Does your gift satisfy you?

Brother's and sisters, first I want to wish you all very Merry Christmas.  I'd also like to encourage you to focus on your relationships this holiday season.  I've learned that gifts mean very little if the relationship is strained or even bad.  But that is not my topic today.

My topic today is about a choice we all will make.  It is rooted in eternity and it will determine our destiny.  We all know that Jesus is the reason for the season.  However, what is Christmas without the gifts.  Yes, the pretty wrapping paper, the excitement of opening the presents, the anticipation, and yes the disappointment.  Gifts are a critical part of Christmas.

Brothers and Sisters there is a war raging in places we cannot see and in ways we cannot understand.  But it is happening in us and around us.  The war is between the ruler of this world and the God of the universe.

Ephesians 6:12 - For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high [places]

1 John 5:19 ESV / 11 helpful votes

We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.

The ruler of this world is not God.  Not yet.  This world belongs to our enemy and he is controlling it more completely everyday.  Brothers and sisters we have only to look in the newspaper, or TV news to see that the enemy in engaged in all out warfare on Christians.  He wants to discredit us, ridicule us, marginalize us, and make our beliefs so unattractive that no one would want to come to Christ.  

So, then, what does this have to with gifts----------everything.  Read on.

Our enemy has more gifts to give than the fat man himself.  Call him Satan Claus.  He is in the business of giving great gifts.  He is the ruler of this world and he will give you your hearts desire.  Because he knows the nature of the human heart----because it is his own nature.  

Jeremiah 17:9 ESV / 6 helpful votes

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

Ephesians 2:3 ESV / 9 helpful votes

Among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind

So the enemy of your soul knows exactly what your flesh wants.  And he will give it you to keep you satisfied and complacent.  He gives those gifts so they will become important in our lives.  He gives us things that become 'gods' to us, or 'idols.'  Ask yourself these questions:
Who gets more of your time, God or your Facebook friends?
Who gets more of your attention, God, or your iphone?
What is more important to you, spending time with your TV, or spending time with God?

I wont ask you what your answers are, but I can guess many of you want to punch me in the face right now.  

So, here is your choice.  Christ, who actually does own the place, came down to offer us an alternative gift.  He lived a perfect life and gave himself up as a sacrifice to give us a gift that we cannot redeem while we live.  His gift requires faith that if we believe and repent that we will have an eternal life in paradise with Him.  He offers it free, hence the term 'gift.'  We also know that the alternative to His gift is eternal damnation.  

Romans 6:23 ESV / 8 helpful votes

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The enemy's gifts are prettier, bigger, shinier, and more fun looking.  The problem with those gifts is that they have the illusion of satisfaction, but they cannot satisfy.  This is why Satan is always inventing new things (he must be exhausted).  The enemy understands that all of his gifts have a shelf life and sooner or later we will need a new idol.  So Satan Claus and his evil elves from hell are constantly at work on the creation of new idols.  

His gifts are like food.  You eat and are satisfied for a time, but you will get hungry again.  The gifts of the enemy always disappoint. Everything in this world is like that.  But Jesus says this:

John 4:13-15 ESV / 86 helpful votes

Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

So here is the choice.  You can love this world and worship the things of this world and have a great time indulging your flesh, and go to hell.  Or, you can believe, repent, trust in Jesus and still enjoy your life and live in paradise for eternity.  

I've walked both roads.  I have followed after my flesh and I can testify that your flesh is never satisfied.  It always wants more and it will literally kill us to continue to feed it.  I walk with Jesus today.  And His words are true.  He satisfies fully and completely.  Nothing lacking, nothing missing.  He satisfies the soul.  

This year, consider opening the true gift of Christmas.  Consider doing the one thing you can do that will last forever and never cease to satisfy.  If you have already opened the gift of salvation, tell someone else about it.  Pray with them and guide them to receive the gift you already know is the best gift ever.  

Free Will and Pain

You have heard that life is a journey.

You have heard that life is a box of chocolates.

I say to you that life is a multitude of journeys and each journey is its own separate box of chocolates.

I am nearing the end of one of my great journeys.  And as I press on over the final peak I cannot see what lies ahead because of the fog. 

I believe that I have lived with false hope for a very long time that God would not allow this particular journey to end.  I have prayed and fasted and obviously misinterpreted scripture,  believing that God would move on my behalf. 

What I just now realized is that in order for God to move on my behalf he must interfere with the free will of another. 
And while God can do that,  I realize that this is something He wont do.

I am greatful for God not affecting our free will.  You see, brothers and sisters, our free will is what makes us free.  God wants us all to be free.  So he chooses not to cause us to do anything.  But rather allows us to choose on our own. 

Free will allows us to love one another and love God.  If God put limits on us and we love Him then that is not love, but bondage.  So the act of allowing us to have free will also allows us to love unconditionally. 

So then I have been foolish.  I submit this to the reader in hopes that someone else will be helped.  I trusted God as long a I believed he would fix it.  I found every verse in the Bible about it and I read them again and again.  I knew God would move if I just stayed still.  But He did not.  Because what I asked for was His desire, but it was not the will of the other party.  And I was expecting God to give me favor with the person.  But that is an issue of free will.  And that was just recently revealed to me.  And I have been angry ever since I realized what a fool I was. 

Doors close and windows dont always open.  Things are lost and stay lost and are not replaced.  Broken hearts are not always  mended.  People leave and dont return.  Dogs die.  Things end.

But I have to remember two things.  1.  God is sovereign.  2. God is good.  So if the one in control of everything is good then there must be purpose for all of this pain I am in.  I dont see it now, but I will.  I dont understand it now but I trust God to sustain and lead me to where He wants me to go. 

Naomi lost a husband and two sons.   Her loss became a blessing for all of mankind.   Job lost everything and God gave it right back.  The Hebrews lost their freedom many times, and today they are back in the promised land. 

I dont know what God is doing.  Or why this happening to me.  I will trust the Lord and lean not on my own understanding.
Paul said this and I must commit this to memory because I will need it

11Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.

 12  I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.

 13  I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.