Potholes

"Friendship was given by nature to be an assistant to virtue, not a companion in vice." - Cicero

Nothing is like a friend. A friend who knows where I am and is able to speak to my situation at the moment, with clarity and conviction, is like a fine mist in a desert place. I had the chance to talk to a friend of mine Friday. I was calling to share in a recent, great happiness of his. Instead I had the opportunity to be encouraged by his wisdom. He told me of a major lessons which God had taught to him, which helped him to become more self-aware. The lesson concerned awareness of his tendencies to give in to temptation, and of the steps that he could develop to fight the sin that would so easily entangle him.

This particular lesson is exactly what I am learning at the moment. You know, I must be honest with you: I have had the tendency, when I have convinced myself that sinning is inevitable, to just go ahead and and fall/jump into temptation. After all, it _is_ just _one_ sin. How displeasing could God possibly be?? I have been serving him for a long time, as best I can. One little bump in the road cannot make the whole trip impossible!

Numbers 20:8, 11-12 Take the rod, you and Aaron, your brother, and make all the people come together, and before their eyes give orders to the rock to give out its water; and so make water come out of the rock for them, and give the people and their cattle drink.
And lifting up his hand, Moses gave the rock two blows with his rod: and water came streaming out, and the people and their cattle had drink enough.
Then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, Because you had not enough faith in me to keep my name holy before the children of Israel, you will not take this people into the land which I have given them.

All it took for Moses was a bump in the road, and that after a long stretch of paved goodness.

Because of my friend, I have been challenged to take a stand. He admonished me, that I should take firm hold of God's word that, according to Ephesians 3:20, he is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us. So, I will ask to become all that my Lord has called me to be, and I think that Christ has placed holiness within my grasp. I have made resolutions in the past, the vast majority of which were based on willpower, and only after I had engaged in deliberate sin. This time, I resolve to fight from a pure heart, not a guilty one. I will be present one day before God, and in exceeding, great joy.

Jude 1:24-25 Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,
To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

posted from Bloggeroid

Messin' Up My Blessin'

Get this. You are blessed. Check out Ephesians 1:3, from where we can give "All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ." That's a fact. Sometimes, though, we either forget, or we do things to brings bad news upon ourselves. That is what is going on here with Israel. Check it out.

That's what is happening in Numbers, chapters 22 to 25. At that time, the king of the Moabites was Balak. He had learned that all of the tribes of Israel were just opposite his land, and that the Moabites were all afraid of the Israelite threat. So Balak calls the prophet Balaam to curse Israel. King Balak sends elders of Moab and of Midian to Balaam's house with money in hopes that he will travel back with them. Instead, Balaam asks them to stay the night and, after hearing from God, tells the elders he cannot go with them. Balak doesn't give up, though. He sends a large group of princes the second time to invite Balaam. They stay with Balaam overnight, and this time God seems to allow him to go with the Moabite and Midianite royalty, provided that Balaam speaks exactly the words God wants him to speak. So Balaam goes with the princes.

Short story shorter, God tells Balaam to bless Israel, which infuriates and confuses Balak. Three different times Balak offers sacrifices and asks for a curse to fall on Israel, and three different times the opposite happens. So Israel remains blessed because of God's intervention, and all looks well.

That's chapters 22 through 24. In chapter 25 though, the tides change. Someone brings a curse on Israel. The culprit? Israel! Some knuckleheads start worshipping Moab's god, Baal, and practicing immorality with Midianite women. Obviously, the true God is not pleased. He decides to send a plague through the land, killing about 24, 000 people before someone actually kills an Israelite man and a Midianite woman who were together while Israel was weeping at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. The death of those two stops the plague from spreading, but damage had already been done.

Here's the point: God had just protected the entire nation from being cursed, and they go and bring a curse upon themselves. Like the people of Israel, we can mess up our own lives even while God is protecting us from curses. The God of the universe is looking out for His people, whether we realize it or not. Let's live understanding that we are under the blessing of our Father, so that we don't force ourselves to struggle under the self-induced curse of our own sinfulness.

posted from Bloggeroid