15 And the mean man shall be brought down and the mighty man shall be humbled and eyes of the haughty shall be humbled. 16 But the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and God that is holy shall be sanctified in righteousness. 17 Then shall the lambs feed after their manner and the waste places of the fat ones shall strangers eat. 18 Woe to them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and sin as it were with a cart rope; 19 That say, Let him make speed and hasten his work, that we may see it and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw nigh and come that we may know it! 20 Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil; that put darkness for light and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! 21 Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!
We are living in this time right now even though this prophecy was written 2800 years ago. There are many who are doing exactly the things which are described in the verses above. Why are we going through this today? Because this was foretold to happen before the end of the age. If you pay attention to the news you can hear these things coming to pass right now. Good is being called evil and evil deeds are taught in schools as the right thing to do.
How much is known today from God’s Word? Even in America which calls itself a “Christian” nation, the media and the news report of things in a backward fashion and very few give any respect toward the Bible and its Word. Most don’t know more than one or two verses from God’s Word and they don’t know or understand the context of that which they do know. These are the prophecies which we should be looking at for some clarity in these days, not the writings of a man from Europe even if some interpretations of his might have come to pass. All of the prophecies of God’s Word have come to pass so I think I would give more weight to those prophecies which have already come to pass.
Granted the prophecies in the Bible don’t give dates or times but all of the prophecies have come true with the exception of those concerning the Tribulation in the book of Revelation. They are yet to be fulfilled but all others have come to pass. This is the very reason that I believe God’s Word as being accurate and true since no one but God could know these things ahead of time. I pray that all who read this will do so with an open mind and seek out Jesus for their salvation.
Are you broken?
Do you feel broken sometimes?
We are very much like the pottery which God’s Word tells us about.
Isaiah 30: 14-15
14 It will break in pieces like a potter’s jar, shattered so that no fragment can be found. Not a shard will be found in the dust large enough to scoop the coals from a hearth or to skim the water from a cistern.”
15 For the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel has said: “By repentance and rest
you would be saved; your strength would lie in quiet confidence — but you were not willing.”
In Jeremiah 18
The Potter and the Clay
1 This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: 2 “Go down at once to the potter’s house, and there I will reveal My message to you.”
3 So I went down to the potter’s house and saw him working at the wheel. 4 But the vessel that he was shaping from the clay became flawed in his hand; so he formed it into another vessel, as it seemed best for him to do.
5 Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 6“O house of Israel, can I not treat you as this potter treats his clay? declares the LORD. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.
God can do, with us, as He pleases. He can do all things without our consent in our lives but the most useful we are to Him is when we are submitted to Him and are obeying Him. Can He break us in order for us to be more submitted to Him? Yes, He can. Will He do this? If He has to He will but I don’t think it is His preferred way of working with us.
God is not a tyrant in that He has to be mean to us in order to get us to do something. He would rather work with us in conjunction rather than having to allow things to happen in our lives which will force us to fall to our knees in submission to Him. So, does God break us sometimes in order to get our attention? I believe He does this sometimes, but it isn’t because He is mean, it is more likely because we are being stubborn and not listening to Him.
God loves His creation and He cares for each of us and He wants the best for us but during the time which we are feeling broken, we may not feel like He cares for us. Sometimes it is during those broken times when we feel down or depressed that we feel that the only way to go from there is up. We should be looking up and keeping our spiritual eyes on Jesus so that the time spent in those low places doesn’t last very long.
Make sure that you are centered in Jesus with Him as your Savior because the times in which we are living are unpredictable and we are not guaranteed tomorrow. So make sure of your eternity while you are here in the present because it is during this time is when we can respond when we are prompted by His Spirit.
The problem with worrying about those problems, whatever they might be, is that it makes us seem to be a practical atheist. We worry about things because we don’t think God will take care of it. The problem with that is this: He will take care of it only when we give the problem to Him completely! Not a portion of it for Him and then we will take care of the rest. Give the pain and sorrow to Him totally so that He can take it and do what He does with problems! He turns them into opportunities to show His glory for your good!
Many times in our lives, when we are going through heartache from the loss of a loved one or our job or anything which causes us to question God’s intentions, we should not question Him with a disrespectful spirit. We should, however, question Him as in “What is going on, Lord?” or “Why is this happening?”. God will allow us to ask a question of Him but not with an attitude of rebellion toward Him. We want to know why we are being broken and the answer could be that He wants to make us a little bit better than we were. Just as a potter may see something different after he begins work on a pot or a plate and he reforms it into something more useful or more appropriate. God is our potter and He can do exactly that as well.
Sometimes these changes come about from periods of hardship and personal pain and depending upon the amount of change that He wants to see in our life it could be considerable or it could be just a little discomfort. Worrying our way through these times can cause them to last longer because we are wanting to help God get us through them. But…He doesn’t need your help in changing you. Truth be told if you try to help Him change you the problem may last a lot longer than it would have if you had stayed out of it.
Knowing this, why do we worry? Because God doesn’t fix our problems when we want them fixed, He fixes them in His time and in His way. This is when the Scripture comes into play in our situation, “Be still and know that I am God”.
We are created in the Image of God and when we are called to be saved through the power of Jesus our mission is to be remade in His Image to do the work that He began long ago. To take the gospel to all of the world however we can do it. Seek to be the hands and feet of Jesus today.
He always provides our needs if you think about it for a minute.
Make sure that you do something with the time in between the two because it is the only time you will get to make any difference in your life or someone else’s.
To follow Jesus, the disciples all gave up something. Their livelihood, their reputation in some way, virtually all of them let something go in order to follow Jesus and they did so willingly.
A man from about 140 years ago once said this: “Beware of no one more than yourself, we carry our worst enemies within us.” Charles H. Spurgeon
Sometimes when we think we have given up a lot in order to follow Jesus and be useful to Him, we really haven’t given up much at all. On top of that, we are our own enemies because we can convince ourselves of things which we haven’t done or shouldn’t do even when God has called us to do these things.
So…what would you give up?
Would you go on a fast for a few days or maybe a couple of weeks, drinking only juice and water? I have done it myself but it was nine years ago, right before I was called to preach a few months later. I had to pray a lot but I was also working full time at a computer shop, so being away from home and food and cooking made it a little easier. Just work, drink water and go to the restroom a lot. Then after a week, it got easier and so on. I am not bragging about this because it truly was hard to do without all day and then come home and smell supper being cooked. I actually made it through about thirty days with juice and water and some protein drinks made with water (I know that last was kinda cheating). But after three weeks without solid food it is hard for your mind and your will to push back hard enough. The good thing about it, I lost thirty pounds!
Would you give up watching TV? I think this is even harder than fasting from food. I have heard of people who don’t even have a TV in their home and that’s great! I’m sure they don’t have computers or smartphones either. Although I could save a couple of hundred dollars a month cutting off the Internet and satellite TV. I don’t want to be without my phone though, just for emergencies.
What else could you and I give up? Snacks? Candy? Coffee…no, scratch that. Chocolate…can’t do it because it is in the same field as coffee.
Truthfully, we are our own enemies because we will listen to those voices which pop up in our mind. We think that they are our own ideas when they could be suggestions from Satan. The more we listen to them, the more influence they have over our lives. We can also talk ourselves out of doing things which we know God has called us to do. We become our own worst enemy because of this and sometimes we will even talk ourselves into doing something, thinking that it is the Holy Spirit talking to us.
If you don’t believe me just think back over your life and find those schemes or whatever you want to call them which didn’t work out so good. You heard about an “opportunity” or a “hot tip” and you thought “What will it hurt to give it a shot?”, “Who am I hurting but my own bank account?” I’ve done it, you know someone who has done it or you have done it and tried to forget about it. You mind and your thoughts are easy for Satan to manipulate because he’s been doing it for thousands of years. He knows where your buttons are and he know exactly how hard to push them so that it is tempting the first time and then it becomes a bit more and pretty soon…well you get the picture. It’s just like any of the temptations which he messes up other people’s lives and yours too, if you’re honest.
It is hard to push those ideas and temptations away when you are tired or hungry like Jesus was when He was tempted, but He used the Word of God against Satan and we have know it well enough to do the same thing. We will never know it though, unless we read it and study it every day, year after year. God’s Word is full of encouragement and heartache and wisdom and promises, but we need to know them so we can use them in our every day lives. Here is the challenge that I am putting here:
So…can you give up about fifteen minutes each day to read and pray about one chapter in God’s Word? Then do it again tomorrow and the next day until you’ve finished the New Testament. Then start on the Old Testament and do the same thing because after 21 days, reading God’s Word will have become a habit and it will be a habit that your heart and soul will truly miss when you miss one or two times.
