Distinguished

"Our God is the awesome God, He reigns from heaven above, with wisdom, power, and love, our God is the awesome God...", is part of one of my favorite songs. If you love the Lord Jesus you can definitely see why it would be so well liked. You see, His sovereignty, wisdom, power and love are just some of the attributes of our God that make Him different from the gods of others. Holiness, truth, and righteousness are a few more distinctive qualities that we could add to that list. These are all powerful concepts that we know are not naturally inherent in us. No, unfortunately, our claim to fame as humans in our natural state is that we are fallible, feeble, and sinful mess ups. We are born into this world as helpless, self-centered, babies with a natural bent away from God. The Bible teaches us that in order to break free from the death sentence of sin that we were born into, that we have to be born again which means we need to turn away from our sins by recognizing our need for God's mercy that is found in the cross of Christ. As we confess to God that we are sinners and need His forgiveness, He promises that He will indeed accept our plea for mercy and baptizes us into His body by the means of water in which we are pronounced clean and justified by Him. At this point we are given His Holy Spirit who takes up residence inside of us and becomes our connection spiritually to God. From this point on we have been distinguished as God's children. That word "distinguish" is defined as, "to separate or mark off by differences." Throughout the whole entire Bible we can see that there are always distinctions in the way that God deals with those who are His and those who aren't. There are many examples afforded to us in His word about God distinguishing between His people and others. One of the most well known cases is when God sent Moses and his brother Aaron to tell the most powerful man on the earth at that time, Pharaoh, King of Egypt, to let His people go. The Pharaoh, of course, was not interested in disposing of his enormous and inexpensive slave labor force. So the Lord declared all out war on this unsuspecting king. You know the story, how our God sent ten plagues against the whole land of Egypt in which he brought them to their knees with one horrific event after another, but the nearby Hebrews land and people felt none of the disastrous results of the war. Only with their eyes did they look and see the reward of the wicked. That sounds like a line out of a Psalm or something.(91) Obviously, the Lord made a distinction between the Egyptians and the Hebrews. Also, there are many times that the Lord absolutely destroyed evil nations because the cup of their sins had become full from worshiping false gods, but when Israel was found to be in the same predicament by turning from God, again they were distinguished and only disciplined for a time, not completely wiped out. One more example of being distinguished in the Bible is in Malachi 3 where the Lord says, "that those of His people who obey His command to bring all of the tithe into His storehouses will be distinguished from those who do not." They are promised protection from the "Devourer" and blessings that they will not be able to contain. Well, our God is the Almighty God and He changes not. Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever according to the Scriptures which brings us to why I am writing this blog today. These times in our nation have become very unstable compared to what we are used to. It actually seems that the whole earth is being shaken by economic turmoil right now. It appears that no one will be exempt from the tragic whirlwind of financial losses blowing across the scene, but I would like to point out just one passage in the Bible that continues to bring us hope. Proverbs 3:5,6 states,"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths." I hope you noticed that I said it only "appears" that no one shall be exempt from the uncertain times that we find ourselves in right now. At this point, I see where our God and Father needs to be distinguished from our job, bank accounts, education, and worldly wisdom. We need to know that there is a difference between what God can do and what the Government can maybe, hopefully, possibly do if everything was to go just how they guess it will. We need a promise from Someone who is sovereign, wise, powerful, and loving just like the one in Proverbs 3 to carry us through these trying times. You see, God is faithful, God is true, and God is the "Awesome God" that we can sing about and trust in completely. So, do as the Proverb says and be distinguished from the rest of the world in His sight by trusting in Him with all your heart and by not leaning on your own understanding of things as you see them. I pray this week that you have been encouraged and will acknowledge Him in all your ways so that He can direct your paths. Faithfully, your brotherdevon.