PCM 10-16-2011 ...compassionate, caring God who changes not
From Steve of Tazmania.
The short version:
Because their faith was not some etherial, vapourous, intangeable dis-embodied substance focussed on the environment about them but in the personality, performance, power, purpose and providence of their compassionate, caring God who changes not.
The more detailed version:
Being raised within a Pentecostal environment, I'd regularly seen answered prayer and believed in an omnipotent God. Yet 16 years of suffering under a degenerative, in-cureable disease takes it's toll on one's battered, hemorrhaging faith. That is; until I discovered that my faith was focussed upon my deliverance rather than on my Deliverer.
God's promise to the exiled Israelites is applicable to us today (ingrafted, spiritual Israel); "for I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future (Jer 29:11)" However, when the dark veil is drawn across our view of the future when the heavens are as brass, when what appeared to be our faith lies in shards at our feet...where's the promise, where's our faith, where are God's mighty deeds of old?
History reveals that God delivered Israel and reinstated her. God dwells in the eternal continium, Israel in the finite. God's purposes were fulfilled, but in time (seventy years), they were not thwarted neither was God deemed unreliable, unjust or a liar.
Israel's hope did not necessarily rest on their emancipation but rather was embodied in the One who could release them, God.
We read in Hebrews 11 of the great gallery of the faithful proudly offered for all to see on the walls of time. Wonderous deeds, exploits and daring adorn this display but so also is disaster, seeming defeat (sawn in two, imprisoned, chained, stoned) and privation (wandered in deserts lived in holes in the ground). Yet all were commended for their faith though none recieved what was promised (their heavenly promise)(Hebrews 11:39).
How can this be? Because their faith was not some etherial, vapourous, intangeable dis-embodied substance focussed on the environment about them but in the personality, performance, power, purpose and providence of their compassionate, caring God who changes not. Blessings Steve
From Steve of Tazmania.
The short version:
Because their faith was not some etherial, vapourous, intangeable dis-embodied substance focussed on the environment about them but in the personality, performance, power, purpose and providence of their compassionate, caring God who changes not.
The more detailed version:
Being raised within a Pentecostal environment, I'd regularly seen answered prayer and believed in an omnipotent God. Yet 16 years of suffering under a degenerative, in-cureable disease takes it's toll on one's battered, hemorrhaging faith. That is; until I discovered that my faith was focussed upon my deliverance rather than on my Deliverer.
God's promise to the exiled Israelites is applicable to us today (ingrafted, spiritual Israel); "for I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future (Jer 29:11)" However, when the dark veil is drawn across our view of the future when the heavens are as brass, when what appeared to be our faith lies in shards at our feet...where's the promise, where's our faith, where are God's mighty deeds of old?
History reveals that God delivered Israel and reinstated her. God dwells in the eternal continium, Israel in the finite. God's purposes were fulfilled, but in time (seventy years), they were not thwarted neither was God deemed unreliable, unjust or a liar.
Israel's hope did not necessarily rest on their emancipation but rather was embodied in the One who could release them, God.
We read in Hebrews 11 of the great gallery of the faithful proudly offered for all to see on the walls of time. Wonderous deeds, exploits and daring adorn this display but so also is disaster, seeming defeat (sawn in two, imprisoned, chained, stoned) and privation (wandered in deserts lived in holes in the ground). Yet all were commended for their faith though none recieved what was promised (their heavenly promise)(Hebrews 11:39).
How can this be? Because their faith was not some etherial, vapourous, intangeable dis-embodied substance focussed on the environment about them but in the personality, performance, power, purpose and providence of their compassionate, caring God who changes not. Blessings Steve
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