Never Forsaken Psalms 22:1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? [why are you so] far from helping me, [and from] the words of my groaning? Have you ever felt as though the whole world is against you, and no one really understands or cares? Of course you have! We have all been there at one time or another. Of course as believers we know that there is one who always cares, and that is the Lord. But there are also times when you begin to wonder if the Lord has not also turned His back on you. You come to Him in prayer, and it feels as though He is a million miles away. You cannot sense His presence anymore, and you begin to wonder why He has turned His back on you. This is probably one of the most painful experiences a believer can face. But Jesus has already faced it for you on the cross, and there is no need for you to continue to face it. In the Old Testament God dealt with His people based on their obedience to His covenants. If they kept His covenant, then blessing would be theirs. But if they broke His covenant, then they were assured that He would turn His back on them and they would experience all the curses of the covenant. When Jesus hung on the cross of Calvary He faced for the first time in His life, the experience of one who had come under the wrath of God. He took our place and faced the full curse of the Old Covenant. But He did a lot more than that. He entered into a New Covenant with the Father on our behalf. As one who was both God and man, Jesus entered into a covenant with Almighty God, and so brought God and man together. Now having made a New Covenant with God, which He continues to live and keep, Jesus is able to give us all the benefits of this New Covenant. And do you know how He does it? He does it by making us part of the family. You see when you entered into a covenant with someone, the covenant became binding not only on you, but also on your descendants. That is why we all came under the curse of Adam when he violated the very first covenant God made with man. We suffered the consequences of his sin. But now Jesus offers us the opportunity to become partakers of the new covenant simply by entering His family through the New Birth. When you are born again, you automatically become a partaker of the covenant that Jesus made with God the Father. And the beauty of it is that we are not obligated to keep the covenant. Instead, Jesus continues to keep it on our behalf. All we need to do is abide in Him. And when we do this, we get all the blessings of the covenant. That is why He told us in Johns gospel in John 15:7: If you are abiding in me, and my words are abiding in you, you shall ask what you want, and it shall be done for you. That means we never ever again need to worry about Him turning His back on us when we fail to keep the covenant. Even when we sin, He sits at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us, and claiming our rights for us under the covenant. And what if we sin? What if we fail? Will He turn His back on us? No, He will continue to woo us in His love and do His best to draw us back into fellowship with Him. He will always stand at the door and knock, waiting for us to invite Him in for fellowship. So when you cannot sense His presence anymore, do not think that He has turned His back on you. It may be that you have turned your back on Him. It is also likely that you are simply being blocked by the enemy, who is trying to bring a barrier between you and the Lord, and he will be quick to remind you of all your failures. He will quickly tell you that the Lord is angry with you and is no longer interested in you. And if you believe his lies, then he will have succeeded in preventing you from experiencing the blessing that is available to you IN CHRIST. If you have failed, then it is very easy to clear your conscience. It takes only seconds to confess the sin that is making you feel so guilty and is bringing a barrier between you and the Lord. And then, when you have done that and it still seems like He is not there, then be sure that you are being lied to. Take the Lord at His Word. He said He would never leave you nor forsake you. He said that nothing can separate you from His love. He said that if you abide in Him and let His words remain in you, He will withhold nothing from you! So take the Word and use it as a sword like Jesus did. Lay it on the devil and tell him to get out of your face. Then come to your heavenly Father in praise and worship and by faith reach out and touch Him. You will find that He was there all along. You never need to be alone again.
Posted on: Sun, 06 Apr 2014 23:11:46 +0000
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