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WHY DO THE GREAT THINGS THAT GOD WAS DOING
YESTERDAY THROUGH MEN AND THAT ARE OUTLINED
IN THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT ARE MORE DIFFICULT
TO REALISE THROUGH MEN TODAY?
It is the 290th message
In truth, God in his word does not change his manner of acting, but he operates with people who carry the assurance, the value and the obedience in them. God was operating great things yesterday because the people through whom he operated were not having a corrupted believe as it is the case today.
We start firstly with the patriarch Abraham to whom the Almighty asked to sacrifice his only Son. Abraham had found the value and the richness in the obedience to this will and nothing else could divert him. With this believe, assurance and obedience, how the Almighty God was not to operate great things with Abraham? It is difficult with us today meanwhile all what is good and agreeable to God in this world is to see everyone know the truth and be saved. That is why he asks us with hurriedness to announce his richness to the poor so that they should also become rich of him. Therefore, while the Lord waits his good news to be spread, we instead talk to him of our time, our stomach, our children and our families. Meanwhile when the Almighty God asked for the only son of Abraham, he brought him in front of him but to us, while God waits his richness in front the poor, that is where we find the value in the material up to the point where to sacrifice this dust becomes difficult for us. If leaving the children and the family for a little time or to sacrifice the material for the contribution to the sharing of the richness of God to the poor is very difficult for us, therefore will the sacrifice of his only son like Abraham be possible for us? That is thus how the believe, the assurance and the will that great men like Abraham had, were bringing the Almighty to do great things with them.
We have to know that this century is the poorest no matter the inventions and advanced technology, and this poverty is the evil. The Lord Jesus want that his richness should be given up to the head of states and kings of nations, because money and the people are not richness, but rather life and the divulgation of the good news of God are. That is even why the Lord Jesus talks of saving his soul by losing his life in the physic for his good news when he says: “...but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it” (Mark 8/35). And the Lord continues saying: “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfoldand will inherit eternal life” (Matthew 19/29), and more: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14/26).
Because we have to know that Joseph in Egypt knew that the wife of Potiphar was poor and because of that, she had nothing to give him in the case he was to satisfy her request, but she would have instead steal what he possessed and which had no price. If it was us today, we would not see that the word that we carry or the God who accompanies us is the one who has everything. Seeing the material that this woman had in possession, we would rapidly fall under her request or proposal saying that she can change our life. But Joseph, having known a double sale, firstly of his brothers to the Ishmaelites, and secondly from the Ishmaelites to Potiphar, officer of Pharaoh and head of the guards in Egypt, was always keeping the assurance and hope in the fidelity of his God despite the pain and suffering. How then the Almighty was not to accomplish great things with the believe and the assurance that he had for him?
We also have the case of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego who found themselves in Babylon under the domination of King Nebucadnedsar where the King placed them as intendants of the province of Babylon. They had refused to prostrate in front of the statuette of the king which he had elevated for his God,finding that the King and the entire nation were poor and slaves because they were not living or serving the living God. This act considered like an affront or insult, contempt with regard to the king, has pushed this last to question himself on their believe and assurance. The king, after questioning them on their act, these ones told him that they had no need in answering him in that matter. Meanwhile if it was us today, we would tremble in front of the job, money and all what the king had and we would find him bigger and richer than us. But the believe and the assurance in the richness that the three mates had up to the domination of the fire of the king had brought this last and his nation, poor and small of their state face to the three mates and their God, to consider these three mates as untouchable up to the point where the king had given the order that no person of his nation should speak evil to them, but instead to fear their God because there is no other God who can vivify, save and deliver like him.
But us today, face to the people who despise God in all because of their money, we tremble in front of them and we see ourselves small and poor, while in reality, we are rich and great through he who is in us and whom we have to bear witness so that the people who live a life which is not of God, but thinking that they are rich and great because they have material, should know through our richness (believe and assurance) that they are poor and small because it is by the believe and the assurance that the three mates had that the king and his nation knew that they were poor. How God was not to do great things with their believe and assurance?
Us today, we tremble in front the people of money and of bad life with majority of them having sold their souls as if what we carry have less value than the dust that these people possess, or again as if the creative word which is in us has not created all the things that strike our eyes and that render us corrupted. With this believe and assurance today, how will the Lord operate great things through us so that evil people should change? Apostle Paul to whom the prophecy had revealed that he will be tied in Jerusalem in the case he went up, asked those who were crying in his place: “what do you do crying?”, in other words why are you crying?, because for him he was ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem to announce the good news. If it was us today, we would be afraid to be tied or imprisoned, we would find to know who will feed our children, our small family? While, how with this believe and assurance of Paul was God not to do great things through him? All the time, Paul was imprisoned, enchained because of the good news, people were sometimes following those who were arresting him and exhorting them to kill Paul and sometimes signified him proclaiming that they will abstain from food and drinks until he was killed, but all that was not affecting Paul, that is why he was saying: “But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20/24).
There are many examples, but I cited few. The Almighty God made us grace by Christ, not only to believe in him, but to suffer for him. But us today, we want God to operate great things through us as he operated yesterday through others. Why will he do it? What love do we have, what will, what attachment, what sacrifice, what believe and what assurance for him? But as we are still ignorant, that is why we think that we are making a favour to God in giving the material or in doing something, without understanding or without seeing that God is the creator of everything, and the life giver of all death beings, therefore he needs nothing and we are the ones, who are poor and death, who want his richness and his life.
In truth, people today are proud because they think that God is man like them. They should know that even if we give the whole world to God as offering, we should not think that we have given a lot to him because he is not a man. We think that he is in need of what? It is said: “nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything” (Acts 17/25). Even Abraham, when he was opening his mouth to talk to God knew what he is, a less than nothing when he was saying: “…I have undertaken to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes” (Genesis 18/27). When I see how men want to serve God today in these difficult times taking him like a man, it makes me to have great pity. It is a question to understand that if we have eaten the body of Christ, we have thus become this body. Therefore, being assembled in all places, it is this body which is assembled, and the head of this body is invisible in the eyes of men. He himself is in the middle of those who have become his body and who are assembled being his brothers, his sisters and his friends, fear and respect being felt by all. I ask myself with what believe, what assurance and what respect will God operate miracles through us so that this century more corrupted and wicked than ever should tremble?
CHAMPI Apostle not behalf of man, nor by a man but by Jesus Christ and God the Father. God’s power is the knowledge. To know, avoid sin and to be free from the eternal death.(John 8/32)