Thoughts On Rain

by Julie Ackerman

Our Daily Bread is hosted by Les Lamborn

READ: Matthew 5:38-48

He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. —Matthew 5:45

When torrential downpours beat on the heads of my newly planted petunias, I felt bad for them. I wanted to bring them inside to shelter them from the storm. By the time the rain stopped, their little faces were bowed to the ground from the weight of the water. They looked sad and weak. Within a few hours, however, they perked up and turned their heads skyward. By the next day, they were standing straight and strong.

Which one are you feeding?

TWO WOLVES


One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. 

He said, "My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all.

"One is Evil - It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

L i f e

Rick Joyner

Then God said, "Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures,

and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens."

And God created the great sea monsters, and every living creature that moves,

with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind;

and God saw that it was good (Genesis 1:20-21).

The Lord said that His people were worth "more than many sparrows" (see Matthew 10:31), so sparrows are obviously worth something to Him. When He created the beasts He "saw that it was good" (Genesis 1:25). The creation is precious to the Lord, which is why we see in Revelation 11:18 that when the Lord's great wrath comes at the end, one reason is "to destroy those who destroy the earth." Christians should be the most devoted conservationists of all, counting precious what our wonderful Creator has given us to enjoy on the earth. Life, in all of its forms, must be esteemed and protected. However, this must not be confused with the idolatrous worship of the creation in place of the Creator.

2 + 1 = 2 Truth ? Lies ?

The God of Truth

The Creator of the universe is the “God of truth” (Deuteronomy 32:4), and He is “not a man, that He should lie” (Numbers 23:19). The author of Hebrews said that it is “impossible for God to lie” (Hebrews 6:18), and Paul taught the same in Titus 1:2. Because God cannot lie, God’s Word—the Bible—is true (2 Timothy 3:16–17).

Jesus is God, and He declared, “I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), and John stated that Jesus is “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Jesus told Pilate that He came to “bear witness to the truth” and that everyone “who is of the truth hears My voice” (John 18:37).

The Deniers of Truth

We live in a world where even the concept of truth is mocked in favor of self-contradicting truth claims, such as, “There are no absolutes!” and “All truth is relative!” Man prides himself on his supposed wisdom to the point of convincing himself that intelligence came from non-intelligence, information from non-information, and life from non-life.

This vain thinking arises whenever men suppress the truth of God. Although “they knew God,” they do not glorify Him as God, and they become fools (Romans 1:21–22). Because men exchange “the truth of God for the lie” (Romans 1:25) and do not like to retain God in their thinking, good is viewed as evil, and evil is praised as good (Romans 1:28–32; Isaiah 5:20). Yet the Lord catches the wise in their own craftiness and knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile (1 Corinthians 3:19–20).

The Proclaimers of Truth

Followers of Christ have been called out of this world and its fruitless thinking. Instead of conforming to this world and its wicked ways, we are to be transformed into imitators of Christ (Romans 12:2; 1 Corinthians 11:1). We must be people who speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15). And since God’s Word is truth (John 17:17), we must proclaim His Word before an unbelieving world of scoffers. Paul told Timothy to preach the Word both “in season and out of season” (2 Timothy 4:2).

God’s Word is certainly “out of season” today. Speaking the truth in love requires us to say offensive things that will often anger unbelievers. Although the message we deliver is offensive, we must deliver it in a manner that is not (Colossians 4:2–6). They must hear that their sin will be judged by the holy Creator and Judge, and that they can only be saved from eternal punishment if they repent of their sin and trust in Jesus Christ alone; He is the One who died in our place and conquered death by His Resurrection.

Speaking the truth in love isn’t always easy. This world loves darkness rather than light (John 3:19), and those who are blinded to the truth love their sin too much. They will call us bigots, homophobes, racists, sexists, child abusers, and more. We must not be intimidated. Rather, we need to fulfill our calling to share the good news, knowing that we will be hated just as Jesus was (John 15:18).

The solution is not to retreat from a sin-loving culture, nor is it found in compromising with worldly thinking. The answer is to stand boldly upon the authority of the Word of God and, in the power of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, lovingly engage individuals and expose the lies of our culture by teaching the truth—God’s Word. As our Lord despised the shame of the Cross for the joy set before Him (Hebrews 12:2), each of us must be willing to follow Him and “become a fool” in the world’s eyes so that we “may become wise” (1 Corinthians 3:18–19).

http://www.answersingenesis.org/get-answers/features/truth-or-lies?utm_source=answers-weekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=truth-in-truthless-world

Is Suffering Good For Us?

But ought we get to thinking suffering is 'good'? There have been some contemplative writers and teachers who thought so. We have to think seriously about what God can give us in suffering.

You can learn :
the difference between real fears and illusory fears you (or someone else) whipped up. And you can learn the difference between telling yourself to 'fear not' and actually believing there's a reason not to fear.
to depend on God's grace and active love.
to depend on what's done by those who aren't suffering, and sometimes by others who are. And you learn something about how each of us depends on each other. You learn that more good things happen when you cooperate.
that by yourself, you flail and fall and fail -- and so does everyone else.
to wait, often because you have no power to do otherwise, and sometimes because it just works best that way.
that suffering grabs you and drags you to the place where you discover how much you need God's grace.
that most material things aren't much of a help for the actual suffering.
which material things really count, which you're better off without, and which simply don't matter.
that suffering, like death, has a way of stripping away the differences we-all have created.
that you're not so important after all.
that it's a good thing to let down the walls you use to guard your inner self and your privacy.
why the gospel of Jesus Christ is good news: God loves you and is with you! You're not out there floundering around on your own.
that when you've got little to lose, you're freer to surrender yourself to the gospel.

But if good things can come from suffering, doesn't that make suffering good?

No.

The spiritual gains of suffering don't come from what you're suffering from, or even from the suffering itself. The gains come from the fact that God (and, like God, we ourselves) can take 'bad', 'horrible', and even 'evil' situations and make something good come from them. God enjoys doing that. It's this fact that gives us real reason to hope during suffering. This 'good effect' doesn't change the nature or 'badness' of suffering; it is what it is. A mountain of dung is no less filthy when there's a diamond in it.

The truth is, more often than not, the lessons aren't learned, the goodness doesn't come of it. Those who are broken may remain broken. Suffering destroys and beats people down. The devil uses it to cause confusion, anger, delusion, or resignation. It usually leaves some sort of scar or damage. It is exceptionally cruel to speak glibly of 'spiritual gains', real and/or imagined, to those who live with extreme disabilities or are stuck in the poverty class or who lose a loved one. Not that they too can't find gain or hope or even happiness, because many of them really do. But only some, and definitely not most. Our duty is not to tell them to smile harder or to feed them false hopes, but to make it so that they can live amidst their suffering and perhaps be led forward with their life. They need real hopes, and Christians are called on to help make real hopes take root.

The Holy Spirit does not stop life from having suffering. What the Spirit gives is resources so we can face the suffering and make something positive come from it. The Spirit gives the direction and power to make these resources work. The Spirit gives hope, which itself creates perseverance. The Spirit gives wisdom to find the way past the suffering, and to learn from it. And, the Spirit created a body of believers, with the gifts to support and strengthen. In a way, the gifts are geared toward suffering, because spiritual gifts are meant to be for the good of others. Who needs the benefits from those gifts more than those who suffer?

Spiritual gifts are from the Strongest One acting through the weak on behalf of the weakest.

gotquestions  http://www.spirithome.com/suffering.html

What Is Original Sin ?

Original sin is not about infants having dreams of evil. 


It's not about how creative we are at sinning (it's all pretty much a variation of what's been done before). And it's not about turning us into a miserable pack of whiny sad sacks moaning, 'Woe is me'.Original sin is the start of the brokenness of the human relationship with God. 


Because of original sin, even the best of us turn away from God in some way (theologians used to call this fact 'depravity'). Even the best of us at our best is in the same basic dilemma as the worst of us, and even the holiest of us at their tippy-top is a universe distant from God's holiness. 


No one is born with faith; it is poured into you by the Spirit as you live. Original sin and depravity do not mean we're basically all evil monsters (God originally created us good, says Genesis). Instead, it means there's some 'monstrousness' in all of us, and it affects everything we do. And, there's a bit of this monstrousness in whatever way we gather together -- clubs, teams, parties, unions, companies, cartels, ethnic groups, nations, governments, and churches. 


We each add a bit of our own monstrousness to the group, and we take into ourselves a part of the group's monstrousness. (We also add and take on goodness.) 


Our monster isn't something we created recently. It is rooted in our origins, in the very beginning of the human race, hence, it is 'origin-al'. But each of us gives it another twist.

gotquestions  http://www.spirithome.com/sinner.html#original