The New Year

2009... It is really here! I will soon add another decade to the 8 I have already used up!

We talk about a "new" year, but it is really just another juncture in our time-space journey with Christ. We need these identifiable spaces in this journey that give us opportunity to make adjustments to out speed or 'compass heading', or maybe to set our sails different because the winds of the Spirit have changed somewhat!

Sad words in the ears of leaders are words like, "We have always done it this way, why change now?" Or perhaps, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" that's a foolish statement when it comes to walking with the Lord. we are supposed to be going from glory to glory... that is change!! It didn't say we go from being broken to being fixed. this is a move in the middle of GLORY! We go from the best to the best! Glory to glory!

Back to the new year, we are in a time of great change. Our nation is about to seat it's first non-caucasian president ever. Our finances are in ruin and people in charge of our money and our large corporations and our government seem to be void of integrity! Thieves and liars! Self-serving egotists who are bent on padding and packing their own pockets while feathering their own nests, both at the expense of the people who trusted them! Burying your head in the sand does not make it go away. But you and I are powerless to do anything about it it seems... It is above our reach and our sphere of influence! They wouldn't even answer our phone calls to them if we knew their number, and we are paying their salary!!! Shame!!

But we are not powerless! Our problem is that we are idolatrous! We are worried more about our money and our jobs and our cozy lives than we are about the Kingdom of God. I have it on the best of sources that if we would, right now, in the middle of this mess, "Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, all our needs will be added to us!" We, in God's Kingdom, are more powerful than the government! We can touch Heaven where God dwells and he will hear us just as he did His people in Egypt! He will come down and deliver us. We MUST ask in faith!

Our prayers in faith will avail much! The enemy, using the economy, is setting the world up for a phony "savior"! One who will "deliver" us. Pulpits and TV ministers who cause us to love prosperity and position will be exposed as cohorts with the enemy. Our true Savior isn't going to 'save' our finances primarily, He is going to remove us from the problem area!! Now I don't want to rob anyone of their faith to receive, I just want their worship to be concerning what God has done in Jesus Christ in restoring us to His favor rather than what He will give them. Then He can trust them with prosperity.

In the first chapter of Job he says: "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD." HE HAD JUST LOST HIS FAMILY!!

Don't let ignorance, idolatry, foolishness, nor greed steal your finances. But keep Him and His work in Christ at the front of your worship! You can tell what you 'worship' by watching what your attention is primarily on and what you run to in time of trouble! "Some men count gain as godliness, but godliness with contentment is great gain"! Many people I know personally are watching the stock market more than they are reading their bibles!!!

Protect what is yours but remember, "..except the Lord protect the house the watchman waketh in vain! (Ps 127:1b)
jack