Since Adam took a bite of that first piece of fruit, Satan has been trying to eliminate all the works of God. Satan has always been jealous of the things of God and the people of God. People are not as willing to worship Satan as they naturally aspire to find God. So Satan is jealous, and since time began, Satan has been bribing people with stuff. He even tried to bribe Jesus Christ with stuff. When Christ went out into the wilderness to prepare for his ministry, Satan came along and offered to give Christ all the kingdoms of the world. Christ refused.
I have heard people say that the world already belonged to Christ, but I think that is a little misleading in this instance, because I think maybe that Satan was offering Christ the part of the world that Satan already owned – the world system.
The world continually attacks Christians as idiots and know nothings. The world thinks we are out of it, we are old fogies, going the way of the dinosaur. Go back to the jealousy – we, as Christians, are able to maintain sanity in insane situations. The world cannot figure that out. They want the peace that we have but get angry and jealous because they cannot get that through their own volition. They believe that we think we are better than they, when in actuality we only wish that they could see things more clearly.
I am not sure how it is possible, but try to put yourself in God’s place for a moment of thought. You love your creation so much, but they have deserted you and at this point you might as well erase the whole thing and start over.
“And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
“And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.”
“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 of the air; for it repented me that I have made them.” Genesis 6:5-7
Just like that. The whole world was condemned. But for one man.
“But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.” Genesis 6:8
That is when the entire world, except for one man and his family, were destroyed by a flood. The whole time that Noah was getting ready for the flood, the rest of mankind were making fun of him, dismissing him as crazy, out of it, thinking he was and old fogey; and no one wanted to get on the boat with this stupid old man.
Sound familiar? We have a means for people to weather the storm in these end times too. No one wants to get on with us.
Through all of this, though, thinking like this was your creation. You do not want to even thinking about destroying all of creation again – so you come and die in their place, so that through your sacrifice they will have a means to come to live with you at the end. All they have to do is believe and acknowledge the fact that you are who you say you are.
OK, back up, let’s certainly not pretend we are God. All I was trying to do is let you feel some of the emotion that the Father feels for his creation – his children. There are lot of them and some are falling off into eternal darkness. As children of God, we start feeling some of Christ’s emotions. We start seeing all the lives of the people around us falling off into that void. That is the emotion we feel, it is not being on a high horse, not a feeling of superiority. It is being heart-broken, wanting to gather them up as a mother hen under her wings. We would like to help, but the world spits in our face, they put a crown of thorns upon our heads, we are up on the cross with Christ. They want to bury us. They want to forget we ever existed.
You know what though? We are also risen with Christ! We are alive forevermore!
Anyone need a boat?
AE
and continuing…
We are made in the image of God. Whether that is something we admit or not it is the truth. There is a beautiful song written for children by Ron Hamilton. The lyrics are as follows:
I’m special to Jesus
There’s no one else like me.
I wouldn’t trade places with anyone else.
I’m special you see.
God has prepared a task he wants me to do.
I’m special; I’m special to my Lord.
I used to sing this as a lullaby to my children when they were very small. I still sing it sometimes today to remind myself that God has a work that he wants me to do. It’s not that we are better than anyone else; it’s that God has created each of us a unique individual with a work that he wants us to complete. Many of us find this thought distasteful because it would be so much easier just to do what we want to do.
I’m convinced that most atheism stems from pride. It’s all about us. Our culture today does not want to embrace the gifts that God has given to us. We want to find our own way. We live in a Burger King “Have it your way” society.
I keep hearing that happiness is a state of mind, or that happiness is something we make inside ourselves. While that is partly true; it isn’t the complete truth. Real happiness comes when we embrace who we are in Christ, and allow him to lead our lives. We will never be truly happy until we truly surrender our will to the will of our heavenly father.
The reason we are special is that we are created in the image of our Holy and loving God! Not because of me, but because of Christ I am special. Any temporary happiness outside of that is meaningless.
Psalm 32:11 Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, ye righteous: and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart.
Psalm 89:15 Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance.
GA
Voice of the Introverts 