What is heaven? Well, we have Biblical “snapshots” of the place itself — and it’s incredible! As spectacular and awe-inspiring as the physical beauty of heaven will be, I believe the real essence and glory of it will be full, unhindered communion with God!
We cannot really trust God if we do not believe what He promises, just as we cannot really trust other human beings if we doubt what they say. Biblical faith involves believing the specific promises of God. We must believe God, not simply believe in God. Ask the Lord this day to strengthen your faith in His promises so that you will continue to trust in Him alone.”
In fulfilling their God-ordained roles, planets and creation render “worship”; angels and men do so by choosing conformity to God’s proclaimed will. For man, that will is recorded in the Word of God.
Our conscience and the Holy Spirit of God assist in the willingness to obey our Creator.
Even the great apostle Paul had to learn about contentment (Philippians 4:10- 13). Our confidence lies in this fact: God Himself has hand-made each one of us (Psalm 119:73 )! We, therefore, have a purpose; we therefore can expect to be led by our Creator in accomplishing wonderful things with our lives!
So often God does the unexpected and creates the difficulty to help us become what He made us be: trusting and dependent worshipers. His ways of grace are beyond human capacity to fathom, yet the patient and obedient child of God is eventually able to look in the rearview mirror and see divine orchestration of his or her life.
“Sola fide” is therefore the best news man could ever hear. JESUS DID THE WORK FOR US! His righteousness is permanently imputed to us the moment we receive Him as Lord and Savior (see II Corinthians 5:21)! When God the Father looks at a believer, that’s what He sees: CHRIST’S righteousness, not our wretched sinfulness! No wonder Satan has opposed and perverted this fantastic truth so vigorously all these millennia!
Even though Satan’s carte blanche rule over man was broken at Calvary (Colossians 2:15), it’s obvious from what Paul has written that God nevertheless grants Satan and his subordinates a measure of freedom to tempt, stress, press, even afflict believers at times. God’s intention of course is that we learn to depend on Jesus, donning the full armor of God so we can recognize and resist every scheme, every attack, every temptation of the evil one, coming to maturity in Christ.
Concerning the mind and God’s Word, we’re told that Satan can effectively attack and seize the minds of non-believers (II Corinthians 4:3-4) as well as believers (II Corinthians 11:3-4)! It’s clear then that Satan’s modus operandi is mind control! Think about this: If the devil can chart the entire course of human history through mind control, he can certainly manipulate an individual like a feather in the wind!
Our focus, our preoccupation, must be the greatness of Christ and the joy of serving Him. Before James ever says “Resist the devil” he says “Submit to God!” (James 4:7) When we are challenged or opposed by the evil one, we need to respond and not retreat. We’re learning how to do this from Paul’s instructions in Ephesians 6.
If there’s one thing virtually every human being is good at, it’s worry! Do you think the devil is aware of this? Worry is one of his most clever temptations! Being anxious is just what he wants us to do because worry is a form of idolatry! In the final analysis, worry is nothing more than taking an object, person, circumstance, etc. and making it bigger than God! Folks, that’s idolatry!