For Such a Time as This

 

Okay, I am going to give away my age right now. I grew up during the 50s and 60s. The TV sitcom “Happy Days” showed it exactly like it was.

The girls dressed as cute as they could and our hair and makeup had to be perfect, while the boys wore letter jackets to show how successful they were as athletes, and they drove muscle cars to look and sound cool. We all had lots of face to face time and long conversations. Communication was great back then. Young people really have no idea what they are missing out on.

Things were basically peaceful and innocent back then. Those of us who lived during that time miss it and long for it to come back.

Everything is so different now. The Bible tells us that in the end days what is right will be called wrong, and what is wrong will be called right. It used to be considered honorable to stand for what is right, but now we are called haters and terrorists. I just keep reminding myself that the Bible also says that he who will not believe the truth will be allowed to believe a lie. That is what we are seeing here.

I thank God that we still have millions of people who know and believe the truth. That is the only thing that is holding this world together. When Jesus returns and takes us home the Christians will be gone and the world will have trouble like it has never dreamed of.

Many times I have wished I had been born about 20 years earlier so I would not have lived through the changes I have seen. The people born after us will see a lot more horrible changes than us.

I feel so happy to have lived through what it was like when we were in our teens. I also feel so sad to be living through what we are seeing now. So many times I have thought about how I don’t want to deal with what is happening now. It can be very sad and discouraging. It can also be very scary.

The other day I was thinking about how I wish I had been born a few years earlier so I wouldn’t be feeling all this stress and trying to hold onto our society. It seems determined to destroy itself, and we are desperately trying to prevent that. I actually get to feeling sorry for myself that I have to deal with this. Why couldn’t I have been born at a different time.

Then God brought to mind the story of Esther, in the Bible. She “just happened” to be in the right place at the right time to become the queen. Her entire race was about to be wiped out and her uncle Mordecai asked her to intervene for her people.

She was very afraid to approach the king because if she went to the inner court unbidden, and the king did not hold out the golden scepter to her she would be put to death. Mordecai encouraged her and helped her to find the strength to risk going before the king without him sending for her. When she was afraid, Mordecai told her, “Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” What a thought.

After thinking about it for a while I came to the conclusion that God knows exactly what each of us who has ever lived was able to deal with and He specifically placed each person in the time in which they lived. God knows exactly what our strengths and weaknesses are, and He has placed each one of us in a time that we are suited to be able to handle. Like Esther, we are created for a time like this. God has never made a mistake and placed anyone in the wrong time period.

When Esther went before the king she saved all of her people. You might feel like you don’t hold the same power she held. After all, you aren’t married to the king. The truth is our place is more powerful than that. We are the sons and daughters of The King of Kings. Like in the days of Abraham, we can petition for God’s grace for our country and our world for the sake of the Christians who are here. There are many times He will show mercy for our sakes. We just have to seek His face and ask. He will always hold out His golden scepter to us. He has promised us that. He might not always give us what we are asking for because we don’t always ask for the right thing, but He will never turn us away.

So remember, even when we feel like we can’t handle things anymore, the truth is we can because we truly were born for a time like this.

Think about it.

He Reigns All Over The World

 

When you were growing up did you ever feel alone as a Christian? I did.

I suppose it was because when we were teenagers very few young people talked publicly about their faith. I always felt like the youth in our church were the only Christians in our school because I wasn’t aware of any other students even attending church. I now know that wasn’t true.

I also thought almost no one in other countries even knew about God, much less served Him. All I knew about religion around the world was mainly Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and so on.

Thank goodness, as I have gone through my life I have come to realize more and more that this is not the case. Although it is still true that far too few people are Christians, it is also true that there are hundreds of millions of people all over the world who are totally devoted to God.

In America we still have the right to worship God openly even though many people here want to take that right away from us. They very well might succeed in that, depending on what Christians allow them to get away with. However, even if that happens, they cannot get rid of us. As long as God is in control, which will never end, they cannot stop us. We might have to go underground, but that is still okay, because when the church has to go into hiding we actually become stronger.

When we went through the Covid crisis we saw great change in the church. The reality is the church became smaller but mightier. As we were not allowed to gather together the people who were Christian in name only used that excuse to escape having to go to church all the time. The true Christians couldn’t wait to get back together. In our church, we have become more concentrated and devoted to God. The constitution says the government has no rule over the church. If we have another pandemic, we will not be shut down again.

In many countries around the world Christians have to meet secretly, in hiding, or they very well might pay with their lives. I guarantee you there are no “in name only” Christians doing that. The Christians who are risking their lives to serve God have to be very strong or they will fall by the wayside.

Years back I heard someone talking about how God had shown them a dream or vision, (I don’t remember which it was). They saw the earth from a great distance. They were amazed by hundreds of millions of little points of light shining up from the earth. These lights shone straight to heaven. This person asked God what all these lights were. God said they are prayers. He sees every prayer as a light shining up to Him, and He is working on each one of them at the same time. That conjured up a picture in my mind of millions and millions of lights rising from EVERY country in the world. Kind of gives a whole new meaning to Christians being the light of the world doesn’t it.

I now also see praise, worship, and love for God as those same lights shining up to God’s throne. The Bible does refer to Christians as letting their light shine or hiding it under a bush. The lights aren’t coming just from our country but from all around the world. If those lights shine brighter according to how deep and powerful the dedication to God is, maybe the people who have to worship in hiding, at risk of death are the brightest of all. That is just a thought. They might all have the same brightness. The point is, there are more lights shining than we could possibly imagine. That is an exciting picture to me.

What got me first thinking about this is the words from one of my very favorite songs. It is called He Reigns, and was put out by Newsboys. Part of the words talk about how all this praise causes the devil and his demons to tremble. I am including the words of the song for you to enjoy.

He Reigns

It's the song of the redeemed
Rising from the African plain

It's the song of the forgiven
Drowning out the Amazon rain

The song of Asian believers
Filled with God's holy fire
It's every tribe, every tongue, every nation
A love song born of a grateful choir

It's all God's children singin'
"Glory, glory, hallelujah"
"He reigns, he reigns"
It's all God's children singin'
"Glory, glory, hallelujah"
"He reigns, he reigns"

Let it rise above the four winds
Caught up in the heavenly sound
Let praises echo from the towers of cathedrals
To the faithful gathered underground

Of all the songs sung from the dawn of creation
Some were meant to persist
Of all the bells rung from a thousand steeples
None rings truer than this

It's all God's children singin'
"Glory, glory, hallelujah"
"He reigns, he reigns"

And all the powers of darkness
Tremble at what they've just heard
'Cause all their powers of darkness
Can't drown out a single word

When all God's children sing out
"Glory, glory, hallelujah"
"He reigns, he reigns"
(He reigns)

Think about it.