Knowing God

I had only heard about you before, but now I have seen you with my own eyes.
I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance.” 

(Job 42:5-6 NLT)

Knowing about God is not the same thing as knowing God.  It was not until Job had experienced the painful circumstances that he saw God through his own eyes. Will it be any different for us?

For some strange reason, it appears that you can only fully understand God's character by some form of pain.  Yes, you can know God intellectually without God's dealings in your life, but if you want to know him; personally, it always comes with a cross you must bear.  Even the son of God, Jesus, learned obedience by the things he suffered (Hebrews 5:8). 

Down through Christian history, people have embraced a suffering theology and tried to inflict it on themselves.  It never works this way.  Wanting to suffer is a bit sick.  Humility is never accomplished in our lives by what we do but by what God does.  If we try to bring it about by our human effort, we will eventually become proud of our humility.

 

So, what part do we play?  It's called obedience, which keeps us in the place that God can work in our lives. Human nature causes us to run from adversity, but also will bring about our fleeing from God.  You can't know God by running in the opposite direction. Jonah learned this the hard way.

 

When we see God for who he is and see ourselves for who we are, the natural response is humility, which is always demonstrated by repentance. Suffering enabled Job to know God in his heart and not just his mind.

 

The image us use with permission by Microsoft. 

 

Ken Barnes, the author of  “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places”  YWAM Publishing
Email:  kenbarnes737@gmail.com
website: Ken Barnes' Book Site
Blogs: http://kensblog757.blogspot.com
            http://gleanings757.blogspot.com

God is Good All the Time

But Job replied, “You talk like a foolish woman. Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?” So in all this, Job said nothing wrong.

(Job 2:10 NLT)

 

Believe God's Word

Amid Job’s trials, his wife asked him if he was still trying to maintain his integrity.  She said to him, Curse God and die (v, 9). In the midst of the worst possible circumstances, Job knew that God was good all the time.

 

The strategy of the enemy of our souls has always been the same.  It has been to distort the character of God.  From the Garden of Eden to Job and our trials today, the satanic plan has always been the same.  It has been to lead us to believe that God is not who he says he is in his Word.  In the Garden, the Serpent led Adam and Eve to believe that God was deceitful.  Job’s wife’s words tempted him to think that God did not care about his circumstances.  In your situation today, the voices in your head scream at you that God has abandoned you.  The endpoint is that you believe a lie.  The antidote is always to believe the truth.   “And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 20:28b).

 

Never judge God by your circumstances but judge your circumstances by the character of God.  The Lord is just in all his ways, and kind in all his doings (Psalms 145:17 NRSV).  If God is not good all the time, he is not good at all.  Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8).

 

The image is used with permission by Microsoft.

 

Ken Barnes, the author of  “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places”  YWAM Publishing
Email:  kenbarnes737@gmail.com
website: Ken Barnes' Book Site
Blogs: http://kensblog757.blogspot.com
            http://gleanings757.blogspot.com

 

Come Lord Jesus

If anyone does not love the Lord, he is to be accursed. Maranatha!

 (1 Corinthians 16:22 NASB)

 

2020 has been a perilous year.  The world has been devastated by an unseen virus.  Our country seems to be divided more than ever along racial, political, and cultural lines.  We have just finished an election cycle where many are questioning its validity.

A President appears to have been elected that does not champion the value of human life in the womb. Despite all of this, Jesus will return and will make all things right.

 

Life is a battle.  That is why we are told to use every piece of God’s armor to fight the battle (Ephesians 6:13).  We lose a few of the encounters, but we continue to engage. We stay in the fight because we know we win the war.  Read the end of the book.  The offensive weapon we have is prayer.  We are told to pray at all times (Ephesians 6:18), in good times and in bad.  When we see the answers to our prayers and when we don’t.  Our heroes of faith of old saw things as done before they were done.

 

It is never over until it is over.  In Psalms 98:9, we are told that Jesus is coming to judge the earth with justice and fairness.  We will never have peace on earth fully until the Prince of Peace returns. Until that time, we must not shrink back but must maintain.  Only prayer, spiritual warfare, and the preaching of the Gospel to all nations will hasten the return of the King.

 

We must storm the very gates of hell with the mantra on our lips like the first century Church, Maranatha, come Lord Jesus.

 

The image used with permission by Microsoft.

 

Ken Barnes, the author of  “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places”  YWAM Publishing
Email:  kenbarnes737@gmail.com
website: Ken Barnes' Book Site
Blogs: http://kensblog757.blogspot.com
            http://gleanings757.blogspot.com

 

We All Have a Story

One generation will praise Your works to another,
And will declare Your mighty acts. (Psalms 145:4 NASB)

 

We are all in debt to Christ for his marvelous grace and the previous generation who told us about that grace.  We, in turn, pay our indebtedness by telling the next generation about God’s unmerited favor.  We all have a story to tell.

 

As I wrote my first manuscript, I was plagued by recurring thoughts.  Reflections would linger in my mind; Who are you to write a book?  What do you have to say?  Nobody is going to want to read your book.  As I dwelt on these notions, I didn’t feel like I could write a sentence, much less a book.  Despite these mental images, I still had a desire in my heart to tell of God’s faithfulness in my life.  I decided to write it as a love letter to God.  If no one read it, yet, if I wrote it with love in my heart for him, I was pretty sure God would read it.  Also, I wrote it for my grandchildren and those who would follow, as a remembrance of life, but more importantly, about the God that I served.

 

The main problem we have is that we think we have no story to tell.  C.S. Lewis once said that “there are no ordinary people.”  We think that we have nothing to say because we have never been a pastor or a missionary.  We conclude that because we have never been delivered from a great sin—just a bunch of little ones, that we have nothing interesting enough to share. Wrong.  God most often shows up in the small details of our lives.  It is in the fine print of our lives that God proves his faithfulness.  If God is not real in our everyday lives, then he is not real at all,

 

If God has redeemed your life and given you beauty for ashes, you have a story to tell.  An experience is never really fully enjoyed until it is shared with someone.  Some may communicate it verbally, others through written language, but we all must praise God's works from one generation to another.

 

The image is used with permission by Microsoft.

 

Ken Barnes, the author of  “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places”  YWAM Publishing
Email:  kenbarnes737@gmail.com
website: Ken Barnes' Book Site
Blogs: http://kensblog757.blogspot.com
            http://gleanings757.blogspot.com

 

No Reserves, No Retreats, No Regrets

Don’t put out the Spirit’s fire. (1 Thessalonians 5:19 GW) 

William Bordon, after he graduated from high school in 1904, was called to be a missionary. At different points in Bordon's short life, he wrote in the back of his Bible, no reserves, no retreats, no regrets. 

Though he came from a very wealthy family, wealth did not possess him. Early on in his life, a friend expressed that he was throwing his life away by becoming a missionary—he wrote in his Bible, no reserves. After he graduated from Yale, he was offered very lucrative positions—he penned, no retreats. His missionary call narrowed to a Muslim group in China. After doing graduate work at Princeton Seminary, he left for Egypt to study Arabic before arriving in China. In Egypt, he contracted spinal meningitis and within a month was dead at age twenty-five. Before his death, under the other two notations he had made in his Bible, he wrote—no regrets. 

 William Borden's seemingly untimely death a waste of human life? Absolutely not. Thousands of people have read his story and have been encouraged in their missionary call. God never wastes any of our sorrows. 

Things happen to Christians. We experience what we don't expect, and some expectations don't come to fruition. The Christian life often entails disappointments that we can't understand, but God uses them for his ultimate good. God lives in the eternal now. God makes decisions based on past, present, and future considerations. Humans remember the past imperfectly, know what is happening now, and nothing about the future. God dwells on eternal priorities, man on temporal ones. Our heavenly Father always knows best.

Church history is littered with people who have done great things for God yet had become sullen and cynical at the end of their lives. Things happened to them that may have seemed unfair or unjust. Some ended their lives in unbelief rather than faith in God. We, like William Borden, at the end of our journey, need to be able to say, no reserves, no retreats, no regrets. 

The image is used with permission by Microsoft. 

Ken Barnes, the author of  “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places”  YWAM Publishing
Email:  kenbarnes737@gmail.com
website: Ken Barnes' Book Site
Blogs: http://kensblog757.blogspot.com
            http://gleanings757.blogspot.com

A Call to Fasting, Repentance, and Prayer. 

This election is a fork in the road. If the Democrats are elected, this country will become a nation with only a secular mindset. From its founding, this country has been an experiment in what can happen if people put their trust in God and follow His commands. The Democrat Party has blatantly ignored God’s command, “Thou shall not commit murder”, in their platform supporting abortion rights. 

If the Democrats take the Presidency, The House of Representatives, and the Senate, secularism will become the state religion. The result of this election will bring about persecution of the Church. Light does not co-exist with darkness. Darkness hates the light, and by nature tries to snuff out the light. If sin persists, and we continue to call good, bad, and bad, good, God will have to bring judgment on this nation. When judgment comes, it rains upon the just and the unjust. 

Some of us in my Facebook Group, “Pray for POTUS”, have been fasting every Tuesday. I invite anyone to fast tomorrow (Sunday) through Tuesday (election day at 3 PM). There are many different ways to fast. I ask you to repent for the sin of abortion in this nation—the taking of 62,0000 lives that God created. I also ask you to pray for Christians in this nation. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has said that if all Christians would just vote it would determine the outcome of the election. Pray that Christians will see the ramifications of Biden and Trump’s policies and not just their personalities.  

Lord, I pray in the last days before this election, you would find a reason to be merciful. I pray that you raise up your people to pray and fast and turn from our wicked ways. Lord, you said that if you found ten righteous people that you would not have destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Lord, have mercy on the United States of America.

Never Look Back

No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead,

(Philippians 3:13 NLT)  

 

The Miracle Mile

In 1954 Englishman Roger Bannister and Australian John Landy, who were the first two men to break the four-minute mile, met in a race in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, called the "Miracle Mile." With ninety-seconds remaining in the race and Landy ahead, he glanced back over his left shoulder to see his opponent's location.  At that moment, Bannister surged past Landy on his right side and won the race by eight-tens of a second.  Many observed that if Landy had not looked back, he would have won the race.

 

The Apostle Paul had learned what John Landy had not, that taking our eyes off the prize is never good.  There is a principal in life that what you focus on, you tend to achieve. Paul knew that the key to success was to forget the past, both good and bad. 

 

Many have noted that rarely are people defeated in their faith by today's problems alone, but by also dwelling at the same time on yesterday's failures.  We are not designed to multi-task present and past struggles.  Looking back on past failures, other than for redemptive purposes, is always counterproductive.  Paul knew that he had "not achieved" or become perfect, but he must press on, looking forward, to become more like Christ.

 

Conversely, considering past successes can limit our future vision.  Every new movement of God has been resisted by the previous one.  Good can become the worse enemy of best.  Certainly, if anybody could have rested on his past achievements, it was the Apostle Paul.  He had suffered and achieved more than any man alive, yet he knew that he had to continue to strive until he arrived in the presence of Christ in Heaven. John Landy dominated the race until the very end when he took his eyes off the prize.

 

Are you, like Landy, going to lose the race because you are looking back? Keep your eyes on the prize, heavenward.

  

The image is used with permission by Microsoft.

 

Ken Barnes, the author of  “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places”  YWAM Publishing
Email:  kenbarnes737@gmail.com
website: Ken Barnes' Book Site
Blogs: http://kensblog757.blogspot.com