After spending the last 4 months moving we have settled into
the “Land of Milk and Honey”. As with the Israelites when they settled into the
land it was work to secure it and work to protect it. As long as their faith in
God was solid, although seemingly insurmountable, God helped them along the
way. And note how he “helped” them and not “gave” them.
The only story in the Bible where things seemed to be handed
to one on a platter was with Solomon. He asked for wisdom and got much more.
One thing that we don’t see clearly in the Bible is the fall of Solomon and the
repercussions that followed. We can see the strife in the family that was a
result of David’s lust, but we don’t see how Solomon’s writings that did not
make it in the Bible have been used by “the other side” to bring forth demons.
The point to make here is when things are given freely
without labor they often tend to go bad eventually. Back to our story, we moved
into “paradise” a month ago after decades of living humbly and struggling
through life. As things progress it seems more like the Chevy Chase movie “Funny
Farm” than paradise. We have had doors fall off, electrical issues, garage
flooding twice, septic backup and tainted water. This is just the first month!!
Now I still feel we landed in the right spot since it is
beautiful, just requires more work than expected. But how does this come back
to God? Well I think of a passage in James 1:22, that talks about doing:
Do not
merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.
As Christians we a given salvation freely and nothing more
we can do will change that. Unlike paths to salvation with “other” religions,
they become “works based” as far as what one does matters on the road to
salvation. Don’t interpret what I am about to say as Christianity is works
based, ALL THE WORK WAS DONE ON THE CROSS!!
But as with everything so freely given we become slack with
our gifts and take them for granted often. Sure Paul enforces that nothing can
change our salvation in Jesus, but at the same time James is saying faith
without works is dead. Who is right? Both, salvation is freely given, but
without going out and doing what Jesus taught it stagnates and get’s moldy!!
The Israelites were given the Promised Land flowing with
milk and honey for free, but they still had to work. We are given salvation for
free, but still have an obligation to do “kingdom work” for Jesus.
My original question “what now” … where shall this
blog go? I feel doing the daily reading sometimes seemed forced with the blog.
At the same time this randomness of not having structure has this with no
direction and just kind of rambles. I started taking topics and diving into
them like “why does God allow suffering” but have really not gotten anywhere
with them. Should I focus on a book and blog about the progress and how it’s
going? Should I return to a structured read through the Bible only using a new
translation? Or just continue what I am doing? Thoughts from the “peanut galley”
are welcome at cvs (at) bellsouth (dot) net.