Key Text
2Co 1:2 Grace be unto you, and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. 3 Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, 4 He comforting us in all our trouble, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in every trouble, through the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.
a Question that often rises up in discussion and during counsel or the normal course of business is this: why do you find people who always just seem to be at peace?
- At peace with themselves.
- At peace with their surroundings.
- At peace with the kids and family.
- At peace in the workplace.
- At peace with peace.
Surely life isn’t this pink balloon they live in. There always has to bee something to complain about or moan about. There is always enough reason to be upset with something. The milk that’s finished, again. The door left open when it should have been closed. The homework assignment that should have been done a week ago. The taxi driver, the traffic cops.
We have so much right to walk around with sour expressions and long faces.
After all, God isn’t paying any attention to me and my little planet of misery.
In any case, He caused most of the misery. He caused sickness in order to teach me a lesson. It’s his entire fault my business went belly-up.
God just isn’t fair.
Who said so?
That my friend, is the biggest load of hogwash and myth ever.
Jas 1:13 Let no one being tempted say, I am tempted from God. For God is not tempted by evils, and He tempts no one. 14 But each one is tempted by his lusts, being drawn away and seduced by them. 15 Then when lust has conceived, it brings forth sin. And sin, when it is fully formed, brings forth death. 16 Do not err, my beloved brothers. 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning.
God is fair. He has no favourites and He will not bless some more than others. The choice of the quality of life we live, is ours.
“Do as you wish and experience the result of that…” Anon
what you concentrate on is what you create.
God has laid before us, the opportunity to chose. We chose. We chose how we live, where we live. The choice is ours.
Some people chose not to get upset.
So, how can we confirm the Grace and the Mercies and the Good Gifts of God?
I have just acted to crazy in my life, for God to still be willing to let go of my past. What I have done is just beyond forgiveness.
Psa 103:8 The Lord is kind and full of pity, not quickly made angry, but ever ready to have mercy. 9 His feeling will no longer be bitter; he will not keep his wrath for ever. 10 He has not given us the punishment for our sins, or the reward of our wrongdoing. 11 For as the heaven is high over the earth, so great is his mercy to his worshippers. 12 As far as the east is from the west, so far has he put our sins from us.
Two situations comes and confirms this:
- Jesus is hanging on the cross, between two ‘evildoers’ and the one said “Jesus, keep me in mind when you come in your kingdom”. And he said to him, “Truly I say to you, Today you will be with me in Paradise”.
- Peter denied Christ three times, yet Jesus said to him: “Peter, feed my sheep”
Some would then come and say “ Oh, but that is the New Testament and we should not forget the God of the Old Testament.
Listen: God is the same yesterday today and forever!
Neh 9:18 Even when they had made for themselves an ox of metal, and said, This is your God who took you up out of Egypt, and had done so much to make you angry; 19 Even then, in your great mercy, you did not give them up in the waste land: the pillar of cloud still went before them by day, guiding them on their way, and the pillar of fire by night, to give them light, and make clear the way they were to go. 20 And you gave your good spirit to be their teacher, and did not keep back your manna from their mouths, and gave them water when they had need of it. 21 Truly, for forty years you were their support in the waste land, and they were in need of nothing; their clothing did not get old or their feet become tired. 22 And you gave them kingdoms and peoples, making distribution to them in every part of the land: so they took for their heritage the land of Sihon, even the land of the king of Heshbon, and the land of Og, king of Bashan.
These people totally turned their eyes away from God. They forgot the provision, the miracles they have seen with their own eyes.
But did God wipe them out?
- He continued to guide them. He did not give up on them. “the pillar of cloud still went before them by day, guiding them on their way, and the pillar of fire by night, to give them light, and make clear the way they were to go.
- He continued to teach them His way: And you gave your good spirit to be their teacher
- He continued to provide for them: and did not keep back your manna from their mouths, and gave them water when they had need of it.
- He did not limit them: for forty years you were their support in the waste land, and they were in need of nothing; their clothing did not get old or their feet become tired
Yet we foolishly want to believe that God is out to get us!
We want to believe that the mess we find ourselves in is God`s doing.
He is busy teaching us a lesson.
Maybe he is not punishing you, maybe He is exposing you.
When you squeeze the tube of toothpaste, guess what comes out? Toothpaste.
Perhaps the circumstance we find ourselves in is the result of the choices we made and not God`s idea of punishment.
Maybe He has more in store for us.
Maybe we need a change of heart. Maybe we need a paradigm shift in our thinking and understanding of God.
Maybe God loves us more than we give Him credit.
After all, he did send His son to the cross for our sakes.
1Co 13:1 If I make use of the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am like sounding brass, or a loud-tongued bell. 2 And if I have a prophet's power, and have knowledge of all secret things; and if I have all faith, by which mountains may be moved from their place, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give all my goods to the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it is of no profit to me. 4 Love is never tired of waiting; love is kind; love has no envy; love has no high opinion of itself, love has no pride; 5 Love's ways are ever fair, it takes no thought for itself; it is not quickly made angry, it takes no account of evil; 6 It takes no pleasure in wrongdoing, but has joy in what is true; 7 Love has the power of undergoing all things, having faith in all things, hoping all things.
Everything we do, every decision we make, every step we take must be done in and through love.
God has bestowed His grace on us – purely motivated by His love for us. God IS love, He cannot function in any other way than the motivation of His character and His whole being, His whole character is made up of love.
We have been created in His image as a matter of fact its more than that.
Gen 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, like us: and let him have rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every living thing which goes flat on the earth. 27 And God made man in his image, in the image of God he made him: male and female he made them.
- And God said, Let us make man in our image, like us:
- Who is this ‘us?’
- The Father, Jesus Christ the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
We were made in their image, we were given their characteristics, to act like them, talk like them and behave like them.
What is God’s nature? Love.
We have the same nature, we have the same trademarks, and we are supposed to act the same way.
In LOVE.
When we begin to act and think and walk and talk like God, we will begin to experience and receive and display God.
His grace and mercy should be part of who we are. Not violence and ‘lets get them and lets destroy them’.
His mercies are new every morning.
Our mercies and grace should be the same.
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