2022-12-23
Good Morning Dear Ones,
For most people a life of chaos is unbearable; for the faithfully obedient of God; a life of peace is what we seek. PS 37: 37-38, “Consider the blameless, observe the upright, a future awaits those who seek peace. But all sinners will be destroyed, there will be no future for the wicked.” Another citation, PR 14: 30 repeats this notion. “A heart of peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones.” I know a man who has a hair-trigger temper and is constantly setting off when he doesn’t get his way. This leads to all kinds of yelling, slanging matches, which erode his quality of life and those of the people at which his mean words and often foul language are directed. He is not the first person with that behavior I’ve encountered. The others have passed away and will soon be forgotten. The question has arisen: Am I my brother’s keeper? The Lord Jesus answered that question in His parable of the good Samaritan [LK 10: 30-37], If you are not familiar with the details, please read this loving and wise story.
When we read Job’s response to his predicament, as he is beset by the evil one. God temporarily allowed Satan to do anything he wanted, except to kill Job. We can imagine Job’s response, in JOB 3: 26, “I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil” In Job’s case, this once wealthy, influential man of the Jewish community was miserable but never lost his faith in God. The evil one loses his bet with God and eventually Job’s wealth, social standing, and all his losses are restored. Job is a book well worth reading. Let’s look at this word, “turmoil,” to really understand why we should be consistently and obediently faithful to God. Turmoil is defined as excitement, rage, restlessness, unending strife, hopelessness due to disrespect or being out of control. Everything from meanness, to outright evil deeds, or keeping secrets can lead to turmoil. A quintessential example is the betrayal of the Lord Jesus, by His once-trusted disciple Judas Iscariot [LK 22: 3]. All of these negative examples can be traced to the work of the devil.
I find comfort in the truth of 1 JN 4: 4, “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the One Who is in you [the Holy Spirit] is greater than the one who is in the world.” The Lord Jesus obviously considers this lesson important because He has repeated it so often. We need only examine the Beatitudes [MT 5: 3-12] to see this truth. We can learn a lot from the origins of the turmoil brought into our world. [See GN 3: 1-6; 1 SAM 15: 23; IS 14: 11-15; EZK 28: 1-19, MT 5: 3-12, 39; LK 12: 10; JN 8: 44; JN 12: 7-12, 31; RO 16: 20; EPH 6: 11-12; 1 COR 15: 33-34, 54-58; 2 COR 11: 14; HE 2: 14; 1 PET 5: 8; 2 PET 2: 4; REV 9: 1-2; REV 20: 10]. This is a long list of Satan’s dirty work but reading these verses can shed a lot of light on his darkness. We get lots of other information that there is nothing accidental in what happens to the evil one and why throughout the Scriptures. The total of Job’s feelings about his turmoil is show in JOB 3: 1-26. We should examine our own lives and see if we ever felt like Job did in this passage and why. We need to know what the status of our own faith is. I gain further comfort from 1 COR 10: 13, “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will provide you a way out so that you can endure it.”
PRAYER: O Lord, we know that “way out” is Your Son, Jesus Christ! Faith in him has been given to us, so that we might benefit from His teachings, those of the other prophets and apostles, and the perspective You give us. It is from You, that we derive the strength and dedication to win the battle against evil. How can we not feel loved when You, through Paul, write RO 8: 38-39, which tells us that nothing can separate us from Your love? Once called Lucifer, Your favored angel in charge of worship in heaven, whose voice sounded like a harp and who lived among the gems, placed himself above You. He was tossed with one third of the heavenly host to the wormwood to limit his existence until You put an end to evil [DN 9: 24-27]. You have told us [in RO 6: 23 and REV 21: 8, that serial sinners will be forgotten, and the righteous will be remembered. You encourage and uplift us every day that we read Your word, do good deeds, and make You our first Priority. We praise You, thank You, and offer You our love, worship, and loyalty, in the holy/mighty name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
NEXT WEEK: Next week, I’ve been commanded by the Holy Spirit to write about a discussion that broke out between Jesus and His disciples from LK 22: 24-32. It has important ramifications in our own faith journeys. Like you and many others I have been tempted to sin in my own faith journey. As you know, my beloved Peter, to whom I was happily married for 44 years, passed away in April of 2021. To make matters worse, his leaving earth was on my best friend’s birthday! Nothing in my life has caused me more chaos and grief than this. I had spent the preceding five years trying to take care of him, as his health deteriorated. To this day, I still grieve for him. He was not only my husband, but he was my best human companion. I left where we lived with memories of 2 years in Northern CA, 6 months in southern CA, 14 years in GA, 27 years in MN, and those 5 years in UT of our marriage. Peter and I had even discussed what we might want to do to celebrate our 50th anniversary. I have PTSD that troubles me some nights, as a byproduct of those last five years and being the one left behind. I keep asking, since both of us had deep faith in Jesus Christ, had I done everything I could to take good care of him. No question in my mind that Peter was one of the kindest people I ever knew and deserved better earthly life than I feel he got. My logical self- reasons that it all started in his 20’s when he inherited high blood pressure at a time when medicine wasn’t advanced enough to know the best long-term treatment for it. Peter battled obesity all his adult life. My illogical self asks, “Why did God allow him to get Diabetes, and kidney disease in addition? He had to be on dialysis for his last five years.” My PTSD consists of flashbacks of sores on his legs and feet from bouts with Cellulitis, his repeated falls, many trips to the hospital and calls to the paramedics. I don’t share this part of my grieving to evoke pity. Rather, such thoughts are me forgetting to count my blessings and report the Lord’s goodness to me. I sometimes give into temptation! My faith in the Lord leads me to know that Peter is in a better place now, with all his needs met. As for me, my imperfections are showing when I question the Lord’s willingness to give Peter the life I feel he deserved on earth. As for those crowns I discussed earlier in this series of devotions, I am the one who must change earn them. Trusting the Lord is the best thing we can do! Praise and thanks be to Him for his goodness!
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn, JS 24: 15
© Lynn Johnson 2022. All Rights Reserved.
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