If you keep up on the little happenings of the U.S.--the agony of finding someone compromised enough to recite a meaningless "prayer" come inauguration, or the sexual orientation firsts in the Senate and the Oregon House, or the gun control snowball that won't stop rolling--then you, like me, might be feeling like Eeyore when he has lost his tail and sat upon his house.
Guess what, though? It's not the darkness of your corner, but the brightness of your light.
The pessimism of this age is a tangled net that traps us before we've even spotted it. But with difficulty and hardship comes relationship and blessings. With persecution and ignominy comes love and humility. And with a wicked and perverse generation comes great opportunity to shine as lights in the world.
Have you ever taken the time to read Joel 2:28-32? It's incredible:
"And it shall come to pass afterward That I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your old men shall dream dreams, Your young men shall see visions. And also on [My] menservants and on [My] maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days. And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth: Blood and fire and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD. And it shall come to pass [That] whoever calls on the name of the LORD Shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be deliverance, As the LORD has said, Among the remnant whom the LORD calls."
Have you called upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved? You have joined millions of saints around the world at this very moment. We are the remnant whom God has called, and we have been given every necessity to glorify God in this generation.
In Acts 2:38-40, Peter has this to say after quoting the passage from Joel:
God is on the move and doing great and exciting things. Don't miss it!
Photo Credit: h. koppdelaney
In Acts 2:38-40, Peter has this to say after quoting the passage from Joel:
"Then Peter said to them, 'Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.' And with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying, 'Be saved from this perverse generation.'"
Scripture tells us that the world will end, that the last days will bring scoffers and wars and natural disasters and perversions. These are merely dissonant preludes to the end--the great and awesome day of the Lord. To focus solely on these events is like standing on the beach of the Pacific Ocean at sunset and stubbornly staring eastward, with your back to the beauty unfolding behind you.
God is on the move and doing great and exciting things. Don't miss it!
Photo Credit: h. koppdelaney
A timely post! These troubled times are causing so many, even the most nonreligious, to look in every direction for something providing stability and hope. What a wonderful opportunity we have to point them to Christ!
ReplyDeleteAnd may I say how much I enjoy reading posts from two lovely young ladies on the other side of the country! It is always such a blessing to be reminded that in every corner of our nation there are still those standing firmly for what is right. I appreciate you both so much! (And the parents who raised you as well! I hope to be as successful with my own children as they have plainly been with theirs!)
Thank you so much for your encouragement! It's just incredible, when you stop and think about it, that you and I can be separated by thousands of miles yet still exhort each other to good works. Ah, the miracles of modern technology...
DeleteGod and my parents are truly the foundation of my life and why I am who I am today. Any good you might see must definitely be attributed to them. And any bad? Sadly, my own sinful nature, which does quite well on its own. =)
Oh my, I really needed this today! We've turned off the television in recent weeks (not that we watch much, anyway) because of all the depressing news it seems to bring each day, followed by talking heads arguing with each other about how best to solve the world's problems. It's refreshing to remember that in the midst of all the chaos and perversion and hatefulness that God still reigns...and that we shouldn't stand stubbornly with our backs to the east wondering why we don't see any beauty around us. :-)
ReplyDeleteAmen and thanks so much for commenting! Television, internet, radio, newspaper...it's all pretty depressing these days from a finite point of view!
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