Yet Return To God

Jeremiah 3:1

NKJV

“They say, ‘If a man divorces his wife, And she goes from him and becomes another man’s, may he return to her again?’ Would not that land be greatly polluted? But you have played the harlot with many lovers; Yet return to Me,” says the Lord.

...Yet return to Me. This has to be one of the most incredible things God has ever spoken. From a human standpoint it is pure ludicrousy. What man is there who has such mercy on a lover who has played the harlot? Who asks her to return to him even after all the evil she's walked in? This mercy and forgiveness is foreign to the world. Even to Christians it can be foreign! Our flesh simply wants to take revenge, to block out, to ignore, to hate those who have walked away from us and against us. We are not apt to forgive, and there is nothung natural about forgiveness and mercy. They are strictly divine, for they flow from the One whom they originate in. Our nature is not God’s nature though, and such a relief that is. He is not swayed by our behaviours, our hearts, our sin. Instead, we are an opportunity for God to reveal His mercy and grace, if we allow Him. God’s Word says that Jesus was slain before the foundations of the world. God already had a Saviour in place before man sinned! Had man not sinned, God would have had no need to send a Saviour, His Son, and we would never understand or experience Gods mercy and grace.

God also shows us how powerful the cleansing of Christ's Blood is when He speaks about the great pollution of the land. That land in the case of the shedding of Christ's Blood is applied to our hearts. Our wicked and deceitful hearts have greatly polluted us before God. We are not clean apart from Christ. But God, who has such great mercy on us because He loves us, asks us to return to Him. Let us return to Him constantly, since we so easily get entangled in sin. We need to be washed constantly from where we have walked. We can come boldly to God's throne to receive the cleansing, to receive the mercy and grace our hearts so desperately need. We can have the tendency to think our sin not so great as it truly is. Limiting ourselves to our human understanding is certainly to lead to the misconception of the depth of our sin. Proverbs 3:5 says to “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding.” Why else would God asks this of us if it were not true that our understanding is not complete? Even when we think we know it all, there's always more. It is plain ignorance to say we know or understand it all with our sins. Should God even reveal to us the full understanding, we would be unable to bear it and would die! Jesus sweat drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane as He took upon Himself the weight of our sin. As the wrath of God for all mankind's sin was poured upon Him, instead of us.

God wants us to return to Him. God wants us to be in His family. God loves us more than we will ever understand. We are His beloved children, and the thoughts He has for us are nothing but peace. He has purposes and plans for us. Return to Him from our harlotry, our wayward lifestyles, our evil habits, or wrong thinking, and confess these things before Him. There is so much more God has for us, yet we limit ourselves because we give room for our evil and wicked hearts to fulfill its desires. Return to your Father, He will not turn you away.

He Saves The Humble

Psalm 18:27; James 4:6b

ESV

“For you save a humble people, but the haughty eyes you bring down.”

“God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

The root of all other evils begins here: pride. That is where it began in the garden of Eden, and so it continues to this day and thrives off the weak, desire-hungry heart of man. Even as Christians our hearts are still so weak without the strength that God supplies us. We cannot defect to our human abilities and preventative measures if we want the life God has designed for us. We are not strong, we are not able, we are not competent. Where we misunderstand those facts, we fall. We are opposed, and we are brought down. We are nothing without the grace of God. Everything we are and become in our relationship with God comes from His hands. Emptiness lies on the other side of pride. Destruction is the end of a haughty spirit. Promises cannot be expected to be fulfilled if our hearts are full of pride over what we've done and what others aren't and we are.

Humility is where pride ends, and the true life begins. This has to be the most difficult things for me to master. Not a day goes by where I'm not growing and learning in this. Bitterness is the most common result of the pride I fight. For a long time I could never understand why my heart was in such a dark place throughout the day, and only recently Jesus revealed that I had roots of bitterness which had gone so deep. The devil had been masking it by telling me I wasn't doing something right in my walk with God. Now it is true that I wasn't, for I wasn't cloaking myself with humility and arming myself with the mind of Christ. But the Devil made it out to be that I wasn't working hard enough for God, that I wasn't being good enough, repenting hard enough, or loving others enough. I wasn't doing enough, he said. So I went on day by day with downcast soul, crying to the Lord to free me from whatever was causing this in me. God showed me that it all began with pride, and it will all end with humility and forgiveness. Humility is so contrary to my human nature, especially in forgiving and asking forgiveness, but I know that since Jesus did it, so must I. He bowed the knee to wash the feet, so must I. More than this though, I need my feet washed by Him. My feet have wandered so far, for so long, and I must begin at the throne of God to receive His grace and tender mercy. Jesus wants our hearts completely, so He can replace them with His, and we will live just like Jesus.

As Trouble Increases So Do Miracles

Psalm 34:17

NKJV

“The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears, And delivers them out of all their troubles.”

I've discovered an interesting truth over these past few months. The harder we follow after God, the more we commit ourselves to Him and His work, the more opposition comes our way. When confronted with new experiences, new places, and new depths of Christian life, the Devil will batten down the hatches and get to serious business trying to shut us down. We can never be certain exactly what will be thrown at us, but we can be certain it will be trouble in one form or another. The Apostle Peter says that “your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” (1 Peter 5:8) The way this often plays out is when we get caught up into routine, when we no longer take heed to be alert and sober-minded wherever we are going. As soon as comfort sneaks in and takes over, the door is swung wide open for us to be devoured. Only when we are in tune with the Word of God and the Holy Spirit are we able to detect when we are being led astray into crooked paths. But, let us not think that trouble only comes through crookedness. Surely our own wayward hearts and decisions lead us into trouble. Quite easily we can ignore the Word of God because it's more convenient for us or we would rather have it our way. There is however, that which comes as a result of being a follower of Christ. Whether it be persecution, famine, nakedness, sword, peril, tribulation or trial, it begins to be thrown at us at alarming rates when we get serious with God. Let us not be alarmed however! These things were promised to come to those who followed Jesus. Many times we find this, but a couple which God has spoken to my heart are when Jesus says “in this world you will have trouble. But take heart, for I have overcome the world” (John 16:33), as well as “Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you.” (1 Peter 4:12) Here we have the very warning, as well as consolation, that we will have trouble, but then we are guaranteed victory. We see the purpose for the trouble, and we see the promise for deliverance out of it once it's purpose has been accomplished. We must learn to trust that God really does work all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. God is building us, strengthening us, refining us, through the fires and troubles the Devil, and even ourselves, throw at us. The Devil is our adversary; he is against us. But if God is for us, who can be against us? When we cry out as ones who are righteous through Christ, He hears, and He delivers!

Vessels For Testimony

Mark 5:19

NKJV

However, Jesus did not permit him, but said to him, “Go home to your friends, and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He has had compassion on you.”

The Lord wants to use our stories. Although the miracle performed on this once demon-possessed man is incredible, it was only a stepping stone. When Christ saw this man, He did not simply see someone to set free; He saw a dishonorable vessel to make honorable. An earthen, broken vessel which could be used to pour out heavenly treasure. The evil within the man was only a way to create testimony of the power of God, that others may be saved by the word of his testimony. His brokenness was a means to an end, an end much greater than the man ever could imagine. Everyone knew this man. He was not a stranger to those who lived nearby, for it says earlier that they had often tried to bind him and shackle him, yet he would always break free. No one could hold him, and no one could help him. Only God could see him and have compassion upon him and heal him. How true that is with areas of our lives, with family members, with friends. There are things which nothing but the love of God can touch and heal. We will ask why we go through what we do. We will wonder why our sickness persists, our heart hardened, our situation stagnant, our lives seemingly forgotten. I can only imagine what the man trapped inside a body controlled by a demon named ‘Legion’ could have felt. But, God knew about him. Through the many months or years this man was possessed, God was there with him. God knew of his situation, he knew of his trouble and pain. At Gods perfect time, not his, He sent Jesus to intercept him. We must not lose heart while we wait for God to move in the impossible in our lives. When everything can scream you're trapped, God has engineered a perfect circumstance to display His glory, His love, His control of our life. Through the valleys of hardship, and subsequent mountains we reach as Christ moves powerfully and undeniably in our life, we can then testify of the love of God in a way more powerful than ever. I'm sure as all the people in Decapolis saw this once demon possessed man come and speak of the man who healed Him, they were astounded, confused, possibly even scared. It does say they marveled, but how much of the impact this man's story left upon their hearts we won't know till we reach heaven! God chose this man's broken vessel to make others whole.

Something else to note, this man was so thrilled to have been healed by Christ, so empowered by being upon this mountain, that he begged and pleaded to come with Jesus. He wanted to stay on the mountaintop, but God wanted him to go out to his friends to share what God had done in his life and the mercy he experienced! This is what God calls us all to do, to share with our friends the way God is moving in our lives. Not only does it encourage and lift them up, it helps us to further realize Gods hand in our life. Now surely the man would have been slightly disappointed or resistant to going back to his friends, but it's recorded that he went as soon as Jesus said go. He didn't bicker or fight back or resist. He honored the one who healed him. Let us do the same and honor the one who has healed us by His stripes.