by David Brenneman
Was looking at a post from a year ago...and it had been about our point of view not changing anything with God.
In the book of Numbers I had just read this morning had to do with the rebellion of Korah. He and his family had been chosen to help in the service within the family of the Levi's. His point of view, easily seen as having been wrought in selfish desires for recognition, cost him, his wife, and children and even other relatives their lives. The very ground opened up and in the only recorded time in history, all of them and their possessions went down to Sheole/Hades. The only time someone took their stuff with them.
Our point of view doesn't change God's view on sin. Sin was what caused Adam and Eve to lose it all and be driven out of Eden. Driven out of Paradise. The very saddening part for them was that they could see it from a distance but were forbidden to go back into it. They would never know paradise again until Jesus took them from what's been called Abraham's bosom after His resurrection. Sometimes that place is also called Paradise...but to them...they knew the first Paradise. Which reminded me of those who saw the Second Temple...many wept because they remembered the first that was Solomon's Temple, created from King David's blueprints.
Korah had wanted to believe he and his own were just as worthy to stand before God as Moses and Aaron had been.
In this world we live with many billions of people who think that they too have just as great a right to stand before God the Father justified. That they think that they are worthy to do so. Very much this proved that the rebellion of Korah has not died...because it was wrought in the mind of Satan.
Satan thought he is worthy to sit on the Throne of God. He tempts and prods people to gain power and authority to believe the same. From the least to the greatest in this world the temptation is the same. From the least to the greatest the truth is sin is the same. A single sin is enough to prevent anyone from being in Heaven. One.
What we think isn't truth. We read in the Bible that the only one who is truth is Jesus. His word is truth. He knows every aspect, every angle, every possibility, in every situation. Every behind the scenes thing. Every hidden thought is laid bare before Him. Every secret. That's my Jesus. We read that He searches the hearts of man (and women). He knows every intention of the heart. Long before we do. He knows when people are just only thinking that He's a liar and have not said it outloud. He knows when people truly believe that He's not who He said He was.
Read in Mark 6 of what happened in His own hometown. So great was their unbelief that even His miracles, performed elsewhere, would not have changed their minds. It's a very very powerful statement in verse 5 NASB "And He could not do any miracle there except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them." Likewise verse 6 speaks volumes NASB "And He was amazed at their unbelief."
How often are we the one's that He's amazed at concerning our own unbelief? I'm sure there's times that, while He loves me unconditionally, that Jesus shakes His head at me because of how I am some times.
What we think doesn't change God's eternal plan for mankind.
What we think does not change our need to come to Christ for salvation.
What we think about what we see in our lives doesn't change the truth of God's still doing a work in us.
What we think about our present or our future doesn't change God's truth about us.
What we think doesn't change God's personal plans for us.
What we think doesn't change the identity that God gave us from birth. God makes no mistakes.
Sin causes people to think what they do about God. That they don't need Him. That He didn't create them as they feel that they are. That He's punishing them and has been all their lives. That they are no good. That they have no purpose. That...well....fill in the blank.
WE HAVE ALL WRESTLED WITH THOSE THOUGHTS.
In Christ I am a new creation. That's in 2 Corinthians 5:17.
In Christ I am loved by Him. That's in John 15:9-11.
When we came to Christ, if you're reading this and you've now come to Christ, in that salvation that's received and and accepted...we are a new creation. When God the Father sees us, He doesn't see all the filth and dirt of sin, He sees Jesus standing in our place.
After that rebellion of Korah and his family...not soon afterwards there was more rebellion. It cost 14,700 people their lives. They refused to believe they were as bad off as the Lord said that they were in their sins. They died in their sins. Aaron had to quickly make atonment for them and stand in the way between the Lord and them. Aaron was the temporary priest to do that. Jesus is the everlasting Priest. When we come to Jesus to be saved...He stands in for us. He did so on the cross to remove our sins from us.
What we do from that point on in our lives is to live for Him. To want what He wants of us and in us. He wants us to know His Truth. That's the job of the Spirit of God...to teach us His truth. To share that with others. To show others that they too are loved by Jesus if only they would come to Him on His terms they would find the freedom and love that they've been missing all their lives.
I am, and I hope this doesn't change, always amazed at what all I find myself writing about each morning. To be honest, I as I wrote a year ago, it's still the same today. I'm excited for the times in which I am living, but saddened because I know it will not end well for mankind. We are indeed living in those days right before Jesus returns. I have what I think are great, fantastic, ideas for inventions etc...but know that they will not come about...because they would not help mankind in the long run. Would do nothing for the true problem plaguing mankind: the sin problem.
There is no paradise to be found on Earth...ever since Adam and Eve mankind has been trying to create it here. The true joy and bliss of what they had before they sinned the world will never know this side of Heaven. Think on that one. They walked and talked with Truth and were not ashamed of anything. We can't go 30 seconds without a mere thought causing shame some days.
Jesus wants a vibrant, real, relationship with each and every person...but unbelief...that causes a rift that causes things not to be done by Jesus.
We are all one step away from finding ourselves in the arms of Jesus who awaits our turning to Him with open arms.
His Light of Truth goes everywhere, and it is through everything. It goes into every single hidden thing in our hearts and minds. He knows all that and still loves us and still wants us to be sanctified, to be justfied, before Him. Hope is only lost when we leave this world without salvation in Jesus Christ alone.
Our anger against God does not and will not change His mind. We read that in the Bible too. The anger of man does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. James 1:20.
Indeed even in Colossians 3:23-24...we're do do all that we do as unto the Lord...to do our best. Our very best. Not what's 'good enough'. Not half-heartedly.
Jesus did NOT endure the cross 'half-heartedly'.
What we think...what's on your mind? as Facebook puts it to get us to make a 'post'. The funny irony is they, like the mainstream news, want to retrain you to think what they think is the right way to think. They want to be the one's to tell you how to think. To train you. That's the irony of "television programming". It was accepted as such concerning a television schedule for a day...but the truth is much deeper. We are easily taken in by video's and television and even the news...into places in our minds and hearts that simple conversations often cannot go in a straight-forward fashion.
Someone once said the best place to be is in the center of God's Will for them. It's the same for all of us. The best place for us to be...our thoughts as well as our actions...is the center of what God's will is for us. It may not look like what we think it ought to look like....because God knows more than we do on what it should look like.
Oh what we think...people often don't ask me (I know because I have asked them why many don't ask me) what I am thinking because my thoughts are often heavy. Can't help that. The more I read of my Bible...the more I understand of my relationship with God...He made me different for a reason. We read in the Bible that the Spirit has placed each who have come to Christ in the body of Christ AS HE SEES FIT. So that is how things are with how I think. I used to run from that idea of thinking that way until the day that God said it was time to stop running and to embrace what He had in mind for me. To let go of what He MIGHT ask me to do and to just be willing to do whatever. You know what I think? What I learned? The fear of that was worthless. There, not a complicated thought in that at all.
Satan wants all to believe that a life in Christ is going to be full of loss. Full of letting go of things we think we should keep because we like them.
Satan wants us to lose our identity in Christ. Wants us to believe we are something that we are not.
What God thinks...He thinks about you all the time.
What God thinks...He has a plan for you that's more than you ever thought possible.
What God thinks...He thought that you were valuable enough to die for you...so He did.
What God thinks about you is more than you will ever know this side of Heaven...but unless you come to Jesus to be saved...then you will never know.
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