How many times have we sat in a church service or in front of a television/computer screen and heard a preacher talking about everything that God is going to protect us from? Too many times preachers and evangelists talk about all the good God will bring us here on Earth. We all hear about everything good God is going to do for us, but what does it actually mean that He is going to protect us? Does it mean that he is going to keep us safe, keep our job, (I know no one really wants to hear this but...) keep our family safe? Preachers who are trying to convert the lost into Christianity often paint a picture of a perfect life with Christ; a life where everything that you ever wanted becomes yours. I don’t want to name any pastors specifically but one televangelist in particular preaches that if you accept God into your life all of your worries will be over. He also says that anything you ask for will be given to you. Have we ever asked for something from God and we haven’t received it? I have. I know right now in this post it seems like I am trying to say that God isn’t who you think He is or that He simply is not going to help us out. I guess in a way you could say that I may be telling you God can possibly be different from what you know and expect of him. I have been burdened to get this message out and I hope to actually give this message to the next place God allows me to speak. This is a message that I think everyone, especially teenagers who are facing tough decisions right now and are facing a hard time, should hear (or in this particular case, read). Too often we get discouraged because we think that God is not here for us because bad things keep happening to us. Maybe this post is for you!
First I am going to start off by saying that we need to be fully satisfied with God. And you may be thinking, “I am totally satisfied with Him.” For us to be fully satisfied with God we have to understand that He is in control. He is sovereign; He rules the entire universe including the heavens! To be fully satisfied with Him we also have to realize that bad things are going to happen to us! He never promised us that everything was going to be great all of the time. Too many times we think since we are children of God’s we think we are not subject to hurt and pain. Evangelists have fooled us and now we expect to live a perfect painless life. I think one reason many people “lose their faith” and “fall away from God” is because of the deceit that we have been fed by the ones that teach us. One thing evangelists have right is that God wants us to be happy, and I only agree with this statement partially. I believe He wants us to be happy but not the happy that worldly pleasures bring. We should be happy because of the joy of knowing that nothing here on earth matters besides our relationship with Him and furthering His kingdom.
Why do you think that God wouldn’t want us to be happy because of the things here on Earth? I believe that is because we know that we cannot take anything from this world when we die. Think about it for a second. You have died and are laying in your casket in a church somewhere with a preacher standing over you speaking to your loved ones. What is in your casket? You! You and maybe some nice clothes your family wanted to be buried with and so that they can remember you that way, and even the clothes don’t matter at all! When you leave this world it is going to be just your soul. Your soul does not carry bags; you don’t leave with a moving truck. Once your life here is done that is it. So what really matters? “Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal.” That verse is Matthew 6:20. The verse is pretty self explanatory. Store your treasures in heaven because things here on earth come and go. The Lord gives and He takes away. It is all His anyway. Think of the story of Job. It is simply too long to explain the whole thing but to make it short it is a story of Job and his faithfulness to God. God allows Satan to tempt Job to sin and curse God by taking away everything that he had, from his family to his livestock to his health. Job never sinned by cursing God for taking the things away from him because Job knew that it was all God’s to begin with; actually, he praised God still! He knew that those things didn’t matter. Only his faithfulness to God did. If we could all be like Job we could see things in a completely different perspective.
So why shouldn’t we worry about tomorrow? Why should we not care about what we have here on earth? Its because God gives us the joy of knowing He has us in his hand. If He has us in His hand then why do we still hurt, why do we still lose things that we hold dear to us? Because God saved us. He saved us from the fear of a spiritual death. This means that because we have faith in Him we are not subject to destruction, not worldly destruction, unworldly destruction. He is keeping us from going to a very real place called Hell. God sent His only perfect son to die a brutal death so that our sins could be paid for all so that we could have eternal life by just believing in his death and ressurection. What more should we have to worry about? People who are of this world hold their possessions very close to their heart. They worship their possessions. Everything they do has to do with money and making themselves happy. It is sad really that people have to hold things like this so dear, but that is literally all they have. The seek happiness in worldly pleasures and items because they don’t have anything else. We, as followers of God, should not be like this. I am not saying it is wrong to own nice things and to do things that make us happy because it is not. What is wrong is letting those things control our lives and if that happens we lose our sight of God and when we lose our happiness and our possessions we turn to God and ask, “why?” “Why would you do this to me God?” Sometimes if we lose things dear to us it is simply a test of our faith; god can be asking you, “what is more important, Me or your junk?” God will be around a whole lot longer than anything we can buy.
Many times our lives become filled with hurt and sadness. We lose our boyfriend/girlfriend, job, house, car, friends, parents, children, etc. When things such as these happen we get angry at God or either we lose our faith all together because we feel He is not with us anymore. We just simply have to remember: He gives us things and He takes them away all for a reason. This reason may or may not be known to us, but nonetheless they were not really ours to begin with. Everything we have has been given to us through His gracious hands. If you are reading this I am willing to bet that you are far more fortunate than others on this planet. We have to realize that our possessions should not be our number one love in life. Until we understand that God is keeping us from unworldly destruction rather than worldly destruction we will continually be mad at God for taking the things he has given us away. I thank God for every minute I get to spend with the things He has given me because if He decides it is time for them to go they will go and I just have to be happy for the time He allowed me to spend with it. As hard as it is dealing with losing something that you love you have to remember that God truly is in control and He knows that He is doing, even when it looks like He doesn’t. Until next time, remember that our God reigns!
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