GOD NEVER GIVES UP

God is to be the center and focus of my life.  Anything else, no matter how good it may be, will become an idol, a golden calf.  Church, Bible, even ministry always had the danger of becoming such an idol.  They are good things, and they are things God calls me to be a part of; but always secondary to God Himself. 

I am call to reflect God as one created in His image; I am called to be light and salt to this world while I am here; I am called to be in this world but not of the world while I am here.  Those things have manifested in many different ways over the years.  They were and can be challenges that need to be met head on at times.  The world can be a very tempting place, and I have fallen more than once.  God is always faithful to help pick me up and get me back on track.  But that seems to be what God has done since the beginning of time, down throughout history.  He is redemptive and restorative towards all of His creation faithfully and continually.  God never give up.

I am the one who gives up, throws in the towel, and refuses the love that wants to redeem and restore my blunders.  If I don’t yield to Him I will put myself in jeopardy. Continually rejecting God’s grace will put me into enemy land where the enemy of God waits with open arms to destroy and devour me.  I know this land through examples in the Bible.  In the beginning of time God warns Cain, “If you do well, will you not be accepted?  And if you don’t do well, sin is crouching at the door.  Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it” (Genesis 4:7).  Jesus warns Peter of Satan’s desire in Luke 22:31.

“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed that your faith may not fail.”  Judas was not living well; he was a thief and robbed from the money bag.  When the time came he conspired to have Jesus arrested, for money.  He put himself in enemy territory and, “Satan entered into him” (John 13:27).

Cain did not do well and was banished from God’s Presence forever.  Judas felt bad in the end for his deed but had lost his faith in Jesus as redeemer, and hung himself.  Peter denied Jesus and felt bad about it, but he kept his faith, and Jesus comes to him, and redeems and restores their relationship.

I believe that if Judas’ faith had not been worn weak through wrong doing, he would have known that Jesus would have come to him just as he did Peter.

He would have redeem, restored, and reconciled their relationship.  Jesus never gives up; only we do.

When the concepts and consequences of sin, of not living well, are removed from the minds of people, God’s enemy is standing at the door waiting with open arms, to have God’s creations sifted like wheat and destroyed.  It is not a good shepherd that leads his sheep into enemy land, and eventually into the hands of the enemy himself.  The good shepherd leads his sheep in the ways of God.  The good shepherd seeks those who are lost and brings them to green pastures, still waters, and the path of righteousness.  The good shepherd leads his flock to the Truly Good Shepherd Jesus, where they can be redeemed, restored, and reconciled in their relationship with their Creator God.  His sheep will be and do well.

Query:  What kind of a servant am I to those whom God has put in my life

             that I might help care for?  What kind of servant am I to those

             who are lost and need to find their way to their True Shepherd?