"THE LORD HAS HIDDEN HIMSELF FROM HIS PEOPLE, BUT I TRUST HIM AND PLACE MY HOPE IN HIM" (Isaih 8:17)
SCENARIO
We are all living in trying times with problems that defy solutions and we have no one to turn to but to God. Just look at the daily news and see for yourselves the stark reality of where we are all heading. People are losing hope and are in despair of ever finding any job at all to support their families. Then family structure gets broken. They trun to drugs, alcohol and even to crime to meet their pressing needs and become victims of hopelessness and despair. Society suffers and then the whole nation and the world. People are losing confidence in our government due to graft and corruption. Each day, around the world, innocent people are getting killed by "radical fanatics" killing in the name of their God as "suicide bombers". How about those who are sick and the homeless! Yes, truly we are living in the last days but in all these, where is God?
He is here and there and "wherever". God is real no matter how you feel. He is still in control. He is sovereign over all His creation. He created all things and he has the right and prerogative to do what pleases Him. We are indeed fortunate to know from the Scriptures that we have a God who is loving, caring, compassionate, slow to anger abounding in love and grace. He is Omniscient and Omnipotent, we are not. Let Him be God and let us be as we are, His created beings.
TO BE CONTINUED>>>
GOD, WHERE ARE YOU WHEN I NEED YOU MOST? (spiritual Insight)
Moderators: kampanaryo_spy, cordapya, pato
GOD, WHERE ARE YOU WHEN I NEED YOU MOST? (spiritual Insight)
Last edited by cordapya on Sat Oct 07, 2006 5:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
What is essential is invisible to the eye.
GOD doesn't need my ability, but my availability.
GOD doesn't need my ability, but my availability.
Want to change things and turn them around?
Let us worship Him in Spirit and in truth for He inhabits the praises of His people and we are His people. It is easy to worship God when things are going great in your life - when He has provided food, friends, family, health and happy situations. But circumstances are not always pleasant. How do you worship God then? What do you do when God seems a million miles away?
The deepest level of worship is praising God in spite of pain, thanking God during a trial, trusting Him when tempted, surrendering while suffering and loving Him when He seems distant.
Friendships are often tested by separation and silence, you are divided by physical distance or you are unabe to talk. In your friendship with God, you won't always feel close to Him. Philip Yancey has wisely noted, " Any relationship involves times of closeness and times of distnce, and in a relationship with God, no matter how intimate, the pendulum will swing from one side to the other. That's where worship is difficult.
To mature your friendship, God will test it with periods of seeming separation - times when it feels as if He has abandoned or forgotten you. God feels a million miles away. St John of the Cross referred to these days of spiritual dryness, doubt, and estrangement from God as "the dark night of the soul." Beside Jesus, David probably had the closest friendship with God. He took pleasure in calling him " a man after my own heart." Yet, David frequently complained of God's apparent absence, "Lord, why are You standing aloof and far away?" "Why do You remain so distant?" Why do You hide when I need you the most?" "Why have You forsaken me?" "Why do You ignore my cries for help?" "Why have You abandoned me?"
Of course, God hadn't really left David, and He doesn't leave you. He has promised repeatedly, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." But God has not promised, "you will always feel my presence." In fact, God admits that sometimes He hides His face from us. There are times when He appears to be MIA (missing in action) in your life. >>
TO BE CONTINUED>>>
Let us worship Him in Spirit and in truth for He inhabits the praises of His people and we are His people. It is easy to worship God when things are going great in your life - when He has provided food, friends, family, health and happy situations. But circumstances are not always pleasant. How do you worship God then? What do you do when God seems a million miles away?
The deepest level of worship is praising God in spite of pain, thanking God during a trial, trusting Him when tempted, surrendering while suffering and loving Him when He seems distant.
Friendships are often tested by separation and silence, you are divided by physical distance or you are unabe to talk. In your friendship with God, you won't always feel close to Him. Philip Yancey has wisely noted, " Any relationship involves times of closeness and times of distnce, and in a relationship with God, no matter how intimate, the pendulum will swing from one side to the other. That's where worship is difficult.
To mature your friendship, God will test it with periods of seeming separation - times when it feels as if He has abandoned or forgotten you. God feels a million miles away. St John of the Cross referred to these days of spiritual dryness, doubt, and estrangement from God as "the dark night of the soul." Beside Jesus, David probably had the closest friendship with God. He took pleasure in calling him " a man after my own heart." Yet, David frequently complained of God's apparent absence, "Lord, why are You standing aloof and far away?" "Why do You remain so distant?" Why do You hide when I need you the most?" "Why have You forsaken me?" "Why do You ignore my cries for help?" "Why have You abandoned me?"
Of course, God hadn't really left David, and He doesn't leave you. He has promised repeatedly, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." But God has not promised, "you will always feel my presence." In fact, God admits that sometimes He hides His face from us. There are times when He appears to be MIA (missing in action) in your life. >>
TO BE CONTINUED>>>
Last edited by cordapya on Sat Oct 07, 2006 8:38 am, edited 1 time in total.
What is essential is invisible to the eye.
GOD doesn't need my ability, but my availability.
GOD doesn't need my ability, but my availability.
Floyd McChung describes it, "You wake up one morning and all your spiritual feelings are gone. You pray, but nothing happens. You rebuke the devil but it doesn't change anything. You go through spiritual exercises...you have your friends pray for you ... you confess every sin you can imagine, and then go around asking forgiveness of everyone you know. You fast...still nothing!!
You begin to wonder how long this spiritual gloom might last. Days, Weeks? Months? Will it ever end?....it feels as if your prayers simply bounce off the ceiling. In utter desperation, you cry out, "What 's the matter with me?" The truth is, there's nothing wrong with you! This is a normal part of the testing and maturing of your friendship with God. Every Christian goes through it at least once and usually several times. It is painful and disconcerting, but it is absolutely vital for the development of your faith. This gave Job hope when he could not feel God's presence in his life.
When God seem distance, you may feel that He is angry with you or is disciplining you for some sin. In fact, sin does disconnect us from intimate fellowship with God. We grieve God's Spirit and quench our fellowship with Him by disobedience, conflict with others, busyness, friendship with the world, and other sins. But often this feeling of abandonment and estrangment from God has nothing to do with sin. It is a test of faith-one we all must face. Will you continue to love, trust, obey and worship God, even when you have no sense of His presence or visible evidence of His work in your life?
TO BE CONTINUED>>>>>>
You begin to wonder how long this spiritual gloom might last. Days, Weeks? Months? Will it ever end?....it feels as if your prayers simply bounce off the ceiling. In utter desperation, you cry out, "What 's the matter with me?" The truth is, there's nothing wrong with you! This is a normal part of the testing and maturing of your friendship with God. Every Christian goes through it at least once and usually several times. It is painful and disconcerting, but it is absolutely vital for the development of your faith. This gave Job hope when he could not feel God's presence in his life.
When God seem distance, you may feel that He is angry with you or is disciplining you for some sin. In fact, sin does disconnect us from intimate fellowship with God. We grieve God's Spirit and quench our fellowship with Him by disobedience, conflict with others, busyness, friendship with the world, and other sins. But often this feeling of abandonment and estrangment from God has nothing to do with sin. It is a test of faith-one we all must face. Will you continue to love, trust, obey and worship God, even when you have no sense of His presence or visible evidence of His work in your life?
TO BE CONTINUED>>>>>>
What is essential is invisible to the eye.
GOD doesn't need my ability, but my availability.
GOD doesn't need my ability, but my availability.
The most common mistake Christians make in worship today is seeking an experience rather than seeking God. They look for a feeling and if it happens, they conclude that they have worshiped. Wrong! In fact, God then removes our feelings so we won't depend on them. Seeking a feeling even the feeling of closeness to Christ, is not worship.
When you are a baby Christian, God gives you a lot of confirming emotions and often answers the most immature, self-centered prayers - so you'll know He exists. But as you grow in faith, He will wean you of these dependencies. God's omnipresence and the manifestations of His presence are two different things. One is a fact and the other is a feeling. God is always present even when you are not aware of Him and His presence is too profound to be measured by mere emotion. Yes, He wants you to sense His presence, but He's more concerned that you trust Him than that you feel him. Faith, not feeling pleases God.
The situations that will stretch your faith most will be those times when life falls apart and God is nowhere to be found. This happened to Job. On a single day, he lost everyting - his family, his business, his health, and everything he owned . His very own wife even mocked him and told him to "curse his God and die." Most discouraging - for thirty-seven chapters, God said nothing! He is nowhere to be found in spite of everything Job did!
How do you praise God when you don't understnad what's happening to your life and God is silent? How do you keep your eyes on Jesus when they're full of tears?
TO BE CONTINUED>>>>>>
When you are a baby Christian, God gives you a lot of confirming emotions and often answers the most immature, self-centered prayers - so you'll know He exists. But as you grow in faith, He will wean you of these dependencies. God's omnipresence and the manifestations of His presence are two different things. One is a fact and the other is a feeling. God is always present even when you are not aware of Him and His presence is too profound to be measured by mere emotion. Yes, He wants you to sense His presence, but He's more concerned that you trust Him than that you feel him. Faith, not feeling pleases God.
The situations that will stretch your faith most will be those times when life falls apart and God is nowhere to be found. This happened to Job. On a single day, he lost everyting - his family, his business, his health, and everything he owned . His very own wife even mocked him and told him to "curse his God and die." Most discouraging - for thirty-seven chapters, God said nothing! He is nowhere to be found in spite of everything Job did!
How do you praise God when you don't understnad what's happening to your life and God is silent? How do you keep your eyes on Jesus when they're full of tears?
TO BE CONTINUED>>>>>>
What is essential is invisible to the eye.
GOD doesn't need my ability, but my availability.
GOD doesn't need my ability, but my availability.
APPLICATION: You do what Job did: "Then be fell to the ground and worship and said: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart, The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised."
1. Tell God exactly how you feel! Pour out your heart to God. Job did this. God can handle your doubts, anger, fear, grief, confusion and questions. Did you know that admitting your hopelessness to God can be a statement of faith? Trusting God but feeling despair at the same time. David wrote, " I believed, so I said, 'I am completely ruined.' I trust God but I'm wiped out! David's frankness actually reveals deep faith. First he believed in God. Second, he believed God would listen to his prayer. Third, he believed God would let him say what he felt and still love him.
2. Focus on who God is - His unchanging nature. Regardless of circumstances and how you feel, hang on to God's unchanging character. Remind yourself what you know to be eternally true about God. He is good. He loves me, He is with me, He knows what I'm going through, He cares, and He has a good plan for my life. V. Raymond Edman said. "Never doubt in the dark when God told you in the light." When Job's life fell apart, and God was silent, Job still found things he could praise God for: That He is good and loving, all powerful, He notices every details of my life that He is still in control and that He has a big plan for my life but above all, He will save me.
3. TRUST GOD TO KEEP HIS PROMISES. During times of spiritual dryness you must patiently rely on the promises of God, not your emotions, and realize that he is taking you to a deeper level of maturity. A friendship based on emotion is shallow indeed. So don't be troubled by trouble. Circumstances cannot change the character of God. God's grace is still in full force; He is still for you even when you don't feel it. In the absence of confirming circumstances, Job held on to God's Word. He said, "I have not departed from the commands of his lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my daily bread." This trust in God's Word caused Job to remain faithful even though nothing made sense. His faith was strong in the midst of pain. "Though God may kill me, but I will still trust Him." This is the deepest way of worshipping God, and then you finally arrived in your faith journey. When you feel abandoned by God yet continue to trust Him, you worship Him in the deepest way.
4. Remember what God has done fou you. If God never did anything else for you. He would still deserve your continual praise for the rest of your life because of what God's Son did for you! This is the greatest reason for worshipping God. Never forget the details of the agonizing sacrifice God made on our befalf. Familiarity breeds complacency. Ever before His crucifixtion, the Son of God (Jesus Christ) was stripped naked, beaten until almost unrecognizable, whipped and scorned and mocked and crowned with thorns and spit on contemptiously abused and rediculed by heartless men, he was treated worse than an animal!
Then, nearly unconscious from blood loss, he was forced to drag a cumbersome cross up a hill, was nailed to it, and was left to die the slow, exruciating torture of death by crucifixion. While his lifeblood drained out, hecklers stood by and shouted insults, making fun of his pain and challenging His claim as God.
Next, as Jesus took all of mankind's sin and guilt on himself, God looked away from that ugly sight, and Jesus cried out in total desperation, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?" Jesus could have saved himself - but then he could not have saved you. Word cannot describe the darkness of that moment. Why did God allow and endure such ghastly, evil mistreatment of His only begotten Son? Why? So you could be spared from eternity in hell, and so you could share in His glory forever! The Bible says, "Christ was without sin, but for our sake, God made Him share our sin in order that in union with Him, we might share the righteousness of God."
Jesus gave up everything so you could have everything. He died so you could live forever. That alone is enough and is worthy of your continual thanks and praise. Never again should you wonder what you have to be thankful for!
If you have not acknowledge Jesus Christ as your own personal Lord and Savior, this is your chance and time to invite Him into your life and make Him your very own Lord, God and Savior, and seal your eternal security through Him who is faithful and just to forgive you of your sin.
1. Tell God exactly how you feel! Pour out your heart to God. Job did this. God can handle your doubts, anger, fear, grief, confusion and questions. Did you know that admitting your hopelessness to God can be a statement of faith? Trusting God but feeling despair at the same time. David wrote, " I believed, so I said, 'I am completely ruined.' I trust God but I'm wiped out! David's frankness actually reveals deep faith. First he believed in God. Second, he believed God would listen to his prayer. Third, he believed God would let him say what he felt and still love him.
2. Focus on who God is - His unchanging nature. Regardless of circumstances and how you feel, hang on to God's unchanging character. Remind yourself what you know to be eternally true about God. He is good. He loves me, He is with me, He knows what I'm going through, He cares, and He has a good plan for my life. V. Raymond Edman said. "Never doubt in the dark when God told you in the light." When Job's life fell apart, and God was silent, Job still found things he could praise God for: That He is good and loving, all powerful, He notices every details of my life that He is still in control and that He has a big plan for my life but above all, He will save me.
3. TRUST GOD TO KEEP HIS PROMISES. During times of spiritual dryness you must patiently rely on the promises of God, not your emotions, and realize that he is taking you to a deeper level of maturity. A friendship based on emotion is shallow indeed. So don't be troubled by trouble. Circumstances cannot change the character of God. God's grace is still in full force; He is still for you even when you don't feel it. In the absence of confirming circumstances, Job held on to God's Word. He said, "I have not departed from the commands of his lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my daily bread." This trust in God's Word caused Job to remain faithful even though nothing made sense. His faith was strong in the midst of pain. "Though God may kill me, but I will still trust Him." This is the deepest way of worshipping God, and then you finally arrived in your faith journey. When you feel abandoned by God yet continue to trust Him, you worship Him in the deepest way.
4. Remember what God has done fou you. If God never did anything else for you. He would still deserve your continual praise for the rest of your life because of what God's Son did for you! This is the greatest reason for worshipping God. Never forget the details of the agonizing sacrifice God made on our befalf. Familiarity breeds complacency. Ever before His crucifixtion, the Son of God (Jesus Christ) was stripped naked, beaten until almost unrecognizable, whipped and scorned and mocked and crowned with thorns and spit on contemptiously abused and rediculed by heartless men, he was treated worse than an animal!
Then, nearly unconscious from blood loss, he was forced to drag a cumbersome cross up a hill, was nailed to it, and was left to die the slow, exruciating torture of death by crucifixion. While his lifeblood drained out, hecklers stood by and shouted insults, making fun of his pain and challenging His claim as God.
Next, as Jesus took all of mankind's sin and guilt on himself, God looked away from that ugly sight, and Jesus cried out in total desperation, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?" Jesus could have saved himself - but then he could not have saved you. Word cannot describe the darkness of that moment. Why did God allow and endure such ghastly, evil mistreatment of His only begotten Son? Why? So you could be spared from eternity in hell, and so you could share in His glory forever! The Bible says, "Christ was without sin, but for our sake, God made Him share our sin in order that in union with Him, we might share the righteousness of God."
Jesus gave up everything so you could have everything. He died so you could live forever. That alone is enough and is worthy of your continual thanks and praise. Never again should you wonder what you have to be thankful for!
If you have not acknowledge Jesus Christ as your own personal Lord and Savior, this is your chance and time to invite Him into your life and make Him your very own Lord, God and Savior, and seal your eternal security through Him who is faithful and just to forgive you of your sin.
Last edited by cordapya on Sat Oct 07, 2006 8:52 am, edited 2 times in total.
What is essential is invisible to the eye.
GOD doesn't need my ability, but my availability.
GOD doesn't need my ability, but my availability.
LET US PRAY:Heavenly Father, thank you for loving me that much; giving me your only Begotten Son to be my Lord and Redeemer. Please forgive me Lord, for I'm a sinner and save me. I want to live a life pleasing to You. Most Sacred Heart of Jesus come into my heart and be my Lord and Redeemer of my life. This day on, I commit my life to You. I now belong to You; fill me & lead me by Your Holy Spirit, so I can live a victorious Christian life and live for your glory in gratitude for your love for me. This I pray and ask of You in Jesus Name. Amen
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Thy kingdom come.
Immaculate Heart of Mary, Pray for us.
Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Thy kingdom come.
Immaculate Heart of Mary, Pray for us.
What is essential is invisible to the eye.
GOD doesn't need my ability, but my availability.
GOD doesn't need my ability, but my availability.