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Conflict Coming?

Do you have an important meeting, interview, conflict coming soon?  
The most important preparation you can do is through prayer.  I mentioned this to a friend who replied “I can’t even get myself in the frame of mind to pray for that person right now.  
 
It’s not always easy, but these are the steps of discipline that we have to adapt if we are going to be successful in the Kingdom.  It is a paradox for sure: I am angry, anxious, overwhelmed to deal with a job interview.  I have to go in an get my work evaluation.  I received a traffic ticket and need to explain the circumstances to a judge.  These are the moments when it is so easy to forget that we were told that we would have have difficulties (you will have tribulation  –  Jn. 16:33) and then the flesh rises up.  Don’t let your feelings oppose the good that you need to do. 
 
 
Jesus said “bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you” (Mt. 5:44b)  Bless them and pray for those who have rule over you. These are guide posts that are needed to fully become engaged in the battle before you.  Rather than giving in, ask for favor for your supervisor.  Ask that the judge be in the right frame of mind while you are in front of her.  Ask that there be peace in your workplace for the day of your big presentation.  
 
This is how you receive favor. You are the child of the King.  Embrace Him and His reign over your situation.  Let Him know that you trust him with the big and small details of your life.  We walk with His presence into every foot of this creation – that’s how He planned it.  I enter every room with His favor and by doing His will, His will is done in Earth as it is in Heaven. 

 

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Groaning

I was cooking and listening to my son’s Saturday morning cartoons when I recognized the familiar theme that is threaded through all sorts of stories, folklore and tales. I am reminded of popular movies such as the Matrix, the Golden Child, and Twelve Monkeys, and Star Wars, where it seems that there is impending doom except for the entrance of one vital preordained, predestined character who is able to overcome the many barriers to “save” the world. This theme comes up again and again and it quickly reminds me of the following passage quoted from Romans 8:19-21:

For all of creation is waiting, yearning for the time when the children of God will be revealed. 20 You see, all of creation has collapsed into emptiness, not by its own choosing, but by God’s. Still He placed within it a deep and abiding hope 21 that creation would one day be liberated from its slavery to corruption and experience the glorious freedom of the children of God. 22 For we know that all creation groans in unison with birthing pains up until now. [Voice]
It amazes me and illustrates God’s power and providence that true to His word, the whole creation is waiting and watching.  So many don’t know what they are waiting and watching for, and so they therefore create fables and myths to compensate.  The Bible says that those who have not accepted Christ are blinded [II Cor. 4:4] and they created and continue to create stories about the future and how man will solve his problems and create his own beautiful future. Even in the midst of ever-escalating violence, pain, suffering and sin.
I am struck that we think and promote the idea that we will be able to elevate ourselves and improve our standing when we’ve been unable to do so before now and apart from God remain in a completely hopeless state. 
For that and other reasons I am completely befuddled by supposedly ‘thinking’ people with the notion that this creation occurred by accident and that we just happened to evolve this way without the intervention of a Creator (or even Intelligent Design). The thinkers are so determined to undermine a Creator that they have thrown out the baby with the bath water and contend that we will find our own answers to the Middle-East feuding, Haves versus the Have-nots, Migration wars, lack of water and other inherent problems.  
In other words, the world is groaning and travailing, [suffering birthing pains] waiting for the revealing of the Sons of God who will redeem and show the way to the unveiling of the Kingdom.  All of creation knows that there is a better way but have exhausted themselves to find it. Notice that they are waiting for the revealing of the Sons, that is, we, the whole [holy] body of Christ, in oneness, without spot or blemish, who have realized the Kingdom and have become disciples [disciplined] to demonstrate what the Kingdom really is to the world. 
But unfortunately, for many, it couldn’t be Christianity, the bloodied sacrifice of one man for us all.  There must be a higher, loftier explanation.  And if they believe not, the world will continue to endure the groaning and travailing. 
Maranatha!