- Jul 16, 2013
- 778
- 283
- Country
- United States
- Gender
- Female
- Faith
- Presbyterian
- Marital Status
- Married
Do not give up hope! Trust that God will provide His people with rest from the weariness of the world with a time of Christian resurgence.
Sometimes it may seem that with so much worldliness and infidelity around us that God has turned from us and left us to our own corrupt desires; but I beg those who love God to not give up hope. It seems that there is an era of much Christian growth ahead. History has shown us this time and again these periods of decrepitness which are then followed by times of Christian revival in which God blesses us again by softening hearts toward Him, and we see a shift in society to return to ways of biblical morality and righteousness.
It is clear we are existing in very spiritually dark and corrupt timessociety has discarded Gods law and has named that which is righteous evil and that which is immoral right. God has promised us this will happen. But He has also promised that He will turn to us when we cry out to Him to save us from the emptiness and misery of the world which we turn to because we think in our own deluded minds that it can give us what we need and that God is not enough for us. I am proof that the liberalness and decay of moral values is not under the complete power of Satan but that God is Sovereign and that He will have whom He will haveHe will soften their hearts, no matter the seeming impossibility of it.
When He called me out of darkness, I was astounded at the youth of the Church today, expecting to be greeted by brethren that are mostly in their older years since, as steeped into the ways of the world as I had been I had thought that Christianity was a dying religion. I had not the knowledge that Christianity persisted by the power of God and not by the power of man. I had no idea of the Christian persecution in China, Sudan, and other parts of the worldI had thought that with the world becoming more civilized developing countries would cease to follow religion and turn to what was obviously truth.
God is working now and He is working with His mighty, Sovereign hand! Oh if you could see the evidences of His power in the ways which He had shown it to me, with spiritual eyesthat which cannot be seen with our physical abilities but that which is perceived by faith. It is true that while in this world, there will always be corruption in the Church. It is most unfortunate, but the power of this world is much too strong for our weak flesh. What happens it seems is that we experience His power in our lives and feel that we can now stand up to the power of Satan; somehow we delude ourselves into not realizing the devils cleverness and deceit and we forget that we need God. One of the more important messages for the Church is to always be on guard as to the craftiness of the devil! On our own we can do nothing but be willing slaves to Satan. We must always depend upon Godit is by His strength that we accomplish all.
But I trust that God is turning even now to draw us from this miserable world to Himself again. We must humble ourselves and cry out to Him in our need, in the recognition of our dependence upon God and not ourselves. Satan has done so much in destroying the repute of the Church, but we must learn to trust God and not the physical church, though He has commanded its existence and it is a necessary part of the life of a Christian (and it is God Himself who is the spiritual Church--that which is not corrupt but which does not exist in this physical realm). But it is to humble us as well as to make us understand that as we live in the world, so there will be corruption in ourselves and in our lives; He will not give us fulfillment in this world because ultimately we can only be fulfilled by Him once this world is no more.
The church that I visited this past week has declared today for their congregation to be a day of Fasting and Prayer. It is by such means, as well as daily prayer and reading of His word, attendance to sacraments and weekly worship serviceall means of gracethat we grow in our dependence on God. I hope that all churches will declare such days of Fasting and Prayer and that all Gods people will participate in as much as God gives them ability to do knowing that some are more able than others yet that ultimately that ability comes from God and nothing at all within the individual.
I hope that Gods people will continue to trust in Him alone, and never give up the hope that He is Sovereign and has ultimate power over the world and its god, no matter what things may look like from our perspective or what we may feel in our hearts.
Sometimes it may seem that with so much worldliness and infidelity around us that God has turned from us and left us to our own corrupt desires; but I beg those who love God to not give up hope. It seems that there is an era of much Christian growth ahead. History has shown us this time and again these periods of decrepitness which are then followed by times of Christian revival in which God blesses us again by softening hearts toward Him, and we see a shift in society to return to ways of biblical morality and righteousness.
It is clear we are existing in very spiritually dark and corrupt timessociety has discarded Gods law and has named that which is righteous evil and that which is immoral right. God has promised us this will happen. But He has also promised that He will turn to us when we cry out to Him to save us from the emptiness and misery of the world which we turn to because we think in our own deluded minds that it can give us what we need and that God is not enough for us. I am proof that the liberalness and decay of moral values is not under the complete power of Satan but that God is Sovereign and that He will have whom He will haveHe will soften their hearts, no matter the seeming impossibility of it.
When He called me out of darkness, I was astounded at the youth of the Church today, expecting to be greeted by brethren that are mostly in their older years since, as steeped into the ways of the world as I had been I had thought that Christianity was a dying religion. I had not the knowledge that Christianity persisted by the power of God and not by the power of man. I had no idea of the Christian persecution in China, Sudan, and other parts of the worldI had thought that with the world becoming more civilized developing countries would cease to follow religion and turn to what was obviously truth.
God is working now and He is working with His mighty, Sovereign hand! Oh if you could see the evidences of His power in the ways which He had shown it to me, with spiritual eyesthat which cannot be seen with our physical abilities but that which is perceived by faith. It is true that while in this world, there will always be corruption in the Church. It is most unfortunate, but the power of this world is much too strong for our weak flesh. What happens it seems is that we experience His power in our lives and feel that we can now stand up to the power of Satan; somehow we delude ourselves into not realizing the devils cleverness and deceit and we forget that we need God. One of the more important messages for the Church is to always be on guard as to the craftiness of the devil! On our own we can do nothing but be willing slaves to Satan. We must always depend upon Godit is by His strength that we accomplish all.
But I trust that God is turning even now to draw us from this miserable world to Himself again. We must humble ourselves and cry out to Him in our need, in the recognition of our dependence upon God and not ourselves. Satan has done so much in destroying the repute of the Church, but we must learn to trust God and not the physical church, though He has commanded its existence and it is a necessary part of the life of a Christian (and it is God Himself who is the spiritual Church--that which is not corrupt but which does not exist in this physical realm). But it is to humble us as well as to make us understand that as we live in the world, so there will be corruption in ourselves and in our lives; He will not give us fulfillment in this world because ultimately we can only be fulfilled by Him once this world is no more.
The church that I visited this past week has declared today for their congregation to be a day of Fasting and Prayer. It is by such means, as well as daily prayer and reading of His word, attendance to sacraments and weekly worship serviceall means of gracethat we grow in our dependence on God. I hope that all churches will declare such days of Fasting and Prayer and that all Gods people will participate in as much as God gives them ability to do knowing that some are more able than others yet that ultimately that ability comes from God and nothing at all within the individual.
I hope that Gods people will continue to trust in Him alone, and never give up the hope that He is Sovereign and has ultimate power over the world and its god, no matter what things may look like from our perspective or what we may feel in our hearts.
