Then God Said...

Genesis 3:8-11 They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.” And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” I first want to propose that if we really knew who God was then we would not try and hide from Him. We have a God who has not abandon His creation after this horrific event in history; rather, we have a God who has not only been faithful in our lives, but in the lives of those in history past. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. God has been Fathering, teaching, admonishing, rebuking, leading, giving, cursing, blessing, raising up, tearing down, and a myriad of other things...

Luke 7:1-10 When He had completed all His discourse in the hearing of the people, He went to Capernaum. And a centurion’s slave, who was highly regarded by him, was sick and about to die. When he heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders asking Him to come and save the life of his slave. When they came to Jesus, they earnestly implored Him, saying, “He is worthy for You to grant this to him; for he loves our nation and it was he who built us our synagogue.” Now Jesus started on His way with them; and when He was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends, saying to Him, “Lord, do not trouble Yourself further, for I am not worthy for You to come under my roof; for this reason I did not even consider myself worthy to come to You, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man placed under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this...

Galatians 6: 7-9 Don’t be deceived: God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows he will also reap, because the one who sows to his flesh will reap corruption from the flesh, but the one who sows to the Spirit will reap eternal life from the Spirit. So we must not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we don’t give up. During the training days of my military career this was the banner over my life- do not quit! Keep going! At the time I learned the lesson of reaping the benefits of not quitting when employed with a good task. Although in the moment everything inside me was telling me to quit, it is too hard, I cannot do this, still I did not give up. I may not have been as successful as some of my other comrades, but I did not give up. We can take this same lesson and apply it to our spiritual life and relationship with God. The scripture is clear, if we sow of the flesh we will reap corruption from the flesh, but if we sow of the Spirit we will reap...