveled, they continue to run past my mind when people talk about how much they enjoyed looking at the colors each year.  It is through this gift from God that I miss when I forego an opportunity to witness just divine greatness, but I also understand that it is through this process that I should realize just how important the messages that God’s Word gives as well.

While the fall color season lasts only a short time I look forward into trying my best to watch this process when the next cycle returns.  I cannot hold the future nor can I see what may lie for me tomorrow much less next year.  After the fall colors leave and the mountain turns brown and then white, I often look at the side of that big rock and remember the recent past when the mountain was in full bloom and it looked like a fire was racing up the hill.  I am always amazed at the beauty that God made for us and continually marvel at the changing site of the mountain each day that I look at its offerings.  As stated above I cannot go back and change time to suit my selfish wants but I have to trust in God that I will be around the next time that the fall colors arrive.

This year I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to see the fall colors on the mountains around us.  We took a drive and spent a few hours just standing, sitting and walking amongst the trees and leaves.  As we were driving back down the hill we passed a small grove where the wind was blowing just enough and in the right direction to have the leaves fall on the road.  We drove right through the leaves as they fell and it was just a magnificent setting.  To some, this may not be exciting or invigorating but to my family, there is no better setting that we could witness.  All of us were glad that we had overcome our petty reasons for not being in this setting and left with nothing but glad tidings.  At the time of our departure, I had no idea that God was going to work His wonderful Word into a message that goes straight to my heart as it should yours.

As a Church, we have become so engrossed about the knowledge and how much knowledge we have when it comes to the Bible.  How often do we use God’s Word to advance our positions in life while we have no idea of what His Word actually means?  How many times have we quoted Scripture in a church setting strictly out of love but do not understand exactly what God’s heart is trying to say?  Or, how many times have we read and studied His Word and not even recognized that His Word IS His heart?  I must admit upfront that I have fallen into this category for most of my life and I am ashamed to say but I have missed this truth about the Bible.  For decades, I have concluded that while God’s Word is authoritative in its content I have categorized it in such a manner that all I did was place His Word into a box and conformed it to my image and not His.  It always amazes me that I return back to Genesis in the messages that God gives me and this is for a reason; it is God’s desire for me to know His heart, as much as my heart can comprehend.

We must ask ourselves how personable our daily walk with God actually is and what it represents to our hearts as we study His Word.  Many of us claim to read the Bible every day but do we really understand and recognize what God is trying to convey to our hearts?  It is no secret that God looks at our hearts when He references our lives and He can do this by the “words” that we say as we go about our daily activities.  Why would God be any different than what He has given us as a standard for our daily walk in life?  God shall judge us by the contents of His heart which He personally placed the same characteristics into our hearts and since His Word is His heart it is a fact that we shall be judged according to His Word.  This truth proclaims that His Word is not a book of dos and don’ts but a guideline in how to live our lives through His Covenant and Ways.  God has never once forced His children to accept Him, it has always been our choice to do so.

Romans 3:23 states that every single human being has fallen and come short of the glory of God, and through this verse, proves itself as a living fact and a well-documented truth when it comes to a description of our lives.  This verse also claims that I have missed several things about God’s heart as I skim over portions of His Word or try to interpret them according to my feelings and not recognizing them as God’s heart being spoken in a way that my finite heart can understand.  Now, that changes everything concerning how we should study the Bible and how we revere God’s Word.  This feeling and belief of ours also provides a statement that we have not fully comprehended what God is saying to us and when we place His words on a component measure rather than an eternal statement we have successfully incorporated Satan’s tactic against Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden into our lives.  When we realize that God’s Word is His heart, Romans 3:23 should bring us to our knees and repent for not seeing His inner beauty that He has so lovingly given.  It is this beauty that God shares with us His Creation and it is this beauty of His Word that gives us life abundantly.  When we look at God’s Word as Him speaking from His heart directly to ours, we cannot honestly place our selfish reasoning in front of this truth.  If we do then we have believed for one of the oldest and simplest lies from Satan. 

When we place God’s Word in His truth concerning His heart we can no longer think that His word is ancient, irrelevant, non-existent or even dead for God’s heart is beating stronger than ever and His Word rings true with every letter in the Bible.  God’s Word is alive and well and when one opens their hearts to this truth the true foundation of the Bible can be manifested into your life and prove as to why God says we have life abundantly through Him.  It is this phrase alone that gives us the answers that we need in order to have peace, love, and hope but fail to meet because their eyes are stuck on and in the world instead.  The world and its ruler promise to meet all our desires through its ways but fail to provide a single one as each day passes with more fragility expressed.  We are created better than that and should easily recognize this about our existence.

It is this inner beauty that we have missed as we walk through the trees and fall colors of God’s Word.  We have stuck to the surface and skimmed over it with contentment and haughtiness while shoving cotton in our spiritual ears as God’s heart cries out to our spirits for us to understand the truth around us.  I now can understand why my father used to say that he loved to hear the leaves turning after he said which passage of Scripture he was going to teach from, it all makes sense to me now.  When we grasp the concept that the Bible is God’s heart speaking to us it becomes our responsibility as children of God to listen with our own hearts and to obey its contents.  Not to question it in such a manner as to defile its meaning but to accept its loving words within our hearts so that we may understand why God is protecting us from the world and its ruler.

If we figure out that God’s heart is speaking to us we will have no excuse as to missing things that are being fulfilled around us either.  God’s Word does not hide anything from us, it is our job to hide His Word in our hearts so that we may understand what has been said and the reason why He said them.  Each morning when I do not have the opportunity to spend time with God and His Word and that day ends I can clearly see that while I was walking amongst the trees and leaves, looked on their beauty, I still missed what God was saying to me for that day.  As I look back on my life, sadly, I realize that many years ago I had no true sense of God’s inner beauty because I chose not to seek Him first.  I see such patterns in the Church today and what concerns God the most is that the Church is not recognizing that this noncommittal pattern to God that she is portraying is being promoted by the world.  The Church is bringing the drag of the world on her shoulders by living this proclamation and there will come a time in the near future where God shall take away the beauty of the world and exercise His heart.  What is mortifying is this, it is a known conclusion that the world shall miss the truth of the heart action, but the Church shall miss it as well and draw it off as a missed heart condition of God.

This is why it is vital that we place all of our selfish desires away and focus on God’s Word completely.  We can never hide anything that God gives us in our hearts if we do not have Him first in our lives; therefore, we can never have the capability to withstand the tricks that our eternal enemy throws at us.  Satan will deceive us by saying we can have God 2^nd or 15^th in our lives but in truth, we cannot, this seems like a simple concept to recognize but if we are not equipped with the correct spiritual weapons we will not even see this simple trick coming right at us.  I have countless times missed the beauty of God’s earth even though I was right there in the midst of it, just as I have missed the beauty of God’s heart by not knowing just what the Bible stood for and why God had placed it there for me to use.  There is absolutely no way that the Church can be truly looking for her Groom if she does not even understand the words that He has given to her, in reality, she does not even know Him at all.

Each day I watch the curse of physical death swirl around many people, I can hear their cries for a cure and yet the medicine that we give them only prolong their cries and ties them to a fatal routine.  Many of them have no clue that their eternity is about to commence without them knowing who God is and what He has provided for them.  The laws of the land forbid me to mention God or His name to them unless they initiate the topic which limits God even further.  I want to convey God’s heart to them as much as possible but Satan has blinded us so much through his kingdom we no longer recognize a lie from the truth.  Through the denial of God’s Word in our lives, we have voluntarily accepted the death kingdom that Satan offers, with a great deal of church members leading the way.  We have gazed at the fall colors that God has provided but failed to recognize the inner beauty of those colors, the heart of the matter.

It is no secret that God’s beauty lies all around us and through our eyes we can see this beauty with a turn of the head, but it is the inner beauty of God that we need to recognize so that we may see the glory of His Creation and the direction He desires His Creation to live.  We have stated for centuries now that God’s Word is the truth complete, if we mean that we must understand that His Word is His heart and cannot tell any lie or waiver from His heartbeat, even in the Old Testament God announced Himself and showed Himself to be true and faithful, further deepening the concept that His Word is His heart.  Repent Church and turn back to God’s heart for it is the ONLY way that we can sustain eternal life and live abundantly.

I pray that I just not get to watch the fall colors turn and miss what God has ordained in my life.  This should be the prayer of the Church as well, foregoing ALL contacts with the world and constantly proclaiming that God is the supreme ruler over all things.  Knowing God’s heart says that He is not able to commend the world in any form and neither should we.  We should love those around us and teach them that they need to be separate from the world as well.  If we repent, truly repent God shall begin a beautiful restoration process and while He completes this task He shall show you His heart through His Word.  I have made the commitment to not miss the beauty of God’s Word (heart) any longer and I pray every day that this desire of my heart is fulfilled.  Church, will you pray this prayer to God as well?

DLB

Your Purpose

Your Purpose

10/26/16

Having your purpose defined is a topic that we commonly hear from many people, especially from the younger generations today.  I find this topic in its question form quite interesting because for many of the individuals who ask this single question provide varying degrees of answers, some of which prove no direction has been ascertained.  I also find it interesting that the majority of the ones who ask this question are not looking for a relationship with God but a worldly one even though many have been raised in church or have backgrounds rooted in a church setting.  Our purpose in life has already been defined and this definition comes from the beginning of a pure and holy source, the Creator of all life.  On the other hand, it is a terrible thought that so many of us have missed this truth for so long, if we had known it sooner maybe our world would be in a different position than it is today.  The world provides a steady stream of false pretenses which influence our choices in life and if we allow these conditions to continue in our lives our true purpose in life may be shielded from our recognition.

All of us have the burning question within us concerning about what direction we want to go in after we reach the age of adulthood.  There is nothing wrong with any of us having this type of question running around in our hearts for it is a normal process that all of us encounter at some time in our younger years.  It is ok to dream and to pursue those dreams; that is one of the mighty gifts that God has given us to flow through and to develop as time travels along.  But it is when this desire for our direction invades our lives and causes us to question our purpose in life that makes the difference, a difference of such magnitude that it can eternally affect our presence.

Many of you know that I am in the medical field and my ambitions to join the medical field have been within me since I was a young lad and have been working in this field ever since my junior in high school.  I have had many opportunities around the hospital over these decades and I have enjoyed each department that I have been associated with as well.  Even though my attitude was not always correct, I must admit that I learned so much about humanity through these experiences that it is a continual treasure trove of information and knowledge that is hard to corral sometimes, but I will never trade these experiences for anything for I am still learning more and more each day that I enter into my work environment.

When I was in high school I sat in front of the student counselor one day and was asked the question: What do you want to do when you grow up?  Most of us in high school do not even have a clue about the direction that we want to take but unlike many others around me I did have a direction and I had aspirations to achieve that goal as well.  I had no other desire but the medical field, it did not matter what part at first for all I knew was that I wanted to be in the hospital environment.  This sounds like a far-fetched dream I know but because I had the opportunity to repeatedly gaze at my mother’s nursing books I had a slight knowledge of what it would be like to be in this general area of work.  At that moment I had no idea that this was going to be more than a direction for my life but it would fulfill my purpose in life, but not in the way that most would expect including myself.  I truly believed that this was going to be my purpose in life, the medical field, and my dreams were going to be endless.

When I was going through all the motions of becoming a part of the medical field I had no idea of how the pieces were fitting into place, many of them without even being placed into their spots without any activity on my part.  The medical field details came easy for me and I found myself learning so much about my future even before I actually began my career.  As high school rolled along I continued to take courses that would prepare me for my choice of careers down the road.  During this time period many life circumstances and choices were thrown my way but while I did not recognize them then, I cannot help but see the hand of God upon my life now as I reflect on those times.  I cannot deny the fact that God has allowed me to have a wonderful career in the medical field and I would not trade any of my experiences for anything.  To be honest, I must contend that I thought that my career and purpose in life for God would have been played completely out in the medical field and it was through this path that I had in store (and in mind) for my children.  It is imperative that I admit that while not all of my children chose the medical field for their careers I am extremely proud of their work ethic and spiritual listening to God that has allowed them to be just as successful as God has proven to be in my life. 

Over the years, I had always wondered if my children would follow me in the path that I have chosen.  I guess that thought is always in the back of our minds but this thought and question did not really hit me until a few years ago when one of my daughters came to me and stated that she had finally made up her mind to which direction she wanted to go in.  She had picked the medical field and to eventually become a nurse.  This proclamation could not have made this daddy any prouder and I was even more distinctive in my celebration of this coming to pass.  As time went along, my daughter began advancing in her choice as a nurse and I am proud to say that she will graduate from nursing school this Spring and be eligible to take her nursing boards.  She has further stated that after a few years into her position she wishes to further her education and become a nurse practitioner in the Oncology portion of the medical profession with a specialty in pediatrics.  How could a dad be more proud of a child, eh?

Over the past few years, I have had the privilege of watching my two youngest daughters come into their own.  I can honestly state that it has been an interesting journey raising and overlooking four girls but it is one that I would not change for any amount of money or conditions.  It was last year that both of these younger ones of mine made up their minds to the direction that they wanted to make their marks in society and I am proud to say that both went into the medical profession.  My third wants to be in the pharmacy portion so she is starting out as a pharmacy tech and has only two more modules plus her externship and registry test until that process is completed.  She is completing this task while pregnant and has made her mom and I are very proud for she has plugged through it with flying colors.  It is a choice decision for her life and will provide for her a great opportunity for her future when she completes school.

Also, last year my youngest stated that she too wanted to enter into the medical field and did so in her junior year as I did.  The local high school is in good standing with the vocational school down the road and when a student wishes to attend that school in addition to high school they are given that opportunity.  My youngest wants the nursing field as well and she had the drive to take the first step in that direction by completing the CNA program, then quickly passed her state boards and is now amazingly working full time while she is completing her senior year in high school.  She too has successfully won the medical field’s heart and shall go very far with her choices for job opportunities.

While my oldest did not choose to enter into the medical field her heart lies in the cosmetology aspect of the humanities.  I am so proud of her because it was in her junior year of the same local high school that she began and then completed in her senior year her vocation as a Cosmetologist.  She has had a successful business for the past 8 years or so and now has moved to another state to continue her business opportunities and raise my grandchildren.  I shall never be less proud of her even though she did not follow in my footsteps in the medical field per say, but that does not mean that I am less proud of her accomplishments and completing her heart’s desires for a career.  I am extremely proud of all four of my daughters and I shall NEVER be ashamed of them in any way, shape, or form.  They are my life and my future and with God’s guidance be a shining light to a darkened world.

I have no clue or idea about what God has in store for my life or in my daughters’ lives but I do know that we have provided the Word of God over their lives and have placed their lives in His hands for guidance.  I would never compare this figure to my girls nor would I ever hold this figure over their heads as any time of compromise or hateful acknowledgement but a worldly person would come to the conclusion that if three of my four daughters chose the field that I am in to be their own career fields, they would say that I had a good following.  But for those who raise up their children for God understand that it is not the world’s thoughts and likeness that we want our children to be modeled after.  Yes, if I want to place it into numbers I could boast that ¾ of my daughters chose similar paths as I but what would I gain if I made this assumption?  What if the one daughter who did not go into the medical field lost sight of God and He lost her for eternity?  What would I be considered then?

As God changed my heart and directed me to His ministry for my life He allowed me to stay in the profession that I was in and did not change my course.  As you are reading this article and message from God you know that it is being written in English from a computer by me, a person who for most of his life could not stand to write or type for any reason.  Yet, God chose this boy to communicate His heart to His people in such a way that I could have never imagined.  I do not care what people think or believe about my writings, what I do care about is that they hear the message that God wants them to hear and to think about.  God is an active God and a Creator who is alive and not dead.  He wants us to advance His Kingdom in every way possible and that advancement should be the #1 priority in our lives as well. 

It is this truth that I wish for my daughters as well.  It does not matter if they are in the medical field, a CPA, a housewife, a director of theater operations, a pastor’s wife, or an author it is my desire that they listen to God and to His voice so much that they understand how important it is to advance God’s Kingdom to the dying world.  It does not matter if my daughters are working in the medical field all that matters is that they portray a godly life and project to those around them that God is alive and that He loves them no matter what they have done.  While I am so proud of my daughters in their physical careers I am far prouder that they want to tell people about God through gentle and kind ways.

In no way is God saying that humans are dumb and have not been taught effectively.  However, it is obvious that we have not received the entire and true message of God through this teaching and since we have not received such a testimony of the truth we cannot in turn effectively preach the Gospel to a dying world.  Therefore, God is raising up men and women who have the desire to listen to, understand the, and proclaim the truth in every way possible.  While God has not told me to leave my profession He continues to allow me to explore His Word through the information He shares with me.  

I do not know what God has for me to do in the future, but I intend on working in my medical specialty for as long as God desires me in this position.  I do know that with the directions that He has ordained me to have back when I was younger are currently providing for the directives that God wants us to hear today and for that future status of our eternal lives.  Over the years, God has changed my heart in countless ways that have transformed me into a witness for His Kingdom.  Some of these changes have been subtle and almost unnoticeable but others have been gigantic in which even people who do not know me are able to see these instances.  These observations do not have to occur in my working position but may occur in the public, in church or at the dinner table whatever the setting God has done a fabulous work in my life and He can do the exact same and even more in yours.  The key in knowing your purpose is to completely submit your heart to God and allow Him to rule and reign over your life, this is an old and ancient pattern of God and it still is in place if one allows it.

I am sure that you are familiar with the person in the Bible named Moses.  If one reads and studies the Book of Exodus it will become clear of who this person was.  It was clear that Moses had made a mess of his life and his surroundings even though he had been divinely rescued and placed in a house of great power.  He was tending sheep in the middle of nowhere when God called him to complete a great task for His people.  Moses could not walk and chew bubble gum at the same time yet God chose him to be a source of light for the children of God.  I guarantee that David had no clue that his life would turn out to be a king of a nation and to be recognized as a man after God’s own heart.

Jesus picked fishermen and tax collectors to be His personal disciples and founders of the His Church.  All of these men had previous convictions about life and duties that they laid claimed as their own before God changed their lives for His Kingdom, and it is through this process that God changed my life and eventually – in His time - revealed His true plan for my life.  What I find fascinating is that when you read all of the stories about the lives of these people in the world is that they had no idea that God was going to change their lives in the ways that He did and yet every step that those men and women in the Bible took was a process that helped them advance God’s Kingdom in the future.

It is this process that is most valuable to our lives and if we do not understand our foundational origins and who made us as we are, it is easy for our enemy to steal this foundation from under us without us even knowing that it has been changed.  We must keep in direct understanding that our lives have already been defined from the moment of our creation and that definition has an eternal purpose, just not to be an object that takes up space either.  If we must ask ourselves the question of what our purpose is, then we have not understood God’s Word well enough to even begin to fulfill our purpose.  Once again God directs us to the book of Genesis and specifically to Genesis 2:7.  “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul.”  Through this verse alone it is evident that Adam and Eve knew exactly what their purpose was in life but yet it was their choice to choose their own direction and to accept a lie instead. While I am confident that they turned their lives back over to God, the damage had been eternally done and thus could not be undone.  How important is your purpose you ask?

It is through this verse that your purpose for life has already been defined.  When one takes the knowledge of the law of dominion that God gave us and places it into this category along with the knowledge that we have of Satan and his lost place through the birth of his lies, it all makes senses and it fits right into place with why our enemy hates us so much and why God loves us so much.  It is vital that we understand that God is the author of our existence which means that He shall always have a Kingdom purpose for your life.  It may seem trivial to you at first and it might not even be completely revealed to you at first either, but I can guarantee that Adam and Eve did not fully comprehend what their lives would entail and what would follow either.

It is the job of our enemy to distract us from our purpose.  God designed us to be directive and to have an initiative each day of our lives.  This means that we are to be caretakers of our dominion and to keep it protected from all evil.  If we completed this task while keeping in line with God’s Word we would not have any major issues in our personal world or in the world itself.  When we place God first, we cannot help but do things according to His Word which automatically pushes back the enemy.  I know that when we study each of the aforementioned examples in the Bible that it is plain to see this truth being portrayed.  This process alone defines your purpose and it provides the foundation of why you were created, it is to advance God and push back all worldly obstacles that are presented.

Church, your purpose is the same as an individual’s and since they are one in the same the question of fulfillment of your purpose may be asked.  Many will say they have done a good job of fulfilling this purpose, but are they telling the truth?  God has shown me over 400 messages to write over the last four years but I know that there are countless more out there that I have not completed as of yet.  My purpose is being fulfilled but the job God has for me is far from over, so I have not completed anything there is still much work to be done.  I am not satisfied with what God has shown me to write for there are still billions of people that have not been reached for God. 

I love my professional work and I love my writing even more but I recognize that many things still have to be done on the spiritual level, especially for what is about to occur in the country.  God loves each and one of us more than we can ever imagine and it is the job of our enemy to hide this truth from us.  There is a reason that you are created in the manner in which you are and it is through this specific creative status that will allow you to know your purpose and then complete your purpose in life.  God’s timing is everything and it is important that we never forget this aspect of our lives.  Some receive their directions from God when they are young and others like myself well into their adult years.  God wants us to be patient and to listen to Him and to understand exactly where He has placed us.  Your purpose is divinely ordained and will be presented to the dying world in God’s placement.  Stay the course and keep our spiritual ears in tune with His Word.

DLB

Covenant of the Bow

Covenant of the Bow

10/25/16

Most of us know the story of Noah, the flood and the aftermath of the waters that were present on the earth.  Approximately the same amount of people should know that God established the bow as a physical symbol in His eyes and heart that He would never again destroy the earth and life with water.  But do we know what prompted God to make such a covenant with mankind and what the origins actually mean to our existence today?  If we did we would understand why certain worldly techniques are being used in such a specific manner.  Now is the time that we repent and allow God to restore our relationship with Him so that the origins of the bow do not have to have a similar fate in another form.

I do not believe I have ever heard a minister talk about the origins of the bow covenant before.  I know I have heard many sermons and teachings about the reason for the bow and why God created it, so it makes me wonder if anyone has ever thought about its origins.  When we study the Book of Genesis and specifically the story of Noah, the ark, and the situation with mankind, we find that things have progressed way beyond controllable.  God ponders this setting with great holy uneasiness because He understands that His prized creations are headed into a non-reversible condition and that He will have to act accordingly.  I cannot imagine that God has just sat around on His throne and has not tried to stop humanity from completely annihilating their existence on all levels. But eventually, it comes to the point where God believes that He has no choice but to destroy the perfect creations that He cherishes so much.  This would be a travesty and ultimately prove God that He was wrong.

In Genesis Chapter 6 the following verses hold the key to the origins of this covenant and to be more specific a single word represents the specific reason God can have this opportunity.  Genesis 6:7-8 states the following: “And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls in the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.  But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.”  It is here that the origins of the Covenant of the Bow is initiated and the foundation that it serves upon and when we study this verse carefully we see that the origin of this Covenant has nothing to do with the sin God sees that has encompassed the face of the earth.

When God describes the setting on the earth He must do so with a heavy heart for it looks to Him that everything that He has established has chosen to go their own sinful way from His wishes, this is a given.  As a parent, it is heartbreaking to find out that one of your children has deviated from the ways that you did your best to instill in their lives.  Losing your perfect creation to a lifestyle of sin must have devastated God in a manner in which our finite minds and hearts cannot understand, but to have their futures be darkened enough to warrant complete destruction from their Creator, cannot be comprehended.  Evidently, this was the case and while it grieved God beyond acceptance, He must stay the course of completeness and do the unthinkable.  But wait! There’s more to the story.

Look at what God does when He creates, establishes and executes a covenant with mankind.  The laws of the covenant are strictly endorsed by God in order to protect the person, group or nation from the situations of the world.  Covenant is an eternal separation process that cannot be broken only violated since the originator of such Covenant cannot sin, lie, cheat, steal, and does not even have a rival.  Therefore, the covenant made must be for the reckoning of this separation status and we have the verse of Genesis 6:8 to reinforce this truth about God.

Verse 8 states: “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.”  The lone keyword here that relates the origin of the Covenant of the Bow is the word “But”.  It is through this word that God sees a ray of hope in one of His prized Creations and that ray of hope is named Noah.  The Bible states that God finds grace in Noah which means that Noah while still being a human has the heart of grace that God can relate.  It is this single spiritual heartbeat that God sees which gladly changes His mind concerning the fate of the world.  If Noah was not in grace with God there would have been no way possible to stop God from completely wiping all of His Creation off the earth.

I can guarantee that Noah had many days in which he questioned his life and why he was faithfully serving God while everyone else was enjoying themselves.  Noah also could not help but notice the world’s attitude going downhill as well for God’s Word states that every thought was evil, and if the thoughts were evil then the actions must have been even more grotesque.  Noah knew of the progressive mannerisms to which the people played their hands and it was these mannerisms that presented God into the reality of sin that ruled the earth.  For this reason, alone God chose the bow in order to be a symbol of His Covenant with mankind AND to remind mankind that they are fallible and were the subject of such a covenant.

Recently the rainbow and the colors it has within its spectrum have become a symbol of a human revolution that direct roots to the creation of the bow.  In Genesis 6:1-4 it states that a specific sin was vastly present in the hearts of mankind and that this sexual idolatry was prevalent in all minds.  I find it intriguing that this type of activity is specifically mentioned and when it comes to other sins the word “ wickedness” is used and therefore can be considered a large grouping.  We must always remain undivided in the fact that our enemy cannot create anything new he must pervert what is already established by God.  Emphasis is placed on sexual sins here and it is safe to say that sexually related issues dominated the earth at this time, an eerily replica of what our world is currently striving for today.

It was the separation of Noah’s heart from the world that attracted God and it was Noah who was taught by God how He was going to save His prized Creation.  What a task this must have been for Noah to wrap his heart around but it was one that he accepted and stood for until the day of reckoning arrived.  It was the bow that defined the separation status that God saw in Noah and I guarantee that every time a bow appears in the sky, God remembers the conditions of the world and Noah himself. If Noah was not the man who God doted over then the rainbow and the covenant that it means is a farce.

It can be cumbersome at times for us to articulate our thoughts away from our immediate presence.  For instance, the weather in Colorado a couple of weeks ago was sunny and warm while the east coast was receiving a major hurricane.  We must contend that life goes on all around the world even when we are not immediately present at other locations.  It is this picture that God saw when He looked on the people of the earth and saw nothing but sin and iniquity.  It is through this lack of articulation that we lose out on how many of us really feel, however, we also use this type of presentation as a way to ignore the truth as well.  But many find it easy to articulate their conjunctions especially when they are speaking or writing about a topic that is passionate in their lives.  It is through this passage in Genesis that God is articulating His warning towards mankind and we have placed this expression of God’s true love in the back of our minds and have accepted the conditions which made God troubled in the first place as our home.

We have boldly disenfranchised God’s authority in this manner and have replaced this truth with our own placemat covering. Why would God change His mind and heart for anything lower than His standards?  He never did this for Lucifer so what makes us believe that we would be any different, especially since Satan is doing his best to destroy our lives and to promote the same conditions on earth today as they were in Noah’s day.  The rainbow appears all over the world today just as it did when God first established it thousands of years ago and it served as a reminder to both God and mankind about what God wishes for His Creations.  No one can doubt the beauty of the rainbow for it is a great symbol of restoration as our eyes focus up towards the sky after the water has fallen to the ground.

When our enemy convinces us that it is ok to have different opinions from God’s it is at this point where we become vulnerable to his lies.  While the rainbow serves as a reminder of what will occur if we do not obey God’s ways, Satan tricks us into refocusing our spiritual eyes on a physical characteristic instead of the spiritual.  When this refocusing process commences it allows Satan to instill his philosophy of worldly hate into our spiritual institutions which in turn subtly eats away at the relationship we have with God and further distances ourselves from His presence.  We now see people identifying themselves under the colors of the rainbow and while they believe they are raising themselves up in equality all they are doing is accepting a worldly sentence of separation from God.  This is the complete opposite of what God created the rainbow for, it is the wrong separation process and we are falling for it left and right.  Satan does not care anything about your life and all he really wants is for you to be right about things.  Reread that sentence if you did not understand it for it is the truth.  When we place ourselves first it is our nature to seek that which proves us right or supports our ideas.  This action of ours leaves God in second place or in a 1.2 millionth place.  It is through this lie that humanity is falling further away from eternal life than ever before.

There is a real reason as to why God’s Church needs to take a stand against this lie of our enemy.  The rainbow is meant for God’s children to recognize the sin of the world and to voluntarily turn from their sinful ways.  It is imperative that we do not forget this very important passage of scripture because it is proof that God’s Word is relevant today and that we have an obligation as a created species to seek after our Creator and not another created being.  Our enemy always has an alternative message from what God has stated and this message from him shall always lead one astray from God even if it sounds sound enough to follow.  It is vital that we hide the Word of God in our hearts and to accept its content as the absolute truth no matter what others around us are proclaiming. 

Over the past year, the area in which I live has been blessed with an adequate amount of moisture and the appearance of rainbows after these storms have been magnificent to view.  The weather before the storm, during the storm, and after the storm is all alive and is in continual motion which in itself is a testament to God’s life-giving abilities.  I have also witnessed many double rainbows as well and to my recollection, I have not been privy to seeing as many double rainbows as this past time frame.  Ever since God has been sharing His heart with me I look at many things differently and I must include rainbows as part of this inclusion.  When I was younger I stood in amazement at rainbows but never really took much consideration in their spiritual and eternal meaning and I sure did not revel in the meaning of the rainbow’s covenant. 

But when I started studying God’s Word and applying it to my life it was then that God began to deal with about exactly what is going on around us.  The Covenant of the Bow is a constant reminder to God about His promise to not destroy the world again with water, but at the same time it is a reminder and a symbol for us not to get caught up in the world’s affairs and while we must live here until we are reunited with God we should not accept the death wish of the world.  We are to separate ourselves from the world and not gain our countenances from the world.  We need to remember why God created the bow and the promises that He gives for honoring this covenant.  The Covenant of the Bow is a prime example of why we should stand for God and God alone for when we do God must remember His Covenant with mankind which provides us with the strength of His Kingdom as a driving force against the worldly kingdom.  We cannot EVER forget that God is serious about sex and the content of its creation.

We must never forget that when we include ourselves in the fight with the world we are including ourselves against the fight with God.  Covenants are eternal and holy when God ordains and establishes them and this covenant is one that has significant meaning to our existence.  Another significant proportionate lie that we have believed from our enemy is this and it comes from this same passage and deals with a situation that we will soon face if we do not turn back to God and it deals with the phrase in Genesis 9:13 – 17 when God is giving the specifics of His Covenant.  God states that He shall never again destroy the earth and all living things again by water.  This is a huge statement and one that we have not taken seriously.

We have somehow got it in our minds that what God is saying here cannot apply to nations, tribes, or groups.  But on the contrary it should speak volumes to our hearts and spirits for God says He shall not destroy the earth again and He never mentions anything about nations, tribes or groups.  There is a HUGE difference between the words all and some and God is very specific here in this meaning.  I fear the connection between the sexual sins of the world in Genesis and what sexual non-limitations we are promoting – for our own benefits – today.  We have embraced the Covenant of the Bow with worldly eyes and sinful hearts which nullifies and places us in violation of the real Covenant that God has established with us.  This is a dangerous position and one that will cost us a gross amount of lives if we do not turn our lives around and place God as 1# in our lives again.

Dig into the Word of God and when you do leave out the selfish details that enthrall your lusts and open your heart and spirit to the truth.  God is not out to control you but to set you free from the death grip that our enemy is placing on you.  God has mentioned this many times over that His laws are not to bind you but to free you and when we accept His ways He will then cleanse us both inside and outside as long as we give Him access.  Church you have fallen into this trap as well by accepting the world into your spiritual doors.  There is a reason that we were witness to the numerous double rainbows last spring and summer, just as the bow is a sign to God it should serve justly as one for us as well.

Your motives were noble but your lack of understanding concerning God’s Word has blinded you to the truth.  It is time for you to wake up and to allow God to take off the scales that cover our eyes.  This is a war and it is an eternal war for the placement of your spirit.  Being eternally separated from God is a disaster and a torture that is incomprehensible to the human mind.  God is not mean by installing this truth into His Word for it is a necessity for us to understand and know that God is serious when He offers His Covenants to our lives.  There is a reason for the Covenant of the Bow and it is time we take this covenant seriously and return to its holy confines again.  For you are worth God saving the earth for, so why do you continue to purposefully fail to throw Him out?  God takes the Covenant of the Bow very seriously and He lives through this Covenant every second of the day; remember Covenant violations can be very disastrous in their course; God’s advice to us is that we heed this Covenant and return to its confines immediately.

DLB

Who Has It Correct?

Who Has It Correct?

10/23/16

Ever wonder how people seem to live with themselves when it appears like they are in controversy all the time?  Or how can it be that something so dysfunctional proceeds at will without any objections by the current establishment?  Each day we are pummeled with these types of stories and yet we as the human race refuse to seek logical and true answers for these calamities. The answers do not lie in further legislation, nor will they be answered by personal pleas from celebrities.  The answers to these issues can only come from God alone and until we recognize that He is the King of the world, all of our troubles shall increase not decrease. There is a reason God says to be separate from the life of the world so, again God asks the question: who has this process correct and who is living within their confines of leadership?

There are countless issues that the societies of the world face today.  Everything from air to zoos can be included in this montage scenario with the inclusion of any imaginable traumatic anomaly known to man thrown amongst the fray for good measure.  We witness new law after new law trying to make things better for each nation but as soon as these new laws are passed it seems like newer problems arise faster than the laws can be implemented, which then are outdated.  Continual bombardment of social media drives our fantasies and spreads rumors that are powerful enough to ignite division even between the smallest of communities but we would rather divide our lives instead of bringing people together.  We must recognize and realize that when we focus on the adjectives we shall never bring the noun to unity.

This age has become an era of mistrust as the common call proclaims for unity and equality.  It is the laughable, sadistic and fanatical illusion that now dominates our characters that demand our time and hearts; which forces us to ask the question of is there any real truth to Hollywood, government, and businesses and the subjects they produce and conduct over our society? Where is the hope in all of this mess, or do we even really recognize it as a mess?  Is this a correct behavior according to what society is allowed to achieve?  It states that we as a race would rather follow a leader who is blinded by division than following One who has all the answers for our existence; this also brings into light exactly who has their patterns correct.

The first mention of a kingdom status or that there is a battle ongoing between two immortal beings occurs in Genesis when the serpent appears and begins to have a relationship with Adam and Eve.  The deviant pattern Satan introduces to them announces the arrival of another idea or place setting from what God has already established.  This means that there is an alternative to what God says is true and while this option is available the option has dire and eternal consequences that can never be changed once accepted.  It is this concept that the battle lines are shown and should be a realization standard of exactly what is going on and what is at stake.  For anything that questions the Word of God is not from Him but a discourse of information directly related to our enemy and his kingdom.

Interestingly, and something we need to keep in our hearts, is that when God was explaining the His judgment to the parties involved in the incrimination of sin that God only banished Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden and said nothing concerning the serpent in this manner.  This is a huge point for the future because it has significant meaning when it comes to the eternal status and kingdom representation.  The important point here is that in Genesis Chapter 3 the issue of kingdom comes into play and it is obvious that the lines and sides have been drawn, and it is these kingdoms at war that determines which ideas are followed correctly or not.  As in this example, it is of our own free will and choice as to which side of the Kingdom issue we choose to serve and states our directive if we are judged or blessed according to our hearts.  It is through our choices that God sees us from within and likewise what is allowed to exhibit as a result.

Where is the focus of civilizations and in what direction are these foci headed?  And more importantly are they lining up with the rulers they have chosen?  It is easy for someone to notice patterns about societies if they clearly drop their affiliations, take off their rose colored glasses and look with an objective heart at what is transpiring before them and the attitude towards such developments.  For some, it is evident that the world is in a downward spiral and that unless some real changes are made the world as we know it shall soon come to a screeching halt.  As the old saying goes it is not the fall that kills it is the sudden stop.  It is the place of impact of the sudden stop that we are watching draw closer and closer.  This pattern has been demonstrated countless times throughout human history, why do the generations that are recognized as the “most advanced” missing this truth?  Maybe it is because of the kingdom in which they are following that is providing the answer to the topic question.

It is easy for many to shrug this truth off as a societal bend in the overall bell curve of human existence and to accept these motions as normal activity.  But while the world activates this moral indecency the Christian stands off to the side and scoffs at this progress.  The world, in turn, views these actions by Christians as an outcast of policy and abruptly uses the sanctioned laws against them in order to protect what is the norm.  Is this correct policy and who is following their kingdom with the most accuracy?  The answer should not come as a surprise or at least ½ of the answer that is.  We must configure our hearts to accept that this is the typical and normal response the world provides because it is the only response the world can attain.  So, this means that the world is following its own course of action and therefore can be said that it is in a correct state of kingdom.  Wait a minute here!!  Am I saying that the world represents a more "correct" state of kingdom standard than the Christian is?  Yep, God is saying that.  And by you asking this question, you are proving God correct in His statement through this message.

Ever wonder how people who do not know God continue to function when their ideas do not align up with each other?  Ever notice that the people who know God and claim to be Christians have the same occurrences in their lives?  It is easy for us to look at “sinner” and to rip them a new one because of what they are doing or have done in the past.  Christians find it easy to condemn yet hard to forgive those who have truly repented which is the exact opposite of what we are supposed to be doing.  The world’s standards follow a guideline and it comes naturally because it is a natural state of being, the ruler of the world has the home field advantage and he takes it very seriously when opposition appears.  It is the words of that last sentence that we must understand is that we have to be in this world for this is our home but we cannot be of this world and it is of dire importance that we understand this distinction.  As it stands today, Christians do not know this truth for we have become just as engrossed with the world’s activities as the world has itself followed, which proves that the world is doing a better job being in correction with its ruler than Christians.

What concerns God the most is that Christians have become weary in the truth and have lost sight in their belief system, the Word of God.  We have become so splintered in our denominational thinking that we have taken the truth of the Word of God and rewritten it to fit within our confines of life.  How can we place God in a manmade box and expect us to be able to win the world for Him?  There is absolutely no way that the mission that Jesus commanded us to complete can be fulfilled when we have this concept, which means that we are NOT in correction with the Kingdom and that we feed off of the kingdom of the world.  Therefore, it can honestly be stated that the world, its ruler and those who follow it are more correct than Christians. The Kingdom of God is advanced in only one way and that is through YOU!  For YOU are the Kingdom of God and it is this truth that Jesus commanded us to go into all the world and preach the Gospel.  For if we are not the Kingdom then how could we be the truthful representatives of God, Jesus, and His Church?  It is this command that defines the Kingdom of God and whether or not we are living in Covenant terms with God, which means that if we are then we are living proof that we are more in correction with the true Kingdom.

If it is difficult for you to accept this fact then GOOD!  That means you have come up to the very kingdom that you are supposed to be fighting.  This war is not an ill-defined skirmish but a battle for your eternal life and as long as you are kept in the dark about the truth of your entire existence, you are playing for the other kingdom.  You should be in spiritual turmoil if you have completely dedicated your life to God for it is not an easy task and should not be accepted as such especially when one watches your country and church go down for the count.  When a denomination accepts the world, how does your heart respond, or does it even respond at all?  While the Old Testament clearly had no denominational presence it was adequately represented by many different opinions of how God wanted His laws and ways followed, so in this case the same conditions for a denominational approach was present and therefore can be granted as the same pattern we are witnessing from the Church today.  This statement should frighten a God fearing person to death, because we must ALWAYS remember that God is a consistent God and if He sets an example once He must follow through in future issues.

The world does not care about your intimate and spiritual apparel it only wants you to follow its own designed path blindly.  The world and its ruler shall never explain its meaning and purpose but at the same time expects you to utter its foundation with each step you take.  If a person stops and studies what the world is preaching they will have the capability to know that the path the world is on can only lead to destruction, and what is so frightening is this path is a popular one and is appealing to anyone who is weary eyed or lost for it is an easy road to take because everyone else is walking on it. A prime example of worldly democracy in action as many would claim, which is another acclamation of which kingdom the world represents.

Through the turning of a blind eye to the world’s accords and effectively admonishing those representations into the Church, Christians have lost their means of fighting our enemy on a level playing field; in fact, Christians have lost sight of the enemy entirely all together by measures that they cannot even recognize as worldly weapons that were created for our destruction.  This is another prime example of how divided the Church has become since its creation and establishment.  Almost instantaneously the writers of the New Testament had to inform those newly established churches of the condemning issues that they had accepted and these patterns of division, idolatry, pride, and lust have not altered from that point in time; in fact, through our acceptance of worldly procedures those issues have become ingrained in the foundation and walls of the Church and are now perceived as doctrinal admissions.  When we accept personal and trivial arguments as fact only division can ensue.  Jesus came to unite His command to His Church into one voice, under His blood as the foundation of His Church, not mankind’s words alone.  It is through this holy unity that we can be in total correction with the Kingdom of God and therefore be in a higher standard of correction than the world.  Any acceptance of the world lowers our standards according to God’s Word and if allowed create a pit of destruction that our enemy will blast into existence, which is exactly what we have allowed to occur today.

Our divisions have become so regular and deep that we have now begun to move forward in our steps and ignore those behind us who cannot cross this divide.  Even worse, we are now ignoring their cries for help even as we approach our next divide in our path.  So, as Christians continue to journey along in their own division they are systematically adding to the course of destruction of the world.  If you need to reread that last sentence, please do for it is the key to what is about to occur if we do not heed truth in those words.  This means that while the people who have accepted the world as their standard might be in better standing of correction but are automatically doomed because we are not in correction with our King.  Think about this for a moment for it is a pattern that has been in motion ever since sin entered into our lives in the Garden of Eden.  We have continually placed our thoughts and human wants ahead of what we are supposed to understand and what we are to share with others.  This is a sobering truth that should break our hearts, but we probably will not give it a second thought as we close out this article.  Now, ask yourself the question that is the topic of this article again, but this time, ask it with a heart after God instead of the world.

Repent, Church!!  The time has arrived we stop following in the footsteps of the freed Israelites.  Let us stop our journey in the wilderness and enter into the Promised Land that God has made for us.  That Promised Land cannot be achieved unless we adequately fulfill our places in His Kingdom and that means throwing every aspect of the world from our hearts.  Israel just celebrated Rosh Hashanah and during this time true repentance is the call which means that total forgiveness needs to be given and to make our hearts clean before God; even down to the lent in the pockets must be taken out.  We have wandered for so long that we have forgotten what our Promised Land actually consists and even who God is and what He represents to our existence.  It is also time we clean our hearts out with the Word of God with every single letter that God has provided for this process.

This type of cleaning is what God wants from our lives so that He may enter into our lives and restore us back to what we were created through His Son’s blood.  God loves each and every one of us and it is His desire that we be in total correctness with His Kingdom and not the world’s.  The people of the world may seem happy in their outward appearances but inside they are a torn to shreds with every type of worldly emotion imaginable.  But in our current stance the Church cannot do anything to help them because the people of the world are actually in better correctness than the Church.  The question becomes if we as the Church are going to continue this standing of ours or are we going to change our hearts and return to God and complete what He has commanded us?  Ultimately, we must come to the reckoning that somewhere along the line we have allowed Satan to infiltrate our hearts enough that the Church is playing second chair and is not in line with the correct Kingdom.  The world shall always consider its message to be correct, and this is a correct statement, but it is the responsibility of the Church (YOU) to proclaim the real and complete truth that we are not supposed to live the ways of the world.  So, in truth, who has it correct?

DLB

Glory Into Disaster

Glory Into Disaster

10/22/16

When God delivers us from a situation our lives feel an immediate release and the healing can begin.  Many times we love to talk about how God made this freedom process possible while at the same time failing to see what the entire process entails.  We like to believe that once we have left the situation that things are over and we no longer have to contend with the past, but tat belief is a farce and a lie that unless we allow God to continue His work in our hearts, our freedom shall never come.  All of humanity has to deal with this type of setting at some point in our timeframe and if we kick God to the curb after He frees us then it will not be too much longer until we see bondage and slavery again, much of the time not even recognizing that we have walked right back into this condition.

I remember as a kid watching the old epic movie “The Ten Commandments”.  Most people have watched this movie or have at least heard about it and the contents that it portrayed.  At the time when it was produced the sound effects and graphics were at their peak and if one would watch this gem today many would laugh at its production setting.  But in all truth, it was a pretty dedicated and guided movie that predicted the first few books of the Book of Exodus.  It laid out the basic foundation of the plagues, the captivity of the Israelites, their freedom and then time in the wilderness. 

Of course, there were portrayals of the golden calf and some of the other amenities of the human but as many biblical movies do the underlying motive for God was left out of this production.  Whether the producers did not know about this important detail or they chose to not put it in, it was a huge detail that still needs to be in the forefront of our hearts.  This detail is that when God frees us from something He must continue His restorative process even when we are long gone from that setting which means that there is a process that He has to complete after this freedom; freedom is not the end of the issue.

Anyone who has read the Bible knows about or at least has heard about the story of the Israelites and how they became captives in the land of Egypt.  This story occurs in the first portion of the Book of Exodus and includes chapters 3 – 14 and contains a wealth of information concerning God, His children, the Israelites, hearts, wills, and obedience.  But before we begin, it needs to be stated that the way that the Israelites came into Egypt had a convoluted history that actually began in slavery, then freedom and then back to slavery again but on a much greater scale. 

Joseph was the first to enter Egypt but he did so as he was sold into slavery, it was this process which started the entire presence of Israel being in Egypt.  Eventually, Joseph won his freedom – through God – and became a free ruler over Egypt.  His family was summoned to Egypt and from that point onward there was an Israelite presence in Egypt.  As time passed and Joseph died, there were rulers who did not know Joseph and therefore allowed the status of the Israelites to be changed and their living conditions altered as well.  At this point, they were slaves to the Egyptian building machine and no longer considered to be the foundation of Egypt’s survival.  I know that there is a bunch of details left out here but that sets the stage for what is about to transpire in the lives of these people, along with what God wants us to hear and to understand for we are in a similar setting.

After much debate and arguments with God’s representative concerning the freedom of God’s children, the leader of Egypt reluctantly and out of anger agreed to allow the children of Israel to leave his nation.  The leader of the most powerful empire at the time had been defeated supernaturally and physically through methods that he had no control.  The process would have been made much easier if he had listened to the requests from God through Moses but with him being a human, well you know sometimes a hard head just does not pay to have.  Reverting back to the 1970s movie “The Ten Commandments”, one of the scenes showed the children of Israel packing up their belongings and preparing to leave their places of inhabitance.  I remember watching this scene and wondering how it would feel to lead such a huge amount of people out of an area and head into a place of uncertainty.  I thought it was bad enough when the four of us moved to a known destination when I was a kid.

With all of the excitement of the exodus from captivity and the time spent getting ready to leave, then that day having arrived and the event actually occurring, I wonder how many of these people believed that their captive status was officially over?  Were they so superficially focused that they forgot exactly what they had acquired during these generations from their captors?  At first, it must have seemed quite a release since they Egyptian leaders, military and civilians were allowing them to actually leave without provocation.  But this smooth yet uneasy departure quickly ended with the changing of the mind of Pharaoh and the condition of the Israelite’s freedom began to change.

Beginning with Exodus Chapter 14, the process of the journey into the wilderness commences and for 40 more years the Israelites continue their march to freedom.  Now, I understand back in the days of Abraham, Moses Isaac and Jacob there were no automobiles or airplanes and while the fastest mode of transportation on dry land was the horse, even that kind of travel would take the time to complete.  When one looks at the Sinai desert it does not seem too deep and wide but to an estimated 1 million people on foot with all of their belongings in tow, the journey could be horrific.  But it is still hard to fathom of why it would take so long for these people to reach their destination simply because of their destination being not that far away.  When one looks at the details of such a journey and understands the truth about the completeness of God, it becomes clear as to why it took them so long to reach their Promised Land.

We all understand that God has a purpose for our lives and one of the great plans He has for us is to make us free from the world and all of its problems.  God hear the cries of the Israelites and He sent a messenger to them and began the process of freeing them in the name of God Almighty.  One would think that with the remembrance of Joseph and all that he went through in order to achieve the favorable position he had that the Israelites would have known that their physical freedom would not be everything entailed and that something spiritual had to take place as well.  But, we must interject that humanness quality here and maintain that God had further cleansing to complete than they realized.  But, disaster?  Why would God allow disaster after disaster to occur when they had been recently freed from their captivity?

God would not be able to state that He is all knowing and all powerful if He did not complete a process 100%.  God would be a liar if He would just stick to the physical or superficial when He reveals His presence in a person’s life.  There is no contention that the children of Israel kept their religious beliefs in their hearts while they were in captivity in Egypt.  Many of these beliefs were probably thwarted in many ways with most practices denied openly.  Their longing for freedom came from their hearts which represented an inner searching as well, but at the same time, they did possess Egyptian artifacts that they accrued.  Even though the Israelites wanted their freedom it is evident that they failed to recognize that they had not only accrued physical items but spiritual items as well and it was both of these issues that God needed to free them from.

With this information coming to light, it would be easy for us to criticize the Israelites for not recognizing that God had to deal with both the inner and outer aspects of slavery.  The physical had already been taken care of in that they had already been set free but it was the inner portion of their lives that concerned God the most.  It is this process that also stakes the claim that God is more concerned with our spiritual (eternal) freedom than our physical which makes perfect sense.  I am not saying that God does not care about the physical portions of our lives but it is the spiritual aspect of our lives that is eternal and it is this portion of our lives that cannot be replaced if lost.  There are many examples I could give to support this fact but God wishes to stick with only one and that is the golden calf. 

While the leader of the Israelites was on top of the mountain receiving the laws that were to be used for their survival these newly freed people were becoming restless and bored enough that they began to implement Egyptian idolatry that they had been subjected to for generations.  How often did the Israelites watch the Egyptians dance around and praise their gods.  It is this point that we need to understand the words of God to Moses when He was speaking about freeing His people from Pharaoh, God wanted His people free, not the items that they brought with them, sounds like our situation today.  It must have been fascinating to have a visible symbol in front of the dancers and worshipers so that they could physically see what / who they were singing and dancing towards.  How happy and sanctimonious the Egyptians must have appeared to the Israelites, and you know that some of them must have dabbled in those proceedings; curiosity gets the best of people you know.

Let it be understood that it was never God’s intention for His children to be wandering around in the wilderness for 40 years. God does not bring a person, group or nation out of a slavery situation to just allow them to wander aimlessly.  God is NOT an aimless God, He cannot be for He is always moving forward in His Ways.  However, God cannot complete His work in our lives while there are still remnants of our captivity ruling in innermost portions of our existence.  It was these slavery issues that the Israelites refused to acknowledge and allow God to rid themselves from that kept them marching around and around for this length of time.  As stated above there are numerous examples that are presented in the Book of Exodus that give rise to this truth and it is these examples that God wants to understand that will cause us to experience disasters if we do not allow Him to complete His mission for this nation and His Church.

It is sad to read the story of the Israelites in this 40-year journey of theirs and to witness their ordeals fall into their lives without them having the consciousness of what was actually transpiring in them.  I know that not every child of God in that setting was performing the wicked acts before God but it is very clear that the great majority of them and their spiritual heart was in conjuncture with the enemy.  The enemy had tricked them into spiritual slavery immediately after they had been freed from such slavery.  It is this process that we are experiencing today both in our nation and world societies and in the Church herself.

Our “deliverance” occurred when this nation was founded back in the early 1600s but from that moment forward we have allowed ourselves to be tricked into a domineering spiritual slavery that has now overtaken our existence.  This slavery has created chains that have confined us into a dark hole which no light shining through is possible.  We are so confused with our spiritual setting that our direction is now in the same motion as the Israelites, in circles.  When a circle is considered as progress, the situation of that person, group or nation is in dire need to rescue.  Our cries have been heard from God and yet He does nothing before us, this is true because we have cut Him loose from our hearts and no longer wish to have any desire to follow His ways.  This is exactly what the Israelites did and it is the exact reason that they spent 40 years wandering around and not being able to fulfill the promise God had for them.

It is also evident that God showed mercy after mercy to the Israelites while they were walking blind in the desert.  When all of their needs were being met on a continual basis they continued to conspire against Moses and God, it was a prelude to the setting in 1 Samuel 8 when they finally told God to shove it that their ideas of governance were better than His.  The children of Israel forgot or did not recognize that this trip in the wilderness was necessary to weed out all of the improprieties that they had allowed in their heart during their many years of captivity, a great example of a person or denomination saying that they are Christians but inviting the world into their lives with each spiritual breath they take.  The Israelites did not understand that this physical separation from Egypt also required a spiritual separation as well, one that God needed to cleanse from their lives but they refused to turn it over to Him and it was at this point in their blindness that their glory turned into disaster.

It was never God’s intention to see anyone from the original group that left Israel to miss out on their promise from Him, especially those who did all of the negotiating for their release.  At any given time, the leaders of Egypt could have ended their campaign by ending their lives but God’s hand was upon all Israelite involved and God proved Himself as a true champion of the world.  The choices that they made after their release reflected directly on what was in their hearts and it is not too difficult to understand their actions.  This nation refuses to accept the fact that it was created for a specific purpose in the world by God and through God.  Instead of being truly free through the authority of God this nation, its leaders and the Church all have followed step from the Israelites and have become bound to the wilderness for no good reason.  There is a huge difference between being in the wilderness and being bound to the wilderness.

Jesus came to this earth to be the perfect sacrificial lamb and the one authoritative figure to set into motion His separation purposes for everyone.  Yet, we continue to build our golden calves before Him while He is calling out for our repentance.  We say that we understand why God sent Jesus to earth, but we dare not accept this into our hearts because it would mean that we would have to live off manna and drink from a rock and that is totally out of character for our lifestyle; in other words, trust completely in God for our needs instead of ourselves.  This is exactly what God wants for our lives but we now openly proclaim that this Way is not what we want.

Well, Church, we are now in the wilderness and it is vastly approaching the time that our leaders are going to die.  How long will it take for us to understand that when we spend so much time trying to fit God in our manmade boxes should have been used to advance His Kingdom through us?  First of all, we need to understand that we are the Kingdom and it is through us that God or Satan’s realms are advanced.  Secondly, it is our responsibility to provide a spiritual separation and thus physical one as well from this world so that we do not have to spend 40 years wandering around without any positive results.  Thirdly, we need to figure it out that even though God has blessed us beyond belief it is still His prerogative to place us through a disastrous time in order to grab our attention to His plan for our lives.  This is exactly why all of the leaders and elders of the Israelites did not see the Promised Land, for they listened to the people’s whining, complaining and selfish wants instead of plowing through the spiritual wilderness in order to receive the ENTIRE Promised Land that God had for their lives; dear Lord, to think of all the garbage they would have missed if they had wanted to fully understand freedom.

We can skip the disaster part of our presence on this earth if we only realize that when God sets into motion His plan for our lives that both the physical and spiritual aspects of our existence are going to be affected.  God cannot liberate one portion of our lives and leave the other in bondage for restoration is a complete process from the inside out.  Physical freedom may come easily but it is the eternal portion of lives that God wishes to clean and heal the most.  Restoration is a purifying process and one that will involve a great deal of burning away of the junk that we have allowed into our spirits.  God promises a complete healing and new footing on a solid foundation if we only allow Him to complete this process.  The Israelites suffered greatly for no good reason for 40 years and I am sad to say that while the Jews are still the apple of God’s eye they have still rejected Him and refused to allow Him to restore them completely.

Church, you fit into this same category as the Jews.  United States of America you to fit into this category.  Both entities were created as living lights to a dark world and both of you have allowed yourselves to become wanderers in a spiritual wilderness. You both no longer look to God for answers and what is good for you.  Both of you reject God’s ways and laws to establish your own ridiculous ways and then scoff at God because He allowed you to choose your own paths.  Both living lights have found that the wilderness is dark, cold and lonely and it shall continue to be this way until we allow God to be first in our lives again.

God has painted a very clear and relevant picture for our journey in life of what not to partake, but as usual, it seems like we will have to face a great disaster before we take the opportunity to open our spiritual eyes to what we have become.  The wandering for the Israelites took a great toll on their lives and the disaster that God will have to allow will be far greater.  God is beckoning for us to allow Him total and complete access to our hearts so that we may allow Him to spiritually burn away all of the infirmities that we have accrued along our journey. 

It is a simple process yet a purifying temperament that we need in our lives.  We have voluntarily blinded ourselves into absolute darkness through our selfish obsessions and we shall continue this wandering wither until we allow God to change our lives or He brings disaster into our existence.  God’s own established nation did not figure out that they did not have to go through disasters in order to obtain their promises from God, will we be identical or will we figure out that a bit of holy burning is a lot better than a destructive disaster that will redefine our nation, the Church and the world as we know it.  Study God’s Word and you will understand what it means to redefine a nation after God places His judgment over their hearts and existence.  We can bypass this and it is strictly our choice to do so or not.  For this type of setting is the holy definition of disaster and if we do not understand WHY God has done these acts we can never understand what our sin is and what type of restoration process we must go through; in other words, we do not know God and His ways….which means that we have become identical to the children of Israel.

DLB