June 30, 2018 Saturday

“1 ¶  Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever. 2  Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, Whom He has redeemed from the hand of the enemy, 3  And gathered out of the lands, From the east and from the west, From the north and from the south.” (Psalm 107:1-3 NKJV)

            In our world it is easy for us to fall into the trap of seeing the four directions as being separation but in this verse the Psalmist tells us that the various directions are the places God will draw us together in Him!

            When we are living within the power of the enemy we are divided and are more easily defeated. God through mercy redeems us from the hand of the enemy and brings us together. This is not a false unity of merely fleeing destruction but it is a unity of recognizing our need for mercy and our need for God.

            It is very important to notice God does not just redeem us from where we have been and of who we have been but to become a new person in a new place. We can no longer continue to be who we were, to think like we thought, and believe as we believed.

            God did not free us from the hand of the enemy just so we could remain the same in a different place but God set us free to become united by God and for God!

            We like those on the Exodus must leave behind the old country and its ways as God prepares us for a new country and new ways. If we are not careful we will bring the old gods and religions as well as beliefs with us into this new land of promise.

            This is easy to see when we look more like the place we were freed from then the place God has brought us to! To use a saying of Jesus we become like white washed graves full of dead men’s bones. We may look alive but our mind and heart are filled with death and destruction.

            We refuse to listen to the “inconvenient truth” of the Bible and fall prey to the easier and more popular teaching of the world. Like Pontius Pilate even before the face of Jesus we cannot see truth!

            Does your Christianity look more like the world than God? When what you believe goes against the Bible which to choose? How will your untrue teachings affect the lost who are only be saved by the truth?