You Can't Hide from God

Some friends invited me to go to a prayer meeting.  After some thought, I decided to go in spite of wondering if it was a good idea. When I walked in, the first thing I saw was a group of men chasing another man. They finally backed him into a corner and said, “You can’t hide from God.”

These people are nuts, I thought. I need to get out of here. I ran into the yard and looked around. It was dark and I really wasn’t sure where I was, so I went back into the meeting. Although this happened decades ago, I still remember it like it occurred yesterday.

Many people try it but He always knows where we are and what we have done. Most people attempt it at one time or another, perhaps even you. Does it work? The Bible contains many examples of people trying to hide from God.

The Garden

It started when Adam and Eve ate forbidden fruit in the garden . After they ate the fruit they were ashamed because they were naked and made coverings for themselves.  They heard God walking in the garden and hid. God knew where they were and ejected them from the garden.  They could not hide from God, and neither can we.

Jonah

God told Jonah to go to Nineveh to tell the people there to turn away from sin. Jonah did not want to o so he tried to hide from God by running away. God caused a storm to cast him from his escape boat and sent a great fish to swallow him. After a few days in the belly of that fish, it spit him out on an island. Jonah was only too glad to go to Nineveh then. He could not hide from God and neither can we.

Everything

God knows everything about us. It is scary because he knows our wants, dreams, and fears: the secrets we hide within, things that we never tell anyone else.  The best thing is that He loves us anyway.

 Jonah Is Spewed Forth by the Whale (Jon. 2:1-11)

Doré English Bible

This work is in the public domain in the United States, and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 100 years or less.

The Power of the Tongue

Proverbs 18:21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.

Do you remember angry, unjust, or nasty words spoken to you many years, perhaps decades, ago? Did someone make you feel unwanted and unloved? Do they still sting and cause pain?

Then someone came along and spoke happy words that healed and transformed. They gave you hope and encouragement. They made you feel wanted and important. You recall them with a glad heart.

We each possess the same power in our tongues and in our hearts. Pastor always says that, “out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.”

 

The Greek word Toxicon (in ancient archery) translates to an arrow tipped off with yew, a deadly poison. A pull and release of the bow lets the arrow fly. It damages and kills whomever it hits.

Our words, like a poison arrow, can speak death or despair, or they can speak life and healing. 

Toxic words flying at a particular person alters who he/she is. They lodge in the heart and cause deep wounds. They also hurt the speaker. Toxic words expose his/her heart to others. “A wholesome tongue is a tree of life: but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit.” Proverbs 15:4 KJV

We have within us the power to wreak havoc with other lives, or speak words of encouragement, love, and healing.   Once we let our words go, we can never get them back.  The wound festers for years afterward. 

We need to guard our hearts so truth and hope spill over into our conversations. It is one way to make the world better.  The words will ring in the ears for all time.

“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a silver basket.” Proverbs 25:11 KJV

A line drawing of a woman shooting a bow and arrow. Artist: Benjamin Crowell (wikipedia user bcrowell).

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All Bible Quotes from the King James Bible

The Worst Sin of All

Adam and Eve lived in a beautiful garden paradise on earth. God provided all they needed and only required them to tend the garden in return. One day a serpent came and talked to Eve. It was Satan, the father of lies, in disguise.

The serpent suggested to Eve that she could be as great as God if only she ate the forbidden fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. She ate of the tree and offered some to Adam who also ate. God cast them out of the garden and told an angel to guard it so they could not get back in.

Eve’s biggest sin was not eating the fruit.  It was disobedience to God’s commandment, a disobedience born from pride, the worst sin of all. She wanted to be equal to God and mankind has paid the price ever since.

The Bible speaks of seven deadly sins.  They include pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and slothfulness. Proverbs 6:16-19 proclaims that, “These six things doth the LORD hate; yea, seven are an abomination unto him: a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.”

The only thing a Christian should be proud of is that God created man, set him in a lovely place, and planned for Christ to stand in as a sacrifice to atone for his sins. Of that, we can be proud.

Adam and Eve expelled from Paradise

·                    Author/auteur: Paul Gustave Doré

·                    Source: Scan from a Dutch bible.

Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.

This applies to Australia, the European Union and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author

plus 70 years.

Some Facts About Angels

 People like to think about and talk about them. Many tell stories of angels saving them from death, helping them in some miraculous way, or giving them a message they really needed to hear.  Here a few facts about angels. I am sure you have stories, also.

The Bible mentions angels around 300 times. 

1) The word angel means messenger. The first angel, mentioned in Genesis 16:7, carries a message from God, and the last one, in Revelation 22:16, relays a message from Christ.

2) Angels do not marry   

For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. Matthew 22:30 KJV

3) A lot of people think angels speak to us in our dreams. 

Some people owe their lives to a warning or instructions from an angel. You probably know someone who did or it even be you. The Bible mentions God speaking to people in dreams many times.

It is a fact because in Matthew 1:20 it says,  ^“But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.”

4) Not all angels have wings and a halo.

Would you recognize an angel if you saw one? The Bible says you might not.

Hebrew 13: ² Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. KJV

Some have entertain angels and just thought of them as strangers passing through.

5) God created angels to live forever.

 Luke 20

³⁶ Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.

http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/

http://www.arm.org/fifty.htm

Image Copyright J. Schlicker 2013