IT SHALL ALWAYS BE, IF IT IS GOD WHO SAID SO

“And it shall be in that time I will … punish the men who … say in their heart, Jehovah will not do good, nor will He do evil”, Zep.1:12

It is always common unto man not to believe there is a living God, and, when they believe there is, they rather fall back into another option of settling a convenient opinion about Him towards them, somehow. Those who are of the lamenting kind, who have and breed self pity at the cost of rather being at right standing obedience unto God and His ways of active love, will say God will not do good. This is how they get to live on in their own ways, since they believe conveniently they will never receive good from God. Hence, assuming that, they please the flesh and they still hold on unto it by indulging themselves into any sin since they believe God will not do His kind of good in due time and find there a reason to do their own thing since they believe God will not. This is sort of a servant who starts beating his own fellow servants because His master lingers and takes His own time to come.

And then you will find such as fear to believe that God will not do good. They usually believe God will always do good unto them (especially them) and that it is sin to believe otherwise. They are the ones who determine how God shall be, and not God’s own nature. These believe, whatever they do, God will not harm them at all. I believe Israel had been a mixture of these two beliefs and they were drifting in their own lostness of thought for long.

When expecting things from God, when not expecting them as well, we should always bear in mind what the eternity of God’s being is like. He lasts and is not ahead and never behind His own schedule. For an impatient man any waiting minute is too long an issue even to think about. For a secure and sure God a thousand years is but over the next turn. I believe it is from this difference in being that these sins are born: God will not change, for He cannot; man will not accept God as He is since he deeply regrets not having his own way done in his own hasting time.

The securest place to be is in the bosom of God. But, to be there, one has to be acquainted with, feel at home at and in love with His will and kind of love. If so, one cannot lack in the time and in the timing of God, for He may do something any moment. The holy expectancy one is to breed is to expect and keep expecting God at any moment. If He comes not this century, our expectancy should (will) not drop nor be slack for one single second, for His coming is certainly reassured and certain.

Now, there is this strange thing for man to expect now or decide it is either coming or not because of the way he might feel a given moment. Impatience may be holy if towards the right thing (obedience, for example), but if the flesh is commanding and ruling it, it is certainly an abomination unto any holy man as well as unto a Holy God.

Man just cannot keep expecting, keep hoping, once being disappointed about something. Disappointment is quite often the uttermost point of impatience of some kind. I find, quite often, that people when waiting for someone say “He will never come”. They use the word never so easily! Impatience leads people to giving up. Man may never come if he has appointed a time. But, because of our heart, due to the way we easily think and express ourselves or feel about a certain issue, we should not compare man with God, nor put God at the same unfaithful level as man. God is not to be thought of and catalogued because of the way we feel at a certain happy or unhappy moment of our lives.

So, let’s take care next time we start believing God will never do good unto us (for whatever reason we have behind it, prompting us into sin somewhere) as well as believing God will not search out sin if we let it grow in our hearts, homes, minds or working place. God is the same today. If He has blessed Israel, He will do the same to us all; if He has cursed Israel, He might do the same to any of us. “I have sworn in My wrath that they should not enter into My rest ... although the works were finished from the foundation of the world”, Heb 4:3. Election means very little outside obedience  and simple faith which derives from a genuine kind of love towards God and all His ways, all ways from being as well as from doing (and love outside un-election like Ruth's will always do something unconceivable). Anyone dropping down his own hands is proud enough to do so and misconceiving as well, especially if he is waiting on God to do for real, if God has indeed spoken out to do. To give up is love for self, it is pride who makes people give up on a living, certain, unfailing God. “Brothers, do not deceive yourselves”. Amen.

José Mateus
zemateus@msn.com