The Holy One calls to me this morning. So much is happening in our land and the scandals just keep hitting the 6 o'clock news. Could we be entering into a time when maybe, just maybe, accountability for decisions made and actions taken will be required for those who have previously "gotten away" with their bad decisions and evil actions?
For those of us who embrace the Word of God and are committed to the greater "law", we know and understand, that we are living in a period know as God's Grace. We are cautioned about making and passing "judgements" over other people's lives.
We can debate the issue of cheap grace all day long and battle those who are taking the "liberty" to live like a "child of hell" while claiming to be "Christian". But the interesting thing about God's Grace is that it does not lessen our accountability in relationship with Holiness. God's Grace is His, and not due to any action or re-action on my part.
It is important to understand that God is not just over-looking our humanity and accountability but has made away of escape and rescue from the wrath of Holiness that has and must come. God has sent his Son, Jesus Christ, into the word to suffer that wrath for everyone who was every born of woman.
In addition to bearing the full wrath of a Holy God against unholiness in every form, Jesus introduced to mankind the 3rd person of the Triune Godhead, know as the Holy Spirit. He is the One indwelling each person who enters into a relationship with the Christ and agrees to allow Jesus to become Lord of their life.
This period of God's Grace here on earth, that we are currently living under, is for a time and a season that will end some day. No one knows that day except the Father. This period of Grace, is when we can shed our guilt and be set free while someone else has paid our debt.
Failure to respond to God's love today, offered through the Savior, Christ Jesus, sets a person up for the Great White Throne judgment (Rev 20) where all will rise and stand before The God of all Creation. Rejection of His Son will be the only issue on the docket. All the great deeds done in the flesh will account for nothing if God's Only Son has been rejected by the good-deed-doer.
Living with the Holy One makes for such a fascinating life. He leads me into all truth and is the Government over my life. When He speaks I listen. His counsel comes to guide and protect and provide for my temporal life in preparation for my Eternal one.
The Holy One speaks to me this morning and asks me to "Carefully consider where I pitch my tent". Of course this doesn't relate to my living arrangements because I am not a tent dweller. What He is talking about is where I live in relationship to the world around me.
Am I living in a place where I can influence my world? Or am I living so close to the world in my thinking, that it is influencing me?
The Holy One takes me back to His Word, in Gen 13:12. We are told that a man named Lot lived among the cities of the plains and pitched his tent near Sodom. Now the men of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord."
The background of the story is that Lot was a nephew of Abraham, the Patriarch of the faith. They had moved out of Ur and lived together for many years. The day came when they were to part ways and separate their families and possessions.
As they stood looking at the land that stretched out before them, Lot was given first choice of the land and the direction he would go. Lot chose his direction, took the well-watered plains of the Jordan, moved his family and "pitched his tent near Sodom".
Almost everyone knows the Biblical account of Sodom and Gomorrah. Almost everyone has heard about the judgement of God that destroyed it and all the wicked people who lived within it's borders. But today, the Lord has taken me back to the conversation He had with His servant and friend, Abraham.
In Gen 28:16. Abraham was offering hospitality to 3 strangers who were passing through his camp. "When the three got up to leave, they looked down toward Sodom and Abraham walked along with them to see them on their way".
Walking with His friend, Abraham, the Lord spoke about Sodom and His purpose in the "visit". "Then the Lord said, "The outcry against Sodom is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached Me. If not, I will know it."
Among the many things I glean from this portion of Scripture that gives a glimpse of the Creator's heart, I recognize His attention to our lives here on earth. He told Abraham that He came down to see for Himself what was going on. Do we question that God already knew what He would see? Of course, He knew, but was interacting with His friend Abraham. His physical appearance lent itself to our human understanding of problem solving: I.E see the problem first hand.
God said, "The outcry against Sodom is so great"..... I wonder who might have been making the outcry that reached God's ears? Scripture doesn't say but it does give us a sense of God's Character and Personality in that we know He re-acts to our cry and our out-cry.
Looking around at the world spinning out of control, I am heartened by His Word to me, "If you cry out about what grieves you, I will do something about it. But if you resign yourself to the wickedness then you are too close to Sodom to be an effective Witness. I have given you audience and a voice to govern your world. What will you do with it?"
I don't read anywhere in God's word where we must be "politically correct" in identifying what values we are to embrace and live by. Living in love is not living in compromise. In fact we can look at many examples of an uncompromising godly integrity that caused men a lot of near-death experiences. But the testimonies abound of God's Divine Hand of intervention and rescue for the righteous and His destruction of the wicked.
In this account, it was Abraham's loving intercession that caused Lot to be rescued. He had pitched his tent too close to Sodom and was about to be destroyed along with it......
But God...........
His assigned servants, the destroying angels, grabbed Lot and his family before the judgement was to be executed and led them to safety out of the city, "for the Lord was merciful to them".
Lot's wife was a casualty of her own attachment to that wicked place. And for having his tent pitched too close to the place of wickedness, Lot lost his wife to it's siren call.
The Holy One presses in with legitimate questions for His people:
Are you grieved enough by what you see to cry out to God for His intervention?
Are you so close to the wickedness that you accept it as "just life" and not "great opportunity" to change the temporal "what is" to the Divine "what can be"?
Are you convinced beyond conviction that the Lord is calling His servants to action and He has a mission for you of eternal significance?
Are you living on the outskirts of Sodom or in the Promised Land?
Where have you pitched you tent?
The Spirit is calling. Can you hear Him?
For those of us who embrace the Word of God and are committed to the greater "law", we know and understand, that we are living in a period know as God's Grace. We are cautioned about making and passing "judgements" over other people's lives.
We can debate the issue of cheap grace all day long and battle those who are taking the "liberty" to live like a "child of hell" while claiming to be "Christian". But the interesting thing about God's Grace is that it does not lessen our accountability in relationship with Holiness. God's Grace is His, and not due to any action or re-action on my part.
It is important to understand that God is not just over-looking our humanity and accountability but has made away of escape and rescue from the wrath of Holiness that has and must come. God has sent his Son, Jesus Christ, into the word to suffer that wrath for everyone who was every born of woman.
In addition to bearing the full wrath of a Holy God against unholiness in every form, Jesus introduced to mankind the 3rd person of the Triune Godhead, know as the Holy Spirit. He is the One indwelling each person who enters into a relationship with the Christ and agrees to allow Jesus to become Lord of their life.
This period of God's Grace here on earth, that we are currently living under, is for a time and a season that will end some day. No one knows that day except the Father. This period of Grace, is when we can shed our guilt and be set free while someone else has paid our debt.
Failure to respond to God's love today, offered through the Savior, Christ Jesus, sets a person up for the Great White Throne judgment (Rev 20) where all will rise and stand before The God of all Creation. Rejection of His Son will be the only issue on the docket. All the great deeds done in the flesh will account for nothing if God's Only Son has been rejected by the good-deed-doer.
Living with the Holy One makes for such a fascinating life. He leads me into all truth and is the Government over my life. When He speaks I listen. His counsel comes to guide and protect and provide for my temporal life in preparation for my Eternal one.
The Holy One speaks to me this morning and asks me to "Carefully consider where I pitch my tent". Of course this doesn't relate to my living arrangements because I am not a tent dweller. What He is talking about is where I live in relationship to the world around me.
Am I living in a place where I can influence my world? Or am I living so close to the world in my thinking, that it is influencing me?
The Holy One takes me back to His Word, in Gen 13:12. We are told that a man named Lot lived among the cities of the plains and pitched his tent near Sodom. Now the men of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord."
The background of the story is that Lot was a nephew of Abraham, the Patriarch of the faith. They had moved out of Ur and lived together for many years. The day came when they were to part ways and separate their families and possessions.
As they stood looking at the land that stretched out before them, Lot was given first choice of the land and the direction he would go. Lot chose his direction, took the well-watered plains of the Jordan, moved his family and "pitched his tent near Sodom".
Almost everyone knows the Biblical account of Sodom and Gomorrah. Almost everyone has heard about the judgement of God that destroyed it and all the wicked people who lived within it's borders. But today, the Lord has taken me back to the conversation He had with His servant and friend, Abraham.
In Gen 28:16. Abraham was offering hospitality to 3 strangers who were passing through his camp. "When the three got up to leave, they looked down toward Sodom and Abraham walked along with them to see them on their way".
Walking with His friend, Abraham, the Lord spoke about Sodom and His purpose in the "visit". "Then the Lord said, "The outcry against Sodom is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached Me. If not, I will know it."
Among the many things I glean from this portion of Scripture that gives a glimpse of the Creator's heart, I recognize His attention to our lives here on earth. He told Abraham that He came down to see for Himself what was going on. Do we question that God already knew what He would see? Of course, He knew, but was interacting with His friend Abraham. His physical appearance lent itself to our human understanding of problem solving: I.E see the problem first hand.
God said, "The outcry against Sodom is so great"..... I wonder who might have been making the outcry that reached God's ears? Scripture doesn't say but it does give us a sense of God's Character and Personality in that we know He re-acts to our cry and our out-cry.
Looking around at the world spinning out of control, I am heartened by His Word to me, "If you cry out about what grieves you, I will do something about it. But if you resign yourself to the wickedness then you are too close to Sodom to be an effective Witness. I have given you audience and a voice to govern your world. What will you do with it?"
I don't read anywhere in God's word where we must be "politically correct" in identifying what values we are to embrace and live by. Living in love is not living in compromise. In fact we can look at many examples of an uncompromising godly integrity that caused men a lot of near-death experiences. But the testimonies abound of God's Divine Hand of intervention and rescue for the righteous and His destruction of the wicked.
In this account, it was Abraham's loving intercession that caused Lot to be rescued. He had pitched his tent too close to Sodom and was about to be destroyed along with it......
But God...........
His assigned servants, the destroying angels, grabbed Lot and his family before the judgement was to be executed and led them to safety out of the city, "for the Lord was merciful to them".
Lot's wife was a casualty of her own attachment to that wicked place. And for having his tent pitched too close to the place of wickedness, Lot lost his wife to it's siren call.
The Holy One presses in with legitimate questions for His people:
Are you grieved enough by what you see to cry out to God for His intervention?
Are you so close to the wickedness that you accept it as "just life" and not "great opportunity" to change the temporal "what is" to the Divine "what can be"?
Are you convinced beyond conviction that the Lord is calling His servants to action and He has a mission for you of eternal significance?
Are you living on the outskirts of Sodom or in the Promised Land?
Where have you pitched you tent?
The Spirit is calling. Can you hear Him?
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