Loss

Loss

10/17/21

Not many of us like to lose anything or lose at anything for losing damages our pride, and it is our egos that usually take the brunt of such emotional setbacks.  Also, we know that loss can appear in our lives not just on the physical aspects, spiritual loss is one that can be lost as well and one that has far more ugly consequences.  Do you know that God never intended for us to lose anything, not even our lives?  But for some reason, the Church has forgotten this truth and has stopped teaching it to the dying world and now allows death to invade every section of our hearts without any sort of argument or fight.  This lack of life within us is a deep statement that we no longer have God within our hearts for we all know God can only teach and promote life.  We do not have to live in such a manner, we can correctly teach the world to live and to flourish again, but it shall never occur until we put God back in our hearts.

It is a commonly known truth that humans do not like to lose anything or at anything for it signals a sign of failure, for we like to keep up our appearance that everything is fine and that our prideful status is intact on all levels.  But for most of us, this plan to keep our status lifted after a loss does not work and reality sets in when we are seeing exactly what has occurred in our lives.  We also know that loss comes in a variety of forms and that it does not just have to be on the physical level.  A loss of a job, of a parent or sibling, loss of status, or overall possessions are just a few to mention for now.  Today, we see the individuals that claim to not have things of value in their lives but when our eyes watch buildings and businesses burning because of such false thoughts it is a selfish act of entitlement that has been accepted into our lives by Satan.

However, let us talk about a more generalized loss, one that is on a massive scale where almost everyone around you is placed into this loss category.  How would societies respond if such a series of catastrophes would strike the world and basically take away everything that humans believe that they deserve to live during this post-modern world?  What would our attitudes be then?  To be honest, we would not know how to act for we have become so dependent on things of this world that we have meltdowns when the internet is off for some uncontrollable reason for a few hours.  We have lost focus enough about what is truly important and have placed all our cares upon these fly-by-the-night toys that we cannot even take our eyes off these machines long enough to see the approaching waves.  This is a disastrous policy to withhold in our hearts and will only prove tumultuous when that ugly day arrives.

It has been prophesied many times throughout the Bible that there will be a day that everything shall change in some land, nation, or even the world.  Many of these prophesies have already transpired and have brought massive destruction to those involved, unfortunately, many more of these truths have yet been fulfilled which should give us a warning large enough to not complete things that would bring such desolation to our lives.  Talk about having to walk through a grave testing period, I can only imagine - for now - just what the attitudes and character of the people would be when this occurs.  We would like to think we would act civilly toward each other but given what we have witnessed over the past few years in certain cities, I do not believe our reaction to catastrophic loss will be anything good or civil at all.

However, in a world that has nothing to do with God or His Ways we cannot honestly believe that any of our actions will be on a helpful plane.  If we have no trust in God we cannot act according to His Statutes and this includes civility, peace, and calmness.  Our two verses today give testimony to such attributes of God and of humans who trust in Him in all things.  The two verses are as follows:

Psalm 56:3

"What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee."

Isaiah 41:10

"Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness."

These two verses show us that anytime we are in trouble or dismayed for any reason that God is with us and He has not abandoned us.  However, if we do not know this status and presence of God before things become bad it will be difficult for us to live in such harmony after grotesque events arrive.  There have been many warnings that God has given us to heed, and like ancient Israel, we have ignored them all for we see is the blessings from God as our protection.  This is the big mistake that all humanity has against God, our faith resides in the things around us instead of the Life that should reside within us, so naturally, with worldly goods at our disposal, they will be turned to for answers first.  How quickly we will find out that this loss that we will experience will be overall and not just a targeted few areas, God does not operate in incomplete terms when He is trying to get our attention.

Sin has no order that can withstand any time of challenge, that is why when the Glory of God hits, it shall do so in such a manner that all things shall be disrupted.  Therefore, when these calamitous events strike all we will have to fall upon is our own belief system which is what inhabits us; if one thinks that this shall be an easy process to overcome, think again for controlled chaos already reigns in our hearts wait until it is unchallenged.  Furthermore, we will have no idea about how to overcome such events because we have been blinded from the Truth about how to survive such ordeals.  See, it shall not just be on a physical or monetary system that these failings and disasters occur, we are talking about psychological, social, spiritual, and physical ones all rolled up together at one time.  All shall crash before our eyes; this is what God has shared with us in His Word and it is what we are about to witness with our own eyes.

How can we trust in God when we have no idea anything about Him or His Ways.  Not everyone shall be in turmoil during this time there will be those that are happy as a clam even while the world is completely crumbling before their eyes.  Here lies the difference, for those of us who will not panic, we shall be once again shoved into the spotlight and placed at the wall to be stoned.  You have heard of the saying, misery loves company, well that shall be an unspoken motto of these days of turmoil and no one will be able to escape.  Sadly, a good portion of this misery shall come from those who have sat in church pews for a long time, maybe even all their lives for even while their ears heard the truth taught to them, their hearts never heard one word or syllable spoken.  Remember, no matter how many times we might say to those who recently died "rest in peace" they shall never rest in peace if they did not live a peaceful life, our physical lives are not a dress rehearsal for the afterlife.

So what happens when the leader of the free world falls?  It takes everyone who followed in our footsteps with her.  The loss that shall occur will be one that many sarcastically or facetiously refer to as "of biblical-like proportions" but in this case, it shall all be 100% true.  The only way possible to make it through these coming events is if we know how to properly and truthfully cling to the hands of God and we will only be able to do such a task if we know how to trust in Him alone.  It will be like a modern-day Noah's ark scene, there will be those who listened and a majority of those who did not and they will not have a chance to survive.  Yes, this does sound grim but it is strictly our own fault, for we have deliberately chosen to exclude God from every aspect of our lives and because of this action and choice of ours, we deserve nothing less.

Many will see the results as their eyes are opened during this process, just as many or even more shall react angrily for they shall not understand why such concerns have overtaken them.  All of this is a part of the procedure and process of loss, by the direction of God.  I am at a loss for words when it comes to the actions of the Church up until now, we have heard the Truth taught to us for centuries and have still continued to water down God to make our own selfish ideologies relevant instead of God.  This grieves me because if we have not understood this process and mission that Jesus commissioned us to complete in these days of quiet, how do we even think we will be able to complete such a journey when everything we have known has been destroyed?  It has always intrigued me to read about just how thorough God was in His methods of dealing with Israel in Scriptures and at the same time I have been just as intrigued about how He will deal with His nation that He established to represent His Light unto the world but has fallen into darkness.

It has never been the desire of God to allow His children to witness any loss, God cannot lose nor does He intentionally give out loss, He cannot for He Himself cannot lose remember He has never been defeated.  So why does God allow such happenings to occur?  He allows them to occur so that we will once again choose His Ways over the world's for He knows that as long as we choose the world as our leader our eternity shall be even darker than the current state of our hearts.  In every instance in the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, God has allowed ugliness to abide with His people because they are not following and obeying His Word.  In EVERY instance!  Once again, God reminds us that He is a consistent God and one that cannot change in any shape or form.  We must tell these lost souls that they do not have to add their eternity to the coming losses, there is good news here and it is in the form of Jesus.

Right at the moment, we have a volcano that erupted almost a month ago, it is still spewing lava from that day until now.  It is acting like no other volcano has ever done, not only is it continuing its eruption but it is gaining in intensity each day, it is not slowing down or subsiding at all.  It is this volcano that has prophecies attached to it and from what I have been noticing, things around the world could change at any moment.  How can we, the Church, stand by in amazement at this phenomenon knowing what we do about its future, and be totally silent?  Yes, it is beautiful to watch, but we cannot place worldly beauty ahead of God.  Church it is time we shout to the world that they need Jesus, forget about your public standing or worldly priorities.  The time is now that we proclaim God and prepare our hearts for the coming challenges very soon.  Speak to the world with the boldness of God at all times and rejoice in the fruits of God and His righteousness.

DLB