GOD'S WISDOM AND DIVINE PURPOSES

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”But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison (Acts 8:3) NIV.
If ever we need proof that God is a God of purpose and can use anyone, the Apostle Paul is that proof. When one studies the life of this man before his transformation we cannot help but see a person that appeared merciless. The scriptures said he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison! In fact the very day he had his encounter with Jesus he was heading into Damascus to bring back Christians to Jerusalem for imprisonment. Nevertheless God stepped in and Saul’s life was literally turned around for the glory of God and to fulfill His divine plan. The fact is we know many people who are not walking with God and their lives may seem beyond redemption according to our judgment. However we need to remember that no one is beyond God’s reach. The bible said that it is not His will that any should perish .(2 Peter 3b) Most of us know of loved ones or people within our radar who have total disregard for anything to do with God . However we need to still pray for their salvation; Paul’s passion was not only for the Gentiles to be saved but he also had a passion for his own people to know God. Speaking about the people of Israel He cried out in Romans 9:2 ‘I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.’
When was the last time your heart cried out for the salvation of the unsaved in our nation? Every day we meet people who may be going to a loss eternity. Do you care enough to ask and share the good news of the gospel? Acts 9:21-22(NIV) says ”And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?

OUR WEAKNESS REVEALS HIS WORTH

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“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”  (2
Corinthians 12:9)

God’s design for suffering is that it magnifies Christ’s worth and power. This is grace, because the greatest joy of Christians is to see Christ magnified in
our lives. When Paul was told by the Lord Jesus that his “thorn in the flesh” would not be taken away, he supported Paul’s faith by explaining why. The Lord said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). God ordains that Paul be weak so that Christ might be seen as strong on Paul’s behalf. If we feel and look self-sufficient, we will get the glory, not Christ. So Christ chooses the weak things of the world “so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (1 Corinthians 1:29). And sometimes he makes seemingly strong people weaker, so that the divine power will be the more evident. We know that Paul experienced this as grace because he rejoiced in it: “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the
power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9–10). Living by faith in God’s grace means being satisfied with all that God is for us in Jesus. Therefore faith will not shrink back from what reveals and magnifies all that God is for us in Jesus. That is what our own weakness and suffering does.

IN ONE ACCORD

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“…that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that
they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.” —John 17:21

Someone may fear that we are magnifying private religion out of all proportion, that the “us” of the New Testament is being displaced by a selfish “I.” Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshippers meeting together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become “unity” conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship. Social religion is perfected when private religion is purified. The body becomes stronger as its members become healthier. The whole church of God gains when the members that compose it begin to seek a better and a higher life. (The Pursuit of God, 90.)

“Lord, let this start with me. Give me a closer walk with You today. Then as a leader enable me to encourage others as well, individually, so that all to
whom I minister might be in harmony as we individually are close to You, in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

WHY WE DON'T LOSE HEART

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“Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.” (2 Corinthians 4:16)

Paul can’t see the way he used to. He can’t hear the way he used to. He doesn’t recover from beatings the way he used to. His strength, walking from town to town, doesn’t hold up the way it used to. He sees the wrinkles in his face and neck. His memory is not as good. And he admits that this is a threat to his faith and joy and courage. But he doesn’t lose heart. Why? He doesn’t lose heart because his inner man is being renewed. How? The renewing of his heart comes from something very strange: it comes from looking at what he can’t see. We look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:18). This is Paul’s way of not losing heart: looking at what you can’t see. What did he see? A few verses later in 2 Corinthians 5:7, he says, “We walk by faith, not by sight.” This doesn’t mean that he leaps into the dark without evidence of
what’s there. It means that for now the most precious and important realities in the world are beyond our physical senses.

We “look” at these unseen things through the gospel. We strengthen our hearts — we renew our courage — by fixing our gaze on the invisible, objective truth that we see in the testimony of those who saw Christ face to face.

SUFFERING THAT STRENGTHENS FAITH

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“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you
know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.” (James 1:2–3)

Strange as it may seem, one of the primary purposes of being shaken by suffering is to make our faith more unshakable. Faith is like muscle tissue: if you stress it to the limit, it gets stronger, not weaker. That’s what James means here. When your faith is threatened and tested and stretched to the breaking point, the result is greater capacity to endure. God loves faith so much that he will test it to the breaking point so as to keep it pure and strong. For example, he did this to Paul according to 2 Corinthians 1:8–9, We do not want you to be  unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not in ourselves but on God who raises the dead. The words “but that was to” show that there was a purpose in this extreme suffering: it was in order that Paul would not rely on himself and his resources, but on God — specifically the future grace of God in raising the dead. God so values our wholehearted faith that he will, graciously, take away everything else in the world that we might be tempted to rely on — even life itself. His aim is that we grow deeper and stronger in our confidence that he himself will be all we need.

He wants us to be able to say with the psalmist, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalm 73:25–26).

THE DECREES OF GOD

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Isaiah 14:24, 27 “(vs.24) The Lord Almighty has sworn, ‘Surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will happen’. (vs27) For the Lord Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart him? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?”

This is known as a decree of God. The Westminster Shorter Catechism states, ‘The decrees of God are his eternal purpose, according to the counsel of his will, whereby, for his own glory, he hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.’

We must be careful to state that while God is the Orderer and Controller of sin, He is not the Author of it in the same way that He is the Author of good. Sin could not proceed from a holy God by positive and direct creation, but only by decretive permission and negative action. His decrees predetermine all events, thus not only confirming that they will exist but also when and how they will happen. With God there are no random events, for all things that come to pass are the product of His infinite wisdom and are in keeping with His righteous, just and holy character.

In Eph.1:11 it says about us, “In him we were also chosen having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will”. O what a glorious truth, what a glorious assurance! His sovereign will orders all things in our lives as He sees fit.

May we humbly submit to the all-controlling hand of God.

BLESSED HOPE

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Isaiah 57:1-2 “The righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; the devout are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death.”
Death is not a pleasant topic to discuss, especially as morning devotion! But the fact is death will come to each of us one day in some way or the other. But in Christ we no longer need to fear it, for as it says in Heb.2:14-15, “Since the children have flesh and blood, he (Christ) too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death”. “Gone too soon” is the cry of loved ones left behind when death strikes. But those who belong to Him know deep down inside that in His infinite wisdom and abounding love God always does things at the right time, not too soon and not too late. In His mercy God ushers His people, away from further suffering and effects of sin, through the doors of death directly into the throne room of His presence where there is peace, rest and no more mourning, crying or pain. God has purpose for us in this life, to complete the work He has set before us in order that we may glorify Him and be a blessing to others. But while we carry out His purposes in this life and yet reflect on death, may we never fear it but rather live in that paradoxical state that Paul experienced and expressed with these words, “I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body” (Philippians 1:23-24). Live for Him yet die to gain Him!

LET US SETTLE THE MATTER

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Isaiah 1:18-19 “Come now, let us settle the matter’ says the Lord. ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good things of the land;”

The fact that an utterly holy God is conciliative enough to even propose a sit down, in order that He may explain the way of repentance and redemption to His rebellious nation Israel, is amazing in itself. Let us sit together and let me explain things to you, says God to sinful Israel! What God says to them is that all their wicked sinfulness can be removed from them leading to their being blessed, but only if they were ready to be willing and obedient. But what is even more amazing is that this same utterly holy God has reached out to us, we who were not His people, who were not part of Israel, and said “come now, let us settle the matter”. God sat down with us and reasoned with us by means of His Word. Rom.10:17 says, “Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ”. He so worked in us as to make our hearts respond willingly in obedience to the Word about Christ. We who were stained with sin and beset with a bent towards wickedness, were made white as snow and pure as wool!

The God that we did not seek sought us and made us His people, holy, righteous and blessed with every spiritual blessing. Is that not amazing enough to praise Him and bless Him every single day of our lives?

Today may our hearts be filled with gratitude and may they resound with His praises.

SATAN'S STRATEGY AND YOUR DEFENSE

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Resist him, firm in your faith. (1 Peter 5:9)

The two great enemies of our souls are sin and Satan. And sin is the worst enemy, because the only way that Satan can destroy us is by getting us to sin.

God may give him leash enough to rough us up, the way he did Job, or even to kill us, the way he did the saints in Smyrna (Revelation 2:10); but Satan cannot condemn us or rob us of eternal life. The only way he can do us ultimate harm is by influencing us to sin. Which is exactly what he aims to do. So Satan’s main business is to advocate, promote, assist, titillate and confirm our bent to sinning.

We see this in Ephesians 2:1–2: “You were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked . . . according to the prince of the power of the air” (NASB). Sinning “accords” with Satan’s power in the world. When he brings about moral evil, it is through sin. When we sin, we move in his sphere, and come into accord with him. When we sin, we “give place to the devil” (Ephesians 4:27). The only thing that will condemn us at the judgment day is unforgiven sin — not sickness or afflictions or persecutions or intimidations or apparitions or nightmares. Satan knows this. Therefore his great focus is not primarily on how to scare Christians with weird phenomena (though there’s plenty of that), but on how to corrupt Christians with worthless fads and evil thoughts. Satan wants to catch us at a time when our faith is not firm, when it is vulnerable. It makes sense that the very thing Satan wants to destroy would also be the means of our resisting his efforts. That’s why Peter says, “Resist him, firm in your faith.” It is also why Paul says that the “shield of faith” can “extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one” (Ephesians 6:16).

The way to thwart the devil is to strengthen the very thing he is trying most to destroy — your faith.

PREACH TO YOURSELF

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“Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.” (Psalm 42:11)

We must learn to fight despondency. The fight is a fight of faith in future grace. It is fought by preaching truth to ourselves about God and his promised future. This is what the psalmist does in Psalm 42. The psalmist preaches to his troubled soul. He scolds himself and argues with himself. And his main
argument is future grace: “Hope in God! — Trust in what God will be for you in the future. A day of praise is coming. The presence of the Lord will be all
the help you need. And He has promised to be with us forever.” Preaching truth to ourselves about God’s future grace is all-important in overcoming spiritual depression. Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? Take those
thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning. You have not originated them, but they start talking to you, they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc. Somebody is talking . . . yourself is talking to you!

The battle against despondency is a battle to believe the promises of God. And that belief in God’s future grace comes by hearing the Word. And so preaching to ourselves is at the heart of the battle.

Are you hearing the Word?