God Speaks I Listen

Matthew 24:6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.

When I was a little girl in school, we used to have drills to learn to shelter underneath our desk in case there was a nuclear war with Russia. I’m almost 70 years old now and a situation with Russia is back on the table.

[Sidenote: I started writing this blog 2 days ago and since I started, Russia has now threatened a more aggressive behavior and used the word nuclear.]

There are a lot of things that’s predicted in the bible about times such as these, so we should not be alarmed about today’s dangerous current events, but we can’t help but feel the surrealness of it all.  Today I heard the most beautiful sermon from Dr. David Jeremiah. It was about the following verses:

1 Thessalonians 4:16-18 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so, we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words. (Please be encouraged today with these verses. Fear not! Gods got you!)

Dominating the news since Jesus’ days has been wars and the rumor of wars. In the past few years, the wars have escalated. It’s disturbing but the blessing of Jesus soon return far outcries any war news. I pray and I ask God to have mercy on us daily. I’ve donated to help ministries and charities. I have also volunteered my time to these causes in my lifetime. I see though things have quickly escalated to a level that is hard to ignore pertaining to the end times.

I knew on New Year’s Eve when 2022 came in that this year would be extremely challenging, but now that it’s here, I know I must keep my eye on the prize of Christ return. This is so that my heart will have hope and be full of joy. My life is getting closer to being with the love of my life, God. Many of you know how obsessed I am with Him.

“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Matthew 24:36

I believe we can sense something different is taking place. Things are pointing to evidence of what the bible says will happen soon. We must not be stumped by all the news of doom and gloom. We shouldn’t be knocked off our feet, but we should stand and have hope in our hearts and minds. Jesus has done so much for us and has more blessings coming. God has promised us that all is well when we are His child. No matter what it looks like, feels like, and threatens to be, our hope and future is with God our Father. Let’s tell others the good news. Our King is coming back for us with ALL power and authority in the rapture. Clearly the signs are pointing to the next spiritual event in the church age. Jesus is due for a second appearance to earth one day in the future.

The people of the Ukraine are willing to hunker down for a battle and protect their land from being taken over by their enemy. They are also willing to lay down their lives for their country. It’s been amazing to see such heroism. I pray that I can hunker down and also laydown my life for the kingdom of God. My King came down and won the battle for me and you. Wars and rumors of wars…well yeah, that is happening, but fear not, put your trust in God and hang in there!

You didn’t ask to be born; I didn’t ask to be born but yet here we are. Many others have had the same thought about their lives. Many regret ever being born. God has His reasons for your existence and eventual birth. In fact, God really wanted you! Your existence may be a mystery to you, but I guarantee you, that were wanted!!! Job had some regret about even being born at all.

Job 3:1-3 After a while, Job opened his mouth to speak. He cursed the day he had been born. 2 He said, 3 “May the day I was born be wiped out. May the night be wiped away when people said, ‘A boy is born!’

I think Job was being a bit dramatic, but he was going through a lot at the time. Look at the help Job’s life has given out for generations of people. Job showed us how to deal with suffering. This revelation also shows us God grace by the Lord’s restoration of Jobs life.  His life had purpose.

God decided in His heart to let us come to life and be born and He carefully crafted us. Psalm 139:141 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

When I think of how powerful God is, it makes me tremble inside. Knowing about God’s extreme greatness and His ability to do anything He wants because He is God, makes me so appreciative of His grace. There are many aspects of God’s grace. In this blog today I want to talk about His saving grace.

When God made us, He knew that we would not be up to His holy standards. But, He already had a plan established to fix this defect in us. Now you might ask why He made us with this deficit in the first place. Well, let me tell you, it’s because He can, He did, and we will find out why when we get to heaven.  There are some things about this planet, God, and our lives that are a mystery, period! When these questions come up in my mind, I just say it’s God’s ways and God’s business. I’m gonna stay in my lane! I have all I can handle with what He has revealed in the bible for us to know now about things past, present, and future. I’m still stuck on the trinity, one God in three persons!

Because God chose to give me life, I am at His mercy. To me this is what exemplifies God’s holiness. He could be a mean god like those portrayed in Hollywood, but He is holy, kind and loving. It is not in His nature do wrong by us! His saving grace proves that. Knowing about the wrath of God makes me really appreciate of His saving grace!

Do we really give saving grace much thought? What a gift! Many people think of God as being a bit harsh because He allows us to go through suffering. But when you think of how He could’ve treated us wow!  What He allowed Himself to go through on our behave reach deep in my heart. God giving us the gift of saving grace is so wonderful!!! Again, we were wanted!

We were born unredeemed. We were born with no righteousness of our own. We were unclean and unholy at birth. But saving grace gave us the opportunity to remove all that unholiness, guilt, and shame from our lives and enabled our souls to be washed clean and be put right with God on our acceptance of Jesus Christ. When we believed in Him, we were saved by God’s grace. Grace has even followed us throughout our entire lives!

Ephesians 2:8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—

What exactly is “the gift”? We were born spiritually blind, but after salvation, the scales were removed from our eyes and now we see what holiness is and try to live in the light of Jesus ways. We don’t deserve what God is giving us. We were born unholy and could do nothing for ourselves. Just like a newborn baby cannot feed himself, clean himself, and provide for himself, we cannot do anything for our 100% unholy and unworthy self! Nothing a human can do to fix this complete morally defective unholy soul. ONLY God in His mercy has done this through His only Son Jesus. Jesus has unlocked the door to our eternal life and has the honor of presenting us to His Holy Father one day.

We did not ask to be born and we didn’t ask for the gift of saving grace. We didn’t ask for mercy. We didn’t ask for Jesus to die on our behave. But do you know what pulls all of this together for us? THE LOVE OF GOD!!! GOD HAS GIVEN US EVERYTHING! HIS LOVE, HIS SON, HIS FORGIVNESS, HIS MERCY, HIS GRACE AND ON TOP OF EVERYTHING ETERNAL LIFE! We are here now. Let’s take in every good thing that God has preplanned for our lives. We may not have asked to be born, but we’re here! Let’s take hold of every good thing that God has planned for our lives!

Let’s be grateful for Saving grace! Let’s let others know about this amazing gift!

Titus 2:11 For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people.