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God calls us to a straitened path. He bestows His boundless love on us, He rains His mercy and grace over our lives, He attends from heaven to our whispered prayer and faintest cry from the heart. This bountiful, extravagant outpouring of heaven's resources into us is given freely, liberally, ungrudgingly so that we can extricate our lives from the mud-hole we have been mired in, from the rock-pile we ended up high-centering on. Once we are back on the path, all wheels are on the pavement, we move forward, following the rules of safe traveling. Jeremiah 17 v.9 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? v.10 I, the Lord, search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve. So many rules, guidelines, restrictions, directions, precepts, mandates, decrees -- they are needed because our carnal minds are so busily active in looking for creative loopholes to do what it wants and to justify itself. "Man is not a rational being, but a rationalizing being." But the carnal mind is enmity to God, and cannot be subject to the Spirit of God. Jeremiah 17 v.14 Heal me, O Lord, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for You are the one I praise. 1 Thessalonians 4 v.7 For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. v.8 Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you His Holy Spirit. We live in the freedom of God because we accept the discipline of God. This loving, careful, appropriate, guided training that our Father gives us is often much different from what we may have experienced from our earthly fathers. Even the best and most loving of parents will, at times, react to their children out of personal distraction, anger, frustration, exhaustion, weariness rather than responding directly to the child, thus causing the child confusion, wondering what they did wrong. but our Father God is not like that; He trains us as we need, focused with love, seasoned with grace. Jeremiah 17 v.7 But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him. v.8 He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit. Psalm 81 v.13 If my people would but listen to me, if Israel would follow my ways, v.14 how quickly would I subdue their enemies, and turn my hand against their foes! Let us walk willingly the narrow, restricted path God directs our feet to. By not straying from the path He sets us on, we have firm footing to stand when attacked, our feet are established where He can bless us. The enemy will rage around us, but with clean feet, not slick with slime, there is no opportunity for our balance to be lost. Endure, hold on, stay close, breathe in the Spirit, grasp the lifeline of the Word, and stand with trust and faith in God's keeping strength and abilities. Jeremiah 18:6 Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel. 1 Thessalonians 5:2 ...the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. O Lord, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in time of distress, You are teaching us to walk in Your love, forgiveness, kindness, mercy and gentleness. The time is coming when You will teach the world Your power and might that they will know that Your name is the Lord. Give us the vision we need to press in now and accept Your discipline and guidance so we may be trained, prepared, ready to take our stations and stand where You place us when You reveal Yourself in Your majesty to the world.
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