Tag: You have stumbled

He is faithful

“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness”

 

Joe 2:12
“Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the LORD your God?

Deuteronomy 4:29-30
But from there you will seek the LORD your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in tribulation, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, you will return to the LORD your God and obey his voice.

1 Samuel 7:3
And Samuel said to all the house of Israel, “If you are returning to the LORD with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you and direct your heart to the LORD and serve him only, and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.”

Acts 26:20
but declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout all the region of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance.

Hosea 14:1
Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity.

Zechariah 1:3-4
Therefore say to them, Thus declares the LORD of hosts: Return to me, says the LORD of hosts, and I will return to you, says the LORD of hosts. Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets cried out, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, Return from your evil ways and from your evil deeds.’ But they did not hear or pay attention to me, declares the LORD.

“Do not be like your fathers – even when I cried out to them they continued in what they were doing and rejected my pleas”  How would you feel if this is what God is telling your wife, your children, your husband about you? I am confident it is impossible to hear His cry and pleas to return when we spend no time in His word.  We will not seek Him for guidance for our day, we will forget what purpose there is in this life, we will be influenced more and more by what seems right in our own eyes or is socially accepted, we will become deaf and blind to His leading.  God knows all of this and proclaims in His word over and over again “Return to me and I will return to you,” “I will deliver you,” “You will find me,” “Search for me with your whole heart,” “Repent,” “I know your heart, thoughts, and intent,” “I love you so much that I will sacrifice my son for you,” “I will give you peace,” “I will give your strength,” “I will be your rock,” “I will guide your path,” and so many more words of warning and blessing.  Be the father, mother, son, daughter that is spoken of by God as one who did right in His eyes.  Be the one who is a light in the darkness.  Be the one who is able to rightly proclaim God’s word.  Spend time in His word today.

While He may be found

“how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?”

Hos 14:1  Return, O Israel, to the LORD your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity.

Isa 55:6  “Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near;
Isa 55:7  let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

Psalms 14:2  The LORD looks down from heaven on the children of man, to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God.

Matthew 7:7-8  “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.

Hebrews 2:3 how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard,

Psalms 145:18 The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. 

I have taken a bit of the sermon from Jonathan Edwards written in 1741 that I think captures many thoughts in line with these verses; “All wicked men’s pains and contrivance which they use to escape hell, while they continue to reject Christ, and so remain wicked men, do not secure them from hell one moment. Almost every natural man that hears of hell, flatters himself that he shall escape it; he depends upon himself for his own security; he flatters himself in what he has done, in what he is now doing, or what he intends to do.

But the foolish children of men miserably delude themselves in their own schemes, and in confidence in their own strength and wisdom; they trust to nothing but a shadow. The greater part of those who heretofore have lived under the same means of grace, and are now dead, are undoubtedly gone to hell; and it was not because they were not as wise as those who are now alive: it was not because they did not lay out matters as well for themselves to secure their own escape. If we could speak with them, and inquire of them, one by one, whether they expected, when alive, and when they used to hear about hell ever to be the subjects of that misery: we doubtless, should hear one and another reply, “No, I never intended to come here: I had laid out matters otherwise in my mind; I thought I should contrive well for myself: I thought my scheme good. I intended to take effectual care; but it came upon me unexpected; I did not look for it at that time, and in that manner; it came as a thief: Death outwitted me: God’s wrath was too quick for me. Oh, my cursed foolishness! I was flattering myself, and pleasing myself with vain dreams of what I would do hereafter; and when I was saying, Peace and safety, then suddenly destruction came upon me.
So that, whatever some have imagined and pretended about promises made to natural men’s earnest seeking and knocking, it is plain and manifest, that whatever pains a natural man takes in religion, whatever prayers he makes, till he believes in Christ, God is under no manner of obligation to keep him a moment from eternal destruction.”

Amen, Amen