Author: Trose

Decisions

Published on by TroseLeave a comment

Have you ever been faced with a decision?  Of course, we all have.  There are times when those decisions are like a fork in the road.  What to do?  God shows how to make these decisions. 

Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.  In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.  Proverbs 3:5-6

I have come to the conclusion that the decision has already been made by God.  We need to be willing to follow His lead.  Our problem is that we are full of ourselves.  We are afraid, or we feel incompetent, or we just want something else.  It is a pride issue.  Any time we get in the way of God it is really pride.  We are saying to God, “I know better.”  Pride gets in the way of trust.

I only have my life to look at and see how I have made decisions.  Some decisions have been based on trust. Some have also been based on pride.  The decisions based on trust have victories, while the ones based on pride have regrets.  I have determined that life is to short for more regrets. 

I am not saying that when we trust God it will be easy.  There will be obstacles.  However, when we face those obstacles we already trusted God about the decision.  Consider Paul.  He allowed God to direct him.  His path lead to being shipwrecked, beaten, imprisoned, and beheaded.  His path also lead him to starting many churches, he saw many saved, he was a hero for Timothy, and he wrote much of the New Testament.  Did he make a bad choice by following God?

I know we want things to be smooth.  It is only natural to wish for ease.  It is also natural to trust ourselves.  If Paul is an example of making the decision to follow God then Lot would be the example for making a prideful decision.  Lot used his eyes to make up his mind.  Because of his poor decision making he suffered the consequences.  The worse consequence of all is that he could not turn back time and make the decision over.

When we are at a fork in the road of life we don’t need to over complicate the matter.  We are told to simply trust and He will direct us.

Advertisement

The Lord Loves Righteousness

Published on by TroseLeave a comment

Psa 146:8
8 The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind:
the Lord raiseth them that are bowed down:
the Lord loveth the righteous:

There is no doubt in my mind the God loves righteousness.  I know our text says, “the righteous.”  The righteous could be the saved.  We all know saved people who do not love righteousness.  I am not saying in any way, shape, or form that God does not love people.  I do believe that when we love our “guilty pleasures” (sin) that God is not pleased with that.  We are predestined to be like Him.  We cannot be like Him if we are hanging on to our sinful ways.

Consider the first part of the verse, “The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind…”  Do you remember when the Holy Spirit convicted you of your sins?  We were blind.  We did not know our sins separated us from a Holy God.  We did not know we were enemies of God. 

We were blind to the fact that our sin carried a penalty that is impossible to pay off.  That penalty is death in Hell.  That is the reason I got saved.  I did not want to go to Hell.  Scripture opened our eyes to the fact that Hell is a real place.

We were blind until one day someone pointed out from the Bible how that we can know for sure that when we died we could go to Heaven instead of Hell.  I remember that day my eyes were opened and I saw what God saw, a sinner who deserved Hell. 

The question is a simple question.  The question is a direct question.  If we were blind, why do we close them?  We know what God says about sin, and about living a righteous life.  We know that we are to put no wicked things before our eyes.  Yet, we do.  We are comfortable in our sin.  Some may be even comfortable in the chastisement of that sin.  Our country is hurting because our churches are hurting.  Our churches are hurting because Christians are not Christians. 

The term Christians was given to people who lived like Christ.  The first Christians did not give themselves that name.  The world gave them that name.  They were not given that name because they lived like the world.  They loved righteousness and it showed.

Believer, we must wake up and determine to be a  Christian.  God opened our eyes at salvation.  We must keep them opened. 

The LORD Loves Righteousness

Published on by TroseLeave a comment

Psa 146:8
8 The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind:
the Lord raiseth them that are bowed down:
the Lord loveth the righteous:

Have you ever noticed the things you love?  For instance, I am a sports fan.  I would say I love baseball.  I can think of others things I love.  I love food.  You do too.  Other people have different interest.  We love many things.

This article is not intended to get us to look at the world and see what unbelievers love.  We should focus on us.  Do we love what God loves?  Be honest.  The verse plainly tells us what God loves.  He is a lover of righteousness.  It is easy to say we do as well, however, actions speak louder than words. 

It is my experience that we love righteousness at church or around other believers, but when we are alone we are just as vile as anybody else.  The proof is found in our laughter.

If we were to turn on a sitcom today the show would be portraying a sinful situation filled with humor.  Hollywood knows that what we laugh at we will accept.  Ask yourself this question, “What do I laugh at?”. Would Jesus laugh with you?  If not then we are confronted with the awful truth; we do not love righteousness.

As we continue we will glean some thoughts from verse 8 that can help is to love what God loves.