Do you have a title or a relationship?

Micah 5:1

It all comes back to “In the beginning God” and once you find yourself in agreement with that statement you are at-the-door of understanding this truth: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”  It has been painful learning for many of us that God is!  Not that long ago a President of the United States asked this question “what is, is”?  This uneducated writer cried out God is, but the President was not looking for answers he was looking for a loophole, for he was given the title of master of spin.

God’s plan often seems strange to us, and yet once we come to the understanding He is Wisdom, He is the Creator, He is Love, He is Holy, He is Just, and He allowed His Son, His only Son to become flesh and to be the pure and holy sacrifice for our sins, then we are getting closer to worship.  “Fox News is reporting, "Christians will be wiped out" soon unless something is done to get believers out of the Middle East, or stop ISIS's aggressive and unrelenting drive for "total elimination of the Christian faith and culture" in the region.” 

As I watch the news, I’m much like the people of Micah’s time, disaster is coming, and one wonders when will the people called Christian come together and repent of letting material stuff replace prayer and dependence on God?  Maybe Anne Rice is correct in her statement, she is giving up on the title, Christian, but not on Jesus Christ.  One may state correctly her reasoning was from emotion and not based on biblical truth, and I would agree.  But Christian is a word given by men who opposed this new movement, and Jesus Christ as God, and that in Him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.  It is time for those of us who are followers of Christ to go back to being called disciples or followers of Jesus Christ!  For this question still cries out to all who will listen, what will you do with Jesus?  Do you have a title or a relationship?

How one views themself will say much about how willing they will be to submit to the authority of God, seeking His face and not His hand.  For as the apostle Paul stated so correctly in 2 Corinthians 12:10, “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.”  Once I grasp my weakness I look to God, and I cry out to Him, not for my rights but for His will to be done in and through me.  The apostle Paul speaking by the Spirit of God tells us the following: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.”

Could it be we have a lack of understanding of this verse; “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”  I believe most of us have little understanding of these words of Jim Elliott; “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” “Wherever you are - be all there.” “God always gives His best to those who leave the choice with him.”

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice