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Chapter 8 |
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When God says, "Yes" to our prayers we believe that He hears us, but what about when He says "No"? Does He not still hear us? Yes, He does. Just because we do not get our way we think God does not hear or we believe He does not care. If He did not care He would always say "Yes", so that He could receive our praise. If God were selfish He would never say, "No!" "No" speaks love, for it shows that God cares enough to tell us "No" if something is for our eternal harm. Parents, you understand that if your child wants to play with a fork in a light socket and you tell him "No" you are not doing it to spoil his fun. You are showing your love and concern. Likewise, God is doing the same thing, but we do not think of God as emotional, loving, and afraid for our lives. For some reason we refuse to believe in His love for us. We have been trained to focus on our actions and people's opinion of us. We feel like we needed to earn the favor of people and not of God, but God does not need for us to do something in order for Him to love us with all His heart. We do not understand that nothing we can do will change God's feelings towards us. We have been raised to be moralists, not Christians. There is a huge difference, but we do not understand what the difference is. Moralist worship morals and doctrines. They think that their moral actions will earn them favor with God. But what does God say about moralists. In Matthew 7:21-23, God says, "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father that is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity." Here you have a parable about men who do many wonderful works for God but they do not let God do the works. These are moralist but not Christ-ians who behave like Christ with absolute trust in God to let God do it God's way and in God's time. True Christians are entirely different from moralists. Christians are dead! That is right, dead. They refuse to think their own thoughts, feel their own feelings, believe their own sight, or do anything that comes from them. They walk by faith and not by sight. They are willing doormats for the sake of God's showing love to the unlovable and helping those who, from a human standpoint, do not deserve to be helped, knowing that they themselves are unlovable and weak and undeserving and helpless. Truly, God's ways do not even vaguely resemble our ways. Let me give you an example. Suppose you pray for a loved one to be healed of a disease but that person dies instead. God says, "No, I cannot heal that person for their eternal good." You see, God can see the end from the beginning. We cannot see around the corner. Unanswered prayers are the gospel. It speaks of God's love and concern for you. If you did not love your child you would not care what your child did. Let us reason together. Why did Jesus come in the first place? Was it not out of love for you? He came because you were helpless. You were as the baby on the side of the road in Ezekiel 16. Let us closely examine the story.
We were laid by the road, left to die, alone, unloved, ugly, bloody and helpless. We had no strength to save ourselves. We were hopeless cases, hopelessly covered in sins, and lost forever with no hope of fixing ourselves. We were dying, covered in the filth of sin. But Jesus came and found us and washed us clean from all our sins and put the fine robe of His righteousness upon us, and saved us forever. It is a finished work. But we try to take ourselves out of His hands to return to the field to die. Why? Why are we so faithless? Why do we listen to the doubts Satan is continually placing in our heads? Why do we refuse to trust Him? If Jesus had not come to earth we would all be demon possessed and tortured in mind day and night and there would never be any relief. Sin, murder, adultery, hatred, bitterness, and pain would consume all the people of the earth. We celebrate Christmas and the birth of Jesus, but do we really know what it all means? God Almighty chose, of His own free will, to go through hell to be able to bring us to heaven. He did not do it from fear of the Father nor to receive eternal life or avoid death. He is Eternal Life. 1 John 1:2. We were worth to Him anything He would need to go through to save us. Even Jesus' birth is the gospel in action. His birth shows us the way to eternal life. Jesus was born again as a man by the Holy Spirit. God became man. We too are to do the same thing. We also are to be born again by the Holy Spirit. God came to live His life inside your body, not inside humanity in general, but inside you. As God became man, man becomes a partaker of the divine nature by God's living inside man. 2 Peter 1:4; Colossians 1:27. One man plus one God in one body equals the plan of salvation, the gospel. That is what Jesus is even at this very moment and we are to be the same. We are to be one man, one woman, with one God inside our own body. This is the gospel, the gift of God living in our hearts and minds. Christ's work on earth was to show that divinity combined with a man in his humanity can overcome. We have the power of God living in us. Only a lack of faith can keep us from receiving it. We can refuse to accept it. God is patient with us. He knows we have to come to know Him. Otherwise our time to fall in love will never come. God wants love just like you and I do. He does not want us to accept Him out of fear. He wants us to love Him because He loves us. He wants His love to be returned and appreciated. If you are in love, do you not want your love returned? He longs to come to us, but how to do that and preserve our lives at the same time is the question. God, by nature, consumes sin. If we hold on to sin we will be consumed, not because that is what God wants. Fire naturally burns up stubble. It is a fact that is what fire does. God naturally burns up sin. He never, ever wants to burn us up. That is why God is patient. Even His delay is the gospel. He waits as long as it is productive to do so. God longs to answer our every prayer. If only we could see what is harmful to pray for and ask only for the good He would most definitely answer our every prayer. When God says "No," remember why He says "No". Remember why He came to earth to start with - love for you and a refusal to let you go without a fight. Hosea 11:8. Then, praise Him for unanswered prayer. The gospel is in every word and on every page. We do not look for it because we are too concerned with looking at lions and tigers and bears. Look to Jesus and live, not to lions and tigers and bears. They are only secondary. | ||
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