| or the largest speakers He could find for His car. We don't know whether Jesus carried any money, but we know He had a treasurer in charge of His ministry. We know that when He needed to pay taxes, He didn't ask for a collection from the people He helped, instead He exercised powerful faith and told His disciples to go fish. The first fish up from the water, contained a coin in it's mouth that was sufficient to pay for His group's taxes. This doesn't mean we don't have to pay tithes to our church or fund ministries to spread the gospel. The New Testament church did these things faithfully, and more. My point is that modern thought focuses on the material, and money. Kingdom thinking focuses on the needs of people, and spreading God's love. God takes care of the how and all the material concerns. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all of these things shall be added unto you." Do you want to be an earth thinker, or a kingdom thinker? Do you want to spread God's love and faith, or do you want to spread Satan's fear and greed? You end up doing one or the other, whether you intend to or not. Every one of your actions gives testimony to either Jesus or Satan. Grief and Pain There are times when you may be hurting so badly that you don't want to seek God. You don't know why God allowed this bad thing to happen. Our understanding of God and His ways is very thin and strained at times like these. Scripture tells us that we don't think from God's point of view, that His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not ours. That doesn't mean He doesn't care as strongly as you do, or stronger! It doesn't mean that He wouldn't step in and destroy your enemies. What it does mean is that God sees all the earth and every person's thoughts, cares and motivations. He understands it all, and sees a picture bigger than you and I can see. He made the earth and people all perfect. He created absolute heaven on earth for us, and gave mankind absolute authority on earth, but we gave it all away. When Adam and Eve listened to Satan and disobeyed God, they didn't JUST sin. They handed over control of this planet and all of creation to the prince of darkness. They turned from obedience to the Almighty, to obedience to the enemy. Their eternal spirits became dead to God (separated from God), and their physical bodies also died. Sickness and infirmities, iniquity and sin, became reality. There were none before man's fall. These are the natural outcome, or "wages" of disobedience to God. "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life." We rejoice today, because God didn't leave us in a state of death! Immediately when Adam and Eve left the garden of Eden, God began instructing them what to do to get back to Him. He re-established a relationship with them, and promised them a savior. His own son. They began killing animals and allowing their spilt blood to represent the death they deserved, and the death of the savior to come, as He atoned for all of our wrongdoings. On His name, mankind again was able to reach up to God and create a partial "heaven on earth". All of the people throughout history, who obeyed God and sought His help, received healing, help and prosperity. Through bad times and painful times, God never let them down, and He won't let you down either. |