The Disturbing Ministry of God

Even a false peace does last for some time.

People deceive themselves and others to

pretend certain circumstances to exist and 

only time will reveal the fraud. Sooner or later

the true condition of things will be revealed.

Elisha was a man who walked with God.

That disturbed and frustrated greatly the king of Syria.

The king was sure that there was a betrayer among

his own men until they told him that the trouble was

Elisha who "tells even the words that you speak

in your bedroom". II Kings 6:12

The world thinks the same way about the living

church today. The church is disturbing the false peace

and frustrating the well-organized, "brave new world"

when in reality we are the only thing that is still restraining

the pouring out of the wrath of God on this world.

No Stress

Time is always short when compared with eternity.

The meaning of the visible things will lose their value

the older they get. In the future eternity will totally

swallow up time.

That’s why stress is such a worthless fantasy.

Where will it take you faster?

Tired of Information

The tsunamis of information that try to invade our souls daily

are overwhelming and cruel. Like aggressive marketing ,

they don’t ask for a permission.

They come whenever they want.

Most of them are twisted, opinionated and deceitful.

Because they’re often not true, they don’t nourish man’s soul,

but consume it.

The floods of information have made a lot of people indifferent

and numb. This is a dangerous setting.

More than ever before you have be so careful with all the

papers you sign, beware of the small text that has been

hidden in the document.

The most dangerous developments are the documents that

don’t demand a personal signature anymore.

The system has already signed it, tailor -made for you.

Even God doesn’t do that.

He waits for our permission to rule over our lives.

John 6:63

Even When Nobody Knows

Personal, private integrity matters.

When nobody is around, then, what do I do?

The size of the gap between my private life

and my public life is the size of my need 
to grow in integrity.

Integrity means to love the truth and continue 

loving it without any compromises, even to 

one's own hurt.

Integrity defines the accuracy of our speaking,

the weight of our words.

One of the most serious and meaningful prayers 

in the Bible is found in Psalm 26:2-3

"Examine me, O Lord, and prove me;

Try my mind and my heart. For your loving 

kindness is before my eyes, and I have walked

in your truth."

Choices

Doing things voluntarily

 is considered to be one of the fundamental

psychological needs of man.

Even little children are taking pride

 for doing things by themselves.

It brings a feeling of success and responsibility.

This need has been distorted by 

the strong emphasis on independence.

People are advised to save themselves,

 not to depend on God.

Looking for a salvation outside of God is a dead end street.

God is the author of salvation.

God continues to love man,

 because love is the highest form of expression.

It cannot be forced.It's not possible without freedom.

Our free will is a powerful tool in sanctification,

 but it also can easily

be used as a weapon for destruction.

Submission, obedience and humility are beautiful

 principles which all are based on voluntary choices . 

Eyes Opened

 The message of God is not always a ready standard answer

nor a happy end. Often it’s a colon.

Sometimes a life-long answer will follow.

Every moment of communication with God

is unique. It’s not a replay of some original

prototype conversation.

God always encourages us to think deeper, higher and further.

Without the supernatural involvement of the Holy Spirit our

thoughts and expectations remain one dimensional.

The servant of Elisha saw a great army of the enemy

surrounding them. He missed the invisible horses and

chariots of fire around the prophet. What changed it?

Elisha’s request to open his servant’s eyes.

Life is not what it looks like. I don’t think that the horses

and chariots of fire have been taken to the garage yet.

They continue being busy around God's people today.

Come ye aside and rest awhile.

Mark 6:31

Some spots for rest are in a dangerous places.

Jesus himself rested in the storm and seemingly

shocked his disciples with his choice of time

and place for his nap.

The whole world is such a place, full of dangers and

unsure circumstances.

It's a powerful thing to lay down and rest in Him when

the whole world around you is falling apart.

Dreams Turned into Nightmares

The dream of a new life has inspired people since they

were deported from Eden. When the bubbles of these dreams

burst, people understand that they have grown too old

to pursue another  new beginning.

After spending years in refugee camps in horrible conditions,

unwanted and rejected, many start dreaming

retrospectively about their homeland again.

Things weren’t actually that bad after all…

This happened with the Israelis who left Egypt as well as

with the Russians who themselves destroyed the Soviet Union,

the Brave New World of their dreams.

The good old days probably never existed.

Those memories are misleading us to another bubble,

which will  burst as soon as you get close enough to touch it.

Rest

Rest doesn’t require a lot, but it needs a time,

 a place , a reason and a permission.

People who have lost their place and time for rest

 have first lost their motivation for it.

A guilty man has no real rest. 

He can sleep two nights in a row, but

still wake up exhausted.

His rest doesn’t depend on time and place.

Resting from our own works, both good and bad,

is the greatest gift that we receive in salvation.

You can rest with that gift, even when

“A thousand will fall at your side,

and then thousand at your right hand.”

Psalm 91:7

Wheat or Weed?  

Just because something grows, it doesn’t mean that it is useful.

Weeds need to be pulled out on time. Otherwise they will destroy

all useful life and nourishment.

Amid all the romantic views on the innocence of the creation,

the nature needs to be ruled. God chose the man for the job.

Even though man picked up a wrong fruit and misused the leaves

of a fig tree  in his desperation,

man cannot correct his mistakes by giving up the task.

We continue to be the ones who are created to rule over all God’s

creation and to subdue it. If man tries to do it independently of God,

he will continue doing more damage. Atheism is not an innocent little

opinion of man. It’s the most arrogant and dangerous philosophy

against the nature and it’s beauty.

Turning Around

Dead ends are usually just great opportunities

to open our eyes to a new direction.

When we are cornered by our circumstances,

we are given a new beginning. It takes humility 

to change our direction and give up some goals 

that turned out to be unrealistic or even unworthy

for pursuing.

Check your "distance with the ark" and 

start a new journey for

"You have not traveled this way before."

Joshua 3:4

Slow Eternity 

When things don’t happen so fast,

there’s time to think about eternity.

Nothing happens “fast” in eternity.

The demand for fastness is

 often connected with productivity.

Man is striving to produce more products faster

in order to have more time to produce

more products, faster.

Everyone knows that the quality of things

suffers from too fast production.

Jesus’ concept of fastness seems so slow for us.

He said, “I’m coming quickly”.

Could it be the lack of quality (in us) that

keeps him from proceeding?

Get it back.

Restoration is powerful. It doesn’t count the cost and it doesn’t

remember evil. We have a continuing need in relationships for

restoration to take over and convince everyone that we have

the right to start over again.

Restored relationships are a special grace gift from God.

Just like salvation, He will do it unless you resist it and decide 

to continue in your misery.

Joel 2:25

Sincerity

Sincerity is never a standard for the truth.

If you sincerely believe that you can fly, you

will have nobody to blame when you are laying

down among your bones, messed up and in pain.

People can be sincerely wrong all of their lives.

Sincerity is not an acceptable excuse for ignorance either.

Being uninformed about something can be fatal.

It can keep you believing in fables and fantasies, but

it has no power to turn the chariots into pumpkins nor

frogs into princes.

Be careful, diligent, buying the truth not selling it.

In sincerity some have ended up living with a frog

the rest of their lives.

The Culture of Forgiveness

Even when people are not Christians by conviction they still

enjoy the spirit of Christianity which promotes forgiveness.

Some other religions are considered to represent the 

culture of revenge. For them forgiveness is considered to be

a weakness. That brings them to a conclusion that God cannot

really forgive. That would make him weak.

We are not humanizing God. 

God is not like us, but we are like God.

Each time when we forgive and love unconditionally we are

like God.He is not far. He is our Emmanuel.

Too Much 

It's too much useless, disturbing information

 and too little healthy

nourishment to our soul. 

It's too much decoration to cover all 

the emptiness and pain.

 It's too much talking to invade all the 

space where truthful and gracious words should rule.

The world is too noisy, too aggressive,

 too confusing and demanding.

But, it's not too late for us to  remember

that we have been sent to this world.

It's not too late to seek and save that which is lost.

This world is the best, and the only,

  platform for our faith.

Live long!

A Finnish researcher was looking for a common denominator

for centenarians in Finland. He didn’t seem to find any. They

came from all possible backgrounds and represented all the

known social statuses and life-styles. The only two things that

he found to be common for all of them were a good sense

of humor and curiosity.

I was laughing about it and got curious about centenarians in

other countries.

The commercials tell us that people in the Caucasus mountains

live long because they eat yogurt, but the centenarians of Lenkoran,

Azerbaijan told the journalist that yogurt is not very popular there.

“I never eat it, “ Mirzahan Movlamov  , one of the longest ever lived

man said dismissively. “Never.”

I’m laughing and continuing my curious studies.