An accounting....

An accounting..... It seems this last year there has been an inordinate number of violent outbreaks for a variety of reasons...hopelessness, godlessness, plane wrecks,  just plain evil...whatever the reason...it is a sorry way to live...then you add the tragedies of nature with hurricanes, tomatoes,  earthquakes, where people are helpless in the face of danger, but are desperately trying to put their lives back together... Wars and rumors of wars, .....are we just more aware of the bad things happening or are we coming into the end times?..we don't know, Only God knows that...there will be and accounting, though...how will we answer for so much?? Matthew 24:3-14 As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains. “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me.  At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. Thank YOU for all things...I admit, I am not ready for the evil that comes on a daily basis ....I like everything in G rating, without the bad stuff. My head is In the sand, not wanting to see the tragedies that come fast and furious to overcome so many...my heart is broken over those in pain, those whose lives are in an uproar...the hopelessness of so many...Bring about your glory, your Goodness in these trying times .....   Unsubscribe? Click Here Having trouble viewing this email? Click Here     The Price We Pay   A daily devotion for April 28th   From your friends at RayStedman.org     Read: Genesis 9:1-29       And from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man (Genesis 9:5b-6).       After the flood, God is reinstating this prohibition against taking human life, but He controls it by another tactic. He says He will extract a price for any blood that is shed. That is more than the process of justice. Human justice does not always do the job; it sometimes fails. But notice what God says: And from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man.God does not look at humanity as we do. We look around and see so many isolated individuals. We think of ourselves as separate from one another. But God never does. He looks at us and sees the ties that bind us together, the ties that unite us to the past and to the past beyond that. In God's sight, the human race is one vast body of humanity, a brotherhood of one flesh in Adam. God says that He will require of this entire race a price for the shed blood of a single individual. Murder will be avenged against the race, not merely against the guilty individual. We are touching now upon a principle that has been active in history and that is extremely important to understand. It is that violence begets violence. God has ordained it so. The price of bloodshed is more bloodshed—and still more—until the fact of humanity's evil looms so large that people cease their delusive, naive ideas and recognize the stark, naked fact of human evil and turn to the God who alone can deal with the problem. Since the human race is a brotherhood, it means that the innocent can suffer as well as the guilty. The innocent individual will be struck down as well as the guilty, because we are all tied together. When people resort to violence to gain their ends in one area, they may justify it as being peculiarly needed to accomplish their specific goal, but what they don't see is that, though God apparently does nothing to correct it in that one area, soon a war breaks out or the accident rate increases or a senseless murder occurs or violence sweeps a city or a public figure is assassinated. People are then forced to learn that God does not take lightly the distorting and despoiling of His image in them. That is why violence inevitably breeds more violence, until people, at last, in horror at what they have loosed in society, face up to the fundamental act that they are infiltrated with evil. Only God can cure it. Only the cross of Jesus Christ can smash this evil in any one of us. That is what God wants us to learn. Lord, I pray for peace in a world filled with violence and bloodshed. Let that peace be in my own heart as I seek to honor Your image in each person.       Life Application   In God's collective created humanity, we soon learn that violence by individuals begets more violence in society. What do all need to recognize & learn from this?   Related Message   For more on this portion of Scripture read the message: Who Needs Government? or listen to the audio by clicking:   Listen to Ray     Previous Devotions for April Next       Want to Subscribe?   Subscribe / Unsubscribe to this Daily Devotion by Email   Copyright © 2014 Ray Stedman Ministries — This daily devotion is from the book The Power of His Presence: a year of devotions from the writings of Ray Stedman, compiled by Mark Mitchell. It may be copied for personal non-commercial use only in its entirety free of charge. All copies must contain this copyright notice and a hyperlink to RayStedman.org if the copy is posted on the Internet.