Category: theology

Few things offer comfort like knowing that God is still on His Throne.

If you have not seen things in this life that scare you, then you have been living in a dream world. Many people are afraid to wake up from their dream world for fear of having no hope. People do things to us or we see evil things done to others. This can drive us mad, even insane. Anyone who hasn’t seen this is sleep walking through life with their eyes open.

But, God remains on His Throne. He permits and orchestrates everything that happens. God sees all. He allows great evil to plan and execute heinous deeds, but then at the last minute He swoops down to deliver us.

Everyone dies at some point. When someone is murdered by evil Men, that does not mean God “lost the battle” or that God didn’t save the person. We don’t know all the conversations and thoughts in that person’s last moments; God does. Though none of us get out of here alive, Jesus is thankfully our resurrection.

Though God allows the time of death for some to come at the hands of evil, God does indeed deliver humanity from all evil. The devil is God’s devil. In fact, God will save you, honor you, celebrate you, even pay you back a thousand fold, and He will make the devil pay the entire bill—and the devil will do so willingly, even though he doesn’t want to, because of how much more brilliant God is.

When we see great evil, if we do not remember that God is on the Throne—both to govern all that happens and to save humanity from evil—then we are tempted to take revenge into our own hands. Don’t let this be you. Encourage others who need this reminder as well.

God will repay all. In the next life, when all humanity and all angels good and evil stand before the Great White Throne, we will see God’s justice. We will weep with joy at the ingenious plan God crafted from the beginning.

You will know neither fear nor hatred, the more you remember God is in control.

Deuteronomy 32:35, 2 Thessalonians 1:8, Hebrews 10:30, 1 Peter 3:9

As time goes by, we look at events in life and we glean principles from them. These life lessons could be called “nuggets of wisdom”.

The older we grow, the more nuggets of wisdom we acquire, both from our own histories and from others’. If we don’t gain these nuggets of wisdom from others then we only gain them as time goes by. This is why older people tend to seem “wise”, but it’s not because they are wise as people.

There is a difference between acquiring wisdom and being a wise person. A wise person learns from other people’s history rather than one’s own.

Wisdom is the choice to learn from the word rather than the rod.

Too many people learn through the “university of hard knocks”. It is a personal choice to learn so slowly, nothing genetic or personality-based. Learning wisdom earlier in life will save a person from much trouble.

Waiting to let old age catch up with you before you accumulate wisdom isn’t wise at all, it’s quite a foolish thing to do. People who gain wisdom through old age aren’t wise, they are just old.

When young people are wise, they will work to gain as much wisdom from others as they can. We often refer to these wise, young people as “old souls”. It is the love for wisdom that marks an old soul.

Love for wisdom is a lifelong pursuit. It is a virtue of the heart and a core framework of one’s worldview. Those who love wisdom will reach for it, even at the cost of less success than those around them. Wisdom is among the godly virtues that prioritize Eternal and Heavenly things above carnal, temporary things of the physical world.

All the success in the world will do you no good if you lack the wisdom to wield it.

God possesses all wisdom, all wisdom comes from God, and all wisdom leads back to God.

Wisdom begins with fearing God. This means that fearing God will unlock your ability to gain wisdom. It also means that learning to fear God is the first nugget of wisdom learned. In other words, godliness and wisdom are inseparable.

Proverbs 1:7; 2:2; 4:20; 9:10; 16:16; 22:17-18, Matthew 16:26, Mark 8:36

From Genesis to Revelation, God continues to make promises and He keeps every one of them.

After Adam and Eve ate the fruit, God promised that the Messiah would be born of a woman to crush Satan’s head. He promised Noah with the rainbow that He would never again flood the whole earth. God promised Abraham a blessing to his family and to bless all nations through him—which foretold the Messiah, Jesus. God promised David that his family line would never end and that one of his descendants would establish a kingdom that would last forever; also foretelling Jesus, one of David’s descendants.

God made many other promises to Israel and to all people. God made some promises to Israel specifically, but the writer of Hebrews applies such promises to all Christians. Jesus promises he will always be with us. At the end of Revelation, Jesus promises that he is coming quickly with reward for the righteous and to eradicate wickedness from Earth.

God is the Great Promise Maker, but He is also the Great Promise Keeper.

While some of His promises are for Israel specifically—just how prophecy has multiple fulfillments—God’s promises have lasting principles that apply to anyone who follows Him.

When God told Israel that they would go off as captives to Babylon, He promised them that He would return them and “heal their land” if they repent. This was specifically for Israel. But, that does not mean God will turn away everyone else who repents just for not being part of Israel; God didn’t say that. By demonstrating His conduct with Israel, God demonstrates His conduct in redeeming anyone.

God’s promises to Israel secondarily apply to all people because Jesus, a Jew and descendant of King David, died at the Cross for all people.

Each promise from God has multiple levels of fulfillment. Jesus does not only save us, but he continues to “save” us all the rest of our lives.

The time has not come for every promise’s fulfillment, but in time, God keeps every promise.

God’s promises are a reason why we can trust Him. To know God is to trust God as the Great Promise Keeper.

Genesis 3:15; 12:1-3; 15:12-16; 17:1-8, 8:20-22, 2 Samuel 7:1-17, 2 Chronicles 7:14, Psalm 27:1, Isaiah 41:11-13; 43:1-7; 54:9-17, Matthew 18:20, John 3:16, Hebrews 13:5, Revelation 22:6-21

There is great power in knowing what you are not. Know your limits. Know what you can do, be confident in your actual abilities, but do not overstate them. Know the line that your abilities cannot cross.

Part of our broken “sin nature” that comes from Adam’s choice combines itself with the nature that we remain the Image of God. In a sense, it almost makes us get a feline complex—where we reinterpret reality to presume that everything centers around us. We sneeze just before lightning and thus conclude we caused it. Someone gives us an inch and we think ourselves to be rulers.

We are the Image of the Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient God—all powerful, everywhere present, all knowing—, but we do not have those specific qualities, but our sin nature presumes that we do.

Part of good theology includes that those qualities are unique to God—He is the Almighty, which means that we are not. Everyone will face the sin nature’s tendency to forget what we are not every day of our lives. The more you get in touch with what you are not, the less you will try to do things that you cannot do, the less you will be offended at results that can’t be, the less you will waste what time and energies you have, the more you will focus on whatever things you can do. Once you focus solely on things within your ability, you will find yourself accomplishing seemingly impossible tasks.

Arguably, this is the key to efficiency: Only attempt what is possible.

There are many things that may seem impossible, but that presumes that we will try methods that fail or that only God can use. If we stay within our limits and only use the powers we have, many purported “impossibilities” will become easy. As for those things we truly can’t do, by knowing that only God can achieve them, He is more likely to achieve them through us, all the same achieving what is impossible without God. So, there is no benefit in telling someone what cannot be done, but only in who we are not and what only God does through us.

Job 38-42, Micah 6:8

God loves to save us!

When Israel came out of Egypt, God utterly crushed the crux of Satan worship in that day—Egypt and their phony religion of human sacrifices. Often, God would remind Israel, “I brought you out of Egypt.” This is a reminder for all who study the Bible.

Whatever adversary you face, look to how God helped Israel get out of Egypt. Ten times Pharaoh got a sound spanking from God, but he still wouldn’t learn. God told Moses that He wanted to harden Pharaoh’s heart just so that he could decimate that evil empire. Pharaoh made the choice himself to reject God, relegating to God the choice of how much to harden Pharaoh’s heart.

God allows evil to mount up so He can out-show and out-do everything and everyone. Those times when God comes to the rescue we utterly know in our hearts that He is supreme over everything. Of course, we easily forget, which is why God tells us to study the Bible daily and why He so often reminds Israel to remember what He did in Egypt—what He did to Egypt.

When you know that God is stronger than your enemies, you will fear no one except the God you know loves you. He knows how much you need to be reminded of this. So, he sets up foolish enemies in your lane—He put them there like bowling pins to bowl right through. The whole time, God is not worried one bit. He laughs at your enemies and celebrates just the though of you. God comes with wrath and laughter, not the least bit worried, not shaken in the least.

You must build up your knowledge about God Who Is Mighty to Save before the day of your trouble. The swelling waves will scare you to pray if you have not been praying enough. God sends adversaries and troubles for your benefit. Those times are scary, they build character, you will almost surely wet your pants the first few times, but you will only go into all-out panic mode if you have neglected your daily life in Bible and prayer. Prepare yourself; study the God Who Saves.

Exodus 1-17, Psalm 37, Zephaniah 3:17