Special Posting: Irreplaceable

” 13 I was watching in the night visions, and behold, One like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him. 14 Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, That all people, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion. Which shall not pass away, and His kingdom the one which shall not be destroyed.” Daniel 7:13-14

People have fights, they argue, get upset, we say things we don’t mean. Sometimes we say hurtful things we don’t mean, we do things out of anger which is destructive to our relationships and without God we keep on hurting those we love. Without love we keep on hurting those who are the closest to us. In the heat of battle people can be so cruel and we sort of go into this evil zone of blocking the pain we inflict to others and to ourselves. When the armies collide all fear goes away as the instinct to survive takes over, but even in this intense moment God is ever present, and is willing to take us from this place of grief and into his arms, His irreplaceable forgiveness which is so protective that nothing can shatter it, break it, move it, or keep you from it. 

A very wise person told me once that, “We can have an argument and be mad or upset with one another. We can even hate each other for a time. But, I still love you and that means I am never willing to throw you to the wolves.”

My mother could make me feel like I was a king and she could also make me feel two feet tall. She can come up with such marvelous words both in her anger and in moments of sorrow and regret. I asked her in my anger,

“Why not throw me to the wolves, then you will have one less person to worry about?” 

We had had a fight about money, our life being poor, her worries, and not having enough. During that conversation I had said something I deeply regretted which started a round of comments at the end of which I got my feeling hurt. As a man now I look back and I see my error in ever starting that argument. I can see how much pain I caused my mother by saying what I had said. I also see now her regret in losing her temper with me. As a boy however, it was going to take a lot of time for me to get over it before I could apologize, but my mom dig in with her response.

“I could never throw you to the wolves Brian, because you are my child, and because I love you. That makes you irreplaceable to me.”

When my mother said that to me, I felt such peace in my heart, I could see God standing in front of me telling me that I was irreplaceable to Him as well. Call it what you will, but I had an epiphany within that moment, euphoria engulfed me, and in the following seconds I turned around and I screamed at the top of my lounges, “I love you too mom!” as tears rolled down my cheeks I murmured over and over as my tears soaked her shoulder, “I am so sorry.”

My mother in that moment had become irreplaceable to me. In fact my entire family had become irreplaceable to me within the blink of an eye, and our problems suddenly no longer where just my parents problem, but the entire families problems. In a blink of an eye I found God, my family, and myself. I learned that you don’t abandon  your family, you do not forsake them, and you never leave them behind. This was the lesson I learned as a boy, this was a feeling I have only had one other time in my life, and that was when my beautiful daughter was born. Let me also take this moment and just say, my daughter is and always has been irreplaceable to me, and as her father I have spent a lifetime trying to protect her and make her feel just as my mother had once made me feel long ago.

God is irreplaceable, his love is enough to stop wars, to heal all wounds, his words work miracles, and we do not have to be thrown to the wolves, because Jesus did that for us already through His undying love and sacrifice on the cross.

“For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” 2 Corinthians 5:21

Jesus before time became the king of our world, He delivered us from bondage, He paid the terrible debt, and without Him we all would be lost. We would be like those people who fight and fight and have done so for so long they have forgotten why they fight, and their eyes and hearts are absent of Gods love. To some people faith is a joke, God is a joke, they refuse to believe and they disown Him and in doing so they throw Him to the wolves over and over. But soldiers in P.O.W. camps they have nothing but their faith, it their pocket bibles that are issued to each service member which becomes the life line and helps them to survive in situations which would have otherwise killed them. It is faith in God which people in Communistic countries cling too even at the point of their own death. It is faith in God which helped millions of people in the German death camps during WWII, and the list is endless. God is irreplaceable and He looks at each one of us as if we are also irreplaceable to Him. 

Amen

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Reflection 1: Spiritual Accountantcy

” 15 And he said unto them, ‘Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.‘” ~ Luke 16:15

Life is a journey of immense struggles pitted with many victories and defeats. It is a race to the finish line of judgement, once there many will have ran a good race but will have done it without moral conscience and will be damned to hell for all eternity. Many will have ran the same race but prevailed with great love, faith, and ethics, and will be allowed passage into the Kingdom of God. The difference between the two is incalculable if coming from the filter of modern life, celebrating our many luxuries and comforts afforded those with what is termed as the good life. But if viewed from the prism of our Lord and Savior then it becomes more personal, deeply ethical, riveted with countless moral guidelines that help to forge a sinner into a born again child of God. It is not an easy path, in fact it is filled with much sacrifice and with many painful defeats. For to choose to be a child of God is not for the faint of heart and in the end, within the very hour of our death, Jesus promises for the faithful that they shall never taste death.

47 Verily, verily, I say to you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.” ~John 6:47

For many of us it is hard to put into place a moral life while being surrounded with such temptations which we find at our fingertips on a daily basis. It is hard to not give in to the world of excess and comfort with so many voices telling us we don’t have too. The prevailing belief advertisers drown us with daily is, “Life doesn’t have to be so hard” and “Why wait when you can have it now!” We have become a society of capitalistic carnivores devouring everything while ignoring the implications it places upon our life and our immortal soul. We make recluse justifications to explain away why we can, when the Holy Bible has clearly stated we should not. A world that places more value on things, property, and money, over relationships, love, honor, ethics, and that of our christian savior, who is the savior of every man, women, and child on planet Earth as we know it, is an abomination in the sight of God. There are so many sins, so many fruitless attempts at winning Gods favor while pleasing the flesh. People can be so awesomely good, and in the same breath find ways to be just as evil and destructive. When we look hard at who we have become, the choices we have made, the justifications for actions which caused countless others to suffer, it is then that our deeds will be told, despite the lies of our mortal legacies. For you can preach good all the days of your life, but in private do evil, it is in your heart and therefore God see’s the truth of your life. He can discern the proper judgement from the web of misleading, randomness and noise of sin which has permenantly blacked your heart.

33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.”~ Luke 14:33

Jesus warned against collecting wealth and then not sharing it but rather hording it. He warned against ignoring your own sins while calling to the carpet others sins. He warned against hypocrisy for in the eyes of God it is nothing more than “lip service”. Jesus warns against denying the poor food, clothes, shelter, and mercy. He warns against not raising your child up in the ammunition of the Lord thy God. For he also warned against excess of all kinds, depravity of all kinds, blasphemy of all kinds, and evil works of all kinds. Yet we do them daily, we ignore Him daily, and in doing so we mock Him daily!

32 Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven33 But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.” ~ Matthew 10:32-33

Be on guard for those who refuse to speak the truth of God, who refuse to hear you speak the truth of God, be warned they are filled with Satan. There are people who get upset when they are shown their immoral ways and are convicted by the light of God, and by His son’s moral teachings and inwardly repress God, reviling against all righteousness, for they are filled with the spirit of Satan. Stand firm and do not waver from the light of God for instead bask within its glorious rays for it shall purify thy soul. Profess daily the miracles of God in your own life, for each day is a true miracle as it was not promised to you before you went to sleep the night before. Be on guard of those who would manipulate your words, the words of others, and the words of God to suit their lying ways, for such is the arch tool of Satan himself. Walk away from profane, perverse, corrupt, immoral, and impure people as they will as soon suck you down with them than to see you happy and free in the light of God. For to disown God is a rejection of the miracle of ones own birth and life; for Satan does not hold the keys to these things; for only God can create life and can bring about death; for only God can destroy thy very soul. Be on guard of those who wish to systematically take from you all the things in your life which bring you happiness, for they have no conscience, no remorse, no ambivalence to using deceit to accomplish their goals. For these people are expert in their disguise and can make the most illogical thing sound logical, the most profane thing sound holy, and the most hurtful thing look to others as self-defense. For God has no tolerance for them and though in the moment they grasp victory, in reality they have only clutched defeat because what God meant for you and was stolen, he will give to you in abundance in Heaven, a reward they shall not reap for they chose a selfish and self serving path.  

21 Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have I not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?  23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you: depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!” ~ Matthew 7:21-23

It is truly important to not just know which side of the tracks you are on, but to also profess it, teach it, embrace it, and above all love God with all your heart, mind, body, and soul; to do all things for God with all your strenght and might. It is simply not enough to say you love God to close family and friends then in private do wicked, but rather love God enough to always do good in public and private, for there should only be one message of your life, because there is only one God. Be sure to never take credit for the things which you have accomplished in your life for each accomplishment was first a gift from God, to do so would be to say you willed it to be so and that is a lie. For remember Moses who took credit for the miracle of the rock which sprang water; for the rod was from God, the power was from God, and the very words which Moses spoke to bring forth the water was from God, for such a sin he was denied entry into the promised land. Remember also King David who committed adultery and who God took from him the first born son in payment of the life he had stole from Bathsheba’s first husband Uriah the Hittite. Rather be like Christ who complied with the will of God even until the point of his own death.

1 Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” 1 Corinthians 11:1

Spiritual accountantcy is the means which we review our own place with God, it is the act of asking where are we in our relationship to God. “Have I done things which God disapproves of, am I saved?”, is the question we need to ask daily and then we need to repent daily. Be assured God loves you, wants you, cares for you, and will never leave you if you never disown Him.

Amen.

If you have been moved by this blog I urge you to continue to come back and become a subscriber. Please do not forget to also visit us at http://listeningfaithfully.org.
May God bless you and keep you all the days of your life. Amen

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