Love and Compassion

Matthew 20:34 - "Moved with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes; and immediately they regained their sight and followed Him."

Often people confuse God's compassion with His love. The Lord certainly loves at all times, for this is His nature (Proverbs 17:17), However, His compassions are often kindled according to His great will (Hosea 11:8). These ebb and flow in perfect measure as He touches and mends lives. Jesus' nature did not always look loving, yet He never failed in this respect, even when He was angry or openly grieved. Likewise, His compassion was always at work although it was most demonstrative when God's heart was "kindled."

Always know God is a loving Father, even when He does not appear that way. The sign of a mature believer is patiently discerning how the Lord chooses to reveal Himself through His compassion. When God does touch us, there is a new awareness of His love and kindness and a greater desire to follow Him no matter where He might lead.

Gain Through Loss

Matthew 19:29 - "And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for My name’s sake, will receive many times as much, and will inherit eternal life."

Jesus addresses every type of possible wealth in this verse which people generally value. Property, family relationships, and finances are the foundations of life here upon earth. However, the Lord is telling us when we allow the paradigm to shift from temporal thinking to spiritual reasoning, then the law of reciprocity is released in both realms. Physical and material sacrifices for Jesus' sake equate to multiplicity of reaping both in this life and the one to come.

We must guard ourselves from a sense of ownership of anything, whether it is people, places, or things. Hold things loosely and allow God to give and to take away as He chooses. His promise is that we will have well above anything we can ask or think at the end of our life if we will believe and follow accordingly.

What Are You Looking At?

Job 31:1 - “I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?"

Jesus tells us in Matthew 6:22 that “The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light." In Job's case, he knew there was much more at stake than merely sinning by looking with lust at a woman in an adulterous manner. He understood how the world will tempt us with its beauty in any number of ways. In Job’s case, it is an attractive virgin. However, we know that the only things not truly defiled by sin are the things God gives, and not what we take through inordinate desire.

What we allow our eyes to gaze upon will result in a covenant with our soul, and ultimately it will capture our heart. What we permit our eyes to gaze upon today will become our master tomorrow. Those who know the Lord must turn their eyes upon Him, the Beloved. For in so doing, we consecrate ourselves as His bride and our covenant of marriage to Him alone.

The Valley of Decision

Joel 3:14 - "Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision."

The day of the Lord will characterize itself in a terrifying way to most. However, the day of the Lord can also be a day of great victory. For those of us who have accepted the Lord Jesus, our day of the Lord has come and God has already entered into judgment with our sin through the Lord Jesus Christ. Only as we have accepted Him as our sacrificial Lamb, will we then have moved from judgment to mercy as our sin has been forever atoned for by Christ's perfect life.

The tragedy is that most will be caught in the conundrum of their own indecisiveness, not accepting the Lord's most gracious gift before their respective death or His eminent return. If only they had known how close the Lord was to them in this time of decision! He patiently waited for their response but there was none.

As the writer of Hebrews tells us, if today you hear His voice, do not harden your heart but give your life to Him for He is full of love and abounding in mercy (Hebrews 4:7).

No Remedy

II Chronicles 36:15-16 - "The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent word to them again and again by His messengers, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place; but they continually mocked the messengers of God, despised His words and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against His people, until there was no remedy."

America is today on a precipice and about to fall into judgment where there will be no remedy. We have forsaken biblical principles that made this country great and have ridiculed those who still stand on them. We call good evil and evil good as we allow judges to rewrite the law according to popular opinion.

Beloved, there is a day coming in short order that will make Sodom and Gomorrah’s judgment look merciful. They were devoured by God's judgment in a moment in time. However, America has set herself up to go into captivity and then prolonged destruction.

However, there is still time to reverse this calamitous certainty. If we as a people would repent and turn from our wicked ways, then God would hear from heaven and heal our land (II Chronicles 7:14). However, the time is short. May we turn to Him before there is indeed no remedy.

Divine Recognition

Acts 4:13 - "Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus."

Have you ever recognized someone as having been with Jesus? They aren't difficult to spot. As the Pharisees witnessed, the hallmark of these folks is their immovable confidence in what they believe. How does confidence of this type manifest itself? Well, it starts in secret and spills out publicly. It oozes out of believers that truly believe their Lord and desire to spend time with Him. It comes by searching out His Word, and then living it to the best of their ability. It comes by living out the Great Commission and spreading the love of Jesus Christ to their communities, counties, states, countries, and finally to the world. Godly confidence is something that cannot be self-created but is a by-product of living and breathing the Lord Jesus Christ on a daily basis.

Do you want to provoke amazement as the Pharisees experienced? They merely acknowledged the confidence of Peter and John, that they were uneducated but yet they recognized the Lord Jesus in them. Confidence in one's standing with the Lord only comes by getting into that secret place with Him -- to pour out one's heart and to pour over His word. Then, when we come out into the public light, there will be little to mistake any of us from having been with our Risen Lord.

Flee Immorality

Genesis 39:7 - "It came about after these events that his master’s wife looked with desire at Joseph, and she said, 'Lie with me.'”

Lust will always lie, telling us it has something to give but it always seeks to steal everything of God within. Joseph understood the paradigm of lust and resisted it vehemently. The sin which sought to enslave him was only the catalyst which propelled him toward another kind of enslavement. However, the latter incarceration was part of God's plan to raise Him up in due season.

Paul tells us in I Corinthians 6:18 to "Flee immorality." Often, however, when we flee temptation, we are placed in a situation where it seems we are being punished for our resolve. When we consecrate ourselves from sin and the lusts thereof, God will sanctify us in time and reveal Himself to us in new ways. Like Joseph, we may not understand immediately in our obedience how we will be made holy and placed above our enemies. However, if we stand strong and not give in to despair, He will open up our proverbial jail cell to the expanse of His blessings.