The pen of a ready writer who exalts Jesus Christ
with good words.
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Wanda Hartley Butts
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The Rediscovery
--Wanda Hartley Butts 8/26/2011
Life was good:
I was saved;
the Lord was Savior.
My garden grew--
Full of flowers;
Hallowed by a cross
Satan didn’t like it
Planted weeds
The flowers died.
Time went on
And my garden
Turned… ugly.
Hidden in the mess.
I found the cross
And begin to smile.
The Cross is here!
I am still saved
The Savior is Lord!
.
The Greater Cause--Wanda Hartley Butts 11/5/2011Many books were written to share human information,but the Bible was given to us for divine transformation. It was intended to be bread for our daily consumption, not just a exceptional treat reserved for special impact… May we find ourselves compelled to get into the Word, so the Word may get into us to initiate the renovation. The CauseWanda Hartley Butts 10/17/2011 Winter comes dressed in icy misery but in the spirit of winteris the hope of a spring.Spring skips in to cheer up the fields, but in the spirit of springis the hope of summer.Summer arrives beset with such glory, but in the spirit of summer is the hope of autumn.autumn brings in the yearly harvestmaking sower and reaper gladbefore winter winds blow.The whole creation groans and travailstogether but in their spirit is the hope of our God. 
Does God have any value your life? This is Good Words Ministry asking these good words:
Do we Limit God?
Psalms 78:30 - 41 (KJV)
In spite of all the proofs God gave the Israelites of His Love and faithfulness to them, their hearts remained unfaithful to God. Nothing God did pleased them. Despite the miracles God preformed on their behalf, they were compulsive complainers. Sometimes, (because the Israelites didn’t believe in and trust God), He allowed them to suffer death and destruction. This is what Numbers 14:16 (KJV) said: 16Because the LORD was not able to bring this people into the land which he sware unto them, therefore he hath slain them in the wilderness. It wasn’t because God couldn’t bring them into the promised land; they wouldn’t follow him.
Numbers 11:33 says this about the Israelites after he sent them quails to eat when they complained of eating the manna God sent,. 33And while the flesh was yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the LORD was kindled against the people, and the LORD smote the people with a very great plague.
The excess with which the people indulged in the quail made them sick; therefore the gluttonous were punished through their gluttony. Isn’t that just as true today? People’s greedy lifestyle often causes them sickness and they run to doctors or other people for help, instead of repenting of the sin and seeking healing through confession and obedience to God?
In our text today, we learn that the Israelites never considered that their lust endangered them. Lust is enlarged by that on which it feeds.
Verse 30-32 of our text relates: They were not estranged from their lust. But while their meat was yet in their mouths, 31 The wrath of God came upon them, and slew the fattest of them, and smote down the chosen men of Israel. For all this they sinned still, and believed not for his wondrous works.
If people grow sick of too much of one thing they don’t abandon their lust, they just change the object of it. Like Jehu, they turn from Baal, to worshipping the calves of Bethel.
The Israelites defied the wrath of God although death was in the cup of their wickedness, yet they wouldn’t put it aside, but continued to consume it as if it were a tonic. How truly this might be applied to ungodly people today who although afflicted, broken in spirit, or impoverished, yet they persist in their evil ways, unmoved by fear, and unpersuaded by pressure from God. Continuance in sin and unbelief go together: by believing in and trusting God they would not have sinned; likewise had they not have been blinded by sin, they would have believed.
In this incidence, before the Israelites could digest the meat they coveted, it turned to their destruction. God's justice has no respect of persons, the strong and the brave fall as well as the weak and the mean.
There is a danger in gratifying our passions! They can become the door to destruction. We mustn’t judge people’s happiness by what is on their tables; the poorest starving believer should often be envied more than the best fed people of the world. it is better to be God's dog than the devil's darling.
Verses 33-35 says: Therefore their days did he consume in vanity, and their years in trouble. When he slew them, then they sought him: and they returned and inquired early after God. And they remembered that God was their rock, and the high God their redeemer.
God’s punishment of the people did seemed to speak to the survivors; They realized what a savior God had been to them, when He had redeemed them from the slavery of Egypt, so they repented of their wickedness, and turned back to the Lord. . But, it wasn’t long before fickle and disobedient Israel was living a lie, speaking religiously and acting perverselyagain. The Lord showed tremendous restraint toward them because of His super-abundant compassion, He forgave their chronic backsliding; was longsuffering toward them and withheld the disaster they deserved. He remembered that they were mere humans, but their repeated rebellion grieved God’s heart.
Apart from faith in God, life is hopeless. To wander around in the wilderness was a useless thing indeed, but their distrust of God shut them out of the Promised Land. It was an unnecessary experience they wouldn’t have had to live through, if they would have believed and obeyed God. They wouldn’t have had to live for no purpose, and to die before their time, unsatisfied, unblest. Countless graves were left along the wilderness trail, and if any ask, “Who happened to all these?” the answer was, “They could not enter in because of unbelief.”
Even today, undoubtedly much of the vexation and failure of many lives results from unbelief, laced by wicked passions. None live so unproductively and so miserably as those who allow their senses and their sight to override faith in God, and their motivation and appetite to override their reverence of Him. Our life on earth goes fast enough, but the sorrow of sin can make it waste away at a unpleasant rate, eating the heart out of our life like a cancer.
The great hand and outstretched arm of God which redeemed the Israelites out of bondage had faded from their mental vision. Sometimes, nothing makes people remember his mercy except the utter withdrawal of it.
Listen to Verses 36-37: 36 Nevertheless they did flatter him with their mouth, and they lied unto him with their tongues. 37 For their heart was not right with him, neither were they stedfast in his covenant.
The Israelite’s sin sickened God: they were counterfeits on their knees, liars in their prayers.. Other kings love flattery, but the King of kings despises it. Since hard times only extract a superficial submission to God that is proof that sin is ingrained in our very nature, and the human heart is frantically set to do mischief.
If you beat a tiger with many stripes you cannot turn him into a sheep. The devil cannot be whipped out of human nature. Godliness produced by the tears of sorrow and the heat of fear is like mushroom growth; It appears suddenly but it is just an unsubstantial fickle fungus—here today and gone tomorrow. The Israelite’s shallow repentance was a film too thin to conceal the deadly sore of sin. This should teach us to place little reliance
Upon dying repentance, or that which is formed out of fear, and nothing more. Any thief will whine out repentance, if he thinks the judge will be moved to let him go scot free.
The Israelite repentance wasn’t from the heart, and their mind was not established on God. They were fickle as a weathervane, every wind turned them. Their promises were no sooner made than broken. They were hot to-day for holiness, but cold towards it to-morrow. One day they gave their gold to build a tabernacle for Jehovah, and the next they plucked off their earrings to make a golden calf. The heart of humanity is as changeable as a chameleon, but God is faithful.
Verse 38-39 says: 38 But he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not: yea, many a time turned he his anger away, and did not stir up all his wrath. 39 For he remembered that they were but flesh; a wind that passeth away, and cometh not again.
Though the people were full of flattery, God was full of mercy, and because of his mercy he had pity on them. Not because of their goodness, but because of his own real compassion for them, he overlooked the way they provoked Him. God was slow, very slow, to anger. Over and over again he forgive their offensive actions toward Him. We know from scripture that Moses served as a mediator and stood in the gap between the Israelites and God.
Even today the Lord Jesus pleads for sinners, and prevents divine wrath. Many a barren tree is left standing because the dresser of the vineyard cries, “let it alone this year also.” Were God to let loose his wrath, the solid earth itself would melt, and hell would surround every rebel. Thank God for his mercy; we see the fullness of God's compassion, but we never see all his wrath.
He remembers that we are just dust and deals leniently with us. Though he sees no excuse for our sin, yet he makes it a reason to extend mercy. Human life is just a breath, soon gone never to return. Spirit and wind are alike; they pass on and cannot be recalled. But, while we live, How gracious it is of the Lord to consider our weakness as a reason for holding back his wrath.
But, verse 40-1 says; 40 How oft did they provoke him in the wilderness, and grieve him in the desert! 41 Yea, they turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel.
Over and over again the Israelites provoked God: they were as unchangeable as he was patient. The wilderness was a place of clear dependence, where the tribes were helpless without divine supplies, yet they wounded the hand which fed them while it was in the act of feeding them. Isn’t there a likeness between us and them? Doesn’t it bring any tears into our eyes, while like in their mirror we see our own selves? We also have vexed the Holy Spirit, and he would long ago have withdrawn himself from us, if it weren’t for the fact that he is God and not man. We are also in the wilderness of life where we need our God; let’s not make it a wilderness of sin by grieving him by our unbelief.
Their hearts sighed for Egypt and its fleshpots. They turned to their old ways again and again, they never kept the straight path to God. His ways were good, and yet they tempted God. Before they would believe in him they challenged the Lord and demanded signs. They acted as if he could be cajoled into being the lackey of their lusts. And we often use him for a vending machine for ours! What irreverence this is! We shouldn’t tempt our Lord, lest we also be destroyed by the destroyer. The Israelites doubted his power and therefore limited him; dictated to his wisdom and limited it. To lay out a path for God to follow is arrogant irreverence. The Holy One must do right, and be true to his covenant. It is disrespect to tell God, “you should do this or that, or I want things this way or that, or otherwise I will not worship You.” The Eternal God is not a puppet on a string. He is the Lord of Lord, and King of kings and he will do what he knows is good to do.
When the Syrians were fighting Israel they found they were always beaten on the hills, from that they concluded that the God of Israel was a God of the hills, and not of the valleys. And this exclusion of of God from the peaceful and lowly valley of life is not confined to Syrian mentality. Every life has its dramatic times and knows the exhilaration of the heights when we often are strangely conscious of God’s presence, but to limit the Holy One of Israel to those moments on the hills is to miss the wonder of His continuous fellowship. He walks with us and talks with us all the time, if we will only listen for his still small voice. Don’t confine God to the big things, as if these alone were all he cared about. To do so is to fall into the sin of limiting the Holy One of Israel like is recorded here against the ancient Jews.
In many ways we do just that: For instance, We Limit God in the Use of Human Instruments. We are prone to forget God is Sovereign and when He has work to do, He chooses whom He will use, and the person He chooses is fitted by his grace for the job. The history of mankind is one long commentary on the mysterious instruments of heaven. When God wanted a nation which should bless the world, He choose a company of slaves in Egypt. He wanted a messenger to carry doom to Eli, and He choose Samuel, a little child. He wanted a cradle for the beloved Son whose name is to be above every name, and He choose a babe born in a manger at Bethlehem.
We cannot limit the breathing of the wind, and the Holy Spirit is like the wind. People in Churches must be careful when they want to keep their pulpits from the preaching of un-ordained and uneducated servants, or those of a female gender; they might be limiting the Holy One of Israel who does the calling.
Then again, We limit God in Our Prayers. We confine Him to one expected answer. What if our blessed Savior had done that? What if the only answer Jesus would have tolerated from his prayer had been the passing of the bitter cup? Then we would never have had Calvary; nor the blood that covers our sin; nor the victorious power of His resurrection. When we are praying, we must always remember, not to limit the Holy One of Israel to our will.
We also tend to Limit God in His Power. When, for instance, Jairus' daughter died, the servants went hurrying through the streets to Jairus. And when they found him, they cried, "Sir, she is dead. There is no use troubling Jesus any further." They thought that as long as she was living there always was the hope that Jesus might heal her; but, there was no such hope now that she was dead. They thought certain things were beyond Jesus.
Let’s Pray:
Oh, Lord,
Our thoughts are not your thoughts and our ways are not your ways! May faith in You keep us from limiting You to what we think! For our good and your glory!
Amen
