God’s timing

Blessing and favor

/ Tracy Eldridge / Leave a comment

Life that we live never really seems to be one of blessing and favor, yet we can’t see it. Why? It is because few people can discern which is the blessing and favor and the trials that are required in your life to get to that point. No, I am not saying that you have to suffer to be blessed, but sometimes we feel that way because we thought we had the best. The best house or car or something that is accepted by the world as a blessing, yet when we lose it or it is taken from us we feel that we are being put through all sorts of trials and trouble.

If you will recognize that God gives blessings to those who joyfully recognize the One who can provide greater blessings and more than you could have expected. God is the Creator of the whole universe! There are more gold molecules in space than we could use in this world and God owns ALL of it! Don’t you think He could provide even a little for you and even a little from God is more than we know what to do with!

God can take five loaves of bread and two fish and feed 5,000 men not including the women and children, approximately fifteen thousand people if they had only one child each. Since He can do that, don’t you think that your tithe or offering given in joy and with faith in Him can multiply into more than you could ever need to accomplish His purposes in your life and ministry? He can do it, if you are willing and if you are not looking for a hand-out but with intentions grounded in the Word of God to do greater things than you could before!

Your best, meaning your big house or your Mercedes, is nothing compared to God’s best for you. A big house or a fancy car are things which the world recognizes as markers of a successful life, but that is not the way that God sees success. He sees success as helping those in need, giving to those who don’t have enough, making sure that someone who has very little has enough to live without worry. In other words, God wants you to be blessed so you can bless others…not just buy stuff for yourself.

Advertisement

Truly, we need to depend on God!

/ Tracy Eldridge / Leave a comment

You know, there is a reason that we are all here and it has something to do with our dependence on God. If you don’t lean on Him and seek Him every day, then you are only working on your own strength and power and compared to Satan, we are WEAK! But, you and Jesus make a mighty army and if you get a whole church praying for something specific, like a healing or a financial problem, God can do some amazing things in a short amount of time!

The Israelites had to depend on Him while travelling from Egypt to the promised land and it is amazing if you consider the amount of food and water that God provided for them and they still complained! I found this today and I thought you might like to read how much all of these people would require:

“According to the Quartermaster General in the Army, it is reported that Moses would have to have had 1500 tons of food each day. Do you know that to bring that much food each day, two freight trains, each at least a mile long, would be required!

Besides you must remember, they were out in the desert, so they would have to have firewood to use in cooking the food. This would take 4000 tons of wood and a few more freight trains, each a mile long, just for one day.

And just think, they were forty years in transit!

And Oh yes! They would have to have water. If they only had enough to drink and wash a few dishes, it would take 11,000,000 gallons each day and a freight train with tank cars, 1800 miles long, just to bring water!

And then another thing!

They had to get across the Red Sea at night. Now, if they went on a narrow path, double file, the line would be 800 miles long and would require 35 days and nights to get through. So there had to be a space in the Red Sea, 3 miles wide so that they could walk 5000 abreast to get over in one night.

But then, there is another problem……………each time they camped at the end of the day, a camp ground two-thirds the size of the state of Rhode Island was required, or a total of 750 square miles long…….. think of it! This much space for camping.”
(Copied from this website: http://www.tektonics.org/af/exoduslogistics.php)

It is absolutely no wonder that Moses wasn’t too enthusiastic about taking on this ministry! Can you imagine leading a city around in the desert for forty years? That is what it would be like! Without God leading them and guiding them and giving them food and water, they would’ve all died. But their shoes didn’t wear out nor did their clothes during the whole trip.

Depending on God is something which requires a bit of faith and today it seems to be hard to find that “bit”, even if it is only the size of a mustard seed. But, this is what is needed and more and if the children of Israel can do it in their situation, then certainly we can too.

We haven’t been under a slave master’s lash for 430 years, nobody in America has been a slave for that amount of time! Yes, there were some African’s who were brought over here early on in our country’s history but many of those were set free. What I am pointing to is that there isn’t a single family that can trace their heritage back for that amount of time and show that they have been enslaved for that whole period.

Christian’s need to look to God for their provision, whether it is for life, health, jobs, families or any other good blessing. It is something which we don’t do on a regular, daily basis, mainly because we don’t really have to in America. But, in other countries believers have the faith and the need to look to God for daily living, protection, health, and many of the things which we take for granted every day. The way that our culture has been pushing God out of our daily lives and the schools and out of the government, we may not enjoy the blessings from Him much longer, especially those which America has had for many generations past.

If you are a Christian, please get closer to God by truly studying His Word. Pray over its meaning for you and for your life and ask Him to give you the wisdom to understand it and apply it, because the time is coming when we may not be able to worship as openly as we have in the past. I pray that God will richly bless all of you who read this, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Are we there yet?

/ Tracy Eldridge / Leave a comment

Did you ever hear this from your kids? I know that nearly every parent has heard it a few times. So what about all of us who live in the world today? Do you ever wonder about when or where you might end up when this life is over? Well, the when I can’t help you with and to be truthful I personally can’t help much when where either unless you listen carefully to some of the writings that I have placed here.

First, the when is entirely up to God. He knows specifically when and how you will die and leave this life, so you need to consult Him about that. Although, He won’t give you that information. We never find out when or how we die ahead of time, because that would make things too easy. The Bible says that no one knows the time or the hour of the second coming of Jesus and we also don’t know our own time of departure from this life. I really don’t want to get into the “when I will die” discussion because I don’t want to know for myself. When God decides it is time, I will go..period.

What can I tell you about the part of life concerning “are we there yet?” ? Well, with all of the movies which show aliens or asteroids or some other “end of the world” scenario, I believe that there are many people who are wondering just that very thing, are we there yet? The answer is…..we are getting close. I know, for many people this will be a let-down and a non-answer, but it is the truth and its the only answer that I can truthfully give you. No man knows when these things are going to take place, unless God gives him that information and He won’t likely do that until it is very close to happening. Even then, they won’t be given an exact day or hour if they are given any information at all!

We are to be watching and seeking Him until that day. We are also to be doing His work until that day and it will come because it has been foretold, regardless of the fact that it has been over two thousand years since Jesus’ time. Our life and everything that goes on in this world will go on as it has until the events foretold in the book of Revelation begin to happen. Paul said that we would not see any events until the “man of sin is revealed”, even though many Christians are taught that we will be “taken up” before any of the events in the book of Revelation come about.

I don’t want to get into a debate about interpretations of scripture either so I am going to stop there. The point of my writing is that we are not there yet, but the time is growing shorter by the day. Step up the attack, tell as many people as you can about Jesus, teach as many as you can about Him, because the time is right. Your Salvation and your Savior draws nearer with each passing hour and day that goes by.

Can you imagine a world without Jesus?

/ Tracy Eldridge / 1 Comment

I know that today there are may who think they would enjoy a world in which Christianity didn’t exist and one in which Jesus had never been born. Could anyone truly want to live in a world like that?

There are some who would truly enjoy this because it would give them so much “freedom”, in quotes because they would not know what they were free from. The world would be a very ugly place, even more than it is today if Jesus had not been born.

Satan would have completely free reign over our world although God would not allow him to go too far. God’s plan was in place before Satan ever rebelled and convinced a third of the angels to follow him. There couldn’t be a world without Jesus, period!

He is the Word of God who came to ransom our souls from sin and He is the Creator along with the Father and the Holy Spirit. They are the triune God, the Trinity and without them the entire universe would not exist.

It is humbling to know that the Creator of the universe cares for each of us and craves a relationship with us!

My imagination can’t come up with a scenario to illustrate how different the world would be if Jesus had never been involved in it. Put bluntly, the world would not exist as it is today. He is the Word of God incarnate who became a man to die for our sins so that we can be covered by His sacrifice and forgiven of our sins.

To answer the question I will attempt to list some things which would be vastly different if Jesus had not come to die for us.

1. If Jesus had not come, there would be no church of any denomination, only other religions would exist.

2. The only knowledge of God we would have would be from the Jewish Torah (Old Testament) because there would be no New Testament.

3. We would all be looking for the Messiah since He was prophesied to come in the Old Testament. This is why we couldn’t have a world without Jesus, because if He had not come at the time that He did then God would be a liar and therefore He wouldn’t be God.

The promises and prophecies that the Old Testament prophets wrote down came to them through the Holy Spirit so if they weren’t true then the whole story of Creation would be suspect.

God has to keep His promises because He is God and cannot lie, so the Messiah had to come when He did and at the time that He did. He will come back at the appointed time as well so there is no question about His coming, we just don’t know when things will come about. The time will be accomplished in God’s time not our own, just as everything else is and has been from the beginning.

In this world and at this time, we have been pushing God out of every aspect of our lives. From public places and government and schools to television, there are people who cannot stand to hear any reference to the Bible or Jesus or salvation. God has always wanted a relationship with us but humanity, since the fall in Eden, has been on an ego trip. “I can do it myself” has been our mantra for many generations and it is not true! We cannot do it alone, just like toddlers who say “I can do it myself” we have to have help.

In spiritual matters we are dumb without God and His Word! The man-made religions of the world are just that, “man-made”! They didn’t do anything or create anything or anyone. Like a block of wood or stone or gold formed into an idol, man-made religions don’t have the ability to truly do anything! Just like those idols, our religions are static, stagnant, and dead.

God is everlasting and the Creator of all. To worship Him is to worship the True God not something that was brought on by a drug or lack of sleep or lack of water! Dreams, visions, and feelings can’t form a seed or a fish with a word or put stars in their places by thinking of where they should be, but God can and He did! Trust Him, follow Him and ask for His forgiveness because He loves you!