They also that render evil for good Are mine adversaries; because I follow the thing that good is. Forsake me not, O LORD: O my God, be not far from me. Make haste to help me, O Lord my salvation. Psalm 38:20-22 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/psa.38.20-22.KJV
Does this sound like today’s news? Calling good evil and evil good is the condition of the world that Jesus foretold about this time prior to His coming for the church. His second coming, when He puts His feet on the Mount of Olives, won’t happen until the end of the Tribulation. God has not forsaken us and He has not forgotten anyone but He also will not tolerate sinful lifestyles and actions. You can choose to believe what God’s Word says or you can say it is just an old book, but you will be judged by the Word if you have not accepted Jesus as your Savior and changed your ways.
Can you be useful to God when you feel broken? Many of us are actually broken in some way. It may not be a brokenness of spirit but it could be because of personal tragedies. So…could you be useful to God’s Kingdom even though you are broken?
Most of us could even if we don’t feel like being useful. Most of the time, when we are broken, our spirit is broken and our emotions feel all mixed up during this broken time. God refers to us as vessels of His Spirit and vessels should be useful but if they are cracked they can’t hold much. The vessel will leak.
Whenever God calls you and you feel broken would you answer His call? You are being called by God so the task can only be accomplished by you. If you are feeling like you can’t do it because something is missing in your life or in your walk with Him…God can fix that part and give you the ability to accomplish the task at hand. Your emotional baggage and your depression and brokenness should bring you closer to God.
All of us are broken in some way and it doesn’t take a genius to know this in our world today. With the pandemic and the wars and all of the other problems like inflation and high fuel prices, how could we NOT be broken in one way or another? So much uncertainty and anxiety about all kinds of problems that most of us can’t fix in our daily lives can cause even more of the same. It just keeps repeating.
Compounding the problems around us is the media’s ignoring signs that life is not getting better but more complicated. Then there is all of the social media drama that keeps cropping up about one thing or another that has no real meaning in the long run. Life at the point that we are living in right now has more than enough “drama” without the nit-picking stuff that shows up on Twitter or Facebook.
There are days that I would like to go back to the days when we had AOL and email and that’s it! No cell phones, no Twitter, no Facebook, no TikTok. Granted, the generation that has grown up since 2007 could not handle being without a cell phone. But, we could truly do without most of the social media that it seems everyone obsesses over today. All of the angst that people have to handle from life itself is enough without adding to being socially acceptable and not hurting someone’s feelings.
Consider the day when the Trumpet sounds and the church is taken up to be with Him in Heaven…social media won’t matter at all on that day. There isn’t a single story or tweet or post of any kind that will be taken into Heaven and your status or how many “friends” you had on Facebook or Twitter won’t matter one bit.
The only friendship that will matter is the one that you have with Jesus. If you don’t know Him as your Savior and He doesn’t know you, then you won’t be taken up into the clouds. Knowing about Jesus will not save you. Being a member of a certain church won’t provide entry into Heaven. Only belief in Jesus as your Savior and a life that reflects a change in your heart will make a difference. So, if you don’t know Him yet I suggest you need to search Him out in the Bible, pray and ask Him to come into your heart and repent of your sinful life today! Not tomorrow or next week because none of us is guaranteed even to wake up in the morning. Make sure of your salvation before it is too late.
Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Ephesians 6:10-12 KJV https://bible.com/bible/1/eph.6.10-12.KJV
There are many times in a Christian’s life that we feel like we’re being targeted by Satan, at least I do. Sometimes he will target people who are not Christians too but the point is that without faith and prayer and our knowledge of God’s Word, we have no real weapons to fight him with. God gives us faith when we are convicted of our sins and turn to Jesus for our salvation. Sometimes we feel that it isn’t very much faith but even a little bit can go a long way if we use it without doubting that God can bring us through our problem whatever it may be.
Why is the church today so ineffective in reaching out to people? It is because the body of Christ, the church, isn’t using His Word effectively and defending itself from Satan’s attacks. God has given us a way to triumph in every situation that Satan can throw at us but until we use the spiritual weapons that we have access to we will fail every time. We are able to be victorious in the fight as long as we have faith in Him and use that faith to call on Him to fight for us. God doesn’t leave us defenseless against the enemy.
But, like any weapon, if we don’t use it correctly it doesn’t help us. A gun can’t kill people unless there is a person behind it aiming it and pulling the trigger. In the same way, the weapons that we can use against Satan are useless if we don’t know how to use them. An excuse for not knowing that we have them will not help us. Just as not having a life preserver won’t keep you from drowning if you don’t have it. We don’t have an excuse for not having faith if we are Christians. We have faith but we don’t know how to use it.
Learn from God’s Word about the weapons that you need before you need them because getting them after being attacked will not help you at all.
Jesus came because He wants a relationship with you, me, and everyone who will give their hearts to Him. He knows when you will follow Him but why do so many of you wait? You don’t know if you are going to wake up in the morning! None of us knows how many days we may have left and it is only in this life that we can come to know Jesus as our Savior. Once you die, that’s it! You don’t get a second chance.
Once, I was accused of trying to scare people into giving their hearts to Jesus and I’ll admit that I tried but only God can bring you to the point of knowing that you NEED Him. The Holy Spirit has to touch your heart and bring you to the knowledge of your sin and that without Jesus as your Savior you will go to hell. Some of my friends from years ago, when I was a firefighter, said they would have the fire put out by the time the rest of us got there. No, they won’t! There is no light in hell, only heat and an absence of God’s Spirit and presence. There is no way that there will be a party in hell the way many people used to say. There is no water in hell either!
Remember the parable that Jesus told about the rich man and Lazarus? The rich man asked Father Abraham to let Lazarus come and just dip his finger in some water and put one drop on his tongue to cool it in the heat. Hell was made for Satan and his demons because they wanted to rule in Heaven. It was not made for mankind but Satan likes to trick people into thinking that it doesn’t exist or that they have plenty of time to make peace with God. The only peace you can make with God is by accepting Jesus as your Savior!
Your life here is short compared to even one thousand years. Imagine living in your eternal body in hell. Your body can feel the heat and the separation from God and at that point, you know that you can’t get out of hell. The pain that you will feel will be from the separation from God but it will be from the heat of the lake of fire too because your body cannot die even though you will want the pain to stop.
The only remedy that will keep you from going to hell is by giving your life and your heart to Jesus. There is no other path and no other remedy for your sins. Jesus paid the price to buy your soul with His blood and He paid for all of your sins with it as well. All you have to do is accept Him as your Savior and repent of your sins, then follow Him until He comes again. The period of grace for this world is drawing to an end and His coming could be at any time. Don’t wait until it is too late.
The Living Message of Christ 