- When God told Abram to leave his home but never really told him where to go to. Just go! Imagine packing everything up and trying to explain to your wife that you have no destination but you need to leave.
- Then there was Noah, who was asked to build a boat in the middle of no where. The people must of thought he was nuts!
- Oh yeah! Don't forget when Moses was required by God to walk into Pharaoh's chambers and demand that he let all of Egypt's 1,000,000+ slaves go free. To enter Pharaoh's chambers uninvited was certain death even without this strange request.
"Whoever would love life
and see good days
must keep his tongue from evil
and his lips from deceitful speech.
11He must turn from evil and do good;he must seek peace and pursue it.
12For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous
and his ears are attentive to their prayer,
but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil."
13Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? 14But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed.
For those of us who want to do good and love life:
1. Watch what you say!
2. Turn from evil!
3. Seek and pursue peace!
4. Be eager to do good!
These requests sound like reasonable ideas, don't they? They are not always easy, but they make sense and are very practical. Then we arrive at verse 14. This scripture is the one that has my stomach in knots.
"But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed."
What could this possibly mean? Why should we suffer for doing the right thing? And if I am doing the right thing and I begin to suffer doesn't that mean that I should change my behavior? After all, who wants to suffer?
I don't like the statement that Peter has written and I definitely struggle with the connotation that just because I do the right thing does not mean that it will produce the fruit I am seeking. In my initial thinking of this scripture,I am reminded of a farmer who went to the store and bought peach tree seeds. He was very excited, went home and planted them right away. He could just taste the sweetness of the fruit even though it would take years to grow. Year by year he took care of this seed and watched it turn into a beautiful fruit tree. When it was finally time for the fruit to begin to appear, the tree blossomed and yet, instead of the peaches, it produced something that was sour and repugnant, and completely inedible. Given the details of this story, you would think that this farmer was lied to or had been cheated. Have you ever been this farmer? Have you ever believed that your actions would produce your desired result, only to find out you had been misled, misinformed or simply made assumptions that now leave you baffled? When we make mistakes or decide to be disobedient we expect to have sour fruit. But when we think we have done the job correctly it is a definite shock to the system to find that this tree you have been grooming did not turn out to bear the fruit that was expected.
Here are a few simple but profound truths to the story about this farmer that we must realize:
1. Not one of us is capable of doing the right thing!
The story is flawed from the start. If you think that you are doing so many things correctly and that life is just unfair, then maybe it is time for you to reexamine who you really are inside, and what devilish activities go on in your heart and mind, and even slip out from time to time for all to see. We are all broken and need the touch of our Lord to create anything good.
2. We are not promised the results of our work until we reach heaven!
God's blessings are here on this earth and there are great plans that He has for us. Yet, some of these plans will drive us smack into some of the fiercest storms we have ever seen. You see, His promises rotate around an inner peace and hope that can only be found by being close to Jesus. True blessing is not found in items we collect, the amount of money in our bank accounts, having perfect relationships where no one ever hurts each other, or having no aches and pains in our physical bodies. True blessing will be found in that day that we stand before our Lord and He shows us the true fruit that we have planted. I have to admit that over the last few months I was becoming a bit confused about this very point. I am trying with all my heart to not allow disappointing circumstances to blind me from the truth of His blessings.
3. We must allow the Lord and His Word to be our guide as to what is right and true!
Our emotions, the world's advice into our situations, our own wisdom, and all of that intelligence you think you have collected over the years will only bring confusion and lead you astray. You see, living for Jesus has many strange requests that go against our human nature. It is not natural to love someone that your mind is telling you to despise. It is unnatural to forgive someone who has hurt you. It is a strange feeling to give away your last bit of money out of obedience to the Lord. There is nothing normal about walking in faith and obedience to scripture. But don't be fooled! It is out of the abnormal requests that the most amazing miracles are fulfilled.
So it comes down to this. Will you trust the Lord? When He makes these strange requests, will you tell Him how wise and intelligent you are, and give Him all of your reasons why you think He is wrong? Or will you simply say "YES"?
5 comments:
Thank you so much for these weekly posts! I look forward to them all weekend! lol
I think we all need to be often reminded that the best blessings will come later. The perfect house, spouce, and car are not the best blessings. The best life here on earth is not the best blessing. Thank you for refreshing my mind.
This was a great word...thank you for continuing in your natural gift. I'm so thankful for God's mercy on me when I think I've got Him or my life all figured out.
Hey Brother,
Thanks you for not saying something ridiculous like, “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” The person, who said that first, has never been given a lemon. This week’s message is a bit tough for me to swallow. In each of the examples you mentioned, the Lord provided the ways and means to complete the task at hand. However, it was the ones he called upon to provide the Faith and Willingness to accept the task. This type of faith was never more prevalent than the time you and I stood next to each other and peered into the bare pantry of the orphanage in Nicaragua. The bareness of the pantry was not what scared me, it was the faith the pastor there had, knowing we would come along to refill the pantry and meet the needs of those living there. The clearness in his eyes and the authority in his voice claimed that very faith. He had no doubt. I prayed at that very instant, Lord, please don’t ever put me in a place where I have to claim that much faith because I DON’T THINK I CAN!! A few years ago I would have never had the honesty to say that out loud or share it with others let alone write it down for someone else to read. James 1:3 For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. Fortunately, that was the Lords very next move for me. No “fortunately” is not a typo. I have been placed in a position where my challenge and struggle has been just to survive. When my trial first began, I recall praying for strength just to make it through to the end. As I became weaker and more broken, my prayers had been to make it to the end of the year, then they went to make it to the end of the month, then to the end of the day to now I pray for strength for the next 10 minutes. I’ve learned that I cannot make it on my own; the Lord will lead me IF I am willing to follow. When I decided that I could or would no longer fight the Lord for that understanding, I began to take notice of several things. The first was I am being trained to stand in for others when they cant stand themselves. Suffer with others knowing the pain they are feeling and letting them know they too can make it through. Don’t try to figure it out, Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding (this was one of the hard ones, as I wanted to have all the answers, funny thing is, is that I didn’t even know what the question was) God knows why. Trusting in Him, He has told us He will never leave us. By far the hardest lesson learned is the following, 1 Chronicles 29:17 I know, my GOD, that you examine our hearts and rejoice when you find integrity there… it has been said over and over again, the mind is a terrible thing to waste. What should be said is that the mind is a terrible place to be in! Some of the thought I have are scary, mean, and vindictive, I want to be revengeful. Even the Bible says an Eye for and eye and a tooth for a tooth. I want to cast some wrath on some of the folks who did me wrong, they deserve it. Lets spread the suffering around so “they” get to feel what its like for a change. From my limited knowledge of the Bible, I notice the word “heart” being used many, many times. The Lord wants to reside in our hearts. I don’t know of any scripture where the Lord says he wants to reside in our minds. Lets face it, we all have bad thought, some worse than others but bad thoughts nonetheless. This is where, I as a Christian have had my hardest times. I have bad and sinful thoughts and I beat myself up for them. How can someone with these bad and sinful thoughts be pure and clean or worthy of the Lord our God? Then it hit me, my mind will never be pure, and it is my heart that has to remain pure, clean and full of integrity. Thoughts are nothing more than thoughts and thank God they come and go like the wind, your heart is where actions take place. I must believe as a Christian that we have to separate our hearts from our minds. Our hearts are our core, trees with rotten cores produce rotten or no fruit. Christians cannot have rotten hearts, and those with rotten hearts cannot be Christians. I have also noticed, the further my hearts is kept from my mind, the less frequent my bad and negative thoughts are.
The Lord asks some of us and tells others what He wants from us. Jonah is an example of being told the Lord wants something from him. Jonah didn’t have the option of trusting or not. We may have that choice, will it take you being backed into a corner or swallowed by a fish for you to give in or will you take on the challenge and run with it? I say Yes, show me the path and look out I’m coming through!!!
Your True Friend,
Rick
I love hearing all of your responses. This is the craziest journey to be on but it is a good one. There are has been days in my recent past that I wasn't so sure that those words would come out of my mouth. But I am learning of God's goodness and just how much He loves me.
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