Why Oh Why?

Genesis 4:5-7 (Amplified Bible)

⁵But for ^[a]Cain and his offering He had no respect or regard. So Cain was exceedingly angry and indignant, and he looked sad and depressed.

    ⁶And the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry? And why do you look sad and depressed and dejected?

    ⁷If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin crouches at your door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.

   

Footnotes:

1. Genesis 4:5 In bringing the offering he did, Cain denied that he was a sinful creature under the sentence of divine condemnation. He insisted on approaching God on the ground of personal worthiness. Instead of accepting God's way, he offered to God the fruits of the ground which God had cursed. He presented the product of his own toil, the work of his own hands, and God refused to receive it (Arthur W. Pink, Gleanings in Genesis).

Sometimes I feel like this overwhelming cry in my heart saying, "Why oh why?! is something this way and not another way etc..."  It is very often I am sure a thought of so many human beings on this earth in this time of existence.  There is so much injustice and so much grief, happiness and goodness are either so temporary they only provide a quick glimpse of light, or they are simply vacant all together from our visions.  

Colossians 3 ¹ Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. ² Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. ³ For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God.

Now I find myself asking why oh why? can't I keep my gaze on things above.  Why oh why can't I truly live in the light of God's truth, and put aside the things of this world which are passing away, quickly, even before my eyes.  Peace and safety are not to be sure of, and doubt and fear are banging on my door constantly.  So how do I receive grace to fast and pray, and keep my eyes locked with God's?  

⁶ But He gives more grace. Therefore He says:

      “ God resists the proud,
      But gives grace to the humble.”

Humility Cures Worldliness   

⁷ Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. ⁸ Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

James 4:6-8 (New King James Version)

I must believe, I must stand on His word.  So I gotta know His word, and I must look into God, through looking at Jesus.  Where are there detailed books about Jesus?  God make me yearn to learn about You Jesus.  Lord give me revelation, retention, and reverence for Your Holy Spirit breathed Scriptures.  Oh that Your Words of Truth would become alive in me and spread to capture others hearts that all would know of Your goodness, my God!

 ⁵ You see, we don’t go around preaching about ourselves. We preach that Jesus Christ is Lord, and we ourselves are your servants for Jesus’ sake. ⁶ For God, who said, “Let there be light in the darkness,” has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ.

 ⁷ We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.

 ⁸ We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. ⁹ We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. ¹⁰ Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies.

 ¹¹ Yes, we live under constant danger of death because we serve Jesus, so that the life of Jesus will be evident in our dying bodies. ¹² So we live in the face of death, but this has resulted in eternal life for you.

 ¹³ But we continue to preach because we have the same kind of faith the psalmist had when he said, “I believed in God, so I spoke.”¹⁴ We know that God, who raised the Lord Jesus, will also raise us with Jesus and present us to himself together with you. 

Jesus give me vision that fascinates me until Your soon return; give me a vision of You on the throne, King of kings.  Lord let me proclaim Your goodness even in my pain and sorrow, that Your Joy would be my strength.  Holy Spirit of our Living God, shine the light of Jesus through me!  I proclaim I will trust in You, I believe in You Jesus, thank You for my sure salvation.

¹⁵ All of this is for your benefit. And as God’s grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory.

 ¹⁶ That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. 
¹⁷ For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! 
¹⁸ So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.

2 Corinthians 4:5-18 (New Living Translation)

Poor Need More

Psalm 113, the psalmist writes,
 "He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; he seats them with princes, with the princes of their people."

This is our God.  Written in the Word of Truth are the emotions, the compassion that God has towards the needy, the poor.  We are not the only poor, there are always those even less fortunate than us, who we need to bless and lift up in prayer.  But even in our state we are basically poor; and the promise is that God Himself will raise us from the dust, lift us from the ashes, and seat us with princes, the princes of our people, not the people of the past or future, but now our people.  So Lord we say, thank You, and yes.  
We agree You will raise us up, and provide all our needs.  We will go before princes to be witnesses of the great riches of the knowledge of Jesus.  Beautiful mercy, wonderful love straight from the throne of God is empowering us to deploy love across the earth, to the nations, starting in our circle of influence.  

Luke 12:10-12 (ESV)¹⁰And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. ¹¹And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, ¹²for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say."

We are for the glory of God, we are His witnesses across the earth by the grace He gives us.  Only our willingness to be poor in Spirit and accept God's grace can allow for His strength to be our our strength.  If we come as we are barren, with nothing to give but our repentance, 
broken and contrite in spirit, Our God will not deny us, but His joy will be our strength.  
We will actually be filled with the Joy of the Lord, the knowing of His goodness towards us, and that will empower us to make it through each day.  It is only for our benefit that we stand on THE WORD, we must realize God's truths are alive.  Jesus is alive.  

God, our Father has left us 66 books of the bible, and Jesus has sent the Helper, the Holy Spirit of the only Living God.  Thank You Lord!  You have given us all we need for life and godliness.  So we ask for more!

Romans 11:32-34 (New International Version) ³² For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all. 

Doxology

 ³³ Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! 
   How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!
³⁴ “Who has known the mind of the Lord?  Or who has been his counselor?” 

Hebrews 1

Our first Hebrews meeting was a great bible study. Me, Jen, Carrera, and Kara read through Hebrews one and discussed it. Many point were brought up about the conncetion of the Old Testament and the New Testament; how maybe the author of Hebrews was writing to encourage Jewish Christians by proving the Law points to Jesus, the man, as the awaited Messiah. 
We also wondered why it talked so much about the supremacy of the Christ Jesus above angels. Some thoughts were that possibly angelic activity was more common in those days, since in scripture we find angels helping the disciples, and warnings not to worship angels, and even when Peter came to meet his friends they thought it was just his angel...?? We read from Pawson that persecution was increasing at the time Hebrews was written and they may need encouragement to not deny Jesus under pressure. Our discussion had so many good point besides, therefore I was intrigued to meditate more upon the passage of Hebrews 1.
1 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, 2 has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; 3 who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
In the prayer room I kept thinking on the beginning of verse three. It says God's Son Jesus "being the brightness of His glory".... What does that mean? the brightness, the bright part, the most shining part, the center, of God's glory is Jesus. If we see Jesus we have seen the brightest part of God's glory! So in studying about our Lord Jesus we come closer to the most intense part of God's glory! Jesus is the "express image of" God's person... so is that saying something like, if God were to express Himself as a person He would look like the Man Jesus? How can we know what God is like...by learning about what Jesus is like. Praise God we have the Word, the Word made flesh if you will. 
I am excited for our next meeting to discuss Hebrews 2 which contains the question, ""What is man, that you are mindful of him"