Everything's great....

Everything's great...

As do most people, I want each day without pain or problems ....oh foolish thought...that just doesn't happen...there is pain from birth to death...

I want total security from our government as do many people...it is our right, isn't it, to be totally without fear of anything happening...I want them to do what is always right for all of the citizens...except they are just as normal as everyone else....not without a sin nature...

I heard this week that at least 40% of the millennial generation felt that our nation should switch to a socialist form or government, to be taken care of...less work...more pleasure ...less commitment...less pain...

These all sound great, but in reality that just doesn't happen..there is pain, there is evil, there is sin...as well as there is good...and it is our lot to accept...

I was thinking about this earlier and then the following devotional was in my inbox this am...God speaking yet again into my life...He is there...with his Word , with himself...he knows my thoughts...thank YOU....

“Now then, listen, you lover of pleasure, lounging in your security and saying to yourself, ‘I am, and there is none besides me. I will never be a widow or suffer the loss of children.’
Isaiah 47:8

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.
2 Timothy 3:1-5


"The Power of His Presence

Accepting What God Gives

A daily devotion for December 3rd

From your friends at RayStedman.org
 
Read: Job 2:9-13

He replied, You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble? In all this, Job did not sin in what he said (Job 2:10).
Job's rebuke is a very gentle one. He did not say, You foolish woman! He said, You are talking like a foolish woman. He is not attacking her; rather, he is suggesting that this is a temporary lapse of faith on her part and that, for the moment, she has begun to repeat the words of stupid, foolish women who have no knowledge of the grace and glory of God. In that gentle rebuke you can see something of the sturdiness and tenderness of Job's faith. In this great sentence, he again reasserts the sovereignty of God: Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble? Job's wife had the philosophy that life ought to be pleasant, and if it were not, there was no use living it.

That philosophy is widespread in our own day, and a mounting suicide rate testifies to the universal acceptance of it. But this book is given to show us that life is not to be lived on those terms. The reason we are here is not necessarily to have a good time. There are meaningful objectives to be attained in life, even when it all turns sour. When the pressure comes, when living is no longer fun, life is still worth living. A philosophy that wants to abandon everything as soon as things become unpleasant is a shallow, mistaken, distorted view of life. Job reaffirms that. Shall we not take both good and evil from the hand of God? We take His joy and His pleasure, the pleasant things of life, with gladness and gratitude. If God chooses to send something that is difficult, shall we then abandon that gratitude and begin to curse Him in protest because life is suddenly different than we thought it would be? The reason we are here is not merely that we might have a good time, and this is taught everywhere in the Scriptures. God, in His grace and glory, does give us many hours of joy and gladness and pleasure and delight, and it is right for us to give thanks. But do not abandon that when the time of pressure comes, because that is what Satan wants us to do. He wants us to begin to complain and protest to God; to get upset and angry and resentful; to stop going to church or to reading the Bible. That is what Satan's whole attack on our lives is aimed at doing.

Father, strengthen my faith in You, that I can accept from Your hand both good and evil. Thank You that Your purposes for me, though sometimes painful, are always good.


Life Application

Sometimes meaning and purpose for our lives gets out of focus. Do we then give in to despair? When we choose to trust God, then we can offer His comfort to others.


Daily Devotion © 2006 by Ray Stedman Ministries. For permission to use this content, please review RayStedman.org/permissions. Subject to permission policy, all rights reserved."