Echoes From the Campfire

He was following a duty, and this duty impelled him to make his greatest effort.”
              –James Oliver Curwood  (The River’s End)

    “You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on wickedness.  Why do You look on those who deal treacherously, and hold Your tongue when the wicked devours a person more righteous than he?”
              –Habakkuk 1:13 (NKJV)
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How to Live in a Pagan, Apostate, and Foolish World

Key Verse:  “We know that we are of God, and the whole world is in the power of the evil one.” –1 John 5:19 (RSV)

         “In other words, we know what it is to be grieved by the sin of this world; we do not merely look at the world with a political eye or with a social eye or with an eye of benevolence.  No, we see things as God Himself sees them.  Evil becomes a reality, sin becomes a reality in the new sense, and we see these powers, these evil forces that are in the world and which are manipulating the life of the world in their enmity against God and we are concerned about that.  We feel that God is in it and that we are likewise in it, in that we are concerned to bring the purposes of God to pass.  We meditate, we pray; we do everything that we are capable of in furthering the kingdom of light, so that the kingdom of evil may be finally routed.  We are sharers in God’s thought and in God’s enterprise and in God’s whole interest in this life and world.”
                     –D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Think hard about the about statement.  How do you look upon the political scene?  Is it through the eyes of God’s Word, or through your own opinions?  Are you serving the Lord or are you serving the culture or are you serving yourself?  Are you a friend of God or the friend of the world?  The answers to these questions are important if you are really concerned about having a relationship, being in fellowship with the Father.
    Fellowship means that things are shared.  If the Holy Spirit is grieved, are you grieved?  Are you a partaker in the things of God, and part of that means picking up your cross daily and following Him?  If you are to have true fellowship, a real relationship then you will have shared interests and shared purposes.
    There must be an intense desire to do the will of God.  It is not in word only, but throughout all aspects of life.  We should hunger and thirst after righteousness, not our own desires.  In fact, His desires should become our desires.  There is promise of the Scripture that is ours to believe and take to heart, however, most only take the second have.  Remember, that all promises have a condition.  Look at Psalm 37:4, “Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.” (NKJV)  Most claim the second phrase, but forget that for God to give us the desires of our heart we must first delight in Him and in doing that we will have the desires of His heart.
    Look at what Paul writes, “For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13, NKJV).  We need to read the Word of God to know His will.  He is with us through the journey of life.  He leads us; He reveals His will to us; He opens doors and shuts them; sometimes He puts up barriers and obstacles as well as removing them, and He will deal with us.  I read recently that, “Not all storms come to disrupt your life, some come to clear your path.”