How Desperate Are You For God's Help?
(By: Norm Rasmussen)
The question should be more accurately asked, 'How desperate is a person for GOD?' Period.
Why? Because most people want God's help as they go through life's trials, but many don't understand why they don't seem to get it when they ask for it.
If you don't know this about God, do yourself a favor and soak it up, if you want God's help. Forgive me for being so blunt, but sometimes 'blunt' is called for. Humanity is trifling with God's patience more than what many realize.
God warms up the most to those who want to get to know Him personally; intimately, not what they can just get out of Him. (Most people fool themselves into believing that if God will help them out, then maybe they will try to find out more about Him, and then maybe not. Usually it's NOT, as time passes).
God warms up the most to those who truly want to please Him. That means: OBEY HIM. Who of us want a friend or a spouse who doesn't demonstrate his/her willingness to please us?
God warms up the most to those who truly desire to know what truth REALLY IS, and then get boldly determined to PRACTICE and TEACH truth (as much as possible) with everything in their being. (The devil is the Master of spiritual deception. Lies. Twisting truth. Hell will have various degrees of suffering for those who will spend eternity there, but those who will suffer the greatest will be those who were 'hell bent' on passing their spiritual deception along to others in this life).
God warms up to the humble. The greatest act of humility a person can demonstrate to God is their need to be saved from their sins, and DO something about it. Jesus Christ DID something about it. He shed His innocent blood on the cross to DO something about our sin condition.
God takes care 'of His own.' You are not one of His own YET until you've demonstrated to Him that you NEED Him to be your Savior. And once you've demonstrated that you will to let Him be your Savior, you need to demonstrate that you are willing to let Him be LORD of every area of your life. The world is full of 'Christians' who have acknowledged to Him that they desire Him to keep them out of hell, in other words, asking Him to be their Savior (fire insurance policy). That's an important first step, but it's not the end-all. After that step comes one's sincere actions in letting Him become their LORD. How are you doing in that department? If it doesn't matter all that much, don't expect God to jump at answering your prayers nor honoring your trust in Him. Sorry.
The Bible states that we humans were created in God's likeness. We were created in His image. That means God can be offended just as we can be offended by others. If you want God's help ... do yourself a HUGE favor and take careful inventory of how you have offended God in the past, or how you may be offending Him even now. Acknowledge to Him that you are sorry and by His help never to do so again, ask His forgiveness, and then let Him give you peace in the matter, which He WILL. (God expects non-Christians to offend Him. But He's a bit less tolerant of Christians offending Him. Sure God has patient mercy and grace and forgiveness for struggling Christians. But He STILL can be offended, and when He gets offended, He tends to withdraw His favor from our life, until we demonstrate to Him that we're not presently, nor in the past, have been all that wise in our dealings with Him in the "offense arena").
As an important sidebar ... God's grace is only for a limited time. If we die in our sins, our grace period is over.
Most marriage problems come when one or both of the two people involved either are ignorant, uniformed of God's Word, or are not obeying God's Word. Many marriages work quite well ... until one person in that marriage starts getting REAL serious with Jesus Christ. Then all hell starts breaking loose in that relationship. And when BOTH partners in the marriage determine to get serious with Jesus Christ, they become VERY dangerous to Satan's causes. Satan will never STOP trying to find ways to keep that marriage in conflict as long as both partners are serious in pleasing Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father. Wise Christian couples have grown to understand that to make their marriage the BEST it can be on any given day, implementing Ephesians 6:10-18 is NOT optional; not for even five minutes or less.
Most financial problems come when a person (or couple) is either ignorant, uninformed of God's Word, or are not obeying the wisdom of God's Word.
Most addiction problems ultimately stem from a person failing to realize just how ruthless Satan and his demon helpers are in seeking to destroy what God has created for His eternal pleasure, which happens to be YOU!
Afterall, that's why He created you. He wants to enjoy you for all eternity, and He wants you to enjoy HIM for all eternity.
You have a real enemy, friend. He isn't God. He's the one who wants no one having what he'll never have again -- intimacy with His creator for eternity. Don't underestimate him, or his persistent ruthlessness. He's not to be feared once you're in Christ Jesus, but we're not to be ignorant of His cunning devices either. Not if we choose to be wise and enjoy life as much as possible in this very evil world ... living fruitful lives that involve eternal rewards for believers.
Dear Reader - are you at peace with God? If not, you can be. Do you know what awaits you when you die? You can have the assurance from God that heaven will be your home, if you would like to be certain. You can even have that assurance RIGHT NOW! Either Jesus Christ died for your sins, or He didn't (He did!). Are you prepared to stand before God on the Judgment Day and tell Him that you didn't need the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the Cross to have your sins forgiven and get in right-standing with God? We plead with you...please don't make such a tragic mistake.
To get to know God, to be at peace with God, to have your sins forgiven, to make certain heaven will be your home for eternity, to make certain that you are in right-standing with God right now ... please click here to help you understand the importance of being reconciled to God. What you do about being reconciled to God will determine where you will spend eternity, precious one. Your decision to be reconciled to God is the most important decision you'll ever make in this life, because in Christ, it is impossible to put a value on the worth of your soul in light of eternity.
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Remember: All that we do in this life comes back to our God-given purpose which is to serve and glorify God. The money and assets we accumulate, the fame and power we've attained or seek to attain - all of the things of this nature will one day pass away, but those lives of others we impact for Jesus Christ will last for eternity, and we will be rewarded for the part we helped play by impacting those lives ... for eternity. (Matthew 6:19-20 is our assurance)