Jesus came back, "God bless you, Simon, son of Jonah! You didn't get that answer out of books or from teachers. My Father in heaven, God himself, let you in on this secret of who I really am. And now I'm going to tell you who you are, really are. You are Peter, a rock. This is the rock on which I will put together my church, a church so expansive with energy that not even the gates of hell will be able to keep it out." (Matthew 16:18 MSG)
We live in an age in which human beings are so confused about their identity – "Who am I?" – that they walk around wearing T-shirts identifying with athletic shoes and other manufactured products that speak their identity. "Whew! There! I'm not me. I'm really somebody! I'm wrapped inside a smelly sock surrounded by canvas and synthetic shoe rubber, running down the athletic court! Thank God! I finally know who I am!"
Yes, Your Stinkiness! You are no longer a child of God; you are free advertising space for an athletic shoe brand. Congratulations on your new identity!
If you think that you are confused about your identity, just imagine what God goes through! Hmm … let's see, I wonder where Miranda is today? What is she up to? An operation? Why didn't she tell me she was sick? A sex-change operation? No! I made you a girl, Miranda! There's a child you have to have when you grow up and get married! Boys can't give birth! Why didn't you ask Me, first?
That's an excellent question. Of course, we should expect no less from God. It's not that He is too busy or difficult to find, for His Word tells us that God is everywhere present – including inside of us. For that reason He is not difficult to find. Most of us have no problem asking our friends what we should do about a certain situation, or posting our dilemma on social media and seeking the collective wisdom of the aborted Star Trek Borg, perhaps better known today as the collective consciousness. Yes, that's the ticket! Ignore God and just ask everyone else! What could possibly go wrong?
Even churches seem to be confused about the "asking God" part. Most churches have at least some members who still believe that God listens to prayers and acts upon them. But these same members may have a harder time acknowledging that God speaks to them.
The world outside the church imagines that anyone who hears from God must have fallen out of the looney bin! Yet if what the Bible says is true, it means that God takes up residence inside of us once we come to Jesus as our Lord and Savior. That being the case, why wouldn't He speak to us? What's the point of His moving in, if we never talk to each other? (Hint: Do not ask for an audible voice! Learn to listen for the still small voice.) If you engage in conversation, you will eventually learn to recognize His voice. And yes, it will be worth the trouble to learn. There is no better source than God. There is no one who knows us as well as He does, and there is no one who cares for us more then He does. All He asks in return is that you spend quality time with Him. If you have been experiencing trouble knowing who you are, God will get you straightened out quickly.
If we are honest about it, many of us are afraid of talking with God, because we are afraid that He might ask us to do something we don't want to do. Many of the churches that I attended during my lifetime had Missionary Sunday once or a few times a year. These included evangelist-minded people who went to live in another country, to tell the people living there about God. I think I was always afraid that God would ask me to go to another country and be a missionary. He didn't ask me that. Instead, He knew that I always wanted to write books. He focused on what I liked doing, and asked me to write my end-times novel series. Little did I know that it would teach me dependence on God for the characters and the story.
He might like you to be in a particular kind of business, be a godly political leader, or an inspiring musician or songwriter. Talk to Him about it. Just remember to test what you hear against God's written word in the Bible. There are counterfeit voices out there, and knowing what God has done for others in the past can keep us on the straight and narrow path as we go through life.
By developing this relationship with God, which requires the atoning work of Jesus on the Cross, we honor God by restoring the relationship He had with Adam before the fall of humanity in the Garden. Jesus' death and resurrection restored to us what God had created Adam to be.
Churches like everything to be predictable and on time. They don't like people talking to God beyond a collective prayer. Their sermon and timing are so important (mostly to them), and I wonder if many of them actually believe that only the pastor should talk to or hear from God. Or maybe it is only the pastor who believes that?
We are living in a pivotal point in human history. God's timetable is for the Sons and Daughters of God to realize who they are and the power they have in Jesus. Satan has been trying to advance his timetable for the tribulation, because he does not want the world to see what heaven on earth looks like.
God, however, does not alter His timetables. Rather, He has stepped back into the earth just as He did in the Old Testament with Israel and Egypt. God is clearing out the one-world order crowd, because He wants His Church to show the world what heaven on earth looks like.
Those whom God is now clearing out of the way are so arrogant and self-absorbed that they do not even realize that it is now the Creator God of the Universe that is fighting against them. Even the Pharisees in the New Testament had the presence of mind when they were fighting against Jesus' Disciples to ask, what if we find ourselves fighting against God (paraphrased). But not this crowd today.
This is perhaps the most astonishing time to be alive and see what the Church that Jesus died for can do when it runs the world. And rest assured: God, Himself, will make it so.
Check out Craige's End-Times novel series.
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