Greetings everyone,
I pray that spring is in your heart. I also pray that Jesus is in your heart as well. Let’s talk about this.
I am so excited. We are living in a time that is of critical importance. Doesn’t it feel that way to you? It feels like an important time, does it not. I am glad to be alive at this time. It’s a critical time. A time for the people of faith to step up. It’s harvest time. I find that many disagree with me on this subject.
This is because many of us are afraid. Afraid of a bunch of different things. Everyone is selling fear. Testifying as to why we should be afraid and buy their product, vote their viewpoint, or just trust them and let them have control so we don’t have to fear any longer. What a load of garbage.
I am testifying that if you have Jesus, and if you have God’s Word, you should not fear anything. If you have the Lord, you do not need to buy into the fear mongering that is taking place. Just fear the Lord. Respect the Lord, worship the Lord, fellowship with the Lord, hang out with the Lord, and pray with the Lord. If you are afraid, and you believe in Jesus, you’re doing something wrong, because you do not need to be afraid.
Today we are going to look at some more promises from the Bible. Promises that will, prayerfully, allow us to reduce our fear and anxiety, and to trust God. Here is Deuteronomy 4:29, this is Moses,
“But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul.”
This is how you fear the Lord. with all your heart and all of your soul. I’m not playing word games, you don’t just seek the Lord with your heart and soul, but this is also how you fear him, with all your heart and all your soul. Fear in this instance is not fear as being afraid. It is fear as a healthy respect, reverence, and obedience. Obedience, that’s a word that’s lost favor for today’s church. But it’s faith, right? Faith and trust in God.
If anyone earnestly seeks God, he is there for us. God does not play hard to get. God does not hide from us. In fact, God through his Spirit pursues us, to the point that God’s Spirit is drawing us towards God, sometimes without us even knowing it. It was that way for me.
Let’s read Deuteronomy 4:29-31 and contextualize the passage here. Again, this is Moses,
“But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you (2000 years ago the Israelites were idol worshiping and doing evil that resulted in the scattering of Israel), then in latter days you will return to the Lord your God and obey him. For the Lord your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your forefathers, which he confirmed to them by oath.”
This promise gets better the more we read. Have you ever read the fine print to some document that you’re signing, and the deal gets worse the longer you read the fine print? This promise from God here, gets better and better the more you read it.
Not only is God easy to find, if you believe, but even after you have made a mess of your life, bad choices followed by bad choices, God is merciful, and he will take you back, honoring the covenant made with the Jewish people. God will not abandon you to your sin. He’s always present, forever searching you out, pursuing you, like the side view mirror on our cars, “objects may be closer than they appear”. God is always, always, as close as we allow him to be, as close as possible. Just a prayer away. Deuteronomy 4:7,
“What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord is near us whenever we pray to him?”
I used to be able to say this for the United States, but it seems as if this nation’s faith has faded. It does not need to remain this way. God is ready to take any and all of us back. This is why believers have to stand up.
This is just how close God always is, just a prayer away. What a promise. Let’s go to Paul, in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4,
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”
Now this promise is interesting. Not only is God the Father of Jesus Christ, in which all things good reside, but our God is the Father of compassion and the God of comfort. I can't think of a time when we need compassion and comfort more than now. That’s something that we can share along with the Good News of Jesus.
All of the deaths, the sickness, the lies, the distrust, we all need compassion and comfort. But as God does on a regular basis, he goes further, making it better. He comforts us, so that we can then go comfort others. This is exactly what we need to be doing: sharing the compassion and comfort that we have already received from God, with others. 2 Corinthians 1:5,
“For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.”
Yes, all of us can testify to our suffering with Christ. We all understand that just because we are Christians, we are not immune from pain and suffering. I pray we understand this. But we are not just promised this shared suffering with Christ, we are also promised comfort. And not just the amount of comfort that we need. No, we are promised an overflow of comfort that we can then share with others who need it for God’s glory. Let's share this comfort, not hoard it.
To finish today I would like to go to the book of John. So far today we have looked at promises from God that assure us that God is always just a prayer away. God is never as far from us as he may seem. Also, though we will confront difficult things during our lifetime on this earth, God will comfort us through these bad times. We will be able to survive these challenges. As a Christian, I can testify to these things personally. Can I get an Amen? John 4:13-14, Jesus is at the well with the Samaritan woman and he says to her,
“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Jesus gives us his life. Jesus’ life is an eternal form of life. Because of this, you and I do not need to fear death, which is just the fear that so many people have these days. The pandemic has caused people to fear death.
Further, Jesus describes this as a “spring of water welling up”. The image is of a vibrant abundant flow of water. Jesus is also promising us an abundant life, not just a boring, meaningless, nothing kind of life. But a life filled with living, good and bad, and enough good that we can share it with others.
I want this life. We should all want this life. I do not want to spend my life hiding in my house. I want this vibrant Spirit led life. But it begins with us seeking God with all our heart and all our soul. It begins with us accepting this water from Jesus, and in turn, we give him our heart, our faith, our belief and love. Then we will know his voice, and this is so very important in today’s times, with so many making a living selling fear. John 10:27-30, Jesus is speaking,
“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”
No one can take us out of God’s hand. No person, no dark minion of Satan, not even Satan himself can take us from the hand of God.
Do no harm, do good, and stay in love with God.
Thad Brown
Opportunity House
and Harmony UMC
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