Abba, Father, I …

Do you have an issue with your Abba?  Are you not talking with Him because He did not give you what you thought you so desparetely needed? Then this is your post.

Perhaps you are one of the few people who have read this verse.

¹⁰ “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit  of grace and supplication. They will look on  me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son. ( Zechariah 12:10)

Briefly, this is a scene in the future where the Jews finally realize that the Messiah who has  just saved them from the fury of the Beast and Armageddon had visited them some 000’s years back and they had actully rejected Him and “pierced” Him.

Before you dismiss this as not applying to you, stay on a little with me.

Why the did it

Why did they reject Him? Here is a summary of the context.

He had told them that there is only one God, Him, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He had promised to visit them one day and give them eternal life ( also known as  salvation).

⁶ For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. ( isaiah 9:6)

But till that time of faith came, He put them under a guardian, the  law, for them to  ”live” by:

²³Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. ²⁴So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. ²⁵Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law. ( galatians 3: 23, 24)

Unfortunately, as time went by, they forgot how He looked like or how His heart operates. His teachers forgot His grace. Instead they immersed themselves in the outward worship of His laws, and devoid  of the  spirit. But the law does not give life ( Gal 3:21 ). Instead it hardens the heart. Grace softens the heart.

When a person operates in the law,  faith becomes impossible.

So you would expect that when the time was fully come ( some 000’s of years later ) and He visited them as He had promised He would, they could not recognize Him:

¹⁰He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. ¹¹He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. ( John 1:10,11)

He reasoned and pleaded with them,

³⁷And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, ³⁸nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent. ³⁹You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, ⁴⁰yet you refuse to come to me to have life. ( John 5: 37-40)

He even threatened dire consequences upon those who remain n their sin,

²¹Once more Jesus said to them, “I am going away, and you will look for me, and you will die in your sin. Where I go, you cannot come.” ( John 8:21)

all to  no avail. They rejected Him.

Why?

Because their hearts were hardened and they  were expecting their God to come through to them  in a certain style they had formulated  in their minds. They prayed, but they already knew how He would come to save them! They prayed, but they had the exact idea of how He was to answer their prayer. So they were not prepared for the answer that they received from Him.

They expected  a God of pomp and Glory , and a King of power with  fire consuming their enemies. They were not prepared for a lowly God who operates among sinners and is virtually penniless. No, they could not  take Him in.

Does that sound familiar?

The stuff we must have

Do you have a burning issue with the Lord? Is your heart lukewarm because He has failed you?

• Did you fail to marry the wo/man of your dreams that you so wanted to be happy with?
• Did you fail to attend the school you so much craved?
• Did you fail to get the career you felt you were born to be?
• Did you fail to land the job you “deserved”?
• Did you fail to succeed in the biz deal you came so close to clinching?
• Did the Lord fail to heal that loved one you prayed and fasted so much for?
• Is the Lord refusing you the “stuff” you “know” you desperately want?

Here is my advice.

The Lord loves you, and there is nothing He would withhold from you. Otherwise He would not have given you Himself, would He? There is nothing He would withhold from you without cause.

If He has kept something from you, let it be. He knows best. Lift up your eyes and look yonder where your real “stuff” awaits. Do not be like the Jews that had salvation within their grasp and let it slip by because of their lack of faith in the goodness of their God.

Why some  saints will weep in shame

The Lord, who scans the 1000000 infinite years at once and can see your tomorrow, and the next day and the next 50 years of your life right now, has perhaps seen it fit that none of your expectations be  met. He has His good reasons. Shall you remain  in hurt and lukewarmness towards Him because of this? If you do, you are in effect rejecting His wisdom and plans for you.

Must you wait another 25 years to look back and say “Lord, i am so sorry i distrusted you. Now i see back and i am so grateful you kept me from such and such”?

At the judgement, when their lives are finally revealed to them, there shall be many saints weeping with their heads bowed in great shame, that they even dared not trust the Lord of eternity and  the whole universe to lead them as He knew best, in the small matters of their short lives here on earth  spanning just 70 ( or so ) years.

And the Lord too might be ashamed of them!

….the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. ( Luke 9:26b)

This i a continuation of “What is God doing nowadays?“.

Now that we Christian have the power to move things along or be moved by the Hand of God as He does His work of moving things along, how do we ensure that we do not deviate from the work that He is doing through us?

Here is an illustration i got from somewhere.

Easy battle. Enjoyable work.

I was in this place. Where, i do not know. It was dark all around but there was enough light that you could see shapes in the darkness. All around a battle was raging. But the fighting was with words. Speak the word, and the enemies who you could see coming at you would be pushed back.  The intersting thing is that whether they were many or few, i managed to always push them back. And this went on and on, but i never tired.

In the second scene, the  battle is now done, and the fighters regrouped. Everyone came around to share what their work was all about. Every worker was excited about what he did, and was overly excited when explaining the details of what they did. And each person was eager to recruit more people to go  join them in doing what they ( the worker) was doing. It seemed, each person had the perfect job.

Here is the interpretation of that illustration.

Hard work, yet effortless, untiring

How is that even possible, to do a hard job and not be tired? Because, as we said in the last post, it is not you that is doing the working, but it is the Father ( through His Spirit) who is  working through you, the vessel of his choice.

Therefore, it is impossible to burn out!

³¹ But those who wait on the LORD
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint. ( Isaiah 40:31 NKJV)

Secondly, that work  you are moved to do for the Lord, you want to do it all your life, and you enjoy it so much you would recommend and recruit others to join you. It is not a chore, or like these 9-5 jobs people do, that one gets  paid for. For these type of jobs, most people live for Friday or payday ( Payday is great, of course).

No, it is living, a lifestyle one enjoys.

Apostle Paul had completed his task and given a chance to leave the earth. Paul’s  life on earth was full of hardships and persecution. He  really ought to have jumped at the chance of retirement  and be with the Lord ( after all the Lord had told him that he was done). He instead chose to stay on and assist the new Christians. This is because he enjoyed his assignments.

I have done this
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When not at “war” and lazing about, do you ever wonder at some things about God, such as today’s topic? Have you ever wondered what the Lord God is doing in this 21st century? Isn’t creation done? Is He just sitting yonder “cloud” relaxing?

Here is what i found out.

And God finished all His work

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. ( Gen. 1.1 NKJV)

We all know this. But we are not at the beginning. Furthermore, it is recorded that

¹ Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. ² And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.

He basically said “It is finished!”.

To the Jews, God was done with all His work. He rested. He told them so. They held it so.

So they observed the sabbath religiously. Fervently, almost to the point of worship of the day. They followed the sabbath law so perfectly that it controlled them. Man now served the sabbath, rather than the other way round. They missed the spirit behind it.

Fast forward to the time of Jesus Christ.

“My Father is Still working”

Jesus comes along and began saying and doing things in rather bizarre ways. One, He claims that He Himself is their one and only God ( not another, but the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The Father Himself. The great I AM. Needless to say, they cannot stand it, and seek to kill Him, as Moses commanded). Secondly, He breaks their holiest of laws, sabbath, by working on the sabath!

And here we  get a glimpse of what God was doing in the 0th century:

¹⁷ But Jesus answered them, “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.” (John 5: 17)

He claims the Father is still working! Of course they  ” … sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.”

And then, of course, He does the ultimate work, dying for man.  Finally, the deed is done. It is finished!

He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit. ( John 19:30)

So He ascends and sits down. He is done. No  more work remains for Him, it would appear.

No man worketh but the Spirit
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Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Here is one way of being as your heavenly Father is.

The Lord God wanted some things to be. But the things were not. So what did the Lord God do? He called them into being. He said, “Let there be”. And it was.

³ And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

⁹ And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so.

¹¹ Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so

(Genesis 1, NIV)

Are there things that ought to be that are not? Are there things you desire to be? Speak them into being.

But this great power has  its limits, unfortunately.

You are not the Lord God. You  do not have limitless power and infinite knowledge as He does. So,

• You must have a friendship relationship going with Him for Him to let you tap into His power. That is, you must be born again.
• You must have within you the wonder working power. That is you must be Spirit filled.
• Your ability to call things into being must be within His will. That is, you must be on speaking terms with Him.

Else nothing significant you call into being will be.

What is it that you would to be?

Ask Him what His will on it is, and then speak it to be.

I know you are probably troubled by the misery that is Haiti after the recent earthquake.

Some people may have theories about “packs made with the devil” and all that. And some people may theorize on the effects of “voodoo”. I do not know.

I have not asked, and so i do not have an answer to your “why?” I am not a prophet.  But sad as it may be, there are two things i hope you get out of this terror.

(i) For possible explanations, read the post “If God is good, why did he let this to happen?”

(ii) Learn: this may be one of the end time signs

When asked about end times:

³As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” ( Matthew 24: 3 NIV)

Jesus answers that:

⁴Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. ⁵For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. ⁶You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. ⁷Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. ⁸All these are the beginning of birth pains.

⁹“Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. ¹⁰At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, ¹¹and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. ¹²Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, ¹³but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. ¹⁴And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. ( Matthew 24:4-14 )

We are so used to stories of starvation in Somalia/Ethiopia, that we might forget that those daily news events could be end time signs for us. We quickly forgot the 1m or so people who are reportedly hungry in North Korea.  Just a couple of years ago, over 200,000 people died in a Tsunami in Asia. We have almost forgotten that. Haiti’s misery is another soon to be forgotten earthquake event.

But, if there is at least something to “get’ from this, it is this: This may be an end time sign. And if it is and this  knowledge helps someone, then those Haiti people may have just been sacrificed to save that someone.