Do You Have A Thorn?

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you would have seen me feature my granddaughter, Jen, in some of my posts. She is only seven, but has a mind of her own, as do most seven-year-olds now, I think. Just recently, Jen had something in her toe. I wouldn't call it a thorn. It must have been something from the Christmas tree that she stepped on, but it was uncomfortable enough to keep her seated, and holding on to her foot for a few minutes. Try as her mother and I did, she would not allow us to touch her foot. Eventually, she took the thing out herself and was soon bouncing around, flipping and doing all the usual Jen things.

The following day, I heard someone preaching about Paul's thorn in the flesh. Just as I didn't know exactly what Jen's thorn in the flesh was, we don't know what was Paul's. He didn't tell us, and as the preacher said, if God wanted us to know what it was, he would have told us. So, we are left to speculate.

Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. 2 Corinthians 12: 7.

Just as Jen's thorn tormented her and kept her from playing and doing the things she loved to do, this great apostle had something in him that tormented him, but in his case, it kept him from being conceited. I refuse to speculate on what it might be, but I am thinking that we all have something in us that torments us. Doesn't go away, and we can't remove it ourselves. Only God can. But Paul begged God to take it from him and look what happened.

  But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.v 9

We all have a thorn. It may be a sin we are struggling with, someone in our lives, an illness, a problem that doesn't seem to be going away. We have begged God to take it away, but it persists. What can we do? His grace is sufficient for us. We are weak, but He is strong. Let us rely on His grace and His power instead of focusing on our weaknesses. Remember "not by works, so that no one can boast" Ephesians 2 : 9. 
God bless.

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Please enjoy the video below as you reflect on God's amazing grace.

 

What Does Your Conscience Say?

So I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man. Acts 24: 16 NIV

 

"They don't have a conscience." We often say this to refer to people who commit heinous crimes without showing any feelings of remorse. But everyone does have a conscience. Call it "the little voice" or whatever you choose to call it, our conscience can keep us from wrongdoing and even from getting into serious trouble.

Christopher Reeve said, 
"I think we all have a little voice inside us that will guide us. It may be God, I don't know. But I think that if we shut out all the noise and clutter from our lives and listen to that voice, it will tell us the right thing to do."

The Bible has a lot to say about conscience. Is is just a little voice, or is it the work of the Holy Spirit in us?

When Abraham and his wife Sarah went on a journey, Abraham feared that because Sarah was so beautiful, the men would kill him and take her, so he told her to say she was his sister. Sarah did as she was told and the king did, in fact, send for her to make her part of his harem. But the Lord appeared to him in a dream and warned him not to touch her because she was another man's wife.

The king, very afraid, said, "Did he not say to me, 'She is my sister,' and didn't she also say, 'He is my brother'? I have done this with a clear conscience and clean hands." 
Then God said to him in the dream, "Yes, I know you did this with a clear conscience, and so I have kept you from sinning against me. That is why I did not let you touch her" (Genesis 20: 5-6). 

In Romans 13: 5, Paul says,  "Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience."

In other words, you don't submit because you fear punishment, but because your conscience tells you it's the right thing to do.


Christians face many temptations throughout life, but we must always listen to the voice of our conscience. We must be able to say like Job,  "I will maintain my righteousness and never let go of it; my conscience will not reproach me as long as I live" (27: 6).

Even children have a conscience. Although they may not always confess when they do something wrong, the guilt shows on their faces. Children know when they deserve to be punished. It's the same with us adults. We know we deserve God's wrath, but instead, we receive His grace. However, that doesn't give us the license to ignore our conscience and go on sinning. We must do the right thing. Go to God, confess our sins and ask Him to help us turn away from them once and for all. God bless.

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God's Grace And Mercy

It’s amazing how we can read the scriptures many times over and then one day something jumps out at us that we never noticed before. This happened to me one night as I was reading Psalm 90. This Psalm was written by Moses, appealing to God on behalf of the children of Israel.

For those of you who may not know it, God had sent Moses to bring the children of Israel out of Egypt where they had been in bondage for four hundred years. After many trials, Pharoah, the ruler, finally agreed to let the people leave Egypt. However, no sooner had they been freed, they began to rebel and complain. Their journey into the promised land which should have lasted a few days took forty years to complete. During that time God became so angry at their rebellion, he threatened to wipe them out, and would have had not Moses interceded for them. They were bitten by snakes, and many other troubles overcame them.

The children of Israel suffered the wrath of God. Hence the reason Moses wrote this Psalm. In verse 7 he writes, “For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled.” Again in verse 9 he says, “For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told.”

I read these verses over and over, then I thought, we are no longer under wrath, but under grace. When Jesus gave His life for us on the cross, He got rid of the curse that we had been under since Adam fell. When Jesus died, He restored us to a right relationship with God, the Father. When Jesus shed His precious blood for us on the cross, we obtained “grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Timothy 1:2).

“But God, Who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:4-6). “But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ” (Ephesians 2:13). Had Moses lived in Jesus’ day he would never have written that Psalm the way he did, for he would have realized that God hath dispensed with His wrath and bestowed grace and mercy on His people.

And there’s the operative word- His. Those of us who belong to Him through Jesus Christ are assured of His grace, but those outside of Christ are still exposed to His wrath. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). So that’s the key to escaping God’s wrath-accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and you will not perish. God bless.

Grace period

My last water bill contained a penalty charge of $5.98. I picked up the phone and dialed the water company to enquire about the charge. The lady on the other end informed me that I had paid my bill two days late and had incurred a penalty.

Feeling unusually testy I said, "I pay my bill just two days late and I get a penalty?"

She replied, "I'm sorry. There's no grace period."

Those words stayed with me all day.

No grace period.

Where would we be if God had not extended His grace to us by sending His Son Jesus Christ to redeem us from our sins? Or what if, like the water company, as soon as we did something wrong, he inflicted punishment on us? Thank God for His grace. Thank God that He tempers His law with grace.

Some people, anxious to excuse acts of wrongdoing, say we are now under grace and not under the law. It is true that grace came to us through Jesus Christ, but even He said, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill" (Matthew 5:17).

Therefore the law is a "schoolmaster" to help us distinguish between right and wrong. "What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet" (Romans 7:7).

In the same way I would not have known about the penalty had the water company not imposed one. However, while I had no choice but to pay the penalty, we who are in Christ can "come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in the time of need" (Hebrews 4:16).

And that's the difference. Law punishes, but grace forgives. Which one will you choose?

Heavenly Father, how grateful we are that through the blood of Jesus Christ we have grace and forgiveness for our sins. We accept this precious gift, Lord along with your laws and precepts, and it's in His name we pray. Amen