When Grandma Goes To Court...We All Have A Vantage Point

It is important where you are sitting ...but you will always be missing something, and someone will always see something you've missed, no matter where you sit.

This is an inherited feature of our human life ... the strong desire to have omnivision and thus to be omniscient. .... Satan Qued us to our weakness in his words to Eve "Gen. 3: 5 - For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened , and ye shall be as gods, knowing (Yada) good and evil." (Having the insatiable desire to determine what is right or wrong) . This reveals HOW we more than always miss the mark ...SIN. Since I can't see everything at once and know everything at once than I will selfishly grab on to my conception of "MY SELF" and rely on IT to guide me through this life ...Que Sera Sera(Whatever will be will be). THIS IS BASIC IDOLATRY 101.

This is why the scriptures (by the way ... GOD's WORD ...the Bible -- just in case you have an issue with this, I DON'T) describe us all this way ... Romans 3:10-18,23

10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
11 There is none that understandeth , there is none that seeketh after God.
12 They are all gone out of the way , they are together become unprofitable ; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
13 Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit ; the poison of asps is under their lips:
14 Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:
15 Their feet are swift to shed blood:
16 Destruction and misery are in their ways:
17 And the way of peace have they not known:
18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.
23 For all have sinned , and come short of the glory of God;

God sees, knows and reveals the truth about us ......What we do with His perspective determines not only the way we live but also the way we see others...and ultimately determines our final destination ...not by what we do but whom we have believed ...our "my self" or God, Himself.

Sorry if where He sits, threatens you ... but He did love us first. What do you lose in trusting Him?
Matthew 16:25 - For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.

Check out the picture below...laugh...but see how it applies to this subject...what subject?

HLFA,

Jeff

Take 2 - Do We Really Want to Hear God's Answers?

Question 2 in Lamentations ...Lamentations 2:1 How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!

Does God forget? Does He remember not? Here is the question restated with a little different vantage point ......listen and hear what is being said:

How, O how has the Lord, Adonai ...WHY???????
...beclouded the young daughters of ZION ("the parched place") , beclouding them in his breathing-Anger,
(and How has He)
...hurled down...the glory-beautiful splendour- honor -and renown of Israel ("God Prevails") from all of His Heavens(sky, universe and eternal) to the ground'
(and How has He)
...made no remembrance of the place to rest His feet in the duration of His breathing-anger?

.....FAST FORWARD .... "My God, My God ...Why has thou forsaken me?
The habitual race forward ... ever pushing to get my desire regardless of the consequences ... prone to choose what I want over what He wants. Even when pushing beyond the limits jeapardizes my wellbeing and place me in peril.
"My God, my God ...Why hast thou forsaken me?
While I was writing through these thoughts ... a call from outside came to my ears ...and again it came ... "Jeff, come quick, a small bird has his head caught in the feeder." Pulling on my shoes and gloves (not knowing what I was about to find), I raced outside to answer my wife's call. Sure enough, a small bird had his head stuck in the bird feeder, body limp and bloody on the outside of the feeder and head(unknown condition) on the inside of the fogged cyclinder. I gently wrapped my hand around the small body hoping that was all it would take ...BUT IT COULDN'T BE THAT EASY...stuck to the max. Pulling more would probably end the bird's brief life. Then I thought ... opening the top of the fogged cylinder I could see his little head way down at the bottom of the narrow cylinder, cocked to one side and wedged firmly in the jaw of the "metal" feeder opening. If only I could reach him!! ... unfortunately my hand cannot contort that narrow distance ... SOOO I sat the feeder on the ground, took a long straight stick and gently moved his head into the wider portion of the feeder opening. Immediately he popped out and brokenly fluttered into a nearby bush. Not even a look back to say ...Thanks!

The bird had overextended himself, reaching for what he desired that was not there(the feeder was empty), wedging himself fast ...totally at the mercy of whatever or whoever came along. It could have been a predator but instead it was MERCY. What a great momentary illustration of God's love!

And while we were yet over-extending ourselves into the perilous position of having God as our enemy, CHRIST DIED FOR US.

We should die for our foolish over-extensions, but He died in our place.

Lamantations 2:1 .... How is this happened? read way down in this chapter ... there was a grave mistake by those who should have "discovered or uncovered the iniquity of the nation....and now God was the enemy.

APPLICATION?????? Let me know. Hint: A Parched Place was in much need of a Prevailing God.

HLFA,

Jeff

When God Asks Questions do We Look for His answers?

DO YOU EVEN WANT OR CARE TO KNOW THE ANSWERS WHEN GOD ASKS THE QUESTIONS? Oh, by the way He does't ask the questions to get the answers from us ...He asks the questions to get us to look for the answers from Him. He wants to get answers to us. ...Wierd...That's why many of the questions from Him are in an exclamative form. Look carefully below:

Lamentations1: 1 How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary! DO YOU NOT WANT TO ASK HIM HOW?

woooooooooooooooooe wait a minute, asking "how" will mean you'll have to read on, it may mean you have to dust off that Bible, open never before opened pages, and it may mean you might get touched by His burden....and we wouldn't want that. Poor Mose's!! touched by the burden of God, glowed in such a way that it was almost embarrassing because it made him uniquely different. "Hey Mose's please keep the bag over your head!"

Most people I know don't mind being different if it makes them popular ...but that may not be the case if the difference is a passion for His answers in your life ....You could end up being a little strange in a rebellious world.

LET's look at the questions and see if they cause a holy curiosity for His answers to the questons:

How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people!
(Isolated, seperated, alone ...empty ....facing seperation, isolation and loneliness......HOW ...WHY????)

How is she become as a widow!
(widowed, forsaken as a widow, abandoned by the love of her life ......HOW ...WHY????)

(She that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces,)
How is she become tributary!
(Enslaved, forsed into gang-labor, serfdom, working off an unseemingly, unending debt....HOW ... WHY????)

In racing to Lamantations chapter One to find the answers, the plot will thicken, the picture will grow more broken and heavy ...you must press on with each aweful picture of pain, each embarrassing family portrait, each tear stained word, and continue asking WHY? HOW? ...the answers that are obvious actually have more subtle and dark incidents attached to them. Find them grieve over them and .....

GUARD YOUR HEART!

"There go I and You, but for the Grace of God."

If you get the time see if you can find His answers ... the pictures presented are shockingly are much like our situation today.

Pray for our families, friends, churches, leaders, and Country.

God help us if we don't look for His answers.

HLFA,

Jeff

CONFUSED?????....

"Hello, I'd like to introduce you to my Father and his, well my stepmother... but not really, they aren't married, she is his girl friend but they live together ... sooo, I guess you can call them married??? Right???Can I say she is my step mother???" "My real mother, divorsed my father because they both had affairs and they thought it would be best for me if they didn't fight .....blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah
Daniel 9:8 - O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against Thee.
1 Corinthians 14:33 - For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.
James 3:16 - For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.
Jeremiah 3:25 - We lie down in our shame, and our confusion covereth us: for we have sinned against the LORD our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even unto this day, and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God.

NO BIG Story ...NO BIG Song and Dance ... LISTEN!!!

We seem to never think of it this way ....but we have all heard it .....bottom line; when we choose to do anything that GOD says DON'T....We sin (first and foremost) against Him, and until we see this ... true repentance and confession never happen. When will we realize that Sins are not just isolated bad decisions or wrong choices BUT that our SIN is in direct disobedience to God Himself.... Get it and there is a new start ahead, miss it and continue in confusion ...watch confusion multiply, watch confusion spead like an airborne virus.

Family, friends, children and strangers around you will begin the lose their balance and fall into confusion also...while they begin to make excuses for you and then excuses for their sin also.

We can be free from confusion ... by following the next simple instructions:

It has to start somewhere with someone so why not you?

"If we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness" I John 1:9

"There has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man, but God is faithful, He will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able, but will with the temptation make a way to excape that ye may be able to bear it." I Cor. 10:13

"And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ". Col. 3:23-24

Spare those you love the confusion you cause by sinning against God.....OBEY RIGHT AWAY!

HLFA

Jeff

What is it With Our God

Micah 7:18
Who is a God like unto thee,
(God, EL, Jehovah, Jesus --- the one true God ... uniquely unlike any other)
that pardoneth iniquity,
(that lifts, bears up, carries away our perversity, depravity, iniquity, and guilt)
and passeth by the transgression
(passing over our rebellious transgression to alienate us from it by carrying us away from it)
of the remnant of his heritage?
(we, though rebellious, are the residue of His possession)
he retaineth not his anger forever,
(He doesn't resolve to strengthen his wrath (though justified to do so) continually)
because he delighteth in mercy.
(because the core of His pleasure is to extend goodness, kindness, and faithfulness)

Do you think we'll ever be able to grasp the heart of this passage? Why do we always seek to discredit God? Why is He the focus of our disappointment? .......quick answer to follow:

Here is standard operating proceedure for 99.999% of those who call themselves believers ...we view God through our circunstances and measure His goodness by our momentary happiness. We rarely treat his word as absolute and His love for us as unfailing and eternal.

WE MISS THE OPPORTUNITY TO ENJOY HIS GOODNESS BECAUSE WE CONTINUE TO QUESTION HIS INTEGRITY.

HLFA,

Jeff ....Trust Him, there.... is life.