Good Tuesday morning! No way I'm opening the shades until that sun is up this morning. Wow, it's cold outside! Thank you, Lord, for things like furnaces and heat pumps! If you don't feel like getting out of your warm bed this morning, I completely understand. It sounds like the entire state is in a deep freeze this morning. Congrats to Auburn for winning the college football championship last night. I support my Nebraska Huskers, but watching those two teams last night I could definitely see the difference between the Huskers' play and the way Oregon and Auburn played the game. This morning, I wonder how many on each team prayed for victory last night. Does God decide based on the sincerity of the prayers like Linus's Great Pumpkin? Does God weigh out the good deeds or amount of faith on some kind of scale? I think we know that none of that is true. The best way to put it is that God keeps His own counsel. Today, what we like is often different than what happens in life.
Christians Don't Always Win the Game!
In my study in Numbers last night, I came to the part where the spies had returned from scouting out the land. As you will recall, ten of them advocated for taking the easy way; they didn't believe in the strength of God. The remaining two, said, "Let's Go Team!" Joshua and Caleb believed in the team of God and Israel. God had already told Israel that the land was theirs for the taking, even though large people and walled cities already occupied the land. Standing on the border of their promised home, the Israelites saw the opposition and decided to not even go out onto the field. While Joshua and Caleb shouted, "Let's Go!", their team sat on the bench muttering against God. We know that God told them to turn their faithless butts around and head out into the desert for forty years, one year for each day of the scouting mission (I didn't make that up, says so right in the Bible!). Do you know what the Israelite team did then? They rebelled again!
Yes, the team, now without the blessing of God, without God on their side, without the Ark of the Covenant, Moses, Joshua, or Caleb, now decided to go out onto the field. After being told by God to take the land, the people refused, so when God said go back to the wilderness, they rebelled again. Joshua and Caleb warned them this time, "If you try it without the Lord, you're going to get whooped!" When the Israelites finally made it out onto the field... they got their rebellious butts kicked all the way back to Hormah. Imagine some two million rebellious and beaten Israelites turning away from "a land flowing with milk and honey" and heading out for forty years of exile in the wilderness they had just crossed; all the people over twenty would die there, never to see the promised land.
In our lives, we don't always have things that dramatically presented. God hasn't told us to go wander the pastures of western Nebraska for forty years for our lack of faith. That would be so unusual that the farmers and ranchers would ask, "What are you doing?" when they stumbled upon our little goatskin tents. You see we have to get permission to wander the wilderness these days. However, in this life, we don't always win the game. Unlike the Israelites, our loss may have nothing to do with how much faith we have. Last night on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll spoke about one thing we all have in common: suffering. New Christians, long time Christians, and even the heathens and pagans, all experience suffering in this life.
The rich heathens try to mitigate their suffering with the very best (and most expensive) therapists, trainers, and physicians. The poor suffer without the ameliorating effects of lots of loot. We may pray for relief from suffering. Paul prayed three times for relief from an affliction, but found only the strength to endure through God's grace. Nero had both Paul and Peter executed, and then blamed the burning of Rome on the Christians. How would you like to appear before God with that on your resume? Nero seemed to win the game for a brief time, but we know that he will not. Many believers prayed for help to God before their execution by Rome and many other evil regimes, but those prayers were not always answered with the "yes" those folks wanted. A person may pray fervently to God before a sports contest, and still lose the game.
On this Earth, and in this life, we may believe completely in God and yet lose the game at hand. In fact, Jesus promised that we would often lose the contests on this Earth. He promised the disciples that they would be delivered up to the courts. In Revelation we are promised that future believers will lose to the Anti-Christ for a certain length of time. The worst person to ever live will not only make Hitler look like a wuss, but will be allowed to overcome God's people. We like the stories that promise a good ending, but in this life those may be the exception and not the rule. However, before you grab your Bible and go down to the basement to hide for the rest of your earthly life, God has one promise about the very end that stands out - He Wins!
Remember that great promise today, and also that God has promised to bring us through the valley of death's shadow to His victory celebration: the Wedding Feast of the Lamb!
Bucky
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