Milo

My personal understanding is that we have the word of God full stop. From cradle to grave and everything that happens to us as individuals we don’t know but God knows every decision we ever made or will make through out our lives, so God knows every possible outcomes from a decision wether it’s going to be good or bad, wether a sinful decision and outcome or a good and right outcome in God’s eyes . From my view God is outside looking in on the earth observing but not interacting with us as individuals but according to Gods word that assumption is absolutely wrong thinking because He knows the steps we each take wether towards Him or away from Him and if it’s towards Him then we can have assurance that he is guiding us individually in the narrow path that leads us to life with Him after this life journey. Point is I don’t hear His audible voice or see his hand physically like we with one another in our physical plane of existence but taking God at His word in the bible is surely all we need for every day existence and that when our days come to a close here we can have assurance that He will bring us safe into His presence were we will be forever, we have to remember that the valley of death is now but a shadow since Christ Himself has removed the fear we would have had before Calvary. Let us be unlike Thomas and not require to see the physical person of Christ and to put our fingers into His scars but rather like humbled Thomas let us bow daily and say like Thomas did, my lord and my God. Also we can take to heart what our Lord Jesus Christ said, blessed are we who having Not seen Him like the desciples did but we still believe on Him for salvation or deliverance from sin and the curse that over shadows this present life. “ Blessed are all who will believe on Jesus through the desciples good News written down for our education and encouragement. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and We shall be saved- saved from what? Saved from the curse that Adam brought upon us all through his disobedience and Christ through His obedience has brought peace and reconciliation between us and God as our creator and Now Father, not slaves nor servants but adopted Sons and Daughters. When our time comes to sleep in the earth like Daniel has done all these centuries past will like him arise again on the last day when Christ returns to our reward of eternal life and fellowship with the Lord. My prayer is that each of us will have peace with God through our lord Jesus Christ who gave Himself so that we can live with Him forever. ( we do live in fearful and dangerous times and days but let’s take God at His Word and hear him speak, Fear Not because the things we see happening all around us must take place as Jesus told the desciples about events that will be happening right up ontil His return, wars and rumours of war, pestilence etc but He says to make sure we don’t become shaken in mind at all the things we witness happening around the world in the nations because He will return just as he left on the mount of olives and when his feet touch the mountain it will split in two and a river of water of life will flow down into the Dead Sea, scientists a long time ago know that there is a fault line inside the mountain of olives that would easily split in two at the Lords touch but fault line or no fault line we believe his word that everything will happen just as he has said.

August 4th

The brave comradeship of God

Then He took unto Him the twelve. Luke 18:31.

The bravery of God in trusting us! You say—‘But He has been unwise to choose me, because there is nothing in me; I am not of any value.’ That is why He chose you. As long as you think there is something in you, God cannot choose you because you have ends of your own to serve; but if you have let Him bring you to the end of your self-sufficiency, then He can choose you to go with Him to Jerusalem, and that will mean the fulfilment of purposes which He does not discuss with you.
We are apt to say that because a man has natural ability, therefore he will make a good Christian. It is not a question of our equipment but of our poverty; not of what we bring with us, but of what God puts into us; not a question of natural virtues, of strength of character, knowledge, and experience—all that is of no avail in this matter. The only thing that avails is that we are taken up into the big compelling of God and made His comrades (cf. 1 Cor. 1:26–30 ). The comradeship of God is made up out of men who know their poverty. He can do nothing with the man who thinks that he is of use to God. As Christians we are not out for our own cause at all, we are out for the cause of God, which can never be our cause. We do not know what God is after, but we have to maintain our relationship with Him whatever happens. We must never allow anything to injure our relationship with God; if it does get injured, we must take time and get it put right. The main thing about Christianity is not the work we do, but the relationship we maintain and the atmosphere produced by that relationship. That is all God asks us to look after, and it is the one thing that is being continually assailed.

August 4

“And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.” (John 11:41.)

THIS is a very strange and unusual order. Lazarus is still in the grave, and the thanksgiving precedes the miracle of resurrection. I thought that the thanksgiving would have risen when the great deed had been wrought, and Lazarus was restored to life again. But Jesus gives thanks for what He is about to receive. The gratitude breaks forth before the bounty has arrived, in the assurance that it is certainly on the way. The song of victory is sung before the battle has been fought. It is the sower who is singing the song of the harvest home. It is thanksgiving before the miracle!
Who thinks of announcing a victory-psalm when the crusaders are just starting out for the field? Where can we hear the grateful song for the answer which has not yet been received? And after all, there is nothing strange or forced, or unreasonable in the Master’s order. Praise is really the most vital preparatory ministry to the working of the miracles. Miracles are wrought by spiritual power. Spiritual power is always proportioned to our faith.—Dr. Jowett.

PRAISE CHANGES THINGS
Nothing so pleases God in connection with our prayer as our praise, and nothing so blesses the man who prays as the praise which he offers. I got a great blessing once in China in this connection. I had received bad and sad news from home, and deep shadows had covered my soul. I prayed, but the darkness did not vanish. I summoned myself to endure, but the darkness only deepened. Just then I went to an inland station and saw on the wall of the mission home these words: “Try Thanksgiving.” I did, and in a moment every shadow was gone, not to return. Yes, the Psalmist was right, “It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord.”—Rev. Henry W. Frost.

4 AUGUST

More to come

‘After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward.’ Genesis 15:1
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Psalm 18:1–19

When we meet with the words After these things it leads our thoughts backwards:
(i) after the general call and promise (chapter 12). After Abraham had made many a journey, reared many an altar, the Lord manifests himself further and confirms his faith with brighter tokens of his favour. The believer’s progress is from strength to strength. Be thankful for what you have received but count not that you have attained—there is still more behind. The tendency of grace is to mount higher and higher and it is the Lord’s purpose to answer the hungerings and thirstings which he has put in the soul.
(ii) after the victory he had lately obtained. No doubt this success was pleasing to Abraham, but it was not the great thing. Believers are thankful for the mercies of the present life, but these are not their treasure and their joy. A gracious visit from the Lord, an application of the promises, is more to them than the joy of harvest or of them that divide the spoil.
Thanks to thy name for meaner things.
But these are not my God.
As if the Lord had said, ‘Temporal blessings are but the tokens and earnests of my favour. You have more than this to rejoice. I myself am your shield and reward.’

FOR MEDITATION: ‘For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God’ (Hebrews 11:10).
‘One thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus’ (Philippians 3:13–14, NIV).

SERMON SERIES: GENESIS, NO. 29 [1/5], GENESIS 15:1

August 3rd

The big compelling of God

Behold, we go up to Jerusalem. Luke 18:31.

Jerusalem stands in the life of Our Lord as the place where He reached the climax of His Father’s will. “I seek not Mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent Me.” That was the one dominating interest all through Our Lord’s life, and the things He met with on the way, joy or sorrow, success or failure, never deterred Him from His purpose. “He stedfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem.”
The great thing to remember is that we go up to Jerusalem to fulfil God’s purpose, not our own. Naturally, our ambitions are our own; in the Christian life we have no aim of our own. There is so much said to-day about our decisions for Christ, our determination to be Christians, our decisions for this and that, but in the New Testament it is the aspect of God’s compelling that is brought out. “Ye have not chosen Me, but I have chosen you.” We are not taken up into conscious agreement with God’s purpose, we are taken up into God’s purpose without any consciousness at all. We have no conception of what God is aiming at, and as we go on it gets more and more vague. God’s aim looks like missing the mark because we are too short-sighted to see what He is aiming at. At the beginning of the Christian life we have our own ideas as to what God’s purpose is—‘I am meant to go here or there’; ‘God has called me to do this special work’; and we go and do the thing, and still the big compelling of God remains. The work we do is of no account, it is so much scaffolding compared with the big coming of God. “He took unto Him the twelve,” He takes us all the time. There is more than we have got at as yet.