“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven  give what is good to those who ask Him.” Matthew 7:11

I have heard it before. I’m sure you have heard it before. A friend or family member is talking about God. They are usually going through a trial of some kind and they say something about God hurting them. God is treating them badly. Or they ask the question, “Why is God allowing this in my life?” I have heard some friends or family members say they don’t want to fully commit to God because it might hurt. God might send them to Africa or Antarctica, never to be seen by anyone again. There is a distrust of God. He’s scary. He wants to hurt because through hurt we will change. He wants to change us and nobody likes change. Is that who God is? Does He want to hurt us? Does He not care about our feelings? Is He a big meanie head? (to quote my nephew).

God is getting some bad press. To understand who God is, we need to go to His Word. He tells us in there, who He is, how He treats us, how He cares for us, how much He loves us. There is some good stuff in there. And it’s quite the opposite of what many people say about Him.

“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him,” Matthew 7:11

Most of you reading this are parents. If not, you can still relate to this because you most likely had parents in your past or presently. When you are a parent, there is an unbelievable love there. It’s undeniable. You look at your child and your heart leaps. You would do anything for your child. You would scale the highest mountain, swim the deepest ocean, run the longest road just to help your child if they needed it. We as parents often question ourselves. Are we doing all we can for our kids? How are they doing? What’s going on in their noggins? We like to delight our kids. Just tonight, I ran to the grocery store to get some toilet paper and I saw these cute little tic tac containers that looked like baby chicks. They were so cute. I had to buy two of them for each of my kids. They were delighted when I got home. It’s not like I broke the bank for them. They were just a cute after thought. I knew my kids would enjoy them.

God says that if I, being evil, know how to give good gifts to my kids, how much more will God give what is good to those who ask? I gave my kids tic tacs and they didn’t even ask for them. God is in heaven and He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. I think He can do better than tic tacs. I mean, am I right?

“Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone. Or, if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake,” Matthew 7:9-10

The verses before Matthew 7:11 tell exactly how God treats us. He treats us better than we treat our own kids. None of us give our kids stones when they ask for bread. None of us give our kids snakes when they ask for fish. We might give them tic tacs, but those are something they didn’t ask for. God is telling us the standard He goes by. The standard is better than how we treat our own kids. Put that in the bank. Better…than…we…treat…our…own…kids. Hmmm, that’s quite a comparison. Think about how you treat your own kids. God trumps you. He does better than that.

God is NOT a meanie head as some may think. He loves us. He loves us more than we love our own kids. Put some thought into that. How do you feel about your own kids? What gifts have you given your kids? God does way better than that. Think about that birthday present you bought your child. Think about the time and money you spent getting the gift for them. You knew it would delight them. You couldn’t wait to see them open it. Think about all of that. Now remember God does better than that to His children. If you don’t want to be dropped off at the end of the earth, God knows that about you. He’s not going to drop you off at the end of the earth just to torture you. He loves you. He does way better than the way you treat your own kids. He does way better than tic tacs.

I remember a number of years ago I was talking to a man about homeschooling my children. He said there was a kid in his neighborhood that was homeschooled. He sneered,” Yeah, I think he just reads the Bible all day.” He implied that the bible was an old, odd book that couldn’t be good for anyone.

You hear it time and time again, sneers and snide remarks about the Bible. It’s old, it’s stupid, it’s irrelevant. It doesn’t matter now. It’s an old book of fairy tales. Well the Bible isn’t odd and irrelevant. It is old and that probably makes it even more powerful.

The Bible is 100% accurate. EVERY single one of it’s prophecies have come true. Not, 10% or 50%, but 100%. It has stood the test of time since the creation of the world. It is God’s inspired work. And if it’s God’s inspired work, then the information in there HAS to be legit (to use a term my teenagers use). I propose to you that you will get the maximum benefit out of life, if you follow the Bible’s guidelines.

God doesn’t tell us to not to do things because He’s some killjoy in the sky. He’s not up in heaven thinking of ways to torture us and take out all the fun in life. He tells us what to do and what not to do because He has our best interest in mind. He created us, He should know. It’s just like us as parents. We’re not telling our kids no because we hate them. We’re telling them no because we love them and want to protect them. No, don’t go in the street because if you go in the street you will get smashed by big cars going by. And I love you and don’t want to see you smashed. Or, No, don’t drink the water in the toilet, because it has tons of germs in it and I don’t want to see you sick.

God says don’t get drunk but be filled with the Holy Spirit. Why? Because He hates us and He doesn’t want us to have any fun? No, because you will feel like garbage afterward and spend the next day making apologies and fixing everything while you were “having all that fun” getting drunk. There are no bad side effects to being filled with the Holy Spirit.

God says to wait until you get married to have sex. Again, because He’s our cosmic killjoy? No, because if you wait, you will experience sex like it was created to be. I’ve talked to people who said that their sex life was almost non-existent after they got married because they never waited. There is a statistic that says you have more than a 50% chance of divorce if you lived with each other before marriage over those couples who waited until they got married to have sex. That’s a big percentage. Who tells us to wait until marriage, why God does through His Word.

God says don’t commit adultery. Why? Because it will have terrible results to everyone involved. Look at King David’s life. He committed adultery and murder. He lost his child from the affair and one of his sons tried to kill him and died in the process. See…not good.

Do it His way. If you follow God’s plan you will get the maximum pleasure out of life:

No sex before marriage = awesome sex life after marriage

Don’t get drunk = no feeling like crud, and no apologies to make

No adultery = No wrecked families and relationships

These are just a few examples. You will get the maximum pleasure out of life following God’s plan. Shouldn’t you consult the designer? He knows what He’s talking about.

 

Often our reality does not match God’s promises. I think of Abraham. God promised him a son. But as Abraham got older and older and the same with Sarah, it just didn’t look like that was going to happen. I mean, how could it? Abraham was old, but more importantly, Sarah was in her nineties. That just doesn’t bode well for having a kid. They waited and waited. Now faith is believing in things unseen. God promised them a son. Where was this promised child? Sarah couldn’t wait any longer. She took matters into her own hands and told Abraham to father a son with her handmaiden. There. Now Abraham get’s a son. But that’s not how God works. He promised Abraham a son, which would be with his wife, Sarah. Not an illegitimate son with Hagar. So often our reality does not seem to match God’s promises. But we need to wait. We need to have faith, because God ALWAYS keeps His promises. ALWAYS. No exceptions.

My sister’s son graduates this year, from high school. He’s a football player, and they wanted him to play football in college. Well colleges did want him to play for their teams, they came calling. In my sister’s mind, she thought of Azusa Pacific University. It’s a Christian college with a football team. She really wanted him to go to a Christian college. Well they contacted the University. They didn’t hear anything right away.

Right around this time, my husband is going to a Bible study at our church. This is a men’s study of about 250 men. The men are broken into groups of about 15 men for each group. The groups started in September. Right around December this big strapping dude shows up to my husband’s Bible study. He’d been signed up for the group, but hadn’t showed up yet because he was…wait for it…coaching football for…wait for it…Azusa Pacific University…wait for it…the offensive line team. The same team that my nephew plays. My nephew is a 6’5″, 285 pound offensive lineman. Now this coach just so happens to be in my husband’s group, and just so happens to plop right next to my husband, and just so happens to talk to my husband about what he does for a living. My husband hears “Azusa,” and his ears perk up. My husband brings up our nephew who is interested in playing football for Azusa. The coach has heard of my nephew. The coach is excited about my nephew. The coach, unfortunately, does not make the decision to have him play or not. But he really hopes they grab my nephew. The coach gives my husband his phone number and email address and says to my husband to have my nephew call him. They need to get in contact with each other.

Now in God’s economy there are no coincidences. God is always working behind the scenes. It wasn’t a coincidence that the linemen coach for Azusa just happened to be in my husband’s Bible study group. It wasn’t a coincidence, that this big guy plopped next to my husband so they could chat. There are 250 men grouped into at least 16 different groups and by coincidence my husband lands in the same group as the linemen coach for Azusa? Nope. That’s not a coincidence, that’s God working.

But here’s where our reality often does not match God’s promises in our life. Time goes trudging ahead, like it always does, without checking with us first. Now it’s February, time for signing up for football for college teams. My nephew hasn’t heard from Azusa. Despite all those “coincidences,” he’s heard zip from them. Other schools have declared their love for my nephew. A Christian school in Chicago really wants him. My nephew doesn’t know anyone there. He isn’t feeling it. But they have said they wanted him and been in contact with him. The day comes, and my nephew is going to sign with this team from Chicago. It’s a big event, newspapers are there. My nephew is handed a pen, he stretches out his arm and puts the pen to paper, when his cell phone goes off in his pocket. Whoever is calling wants to talk to my nephew badly. They keep calling him. Once my nephew signs the paper, he answers the phone and sees that Azusa has been calling him non stop. They decided on him. They want him badly. Please come to our school they say. My nephew wants to go, but they have already said yes to this other school. My sister calls them and reminds them, that Azusa never called them. They never acted interested. They apologize. They are very sorry they acted cold and indifferent. They really want the boy. Now my sister is in a pickle. She doesn’t know what to do. So she decides to call me. But this is Wednesday morning. I’m never home on Wednesday morning, I am at Bible study. I never miss. I’ve served there for eight years and been sick only one time. So this is a bad time for my sister to call me. I shouldn’t be home.

But I am home this morning. Because for only the second time in eight years I got sick, just before I headed out the door. I couldn’t leave the bathroom. So I texted my senior leader from the bathroom, that I wasn’t going to make it. And just as quickly as it came, an hour or so later, I felt much better. An hour after that, my sister called me. She wanted to know what to do. I reminded her, that whole incident of my husband meeting the Azusa coach wasn’t a coincidence. God was telling her where he should go. She just needed to believe it wasn’t a coincidence and trust God. But that’s where our realities often don’t match God’s promises. Like Abraham, she almost signed my nephew up with the wrong team, EVEN though God had told her it was going to be Azusa. She needed me to remind her. God made me stay home, which I never do, to tell her that. When I reminded her that none of this was a coincidence, she was convinced. She kept saying, but Azusa didn’t say anything. But I reminded her that God did at the very beginning. He told her awhile back. She couldn’t trust her reality, she had to trust in God. Just like Abraham, she almost went with another school. But she didn’t. And why did I have to stay home from Bible study that morning? Well she needed to make a decision and she had to call the other school by 11am. (She lives in Hawaii, so there’s a huge time difference between there and everywhere else). She would have gone with the OTHER school, if she didn’t talk to me.

We have to remember that our reality, like Abraham, often doesn’t match God’s promises. And we have to remember, God ALWAYS keeps His promises. ALWAYS, no exceptions. AND in God’s economy there are no coincidences.

I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior when I was 9 years old. I was only 9 years old. It wasn’t a dramatic conversion. I didn’t need to repent from a life of prostitution and drugs. It was a quiet conversion. I simply went to my room and accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior.

I had just seen a movie called, “The Thief in the Night.” It was this cheesy movie from the 70’s about the rapture. This woman wakes up one day to find her husband’s electric shaver bouncing around in the sink. He has vanished. She has no idea where he has gone. As the movie progresses, you learn that the rapture has taken place and this husband was taken up. She is left behind and has to fend for herself. She is terrified.

I was terrified. I think that might have been the first time I had heard of the rapture. All Christians are taken up into heaven or “caught up” with Jesus in the air. It was wild! But I freaked out. I didn’t want to be left behind. So I went immediately to my bedroom when I got home from church and accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior, right then and there.

Things changed immediately. All of a sudden I cared about the kids in my fourth grade class and where they would go after they died. They were all going to hell unless someone told them. This urgency, this compulsion filled my mind and heart. These classmates of mine needed to get saved, like right now!

So I devised a plan. I had recess, where I could preach to these lost children and tell them they were going to hell unless they accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior. I was going to convert the girls first. I lined them up at the back of the fence in the school yard. I told them they were all going to die and they would all go to hell unless they accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior! It was very important! (And it was!) Every recess, I would gather as many girls as I could and line them up at the back fence and preach hell to them.

Somebody must have complained. A few days later, my fourth grade teacher grabbed me as I was headed out for recess. She said, “Wendy, I need to talk to you.” I was a good girl, so I wasn’t worried. She explained to me that I could have my own religion, but it wasn’t good to try and force it upon other people. Now me, the normally shy, quiet, obedient girl wasn’t having this! Something burned inside of me. I wasn’t afraid of the teacher and she wasn’t going to take me down! I looked at her right in the eye and said that I was going to continue preaching to the girls and you can’t stop me. And I marched right out of that classroom and out to the playground and lined the girls back up against the fence. I had the Holy Spirit inside of me now. I was a changed kid.

My new life wasn’t perfect, but it certainly was different. I wasn’t secure in my relationship with the Lord as I wrote about here. But I have never looked back. I have never questioned my salvation. I have never walked away. As I grew up, at the same time, I grew up in the Lord. It’s been a long time. God has proved Himself over and over again to me. I have been a Christian for forty years now. And to quote Robert Frost, “that has made all the difference.”

If you are reading this, maybe you have never accepted Christ as your Savior. Being a Christian isn’t doing anything. Becoming a Christian is accepting Jesus Christ as your Savior. He died in our place. He took the punishment for our sins upon Himself. He died and rose again from the dead, three days later. And He’s coming again! A rapture will take place first, and catch up all of His children to meet Him in the air. And then a terrible time will come to this planet. At the end of that terrible time, Jesus Christ will come back to the earth as a judge. If you want to accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, say this prayer:

Dear Jesus: I know I’m a sinner. And I know you are a Savior. Please forgive me for my sins. I accept you as my Savior. Thank you Lord.

If you have done that for the first time, let me know. I really want to hear from you. I promise, I won’t line you up against a fence!