Ecclesiastes 3:11: He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
For a few days now, I have been sensing that it is again time to post to this blog. I have been waiting on the Lord to give me the right words to say. Last night just before going to sleep, my husband updated me on the tornado destruction that has continued in our country. I knew as we talked briefly that I needed to post this morning.
I believe God has been impressing upon my heart to issue a warning about the coming destruction. I believe we are seeing only the beginning of this destruction. The earthquakes and tornados and other so-called natural disasters are really just the barest beginnings. The destruction coming to our country is going to be widespread; we are all going to be touched by it in some fashion. Like the town of Joplin, Missouri recently hit by tornados, effectively dividing the town in two, none of us are going to be immune to the destruction that God is allowing. If not physically like Joplin, then spiritually, whole towns and communities are going to be divided.
Those who choose to serve the Lord, and those who do not.
God is allowing this literal shaking. The collective church in this country has grown apathetic and out of true communion with God. This shaking will either force us to push into Him, or to push away from Him. Please pray for our nation! First pray for mercy on yourself and your family, then for your own church body, then for your community, your State, and the country at large. Pray that this shaking will result in the return to the Lord of hearts grown cold, or worse lukewarm. If we as the church will return to the Lord, humble ourselves, and seek His face genuinely -- ready to forsake all that hinders us and keeps us apart from God -- then God will make us ready for the things to come ... not just for the coming destruction but what is coming AFTER: the harvest. For God is drawing near to Him not just those who have made a decision for Christ previously -- no matter the current state of their hearts in relation to God, but He is also drawing to Himself others who have never known Him, never tasted of His goodness. Truly, the time of the harvest is at hand. It is imperative that we get ourselves right with the Lord.
Today.
Some who read this will be turned off, saying that a God who would shake the world this way, is not a God they wish to serve. Oh, but I am pleading with the Lord on your behalf, that He would continue to draw you to Himself, for it is not because God is an angry God that this is shaking is coming (indeed it has already started), but because He is a God of MERCY. He is not willing that any should perish, but it is His fervent desire that ALL should come to know Him and live eternally with Him. He is allowing this shaking to draw us, not to destroy us. Satan would have you believe that God is simply a God of wrath and anger and judgment. Not so. All of us living in this age are here on this earth because God created us to know Him. That is our purpose: to know and love God and to spend eternity with Him. To know life in the fullest, the way He always intended it to be. The way it was before Adam and Eve sinned in the garden.
When we are brought into right relationship with Him, through the salvation that comes through accepting Jesus as our resurrected savior, then the power of the resurrection which raised Christ from the dead, also raises us into right relationship with the Lord, and fills us with all that we need to walk with Him and to find meaning in our temporary sojourn on this earth. You are here, alive and breathing, because God loves you, because He in His great mercy is continually allowing you time to accept this free gift of salvation; indeed, He longs for you to come to Him.
Taste and see that the Lord is GOOD.
He by his great MERCY sent his son, Jesus, to die on the cross as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. If you are alive and breathing in an earthly body today, then there is hope for you yet to discover what you were created for: to know the Lord, to be loved by Him and to love Him, to shine forth this love so that others can see it in you, and so He can draw all men to Himself. And ultimately to spend eternity with Him. The Bible speaks to the things we will do for eternity, and let me tell you it is exciting! We will not be floating around on clouds, playing harps... But that is a topic for another day. (I do encourage you to search the Bible on this topic though!)
God says that all things will be made NEW. With this shaking, there is much sorrow that is coming, indeed it is already here but more is coming... But yet if you seek the Lord, you will find Him, and He will save you, and you will experience NEWness and fullness like never before, we cannot wrap our minds around this truly. This earth is passing away and our time on this earth is drawing to a close, and so the time of sorrows will not last forever.
We are all given a chance in this lifetime to make the decision of a lifetime: to serve the Lord or to serve ourselves. A decision to serve self is a decision to serve the god of this world. At the heart of Satan there is only destruction and chaos. At the heart of God is only LOVE, the purest of all Love, as God desires not to destroy but to redeem and restore and heal and give us a peace that surpasses our ability to understand it. Unlike Satan who seeks destruction for destruction's sake, God merely uses and allows destruction to draw you to Himself so that you can have life, life on this earth that -- though touched by sorrow -- is yet a life consecrated to Him, a life set free by His truth, a life with the hope of glory and a foretaste of the eternal joy that we will have when we are enter into eternity with the Lord. This world is a shadow world: every good and beautiful thing is simply a foreshadowing -- an imperfect and dim foreshadowing -- of the True beauty and goodness of our Lord and His eternal cities. Jesus has gone before us to prepare a place for us; when we accept the free gift of salvation and allow the Lord to hide our hearts in Him as we seek Him and His face, we can look forward to taking up residence in an awe-inspiring mansion which He has prepared for us (John 14).
Again, Satan, on the other hand, wields destruction for the sake of destruction. Period. He only wishes to see you crushed, defeated, and forever separated from the Love of God. He seeks to devour you. He himself is forever separated from the love of God and he desires only to see you -- as a child created by God to know and love God and spend eternity with Him -- forever separated from this love as well. Misery loves company, and the goal of Satan is to have as much company in eternity as possible. Do not make light of eternity with Satan! The Bible makes clear that eternity with Satan -- apart from God and His love -- is an eternity of weeping and gnashing of teeth, the worst of the worst torture forevermore.
But God is not willing for this to be so! He is not willing for any to perish. Dear friend, do not see the things happening in the world as a sign of the heartlessness of God, but rather as a sign that He loves you so much, He is willing to shake you and the temporal things you put your hope in to draw you to Himself so that you might know His Truth that will set you FREE forever -- not just for moments of security or pleasure or freedom from temporary pain which is all we can ever hope for in this shadow world -- but rather for an eternity of fellowship and purpose and LIFE to the fullest. But we each have to choose. God does not force Himself upon us. It is your choice whom to serve. It is your choice to accept the gift of salvation through grace ... or to reject it.
He offers this gift of LIFE freely. All you need is to accept it. If you have known the Lord, but allowed your heart to grow cold, or lukewarm, or calloused, or distant -- RETURN to Him. Today. He is waiting with open arms to receive you and to bring you back into the fold. If you have never known the Lord, but feel Him drawing you today, step out in faith and tell Him that you accept that Jesus is His son, that He died on the cross for your sins, that He rose again on the third day, and ask Him to transform you into the person He created you to be. Only He is able to do this. All of our efforts to make or form ourselves are futile efforts that will come to nothing ... nothing good that will last anyway... our efforts alone will result in eternal separation from the God of LOVE. But if we freely accept what God has done for us, and accept the free gift of salvation through Jesus, then our time on this earth will have meaning even in the midst of fleeting pains and trials of life, and even better, when our time on this earth is over, we will spend eternity in communion and fellowship with our precious Lord, and know a forever intimacy with the God of LOVE.
Our relationship with the God of LOVE is the greatest treasure. This treasure is one that will last and never die, never rust nor be corrupted. Store up this treasure. Get to know the God of love. Spend time reading His word and praying/listening for His voice. He will not be silent. God will use you to draw others to Himself as well. When we are walking in fellowship with Christ, His love shines out of us like the brightest light, drawing others, and pointing the way for others to come to Him and know Him and His saving grace. If when we come into our eternal fellowship with Christ, we can be surrounded by others that saw His light in us and drew near to Him as a result, then we will indeed have stored up treasures in heaven. The only kind that will truly last.
Revelation 21:
The New Jerusalem
1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." 5 He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Then he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true." 6 He said to me: "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. 7 He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son. 8 But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars--their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death."
