You Are God!
Psalm 90:1-2 NASB
Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all
generations.
Before the mountains were born
Or You gave birth to the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.
God – Father, Son and Holy
Spirit – always was. Jesus, the Son of God, always existed. He was with God in
the beginning, and he is God (John 1). All things that were made were made by
him. Jesus is our creator.
God is eternal. He had no
beginning, and he has no end. I think that is one of the hardest concepts for
the human mind to comprehend, because we exist in time, in a world where
people, plants and animals come to life and then they die. I have a hard time,
anyway, fully grasping “always was.”
As well, we existed in God’s
mind even before the creation of the world. In fact, we who are in Christ
Jesus, through faith in him, were chosen by God to be holy and blameless before
him even before he formed the earth. He predetermined that we would be
conformed to the likeness of Jesus. And, He already had purposed who we should
become before the ages began. That just blows me away. Does it you? (Rom. 8:29;
2 Tim. 1:8-9; Eph. 1:3-4).
Life on Earth
Psalm 90:3-12 NASB
You turn man back into dust
And say, “Return, O children of men.”
For a thousand years in Your sight
Are like yesterday when it passes by,
Or as a watch in the night.
You have swept them away like a flood, they fall
asleep;
In the morning they are like grass which sprouts anew.
In the morning it flourishes and sprouts anew;
Toward evening it fades and withers away.
For we have been consumed by Your anger
And by Your wrath we have been dismayed.
You have placed our iniquities before You,
Our secret sins in the light of Your presence.
For all our days have declined in Your fury;
We have finished our years like a sigh.
As for the days of our life, they contain seventy
years,
Or if due to strength, eighty years,
Yet their pride is but labor and sorrow;
For soon it is gone and we fly away.
Who understands the power of Your anger
And Your fury, according to the fear that is due You?
So teach us to number our days,
That we may present to You a heart of wisdom.
When God first created man
and woman, they were sinless and in perfect fellowship with God. They were
naked, and they were unashamed. But, then they sinned against God, and as a
result, God put a curse upon humankind, and on the earth. So, when we are born
into this world, we are born with sin natures, separate from God. And, while on
this earth we have pain, sorrow, suffering, decay and death. (See: Ro. 5:12-19;
1 Co. 15:21-22, 42-49.)
This world is not our
permanent home, and the more we understand that, the better off we are. We are
all going to die one day, unless the Lord returns for us while we are still
living, and he takes us to be with him. So, our focus should not be on the
things of this world, which will perish, but our focus should be on God and on
what is eternal, which will last forever.
Because of the curse of sin
and death, we are going to have sickness, pain, sorrow, disease, and injuries.
Some of this will come as a result of the curse, and some of it will come as a
result of our own sins or the sins of others against us. In fact, a lot of the
pain we will suffer in this life will be emotional pain because of others’ sins
against us, or because of our own sins.
So, we need to be taught to
number our days, so that we may present to God a heart of wisdom.
I believe this means that we
need to consider that every day we have on this earth is not our own, to be
lived how we want, but that we are to live our days in light of eternity, and
not for the things of this world. We are not on this earth to please ourselves,
but to please God, and to minister his love and his grace to the people he
places in our paths. Then, we have hearts of wisdom instead of hearts of folly.
Confirm for Us
Psalm 90:13-17 NASB
Do return, O Lord; how long will it be?
And be sorry for Your servants.
O satisfy us in the morning with Your lovingkindness,
That we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
Make us glad according to the days You have afflicted
us,
And the years we have seen evil.
Let Your work appear to Your servants
And Your majesty to their children.
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us;
And confirm for us the work of our hands;
Yes, confirm the work of our hands.
One day Jesus is going to
return for us who have trusted in him to be Lord (owner-master) and Savior of
our lives. And, he will take us to be with him forever. There he will wipe away
all the tears from our eyes, and there will be no more pain, no more sorrow, no
more sin or even temptation to sin; no more weakness, no more crying, and
nothing to make us afraid. We will be with our Lord forever in eternal joy,
peace, comfort and freedom from all that our flesh now works against us.
But, we don’t have to wait
until then to be healed, to be delivered, to conquer, to have victory, and to
live and walk in freedom from sin’s chains. Jesus Christ, in his death and
resurrection, put our sin to death, and he rose victorious over our sin and
suffering so that we could live in freedom in Him while we still live on this
earth.
We may not live free from
pain and suffering and temptation to sin, and free from the pain we experience
when others sin against us, but we can live in the freedom of the Spirit from
letting those things defeat us. We can be victorious! We can be free from the
control of sin, from fear, and from all that might hinder our walks of faith.
And, we can live in peace, in joy and in assurance of the sovereignty of God
over our lives, and in the hope that one day all this will be over, and we will
be forever with our Lord.
Our Lord will encourage us,
he will give us hope, and he will assure us that we are on the right path, if
we are, and that what we are doing for him is making a difference, if we are
truly following him in obedience. Even though all hell may seem to be breaking
loose all around us, at times, he will fill us with his peace, and he will
encourage our hearts, and he will give us strength to keep on keeping on in his
love and perseverance, knowing that our labors in the Lord are not in vain, and
one day, if not now, we will see the fruit of those labors, for we are making a
difference in this world.
We just have to keep trusting
the Lord, leaning on him, submitting to his Lordship, and not ever give up
hope, no matter how bad things may look.
Jesus, I My Cross Have Taken
Henry F. Lyte / Mozart/ Arr. Hubert P. Main
Jesus, I my cross have taken,
all to leave and follow Thee;
Destitute, despised,
forsaken, Thou from hence my all shall be.
Perish every fond ambition,
all I’ve sought or hoped or known;
Yet how rich is my condition!
God and heav’n are still mine own.
Let the world despise and
leave me, they have left my Savior, too;
Human hearts and looks
deceive me; Thou art not, like them, untrue.
And while Thou shalt smile
upon me, God of wisdom, love and might,
Foes may hate and friends
disown me, show Thy face and all is bright.
Go, then, earthly fame and
treasure! Come, disaster, scorn and pain!
In Thy service pain is
pleasure; with Thy favor, loss is gain.
I have called Thee, “Abba,
Father”; I have set my heart on Thee:
Storms may howl, and clouds
may gather, all must work for good to me.
Man may trouble and distress
me, ’twill but drive me to Thy breast;
Life with trials hard may
press me; heav’n will bring me sweeter rest.
Oh, ’tis not in grief to harm
me, while Thy love is left to me;
Oh, ’twere not in joy to
charm me, were that joy unmixed with Thee.
Haste then on from grace to
glory, armed by faith, and winged by prayer,
Heav’n’s eternal days before
thee, God’s own hand shall guide thee there.
Soon shall close thy earthly
mission, swift shall pass thy pilgrim days;
Hope soon change to glad
fruition, faith to sight, and prayer to praise.
Thursday, June 7, 2018 –
Thank you, Jesus, for these encouraging words.
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