1-800-HEAVEN GOD, WHERE ARE YOU?

After walking with the Lord for these past 50-plus years, sometimes it frustrates me, though not as much anymore. Those days still come up occasionally, but not much anymore. The frustration centers on His silence. I have learned to relax and keep silent as well, but it is still concerning because we, as humans, think our concerns are so important that the one we look to for answers must respond when we call. After all, He is the ever-present God of creation and has everything in His hands. Funny how, under stress, we think we are the most important people on earth. What we fail to understand is that God stays closer than any blood brother. To the Christian, He lives within us. That is close. For those who have not surrendered to His love and salvation, He is ever-present to hear your cry for help in receiving His forgiveness and acceptance. Yes. He is always present.

Now speaking to Christians, since God is in residence within us, when you feel that He is far from you, who do you think moved, the Lord or you? It certainly wasn’t him, because he told us, “I will never leave you or forsake you.” Since God cannot lie, the one who moved was you. I do not mean that God or you moved physically, but spiritually. It can be likened to marriage. The loss of communication between a husband and wife is the most dangerous situation in a marriage.  It can happen when one or the other has been offended or has assumed the other’s silence is something more than a simple misunderstanding. In this situation, imagination can run wild, and neither is willing to ask why it has happened, afraid that the answer would be devastating to the relationship or marriage. Added to a situation like this, extended time in the standoff creates a greater danger to the relationship.

There is a dynamic I need to address in the lives of Christians. At the beginning of salvation, when one receives Christ as Savior, he becomes a creature in Christ, a new creation, a spiritual being. Now within him is the Holy Spirit, who has the task of revealing all that Christ is to you. He is the teacher, and you are his responsibility to mature into a vessel worthy for service in the kingdom. When the word tells us that at salvation old things have passed away and all things have become new, this is a hard concept to understand. It does not happen overnight; it takes time. Since your birth from your mother's womb, the human learning process begins. Let's say at the age of 27 you come to the cross and ask the Lord to be your Savior. At that point, you have experienced 27 years of life in a corrupted world. No matter what kind of person you are, when you finally see the need for redemption, you have built a lifestyle and have become who you are. I will only use two types of people as an example. One is sweet as pie, well-versed, loved by everyone, and always in good standing as a citizen. This person is patient, loving, accepting, and understands how to relate to others. The other person is not that kind of person but is ugly in all manner of behavior—the opposite of the first person.

Now we are at the point of explaining what happens after salvation. Before salvation, we learn everything in a fallen state, under worldly influences, in sin-tainted lessons. We form a worldview of life and respond to things in a worldly manner.   We learn patience under this system. The patience we learn has its limits. We learn to accept others within those limits. When those limits are met, what happens when we reach the outer limits of the patience we learned? Possibly anger steps in, and maybe we walk completely out of the situation and never revisit that relationship in bitterness. There is a limit to patience before the cross. There are many more lessons we have learned when we were in the world. Another lesson we learned in the world is honesty. Here we learned degrees of honesty. The word of God puts it this way, “There is a way that seems right to a man.” That’s right, “IT SEEMS RIGHT”; that means it is up to the individual to decide what degree he deems is right in the situation he finds himself in. That is where you find yourself in the “LITTLE WHITE LIE” territory. Just enough not to damage your reputation and yet enough to protect what you want or love. These describe the limitations that are under the fallen state of man.

But when one comes to Christ, it becomes obvious that these old limitations must be unlearned. The natural must take on the spiritual. You cannot do it on your own. You must surrender to the Teacher, the Holy Spirit; He must become the center of your growth in Christ. Unlearning old habits is difficult. It can only happen under a strong commitment in search of the Truth. Jesus said, “I am the Truth, the Way, and the Life. Seeking the Truth brings about the change required to be a usable vessel of Christ.

Ephesians 4:28

“Let him that stole, steal no more; but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needed.”

Ephesians 4:25 Stop lying.

Ephesians 4:31 Stop bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, speaking evil.

Ephesians 4:32 Put on kindness, forgiveness, Christlike compassion.

1 Peter 2: 1 Stop malice, deceit, hypocrisy, slander.

Romans 13:13 Stop immorality and strife.

Each of these scriptures is a commandment. The question is, what replaces that?

Colossians 3:10 PUT ON THE NEW MAN

READ THE ENTIRE SCRIPTURE TO UNDERSTAND THE COMMANDMENT GOD HAS GIVEN US IN OUR NEW LIFE IN HIM.

In this next portion, I will address why it feels at times like God is so silent that you feel like He is not interested. We understand that God never changes; He is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. There is no shadow of change in Him. He is our constant in an always-changing world that we are no longer a part of. We have been taken out from under evil influence and have entered His Kingdom of light and righteousness that is Him.

As we build this new relationship by learning who He is, with the help of the Holy Spirit, and by surrendering to the love that draws us closer to Him, old things become less influential in us, and we take on the image of Christ. In this transformation, we become more like Him and less like the world around us. So here is where I want you to listen with an open heart. The world still influences us, and temptation is presented to us so that we would sin. Sometimes it is overwhelming, and we succumb to it and fall back into our old ways. Once we recognize our faltering, we cry out to the Lord for forgiveness, and He is always ready to forgive. However, we must understand that we do not get off scot-free. There are consequences for rebellion against God, but His mercy endures forever. But when we sin, we move out from under His loving influence, and that is when we feel that God is silent. He did not move; you did when you entertained temptations and let them mature into sin. Understand that you can recognize what has happened, come to repentance, and ask for forgiveness. Pick yourself up, take the consequences head-on, learn, and move on in Christ.

Finally, I would like you to understand that you are not alone in this process. We are all in the learning process. Drawing closer to him, allowing the Holy Spirit to reveal Christ to you; all this revelation will strengthen your foundation in Him. Yes, there will be times that you may feel distant from the Father; examine yourself, search your heart, and repent if sin is the problem. If nothing is there, then be patient, be still, and know he is God, and His greatest desire for you is to be assured that he has your best interest in mind. He already has a plan for you both on this earth and your special position in His Kingdom. All is secure in Him, and one day, when we leave this earth to meet Him in the sky, we will understand that we are like Him and will be with him for eternity.

You were never alone in this learning process:

Psalm 13:1-2    David expressed the feeling that God hid His face from David

REASONS:

Isaiah 59:2 Sin can create a sense of separation from God

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