From inside God’s Presence, we won’t wring our hands in despair over personal disappointment, unanswered prayer, homelessness and poverty, disease and pestilence, nature’s fury, early deaths and the complaints many Christians make about the costs of discipleship. And...a comforting thought in the present coronavirus scare...we won’t panic-buy! Or any other of the many situations Satan keeps raising and people use as excuses not to believe and obey God in Christ!
In addition, and encouraging to those who exhaust themselves with questions about a good GOD and war, within God’s Presence we accept Biblical teaching of spiritual conflict that often becomes armed conflict. So many of us are in conflict with God that conflict among ourselves is inevitable. However, the Bible wastes no time with the “ethical” problem of war, though secular and religious scholars fixate on it. Why does it exist? they wonder and argue. Well, being but a preacher, not a scholar, I venture an answer, not a question. While understanding...that God never bothers to explain the reason. While emphasizing...God does bother...repeatedly...in every generation...beginning with the first...to explain that his entire message to humanity focuses on reclaiming mankind from their sins. In other words, it’s all about Redemption. Forgiveness. Reconciliation with God. The very words some church growth preachers don’t like to use because they’re too “churchy”. They must face the fact that bringing lost humanity back to him summarizes God’s entire message, Old and New Testament. Are we going to be so enamored of our culture that we content ourselves with representing them before God instead of confronting them with God’s changeless message of grace? We can only be his messengers if we continue proclaiming that message first and foremost! End Part II
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