A Comfortable Position

A Comfortable Position

8/26/18

All of us would like to live in a position where we feel comfortable and safe at all times and it is this belief that many of us try to compel others to accept.  But do we ever reach this goal and achieve the ultimate prize of complete and total peace concerning all aspects of our life?  When we look at the world today, it seems near impossible to comprehend this far-fetched idea but in truth, there is a Way that leads to this desperately sought after path.  God and His Ways is the only representative of such a lifestyle and until we go back to such a pattern of living this perfect assumptive belief shall remain as such only an assumption.  So why do we continually believe that the world can provide such settings?  Take a look around you once again and notice what the world has given us and how we voluntarily accept such garbage, then take another look at God and know that only He can provide all our needs and the true desires of living that we need.

For people who were born before the 1980s, probably have a concept of the Cold War and what it meant to live in such times.  It is difficult for me to grasp the concept of the younger generations who do not have to grow up with that manmade threat and how they have no feelings of tension that the world that they live in could end with a push of a button.  It was a time in my life that I had to know how to protect myself if something drastic did occur and my parents taught me as much as they could about the dangers that lurked around our world, they did not leave out the personal issues as well such as keep your eyes open for any unusual people roaming the neighborhoods or never go close to a stranger, etc.  I enhanced this training by joining the military in 1988 and spent the next four years trying to seal my skills in this defense mechanism and all the settings it presented.  But during this time of training my perception of nuclear disaster began to fade when our enemy fell and after their release of their contingents, I started relaxing and along with the other higher-ups in the government began to wallow in our mud of comfortability.

I sometimes envy the younger generations because of the lack of need to keep abreast of major enemies that have the necessary skills and equipment to destroy the world many times over.  It seems like the threats have become smaller in size yet larger in number and somehow this seems to be less of a threat to our societies than one large destructive force.  The methods in which people protest and activate their individual alarms over seemingly minor details while other major inner issues are ignored seem quite illogical in natural defensive tones yet this is the manner to which we as societies now function; oh, and then when these individual and smaller issues arise we put out the proverbial “pray for _____” signs and wish that all will be safe and okay down the road.  It is at this point that my heart breaks because it becomes physically visible that our hearts do not point towards the One who has the authority to stop this bleeding pain that is constantly being provided through our own devices and choices.  In this world of continual luxuries and comfortable money flows, we fail to recognize exactly who has given us these privileges and through these blessings forgot how to live according to what has been provided, starting with returning it as it has been commanded.

We cannot ever forget that God is a consistent God and when things are going well for our lives it is easy to ignore or not think about where our luxuries come from.  Sadly, it is this one-sided feeling that concludes with us complaining and groaning when times become tough and we then wonder where God is at not understanding that His consistency is concurrent and inclusive all the time and never conditional.  Growing up my family never had a bunch of excess items floating around the house and even though my toy box was handmade and quite simple in nature it was almost always full of items that I had received at various times during the year.  This did not mean that I received everything that I asked for, but did receive enough to pass my spare time in happiness and peaceful conditions.  While I had the necessary upbringing with clothes, food, and a roof over my head I still knew that all could be wiped away if a natural or manmade disaster occurred.  But in reality and when I look back at these conditions of my past, can I honestly know how things would be in my life if those conditions were taken away due to my own upbringing and choices?

There is a part of me that as I look back at my life have to accept that all the while I was living in a comfortable place did not do what I had been taught concerning spreading of the gospel of Christ to those who needed Him.  At that time, I was living great with no worries to think about and while not even considering what others might be going through, I hid the Truth from these beautiful people that Jesus died for and who knew Him not on any level.  It was easy for me not to think about this eternal status of their lives all the while not realizing that as I sat in the pews of my father’s church building and did nothing for Christ, I too was in the exact same boat that those people who had never heard the Word of God taught to them were in.  With this personal information of mine in tow and the small amount of knowledge that I have about the Church today I can see that she is in dire need of Christ into her life again for she has failed to teach the eternal Truth about Christ and what it means to live a separate life from the world, a sad history lesson that is hard for me to swallow for me personally and on an overall Church level.

When we are young, we sometimes miss what is right in front of our eyes and when it comes to the issues that God wants us to see and to understand this pointed setting is common in all of us.  Each one of us is given a dominion when we are created and it is through this dominion that we must keep clean and dressed so that we may have a functioning existence in a world that wants us dead.  There is nothing orderly about the world and what it pushes onto us contributes to our disruptive state of mind, but for some reason we have become used to such a lifestyle that we deem it to be normal and expected at all times thus initiating the calming effect as an unsettling time in our lives, one that is seen as an exciting and invigorating opportunity.  God did not intend for us to live in such calamitous times and lives, nor did He intend for us to involve ourselves in such troubled times that we fail to completely understand our drive and our direction; however, we now thrive on such shocking developments and thus fulfill the results of what Adam and Eve had no idea would present down the road.

In Genesis Chapter 2 we have the perfect setting that each of us wishes we could live in but do not reach ever even when continually doing our best to get close enough to this goal.  When our ambitions turn from completing our job for our dominion to be in order to realize that our place of work and living is a place of comfortability instead, there is only one result that can be achieved and that is disobedience.  If I do not complete my assigned tasks at work each day how can I expect to receive a good report on my evaluation or even keep my job for that matter?  I must care enough about my patients, my coworkers, and my place of employment enough to want to complete a result in a timely manner so that a correct regime of treatment can be delivered.  It is natural for a bad word of mouth to follow me if my work is slow and sloppy for that is what I deserve but when I do things according to the correct period of time and through the instruments that I use I deserve to have a good rapport with my patients, administration, and community.  Adam and Eve clearly had a good rapport with God when things began for their lives and this is a true statement because if they did not then Satan would not have had to trick them into disobeying God’s one command.

I have no idea just exactly how long it was from the moment of their creation until they fell into sin, it could have been weeks, months, years, decades, millennia but whatever amount of time passed it became obvious to Satan that both Adam and Eve became increasingly comfortable in their position and lifestyle.  It was at this time that Satan knew they had become vulnerable and that it was time for him to begin his process of deception.  Believing that all is okay and that everything you do is acceptable through the power and stability of comfortability is the highest form of a sitting duck that one can display and it is this position that Satan saw the opportune time to strike and he did so with an eternal accuracy that continues to haunt humans today.  Adam and Eve had become so predictable to the enemy that he was able to play them face to face without them even knowing what direction they were headed and evident through the misquotation by her concerning the command that God gave them.  Does this placement and sayings resemble a society that we know of today?  It should because it describes us right down to where the period is placed at the end of our sentences.

Adam and Eve began to live under conditional obedience and it was through this belief in a lie that Satan gave them their orders and results.  Conditional obedience is a state that many of us follow and it is one that we shall discuss in depth at a later date but please know that obedience is either there or it is not and it cannot be partially present, many want to believe that it falls into the same category of “being a little bit pregnant”.  Please, do not understand God incorrectly, He established a perfect and comfortable setting for Adam and Eve, but it was their lack of sustained equality between God and themselves that brought their doubts into play thus establishing a negative or divided environment for which Satan could operate.  God is ALL FOR His prized and eternal Creations to live in such happiness and peace, but if we live in such conditions and then turn from God only bad results can occur.  Conditional obedience can only lead to one result, full disobedience if not checked and repented from and will be evident through the resumption of the dominion desired to be complete or not.  God taught Adam and Eve so much about what they were protected from, for God is a complete God and even when it comes to the knowledge of what is around He fulfills this standard.  It was Adam and Eve who began the doubt and thus followed into the physical comfortable position that God had already provided for them.

Do we understand what a major sign of this comfortable position is, especially when it has incorporated itself into our lives?  The direct sign of such a position comes in the progress of upkeep of our respected dominions for if the product is not kept pure the direction of completion stops but the size of the dominion begins to change the growth complex.  It is like when our metabolism is at one pace and our intake of food is at another and the resulting weight gain or loss becomes noticeable to others, including the ones willing to notice and then invade with ugliness.  This previous statement is not meant to be taken as an insult on any level, but as a truth statement about how we work to complete our dominion and thus become obedient to our eternal Creator.  At some point, if we do not correct this size increase with true progression, then our size will far outgrow than the direction of what we are supposed to complete and then Genesis Chapter 3 shall occur and our lives shall change forever.  I am sure that Adam and Eve believed that what they were accomplishing and completing as each day passed was the “right” thing to do, but in truth, it was completing nothing to what God had commanded them to do thus opening the door for lethargy and then disobedience to arrive.

Look at our world today and it is easy to see that our size is far outgrowing our direction.  We have become so large in stature that we can no longer bend over and take care of the grounds that need to be cared for, nor can we even see that there is an overgrowth occurring.  We continue to move along a path with our eyes fixated on our appearance and abundance that we fail to recognize that we are being watched by those who do not wish for our status to continue as such.  In fact, we invite them to our places of living and grant them privileges that are not earned but handed out in the means of free handouts in the name of equality.  Can you imagine if Adam and Eve granted Satan this type of access to their lives in the name of such condolences?  It is a legitimate question and probably has great merit in an answer as well.  Many of you have heard before the statement that we no longer know or care to know about God which is a true statement but what we forget about is the second half of that truth and that is when we do not know or care to know about God we can by default not know or care about our enemy either.  It is this evidence that doomed Adam and Eve and Israel and it is the same ignorance that shall be the destruction of this nation if we do not get our act together before God says “enough”.

The lifestyles of the West and its societies have reached the repugnant stages in the nostrils of God and what makes things worse than one can imagine is that the actions of the world have the direct and complete blessings of the Church.  The world has received a pass from the Church to run amuck and free without any hindrances or consequences for what it taunts and preaches.  Our pompous and arrogant attitudes about the blessings we have received have been turned from the outside towards others to the direct insurgent belief that what we have belongs to others without invitation, in other words, directed inwards.  This type of living example cannot be more predictable than an individual, a state, or nation having the belief that they are in a comfortable position and need to spiritual governing body over them.  In this instance, we cannot forget that God is a consistent God and if He was consistent in the Garden of Eden and in the land of Judah and Israel He shall be the same with our land as well.

Failure to recognize this path of ours shall have but one ending and it shall not be as before.  Remember Adam and Eve were taken from the Garden of Eden and never returned and Judah and Israel were taken from their lands as well and were never the same when they were allowed to return either.  In both of these instances and settings, God placed either Himself or people that sounded His message to those who did not listen or ignored the truth about what they had been given as a witness to the world.  Church, it is us who are responsible for passing the message of God and His Ways to those that do not know God, not to be a flag-waving banner holder for the causes of the world.  These words are so predictable for they have been mentioned over and over for years now but they are given for a reason and that reason is to make sure that every ear and heart has been told that there is an answer to every problem that we face, both physically and spiritually.  In order for this perfection and restoration to occur, the Church needs to repent and start once again to dress and keep up her dominion properly.  The Church as well probably believes just as Adam and Eve along with Judah and Israel that the ways that they are acting is the “right” thing to do but just as before unless you are living a separate life and witnessing 100% of the time, you are not in obedience but in a lethargic state.

Church, we have lost the message of Psalms Chapter 16 and what its content states about our lives and how we obtain life itself.  We have converted this eternal and holy truth into a physical realm and goal as a means of survival.  I pray that we find it in our hearts the truth of this passage again before God has to clean out our hearts in such a supernatural manner as He did in the Garden of Eden and in the lands of Judah and Israel.  Our structure needs to be placed in God and to lean onto His understanding and not the world and we need to teach this to those who are lost instead of the doughnut and coffee sermons as each week passes.  As the old song says and while it might seem a tad funny it speaks volumes of truth because they do not serve breakfast in hell.  All spiritual food that we need to hear comes from the Bible, the definition of God and nothing else. Church, we have fallen down and as of this moment, we have another opportunity to speak out the truth to the dying world.  For even as the rich and famous of the Kingdom of Judah and the Kingdom of Israel were slaughtered and taken into captivity so God shall do the same through His pure and supernatural abilities.  It all boils down to the choice that you and I have to make; the world is waiting for an answer, so what will that answer be Church?  Which comfortable position shall you and I endure?

DLB