The Devotional - A Look at the Book #894

by Jesse Abel

Thoughts from Papa “J”

 

I heard someone say just the other day in an argument with their boss that payback is hell. This is nothing new; in Solomon’s day the quote went like this. “If the righteous will be recompensed (rewarded) on the earth; How much more the wicked and the sinner”. Proverbs 11:31

 

Good Morning

 

2 Corinthians 8:1-7 – I would say that well over ninety percent of Americans (not counting illegal immigrants and hidden terrorist cells) do not understand poverty. The ten percent of Americans that do (and that number is increasing, rapidly) know what it is to be in deep poverty. Now apply this poverty problem to people who do not know God, THEE ONE TRUE GOD of the Holy Bible. Those who trust in false gods commit crimes of terror, crimes of self-preservation and crimes of aggression and persecution.

 

It is the church of God that will experience the first effects of those crimes listed above. All through the book of Acts as the church began to grow and prosper after the resurrection of the LORD Jesus and after the dispersion of the saints in Jerusalem, any issue with a city or country (economic or political) was first taken out on the church and in John 1:1-5 and John 3:16-21 we see the reason why. Even as the past sixty five or seventy years have revealed, the people who claim the God of the Bible as LORD have suffered to the point of death, but first through extreme poverty.

 

The history of the true Church of God is brilliant with joy resulting from persecution and poverty. Darkness will never comprehend the “Joy” of a person or a group of people who are abiding in the LIGHT of the grace of God. Notice verse 1 of this section of scripture. The apostle Paul clearly reveals what makes the Macedonia believers who are in deep poverty a joyful people. GRACE and I know someone is thinking; grace? What is grace? Grace of itself is nothing to those who live in darkness, but for those of us who live in the LIGHT, grace is the experience of JOY.

Grace is the GOODNESS of God who revealed to the world, that His Son Jesus would die as the Lamb of God who takes away the SIN (darkness) of the world. John 3:10-21.

 

Grace is the RIGHTEOUSNESS of God bestowed on all who believe that God’s Son died of the Cross of Calvary for their personal sin(s). God speaking through Moses and Paul we find this statement in Romans 4:17-25.

 

Grace is the ACTION of God provided to every believer in Jesus Christ; to the Jew first and also to the Gentile that we live in a time when the grace of God is revealed, expressed and lived out in all corners of the world. Without the outworking of the grace of God, Jesus would still be a mystery. Ephesians 3:1-21.

 

Grace is the CHRIST of God, not just to the Jew and the Gentile believer, but also to the world. He is King of kings and LORD of lords, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. He is Messiah. Isaiah 9:6-7 also Isaiah 53:1-12

 

Grace is EL SHADDAI who is GOD ALMIGHTY, He is not the moon god, the sun god or any of the gods proclaimed by darkness or erected by mankind. He is: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” Genesis 1:1. Also; In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. John 1:1-5.

 

Finally, Grace is GRACE in. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of Life – the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us – that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things we write that your JOY many be full. 1 John 1:1-4

 

Grace produces JOY when darkness produces suffering, grace produces abundance in poverty in that people give first of themselves and then in liberality of what may remain. This richness is not found in their ability to give, but in the GRACE of God who provides. 2 Corinthians 8:7 we should; or better yet, do abide in this very same grace. What a JOY!