Kay Cude is a Texas poet. Published with permission
Artist’s Statement:
I was compelled to say something that spoke encouragement for “the saved to continue on,” even while recognizing and knowing the true character of sin, the taste and its aroma. Our efforts to reach the lost become harder each day; the news-media ridicules Christ’s redeemed, and with deceptive words, demands we not speak Gospel Truth. But we must “continue on.” I must keep fresh in my mind that previous centuries of the lost hated Christ, and that this present century of the lost will hate us (even as we the “saved” seek their rescue).
It’s troubling times. Our nation just went through a national convulsion from the pandemic, presidential election, and post-election transfer of power. We’ve been experiencing a year-long string of natural disasters, riots, and unexpected tragedies. It’s been tough.
Even the strongest Christian is wobbling from being buffeted back and forth. Pagans are in terror most of the time, whether they will admit it or not.
During troubling times, our natural instinct is to extend sympathy. To put a hand on a shoulder, to cry with those who are crying. We speak a soft word, we exude mercy and grace to those who are suffering, afraid, or scared. We tend toward the “kindness” qualities in our relationships. As we should.
During troubling times it’s also a natural inclination to swing the pendulum too far to the other side. We tend to exclude speaking of our greatest need. We feel it’s ‘not the right time’ to bring up what all humans need, especially to the unsaved.
God used pagan leaders for His purposes. Some were good for God’s people and some were bad. Xerxes, Darius, Cyrus vs Antiochus, Herod, Pharaoh …
I don’t know what the next few days will bring. It might be that God uses the Presidential Administration in ways that seem good to us, or he might use evil rulers that seem bad to us. I say ‘seem’ because even in difficult times God ordains evil for His and our good. (Genesis 50:20). So, there’s earthly good and heavenly good and they are not the same, since God’s ways are infinite and above us incomprehensibly. (Isaiah 55:8).
So I do not know what my immediate future holds, but I know my future everlasting future: it is with Jesus in peace and holiness. Perfect justice reigns, perfect love, perfect relationships. There will be no swamp, no corruption, no evil. Satan and his demons will be writhing in the Lake of Fire under eternal punishment, never to harm or influence anyone anymore.
My friend Ekkie Tepsupornchai on social media said:
“Christians understand they live in a fallen world. Part of God’s judgment involves handing sinners over to greater sins (Rom 1:24-32). However, when we see instances of justice, we should give thanks to God as that demonstrates His common grace even over the same fallen society.”
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. (Matthew 5:6).
Barnes’ Notes on the Bible: Blessed are they which do hunger … – Hunger and thirst, here, are expressive of strong desire. Nothing would better express the strong desire which we ought to feel to obtain righteousness than hunger and thirst. No needs are so keen, none so imperiously demand supply, as these. They occur daily, and when long continued, as in case of those shipwrecked, and doomed to wander months or years over burning sands, with scarcely any drink or food, nothing is more distressing. An ardent desire for anything is often represented in the Scriptures by hunger and thirst, Psalm 42:1-2; Psalm 63:1-2. A desire for the blessings of pardon and peace; a deep sense of sin, and want, and wretchedness, is also represented by thirsting, Isaiah 55:1-2.
Interesting, isn’t it? When I’m hungry, all I can think about is getting food. When I’m thirsty, I’m not satisfied until I drink. Jesus wants us to be the same way about righteousness. Hunger for it. Thirst for it. Seek filling it. Don’t do anything else until it’s satisfied.
The way John MacArthur described the current state of chaos in “A World Gone Mad” explains a lot of the unsettled feeling I’m having these days. I recommend the article. Here is the excerpt-
On top of the endless chaos surrounding us, our society is drowning in a sea of lies, such that the culture is permeated by a sense of devastating insecurity. We no longer have confidence in politicians, health experts, social activists, academics, or the media—all of them have lost credibility by pursuing agendas over honesty. Even religious leaders have shown a knack for doublespeak and outright deception when it suits their purposes. We have been lied to so routinely that we treat every claim as dubious. Living in that constant state of doubt and suspicion is both exhausting and exasperating.
There are two points. The deplorable state of affairs in America right now is doing a good job of spotlighting sin. The corruption in systems, in people, in society, in organizations is oozing out in more quantity than the Great Molasses Flood of 1919, and a lot of people are getting swept away in its sickening draw.
Sin is ugly, isn’t it? We sinners tend to forget that, having it in us and all around us all the time. We dwell in it, and so, make peace with it, pet it, weakly slay it, only to allow it to return, grinning. But sin is the ugliest thing in the universe. The current scene in America with obvious moral and ethical corruption in academia, politics, law, government, science, and so on shows us that. This is good.
It should make us hunger and thirst for righteousness all the more, shouldn’t it? Seeing sin exposed in its putrid corruption should make us hasten to the cross in agony, pleading for forgiveness for even the most ‘minor’ sins of our own that we’ve committed. If there is anything we can call ‘good’ about the sin-saturated United States, it’s that. When we hold a puppy’s head over his waywardly dropped feces and say “Look at it, just look at it! Bad dog!” God is doing likewise with His children.
Secondly, the last part of the verse: “they shall be filled.” For those that hunger, the promise is not perhaps they will be filled, or maybe they’ll be filled, or later they will be filled. They SHALL be filled. Barnes’ Notes again:
They shall be filled – They shall be satisfied as a hungry man is when supplied with food, or a thirsty man when supplied with drink. Those who are perishing for want of righteousness; those who feel that they are lost sinners and strongly desire to be holy, shall be thus satisfied. Never was there a desire to be holy which God was not willing to gratify, and the gospel of Christ has made provision to satisfy all who truly desire to be holy. See Isaiah 55:1-3; Isaiah 65:13; John 4:14; John 6:35; John 7:37-38; Psalm 17:15.
The desire to be holy should be in each one of us, if we are saved by His grace. The pursuit of that holiness should be a fervent goal daily. Imagine what a life filled with hunger & thirst for righteousness is like contrasted to the darkness all around!
One who pursues righteousness and loyalty Finds life, righteousness, and honor. (Proverbs 21:21).
This section of verses that show Jesus’ life are focused on His attributes & earthly ministry. We’ve seen Him as servant, teacher, shepherd, intercessor, and healer. We looked at His attributes of omniscience, His authority, and now His sinlessness.
Charles Spurgeon wrote in his Evening Devotional for this date, “NOTHING can satisfy the entire man but the Lord’s love and the Lord’s own self. Saints have tried to anchor in other roadsteads, but they have been driven out of such fatal refuges. Solomon, the wisest of men, was permitted to make experiments for us all, and to do for us what we must not dare to do for ourselves.”
Spurgeon continues -“What! the whole of it vanity? O favoured monarch, is there nothing in all thy wealth? Nothing in that wide dominion reaching from the river even to the sea? Nothing in Palmyra’s glorious palaces? Nothing in the house of the forest of Lebanon? In all thy music and dancing, and wine and luxury, is there nothing? “Nothing,” he says, “but weariness of spirit.”
The Book of Ecclesiastes speaks to me. I sometimes mourn the lost decades of my life before salvation, still knowing
Right-click to open larger in new window. Published with permission
Artist’s Statement:
I was compelled to say something that spoke encouragement for “the saved to continue on,” even while recognizing and knowing the true character of sin, the taste and its aroma. Our efforts to reach the lost becomes harder each day; the news-media ridicules Christ’s redeemed, and with deceptive words, demands we not speak Gospel Truth. But we must “continue on.” I must keep fresh in my mind that previous centuries of the lost hated Christ, and that this present century of the lost will hate us (even as we the “saved” seek their rescue).
All religions are not equal. All other religions except Christianity are false.
See, the problem is sin. It’s not which god to worship. It’s not how to worship. It’s not how to be a better person. It’s not how to ‘connect with the divine.’ The fundamental human problem is our sin before a holy and just God. Only God is God, not Allah, he is no god. Not Shiva. Not Brahman.
I am the LORD, and there is no other; Besides Me there is no God.
Isaiah 45:5
Since our fundamental problem is how to be holy as God is holy, we must do something to restrain our sin. We must be forgiven of it. We must partner with a power outside of ourselves who is holy and perfect. Deep down we all know we’re rotten, we do bad, we need help, however you want to phrase it. So they seek ‘noble paths’ (Buddhism). They create second chances. (Hindu reincarnation). They worship the observable earth (Wicca, Druids). None will help man in his fundamental problem; restraining the flesh.
All other religions can do nothing to restrain the flesh. In all other religions, the flesh is god, not God. Only God, who is transcendent, above us and His creation, the very Creator, can pass His hand over us and declare us just, through His Son Jesus. What Christianity has that all other religions do not is the ability of God to solve our sin problem.
“The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15)
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoiced in hope of the glory of God. (Romans 5:1-2)
If you repent to Jesus, who died as the sacrificial lamb, shedding His blood, and absorbing and exhausting God’s wrath for His people, then you will be saved. he is the door to heaven. The only door.
I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. (John 10:9).
This section of verses that show Jesus’ life are focused on His attributes & earthly ministry. We’ve seen Him as servant, teacher, shepherd, intercessor, and healer. We looked at His attributes of omniscience, His authority, and now His sinlessness.
