#51 THE CALL TO OVERCOME: PSALM 91:1-2

     Many years ago, after my husband almost died twice in an eighteen month period, God focused our attention on a Psalm which has become one of the most meaningful passages in our lives. At the time, God had already encouraged us with Deuteronomy 30:15-20 (choosing life and blessings rather than choosing death and cursings); in this Psalm, we found the foundation that gave us the ability to choose life and blessings. Psalm 91 spoke so clearly to me that I copied it down and posted it on our front door. Every time we came into our house, we were reminded of the power of dwelling in the Secret Place of the Most High, so this Psalm remained on our door for a number of years and built our confidence in the absolute love that God has for all of us. It also became the call to overcome in our lives. For, truly, if we have any hope of overcoming the kingdom of evil, it has to begin with our choice of where we live. 

He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, in Him I will trust.      (Psalm 91: 1-2)

     When we began our discussions through the first several posts of this blog, we talked about how God was all there was before He started creating and how He created an alternative to Himself before He created any beings (first post, http://is.gd/d56i5). We inferred that, when God removed Himself from a “place,” the Wrath of God came into existence and was completely separate from where God was (aka the Secret Place of the Most High). Then we went on to discuss how Lucifer became Satan and set up his kingdom in the Wrath of God and how God went to the kingdom of evil to create our world. So, in the world we live in, two basic forces (good and evil) exist and God has given us the right to choose which force rules our lives. The trouble is our world is full of deception and misunderstanding because, by finding a way to scam Adam and Eve, Satan was able to construct an impenetrable wall between God and the human race. Satan built such a network of lies that finding truth was neigh to impossible (only Enoch and Elijah were able to get around Satan’s ploy). The Bible tells us how God worked with humans over many years to break through all the roadblocks Satan erected and how He made the way for Christ to be born. After Christ worked on correcting some of the misunderstandings people had about God, he went to the cross where he knocked down that dividing wall and made a way for people to not only find truth, but also for them to choose life and blessings. Christ opened the door to the Secret Place of the Most High for anyone who wants to enter. 

     Way back when I was in college, my Christian friends and I talked a great deal about having quiet times with God–times that we would devote to reading the Bible and praying. In my mind, somehow, this concept of having quiet times equaled visiting with God during regularly scheduled meetings. At that young age, I was challenged not only to find time for my quiet time, but also, to keep my mind centered on reading the Bible and praying while I was meeting with God. However, my concept of relating to God began changing after I graduated from college and moved away from family and friends. Suddenly, I didn’t have anyone but God to rely on, and I transitioned from having quiet time meetings with God to living my life snuggled next to Him on a comfy couch. In other words, I found my place in the Secret Place of the Most High and moved in. In the years since, I have never regretted my decision.

     Have you ever heard a sentiment that says something like God demands our worship and praise for His own sake because He is who He is? I think sometimes the statements we Christians make portray God as being somewhat egoistic. Psalm 91 shows us that God is not all about Himself, but He is all about us. He wants us to live in the place where He is–not for His sake, but for our sakes. Abiding under the shadow of the Almighty gives us a place of safety in a world of evil. As verse 2 encourages us, we can look at the Secret Place of the Most High through the lenses of being a refuge and a fortress. The dictionary defines “refuge” as being shelter or protection from danger or difficulty and “fortress” (fort, fortify) as being a permanent defensive place that is strengthened against attack. If anything is clear in our world, it is the fact that evil is intent on destroying all of us. Through Christ, God has made the way for us to escape that evil and to reach the point where our defense can destroy Satan’s offense. So, God wants us to abide in Him for our good, not for His selfish purposes.

     Psalm 91:2 ends with the words, “…in Him (God) I will trust.” I think we struggle with this word, “trust.” How many times have you trusted someone only to be disappointed or hurt? Yet, practically everywhere we go, we hear the words, “Just trust me (or us)?” I would like to propose a concept that has grown in my life as I have walked with God–I do not trust any human being (including myself), but I do trust God. Trust is defined as the firm confidence in the honesty, integrity, reliability, justice, etc. of another person or thing. As far as I can see, if the Bible is reality, there is only one entity who is worthy of our trust and that is God. Everyone and everything else in our world are subject to variableness. James 1:17 tells us that God does not vary in any way at all–His absolute love never changes. So, through the years, I have learned to put my trust in God and to obey Him by loving myself and my fellow human beings.

     Dwelling in the Secret Place of the Most High is a matter of choice, not of feelings. Listen again to God’s words found in Deuteronomy 30:19-20:

   I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling (cleave, KJV) to Him for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.

Life is found through dwelling in the Secret Place of the Most High, for it is there where we can find the knowledge, understanding, and wisdom we need to overcome the kingdom of evil. Each and every one of us has the right to abide under the shadow of the Almighty. We have a distinct choice in our world, and I’m praying for the day when all of us will understand the power of dwelling in the Secret Place of the Most High.

    All scriptures have been taken from the NKJV.

     ©2009-2010 by Patricia Zell. All rights reserved.

      

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patriciazell, July 20th 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in THE CALL TO OVERCOME

#4 THE ORIGINAL SIN

     When we think about sin entering the world, we look at the account of Adam and Eve eating the “forbidden fruit” in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:1-19, Romans 5:12). However, although the pair was the conduit for the force of unbelief to enter into our world, they were not the creators of sin.  In fact, sin existed before our world was even created. In this post, I am going to pull the last three posts–God’s absolute love, the creation of evil, and truth and freedom–together to explain how evil became active and how sin came into being.

     Sometime after God created the alternative to Himself–the Wrath of God–He established the angelic realm. Although there is not a specific biblical account of how God created these spiritual beings, mentions of what happened in that process are sprinkled through the scriptures. By putting some of these together with what we have already discovered about God’s character, we can build inferences that will help us understand where sin came from.

     First, because God is the One who created the angels, we can surmise that the angels were created in the Secret Place of the Most High and that they existed in life, light, love, good, spirit, and truth. And, since the Wrath of God had already been created (as indicated in Jude 6) and since God does not demand His own way, we can also infer that every angel was free to choose between the Secret Place of the Most High and the Wrath of God. Think about this for a while–at the point of his creation, each of the angels knew truth and had  freedom of choice. This concept can be hard for us to understand because none of us have ever had access to complete truth nor have we ever had unrestrained freedom. (We are born without any knowledge of truth and are born totally dependent on other people who are there to take care of us.) Nevertheless, I think we can be confident that God created the angels with minds and wills of their own and with an understanding of the choice they had.

     Now, let’s look at one particular angel who changed the course of eternity through the free choices he made. Lucifer is described in Isaiah 14:12-17 and is symbolized by the king of Tyre in Ezekiel 28:12-19. Again, not getting hung up with verb tenses, we can work out what happened in these passages along with those in Jude 6 and Revelation 12:4:

–Lucifer was one of the most beautiful angels created by God–he was perfect and considered to be the “morning star.”

–He began looking at his own beauty and began desiring to be like God in that he wanted to rule over his peers.

–He knew he could never rule over God in the Secret Place of the Most High, so he began looking at the Wrath of God and decided he could set up his kingdom there.

–Lucifer let go of God (and of light, life, love, good, spirit, and truth) and moved into the Wrath of God. One third of the angelic realm freely moved with him. From that point on, these angels existed in darkness, death, hate, evil, physicality, and deception. Every one of those angels knew exactly what he was doing by making this choice.

     By letting go of God, Lucifer created sin which is simply unbelief or not holding onto God (John 16:9, Romans 14:23). Let me repeat, Lucifer created sin–he was the one who took the first step away from God. And, make no mistake about it, God had absolutely nothing to do with Lucifer’s choice–the angel himself conceived of the plan to set up his own kingdom and acted on that plan. By the way, through this process, Lucifer became Satan and became an enemy of God in that he hated God with everything he had.

     So, after Satan’s move and after one-third of the angels followed him, the alternative to God became inhabited. The Wrath of God was no longer inactive, and Satan set up a kingdom that he alone dominated. Now, in my next post, we are going to see how Satan’s kingdom became the launching pad for God’s next creation.

 

     Please feel free to comment on this post. Any comments that are disrespectful to anyone will be deleted.

 

     ©2009 by Patricia Zell. All rights reserved.

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patriciazell, July 8th 2009 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in BEFORE THE BEGINNING