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Weeping May Last for the Night, But…
There is so much
to weep about in our world recently. Bad things happen as surely as night follows day. (John 16:33) It seems as though our country–along with most other parts of the world–has been experiencing one very long night. Will the violence and human pain never end? Yet for those who find their eternal hope in our great God and Savior (Titus 2:13), Scripture carries the promise of a bright day to follow each and every dark night: “For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning” — (Psalm 30:5).”
Christians know this biblical promise of God is true, because Christ has already deposited within them the fountain of life and joy–his Holy Spirit (John 7:38; Ephesians 1:13). And this fountain of joy and life is eternal; it can never be quenched no matter how much external circumstances say otherwise. And so we sing–
” “Spring up, O well! — Sing to it!”
Christians know and experience that God’s love and mercy arrive fresh and new every morning (Lamentations 3:22-23), and therefore unquenchable joy is their strength (Nehemiah 8:10).
Rain of Spirit in the Desert
What are the barren places in our heart? The Holy Spirit seeks to RAIN on those places.
Exodus 15:26–How Could a Loving God Put Disease on ANYONE?
NET Exodus 15:26 He said, “If you will diligently obey the LORD your God, and do what is right in his sight, and pay attention to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, then all the diseases that I brought on the Egyptians I will not bring on you, for I, the LORD, am your healer.”
At Bible study last evening, a young Christian asked the sincere question in the title of this blog. I, for my part, before I became a Christian, for many years nurtured anger against God because he killed the Egyptian babies.*
NET Exodus 12:29 It happened at midnight– the LORD attacked all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the prison, and all the firstborn of the cattle. 30 Pharaoh got up in the night, along with all his servants and all Egypt, and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was no house in which there was not someone dead.
After I became a Christian, a better knowledge of God and his loving ways, especially as revealed in the Old Testament, brought me to peace with this difficult portion of Scripture. The key was to see the story of Israel’s deliverance from Egypt through God’s eyes, not through my own.
In beginning a small study to help my friend untangle her knot about God’s love and the Egyptian plagues of disease, I came across the following Bible study done by Robert L. (Bob)Deffinbaugh and published at Bible.org on May 13, 2004. I think it does a good and complete job of laying out the facts as presented in Scripture. The Holy Spirit needs to work it into a believer’s heart, as He did in mine, by resolving the underlying issues there. For me, it was a matter of accepting the fact and gravity of sin, especially my own. Indeed, before I became a Christian, I was one of these biblical “Egyptians.” Here is the link:
The Passover and the Plague of the Firstborn (Exodus 11:1-13:16)
* I was not a careful listener in those years. God actually killed all the firstborn; many of whom were undoubtedly adults at the time.
THE PNEUMA PROJECT: The Human Body and Healing
A lesson on the Bible and what it says about the Human Body & Healing, by Brent Eglitis
Given at The Shepherd’s House on May 10, 2016
The Human Body and Healing by Brent Eglitis
Don’t Sabotage Your Own Blessing
“Why is this blessing happening to Me?”
When life goes well–peaceful, happy, prosperous, successful–for a long period of time, and then great calamity strikes, a common response is, “Lord, why me?”
And for some on the other end of the spectrum, those who have always lived under pain, bearing up under sorrows of sadness and affliction, when joy comes, when God answers the prayers, when the river turns around and runs in the other direction, when blessing arrives, when the ship laden to overflowing docks in the harbor, when promises are delivered, rewards distributed, do some also cry out, “No, Lord, not me?” Often–yes.
Change of any sort is hard.
Those who live happy and successful lives find the change to hardship difficult, and those who live difficult lives of sorrow and trial find the change to joy and blessing hard to receive.
Challenge: I want to challenge and encourage you today–if you are one who has learned to live a life of strong faith, inner fortitude, and grace under trial–when the end of the road of travail arrives and the promised blessing comes, receive it with as much faith in God’s goodness as you learned when things were tough. 
Don’t feel you are not worthy. Don’t feel destined to disappointment. Not one of us is worthy. It’s God who is good. Don’t sabotage your own blessing because you are used to suffering. Receive the reward of your faithfulness with belief, trust in God’s trustworthiness, rejoice, and keep on giving thanks. Yes! This blessing is for you. Your day has come, and Christ is distributing his reward. Hallelujia!
Matthew 25:23 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’
The Son of His Father’s Love
Colossians 1:13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,
Christ Jesus: Son of His Father’s Love
Colossians 1:13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love (NKJ)
Many children are born from the physical expression of love between their parents, often planned, and perhaps as often, not planned. The Bible teaches in Colossians 1:13 that Jesus Christ is the Son of his Father’s love. God in his love planned his Son from all eternity past, since they both co-exist eternally, along with the Holy Spirit:
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Colossians 1:15-17 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
God’s love for Christ his Son and for the humanity he created in the world surrounds and lives within the incarnation of Christ. Both the Father’s love for his Son, his beloved Son, and his love for people are the fountainhead, the source, the driving motivation of the incarnation, the divine humanity of Christ on earth. Christ is the full expression of his Father’s love. The love of the Father birthed the Son, and Christ is “the Son of his [the Father’s] love,” both in eternity past and in the incarnation.
Scripture
First, Christ is the outspoken word which reveals the Father’s nature and character of love.
John 1:18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.
John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave…
his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Romans 8:39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Hebrews 1:3a He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature,
Colossians 1:13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love
Second, Christ is the beloved Son, the one whom his Father loves.
Matthew 3:17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
Mark 9:7 Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!”
Where Does This Leave Us?
Believers are in Christ, in the Beloved.
1 John 4:16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
John 17:23 I in them and you in me– that they may be completely one, so that the world will know that you sent me, and you have loved them just as you have loved me.
Ephesians 1:4 For he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we may be holy and unblemished in his sight in love.
Everything concerning us is motivated and dominated by God’s love.
Romans 5:5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Romans 8:38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Ephesians 2:4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ–by grace you have been saved– 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
Ephesians 3:19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Colossians 1:13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,
What difference does this make?
The difference is that we once lived under the authority of the darkness, and God transferred us into a different kingdom, a different realm of reality, a kingdom of light in which Christ rules, that very Christ who is the Son of the Father’s love. Chains are broken, bondages are collapsed, the prisoners are free. We no longer owe allegiance to what causes our own destruction, and we have one fighting for us who is greater than death and darkness itself. God is love! And he is our God.
Love rules for us, within us, and through us. Love has become the new expression and protection of our being. We are safe at last. We no longer need to worry, nor to plan out our own futures. Jesus Christ reigns in our hearts and lives. Love rules our day. The one who is stronger than everything else in the universe claims us as his own. We are his. We can live our lives without fear. We can turn and face our enemies and in the name of Jesus Christ the King command them to leave. And at the end of the day, a great big no matter what, we are loved in Christ.
One Small Voice 