Category: Tests/Trials
The Joy Of The Lord
Happiness is circumstantial, for example, you won the sweepstakes or you inherited something. Joy, however, is a condition of being, not only independent of circumstances, but all the more profound despite circumstances, especially of an adverse kind. Joy is, therefore, not only independent of circumstances, but it cannot be affected by circumstances.
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The Incredible Fragrance of Mercy
We are the testimony of God’s mercy in this world. Paul described it in 2 Corinthians 2:14: “Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.” The word savor means “a fragrance, an odor.” Through His people, God makes known this incredible fragrance of His mercy.
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The Veil of Self
Unless the cross works in the painful death that it inflicts, how is it the cross? Have we not substituted some pseudo equivalent that does not require death? The true cross is deadly; it is painful, but it alone can bring to death that veil and part it that we might enter boldly into the new and living way made available once and for all through His blood. It is not fun to die. To rip through the dear and tender stuff of which life is made can never be anything but deeply painful. If you presume to have come to the cross and have experienced no pain, you have not come. If that is what the cross did to Jesus, then that is what the cross will do to every man to set him free.
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The Shaking of All Things That Can Be Shaken
There has been a great fall. More has come down than the great towers of the world’s financial center; it is the world itself that can never again be the same. What security, confidence or trust can mankind be assured when even its impenetrable symbol of defense, the Pentagon, is itself penetrated? It is not that systems of security have momentarily failed and can henceforth be remedied and strengthened, but system itself; that is, what is wrought by man and constitutes the assured, assumed verities of life and safety—the taken-for-granted foundations of being itself—are themselves forever shaken! Henceforth, nothing can be assumed as sure; no institution of society, even government itself, inviolable. The rudiments of civilization, law order, justice are overnight, in a day, collapsed, rendered undone. Men, moved by cold satanic calculation, without fear of imprisonment or even death, take with them unsuspecting innocent and defenseless thousands into sudden catastrophe. And this, stupifyingly, in the name of rectifying injustices or drawing attention to a wrong! Anything and everything goes when reverence and the respect for life have perished.
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Do My Prophets No Harm!
“Do not touch My anointed ones, And do My prophets no harm” (1Ch 16:22; Ps. 105:15).
Though this Divine command is too often abused and misused, God said it twice in His Word, which is special emphasis indicating He certainly meant it! Though, of course, God always says what He means and means what He says! Thus, I would say it would be a good idea for anyone to give heed to that warning. Anytime you think God is leading you to engage in an ad hominem attack of words and/or actions or some sort of an insurrection against a genuinely anointed and appointed man of God, another good idea is to remember the fate of the company of “Korah & Sons,” who participated in a personal attack and insurrection against the man God had chosen and anointed to deliver Israel, Moses, and the principle of unintended consequences!
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