14 Minutes
God is transcendent; He is above all. God is also immanent; He is near. Very
near. It is in Him we have confidence. Whatever charge God gives His angels
to keep His people, He does not thereby discharge Himself. Think of this. It
is so that, whether every particular one of us has an angel as our guardian
or no, we are sure that we have God Himself for our God parent. It is His
infinite wisdom that contrives, and His infinite power that works for our
welfare. We must need to be well kept for the Lord to be our keeper. Even
when in affliction He is our keeper. This same God is He who is engaged for
the preservation of every particular believer, in the same wisdom, the same
power, with the same promises.God keeps His Israel. This God is our Jesus.
And the shepherd of the flock is the shepherd of every sheep, and will take
care that not one of us, even of the little ones, shall perish. He is a wakeful
watchful keeper. Our God has never slept. He never did, nor ever will, for He
is never weary. He not only does not sleep, but He does not so much as
slumber. Our God has not the least inclination to sleep, for He cares for us.
Psalms 121:5
God refreshes them that are His: He is our shade. The comparison of every
thing to God’s loving concern for us has in this showing a great deal of
gracious condescension in it. He is the eternal Being who is infinite
substance in what He is, in order that He may speak sensible comfort to His
people. He promises to be our shadow, to keep as close to us as the shadow
does to the body, and to shelter us from the scorching heat, as the shadow
of a great rock in a weary land. Under this shadow we sit with delight and
assurance. Oh, this is our God and He is always near to His people. He is
never ever at a distance. He is never far to seek. His hand is the working for
us whereby we turn ourselves dexterously to our duty, and we always find
God ready for us, to assist us and give us realization of our being to Him.
When is He not with us. He will have an eye upon us in our every motion: for
in Him we are immovable. God will provide that His people shall not be
tempted above what they are able, shall not fall into sin, though they may be
very near it. Shall not fall into trouble, though there be many endeavoring to
undermine us by fraud or overthrow us by force. He will keep us from being
frightened, that we neither slip, nor stumble, nor fall. God will protect us from
all the malignant influences of the enemy. Though the sad changes that sin
has made to creation, God’s favor will interpose for us that even the sun and
moon, though worshipped by a great part of mankind, and are often
instruments of hurt and distemper to human bodies will be a blessing of
warmth and comfort; God by them will show His favor to keep us safe in
every respect. We will know His creation and keep from the evil of sin and
the evil of trouble. God will so watch over us that whatever affliction happens
to us there shall be no evil in it for we shall see His working for our good.
Even that which kills shall not hurt. It is the spiritual life, especially, that God
will take under His protection, and He will preserve our soul. He, with a
peculiar care, will preserve us from perishing eternally. His Spirit, who is our
preserver and comforter, shall abide with us forever. It is by His Spirit that
we know how deeply God cares about our being converted. It’s a turning, a
spiritual turning away from sin in repentance and to Christ in faith. If we are
not converted we cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. This is a dramatic
change that completely alters one’s life. It is not a rearranging of things, and
it is not as gradual a change like sanctification. It is a dimension of
justification. It is a power that occurs much deeper within the soul of a person.
It is a decisive break with old patterns of sin and the world and the embracing
of new life in Christ by faith. It is so profound that it involves a change of
mind, and a change of view, a new recognition of God, self, sin, and Christ.
It involves a change of affections, a change of feeling, a sorrow for sin
committed against a holy and just God. It involves a change of will, an
intentional turning away from sin and a turning to God through Christ to seek
forgiveness. The entire person; mind, soul, and body, is radically,
completely, and fully changed in this transformation.
Listen and hear...being converted moves you out of the realm of that non-
saving faith - not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord. When there is true
love for God being converted is the crying need of the soul. Until one’s life is
turned from sin to Christ, nothing else matters. God cares.
God cares so dearly as to bear our anxieties and to replace them with His
peace and assurance. When we give God our concerns, we in turn, receive
His calming presence. God's system of care is countercultural. His system’s
values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of human
beings. His is a movement that expresses the ethos and aspirations of a
specific divineness in this well-defined era. A span of time defined for the
purposes of chronology to draw attention to the prominence of His people to
characterize a definable determination to show in every detail of our lives
that God is sovereign. He is working to make us more like Him, and in turn
accomplishing His will for us and His kingdom. God transforms our cares into
what He cares about; and so we cast our cares on Christ. Our story
demonstrates the comprehensiveness of God’s care in the lives of His
children. God’s interaction in our lives is one of the greatest blessings of life.
If we stay close and attuned to Him through obedience and communion and
faithfulness, we can see His working in our lives quite clearly. When we do,
we see for ourselves just how magnificently comprehensive His love and
care for us truly is. We must never forget, never stop praying that God is
ordering our steps in His word, especially even in the most challenging of
personal, societal, and spiritual of circumstances.
Of a great wonder is knowing how God cares for us through relationships.
Think of the profound impact of our witness when we have devout love
toward others. When our witness brings forth this powerful
acknowledgment...thy God is my God. We are given brothers and sisters in
Christ who will be there with and for us in times of adversity. In Christ our
lives become an important blessing to them as theirs is to us. We influence
one another with word of truth. We are in the timed criticalness of God’s plan
and purpose. The beginning of harvest. We are now to be His kingdom
community on earth.
Our God is our God all of the time, in all places, and among all situations.
The true believer’s life is a transformative life. We are no longer our own. We
have a Savior who has taken our life and completely made every part of it
new from our relationships, to our beliefs, to our perfecting of character, it is
all His. In all extents of life, God cares for us, He is accomplishing His will
and His pleasure. God’s care for us is so filled with righteousness until He
gives to all the measure of faith. The measure of faith is that capacity given
that you may have a complete reliance upon God’s grace for every encounter
in life...spiritual or otherwise. But there is also a power that strengthens this
measure. It is hearing the word of God and sharing what we have learned
from Him with others. This is because God knows that there will be some
who may never hear the name Jesus. The complexity of the world around us
tells us that there is a God (even though people can suppress that knowledge
in their heart). Even those who haven’t heard of Jesus are accountable for
knowing that God is. These have the word of God in all of nature. All our faith
is to be in His promises, in His all-sufficient grace. Consider how God equips
us spiritually to fit perfectly in His determination. We ask without doubting.
We receive instruction in confidence. Our testimony of Jesus is beyond
expectation. We have every way to escape from temptation. He gives His
angels charge over us. The Holy Spirit is there for us. God takes account of
all our tribulation by putting our tears in a special bottle. How precious is that.
God so cares about our sadness that He bottles up the reasons and turns
them into our joys. And Jesus...
Romans 8:34
Hebrews 7:25
We can boldly say God cares for us. He reveals it in His words, His life, and
His love. We must be so comforted by this revelation that we never battle
wisdom against our feelings. Nothing, no hurt, no confusion, no deep
insecurity, no disillusionment, no circumstance is to threaten our trust in
God’s love. We must rest in the knowledge that His thoughts are toward us.
Jesus is our greatest comfort during the darkness of our struggles
where faith may be tested. Experiencing his presence draws us closer to
God, especially during difficult circumstances that may extend for long
periods of time. God loves us in a life changing way...He loves us
extravagantly. In God’s care we grow more confident in our identity in Christ
and form a deep abiding relationship with the One who formed us, who
knows us, and cares infinitely about every aspect of our being. God is giving
us such a self in Jesus that we find identity in being totally loved by God in
the ordinariness of doing life. The true self is grateful for spiritual highs
without craving them, and...without making too much of them when they
occur.
Recount how our God has brought us to learn to reason with Him in His word
for the discovery of the depth of His truth. This knowing God is possible
through spiritual growth and by weaving our testimonies and experiences as
reminders of Jesus’ faithfulness through answered prayer, encouragement,
and grace overflowing as we are transformed in how we think, we love, and
we live...how we see ourselves and how we relate to others. God gives us
rest on every side. He is not blind to our circumstances or our choices to
confide in Him, entrusting our every breath to Him. Because of God’s care
we have a confident certainty in Jesus Christ. We are confident and certain
of his very near return. We are confident and certain that it is impossible to
be separated from the love of God in Christ Jesus. We are confident and
certain that in all things we are more than conquerors through him who loved
us. We are confident and certain those whom he predestined he also called,
those whom he called he also justified, those whom he justified, he also
glorified. Because God cares, we are certain. Certainty is rest, peace,
blessedness.
God cares for us in His hereness, in His nearness, and that presence is
punctuated in Jesus Christ.
Psalms 139:7-10
God is not a being that can be moved away from. His people have a constant
awareness of His presence and the attentive acknowledgment of His
workings. Please do not confuse feeling close to God and being intimate
spiritually with God are the same. What is it when you ignore Him, or when
your humanness falters? How good it is to know that every moment of our
living is filled with His meaningful care. God has deep affection for us. There
is no care of ours that He does not care about. And He so loves us that He
wants our cares to align with what He cares about the most. God cares most
for His people and whether we love Christ and whether that love is expressed
in our love for others. That is the beauty of the circle of care.
Pause for a moment. Consider the God who upholds and guides the stars,
the planets, the worlds unseen. Who controls the winds, the rains. This God
cares about you. In your consideration, consider first the person Jesus
Christ. Then consider how God cared so much that He sent His only begotten
Son into this world in the form of a man to die because He so loved the world.
Now consider the love, the forgiveness, the compassion, the mercy, the
justice and so on...God cares.
God cares because He wants to be in an eternal relationship with His
children. He cares because He wants His children to love each other. Jesus
showed us the way. God is watching the misery of His creation. When we
love as He cares or when we care as He loves, we too will reflect on such
suffering. Why does He care? The pain and fallenness of humanity have
entered into His own heart. Scripture confirms this incredible truth...Jesus
wept. His caring is so much experienced with us until he allows evil to
exhaust itself that the power of sin is so completely drained that there cannot
even be, there cannot be even a thought of it. It cannot be a thought, a word,
a choice. God will finish His plan in today’s age and save the people He
knows wants to be saved. He cares for those who follow Him, the ones of
His salvation, the ones who have been made complete by Him in Jesus. He
cares so much that He will wait for us as long as He possibly can as He has
determined. God’s care is so abundant, it is so essential that it will be for the
full salvation of His people. God cares...
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