The Lord Goes Before Us
Deuteronomy 31:8 - The Lord Himself goes before you and will be with you. Hebrews 13:5 is a good companion scripture with this verse: Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."
Thinking about these verses, how did the Lord go before the children of Israel, and the early Christians? We have a record in the Word that Israel suffered defeat many times. We know that 11 of the 12 disciples were martyred. Read Hebrews 12 to see what violence many experienced. So much for the Lord Himself going before us and never leaving or forsaking us.
Here is the problem. We interpret these verses in light of what the world considers success. We love our comfort zones and therefore, by default, interpret these scriptures to mean that our comfort zone will always be intact.....thank the Lord!!
God’s ultimate, superceding eternal purpose is to prepare us for ruling and reigning with Christ forever and ever. In that, He will never leave or forsake us and will Himself, go before us. There is no guarantee our comfort will stay intact. There is no guarantee our life will be void of pain and suffering. But there is a guarantee that the Lord is faithful and He will follow through to bring us to righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.
We must seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. As long as there is sincere and earnest desire for the Kingdom, we will be able to say most assuredly that the Lord goes before us.....no matter what the circumstances!!
posted by GaryQ @ Tuesday, August 22, 2006
2 Comments
2 Comments:
Hi Alice and greetings from Minnesota. Thankyou for your making this blog more than just a monologue with myself. I'm really looking forward to dialogue with you and Charlie.
So, how do we seek first the kingdom? It has to be a simple answer. Complicated answers are not biblical or godly, IMHO.(II Corinthians 11:3 - But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. I think that the only way we can seek first the kingdom is to be able to hear and discern what "the King" in the kingdom is saying. In other words, we must learn to hear His voice, and to hear His voice first and foremost for ourselves. (I'm thinking about the time when Jesus had to rebuke Peter for his concern about John. Jesus said, "You worry about yourself first Peter") I hope this answer doesn't seem too simplistic. I have been too complicated in my past walk with the Lord and have gone into ruts and ditches too many times. I just need to get really good at hearing God speak to me at any given time or place. If I can do that the kingdom has come.
John 10:27 (New Life Version)
"My sheep hear My voice and I know them. They follow Me."
Amen to both your comments. I look forward to reading more on both your blogs!
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