What God Has Not Promised
Dear Champions,
The short excerpt is by Andy Stanley, and the Scripture is Matthew 5:45 God causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
We really would like to use God and get Him to do what we want. When you read the Bible, you will find that God cannot be shrunk down into a little box that we can manipulate and get Him to cooperate with us. If you ever decide to embrace Christianity, then you need to look at what God has not promised you. Most of the men who had the greatest faith in Jesus were martyred, persecuted, stoned or beaten. They had incredible faith, and bad things still happened to them. God has not promised to keep bad things from happening to those that believe in Him. If something bad happens to you, that does not mean that God does not care about you or that He does not love you.
None of the people that were closest to Jesus became wealthy because of their faith. There was nothing in it for them, yet they continued to have this extraordinary faith in Jesus. So why did they continue to believe? They would say, I saw this guy on a cross, and three days later we had lunch. I do not know if there is anything in this for me or not, but I am just telling you what I saw. I am just going to go with the guy that rose from the dead.
Jesus went around and healed lots of people, but He did not heal everybody. Every once in a while even now Jesus heals someone miraculously, but it is not the norm. God has not promised to heal everyone, and He has not promised to reverse the consequences of your bad decisions. Sometimes you get a break, but He does not promise to rescue you from the consequences of your sin.
Champions, have a great week!-David Vining
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