The disliked promises concerning Faith…Comfort & Caution! Part 1

When Job was tested; lost all his children, everything he owned, finally his health, his wife told him to curse God and die. Clearly, bitterness had grabbed her. {Be careful how merciless you are to her. She also was just human and had lost everything. This was her worst moment…did Jesus die for your worst moment? Let’s show her what she failed to show her husband. Remember, they went on to have 10 more children, 7 sons & 3 daughters.}

Job 2:10 “But Job replied, “You talk like a foolish woman. Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?” So in all this, Job said nothing wrong.”

Having grown up in Europe, without the distraction of TV, arriving in the USA, I fell in love with watching TV...too much!  That changed drastically during Vietnam...one of the most intense eras to live in. Young men were given numbers that would be used to draft them into service to go to war. I received a number but was only 16. However, my oldest brother was draft age. They televised the drawing of numbers (called it “The Lottery”) and we watched. They would show the date of birth on the screen and then draw a blue capsule out of a large glass container. An individual watching this fiasco would see their birth date and find out if they were in the “300th” group to be called up to go to war…or the “1st” group! Fortunately, my brother was assigned a higher number (Whew!) …but looking back, I remember how that changed forever my thoughts concerning TV. 

When I trusted in Christ, the Holy Spirit awakened in me a fierce hunger to know Him intimately. I read, listened to radio, and began looking for Biblical teaching on TV. The Scriptures are full of God’s promises and statements about life for those that enter into relationship with Him.
These should bring us comfort and caution. Embrace BOTH! The Comfort is obvious = Eternal life in the presence of God. The Caution is less obvious due to the nonsense taught by the HWP (Health, Wealth, Prosperity movement) This group has twisted the picture of Who God is, and the damage is immeasurable! The HWP doctrine on TV ignores many statements God made to prepare His children of the “full” picture of what it means to be a disciple of Christ.
 
If we desire to make a mature decision to follow Christ, we should know the Benefits and the Costs! Jesus Never spoke in a vacuum! He made sure His disciples understood the privilege of their position - Matthew 13:17 and understood the cost - Luke 14:26–28. This was not a light decision or some fad of the moment! It means walking away from personal dreams and letting God create His dreams for us.
 
The So What: What is the final step in your process of making any decision in your life? Do you control your life, do circumstances or does He? When was the last time you had a heart-to-heart with God about what you want versus what He wants? If you say: “I don’t know what He wants?” what does that expose about your relationship with Him? What can you do about that?

 

There is a time to get serious!

James 4:14 “Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.”  

I have always loved music…almost every genre. When I was in my teens, I was a big fan of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. God is so kind, a dear brother that attended my Bible Study was a promoter and he invited me to be his guest at the Crosby, Stills, Nash concert in Manila in 2015! Man, was that a fun night and the icing on the cake was he took me backstage after!
 
In January of 2023, David Crosby died. He had been sick for some time, and when asked what he thought about heaven on Twitter, the day before he died, his answer was: “I heard the place was overrated…cloudy.”

I am sure he meant it in a joking way, however, I have found that a fallback people have for avoiding hard Truths is to make light of them.
 
I am known for having a sense of humor, and I love to laugh, yet, understanding and planning for your own soul is nothing to scoff at or take lightly. God is the Creator that made us eternal, sharing and offering us His eternal life, through the sacrifice of His Son. This is also why I do not enjoy jokes concerning Hell. For me, it is a real destination and there is nothing funny about it.
 
The BIG “What If” needs to enter here. Let’s start with me: “What if” all this stuff about the Scriptures and a dude named Jesus is baloney? One millisecond after my spirit leaves this temporal shell, I will either, not know…because I am gone and just a worm feast until nothing, but dust is left. Or I will appear before what or whoever started all this and regret settling for a lie. I will also have a great desire to find the dude named Jesus and beat the stuffing out of him because he claimed to be it! The only way, the only truth, and the only life, and he wasn’t.

Which means - I invested my life in telling people a lie and was guilty of leading them astray, living in a climate (HOT) I was allergic to, traffic that could make Gandhi lose it, and having to endure the profiteers down in immigration. The people were fantastic, and I made some great friends and learned a lot from them… but I could have done that as a house painter living in Hawaii!
 
However – What if the Scripture is true? No matter how great your “here and now” has been, compared to eternity, it is a “belch”, a “blink” of the eye, a vapor that has now evaporated! Then you will take whatever your claim to fame was, whatever rewards you earned to a destination that is separated from Life and the Life Giver…Forever! There is no early release, no parole, because the Pardon was already accomplished, offered, and left to your decision.
 
The So What: Doesn’t the weight of an eternal decision deserve a time of consideration in your “here and now”? God privileged you, and you alone, with that choice! How is the Gospel’s offer of salvation different from every other offer in the world? If you don’t know I would be glad to help. Choose a Relationship, not a religion.