The Rock of Our Faith - Rio de Janeiro 2010

Written and published by Jean-Louis Mondon

Do not be afraid, Abraham. I am your shied and your very great reward. Genesis 15:1.            
The Song of Moses
…"How could one chase a thousand, And two put ten thousand to flight, Unless their Rock had sold them, And the LORD had given them up? 31"Indeed their rock is not like our Rock, Even our enemies themselves judge this. 32"For their vine is from the vine of Sodom, And from the fields of Gomorrah; Their grapes are grapes of poison, Their clusters, bitter.…Deuteronomy 32:31

(The above picture was taken on a hazy day) 

Three days ago, while sitting at the top of our apartment building roof top, contemplating the magnificent view of the mountains towering over the bay of Rio de Janeiro, my eyes stopped at a rock outcropping that I never noticed before. .

Seen from afar, it looked to me as if the huge rock near the top had been forced out of the mountain, its distinct contours outlining the shape of a shield.

Here is a better view on a clear day of the Pedra do Maroca - Morro dos Cabritos

Interestingly enough, I had never noticed it even after spending some time meditating on the Scriptures on the roof top before, during the 3 weeks since our arrival here.

Besides the adjustment expected from being in new surroundings, the spiritual battle has been intense, especially with Mírian having to train at a new job, while my life here has been quiet and gratifying.

Needless to say praying for protection efforts have been redoubling. The Lord has answered with an increase in his grace over the situation as he is orchestrating the circumstances in our lives. We have seen the hand of God moving in our family and heard his responses in ways that are so encouraging as we witness his faithfulness and his ever present loving kindness and tender loving care in our lives. 

The morning this happened we had been praying for the edge of protection to be around Mírian and that her faith would be strong against the schemes of the enemy.

As I was looking more closely at the shield shape, the Lord reminded me of the covenant with Abraham and his words when the Lord appeared to him in a vision: Do not be afraid, Abraham. I am your shied and your very great reward. Genesis 15:1.

I am not one given to seeking signs, but the Lord at times shows me visuals and then  confirms it for me through the Scriptures and other witnesses. We all know the various verses relating to faith in the Old and the New Testament. This however was directly related to fear that Mírian was feeling. To me this was clear, we are to raise our shield of faith against the enemy’s flaming arrows as a part of our spiritual armor.

But in looking at the mountain two things seem to be relevant and underline the relevancy of the situation. The shield formation was taken out of but still very much attached to the mountain, which is to say that our faith depends on being connected to the Rock of our faith, namely our Lord Jesus through the communion with the Holy Spirit. 
Secondly, the faith shield was near the top of the mountain, which to me, means that the victory was close but that more efforts and cooperation on our part was necessary to reach the top of the mountain. 

Another component of that scripture is that the reward of faith comes after having exercised the faith that God requires in our daily walk. Isaiah talks in chapter 40: 9,10, 11 about not being afraid and looking at the coming of the Lord in the last days:
Lift up your voice with a shout, Do not be afraid .See, the Sovereign LORD comes with power, and his arm rules for him. See, his reward is with him, his recompense accompanies him. He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.

Hebrews 10:35-38 says basically the same thing adding the need for perseverance in doing the will of God:

"So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For in just a very little while, "He who is coming will come and will not delay. But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him."

And finally on the last page of the Book of Revelation, the Lord Jesus himself reiterates His promise in Revelation 22: 12:

"Behold, I am coming soon, my reward is with me and I will give to everyone according to what he has done."
 
Since the Word says that a matter shall be confirmed by the testimony of two or three witnesses, three more confirmations with more explicit details came from our family who had been praying fervently about our present situation.

I feel so grateful and greatly encouraged that when our Lord gives us instructions and shows us the way, in response to our prayers, He also empowers us and accompanies us even though sometimes we get discouraged and temporarily experience fear and doubts that we are in the will of God. This is why we need to exercise the faith that He provides when we ask Him and to receive the encouragement that we are on our way to the victory that he has promised us and that He already gained for us at the cross.

Jean-Louis.

Sometimes, it is indeed personal. Sometimes, it ought to be!

Reposted from servehiminthewaiting.com

By STLloyd January 26, 2017 Jesus Christ New World Order prayer Scripture sin

When you serve the Lord, expect opposition.  Sometimes it is not in the form of conflict or disruption in your life, but rather more personal than that. Satan attacks where we are most vulnerable. Even with the armor on, God doesn’t guarantee that we will win every skirmish.  Sometimes we will get some bruises.  An oft-overlooked and rarely focused-upon portion of the Ephesians 6 “Whole Armor” passage is that relatively passive instruction that says  “that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand“.

Sensitivity to and awareness of evil around us, is an ability that God gives in varying proportions to different believers.  A profound sensitivity is a gift that few of us would choose if given our “druthers”.  As humans living in this period of human history, there is an awful lot happening in our world which is terribly grievous to our spirits.  We are not unaffected by the rising noxiousness of evil.  God equips the called, but He also requires us to bear, within His yoke, things we could not bear on our own.

It is often said among Christians “If anyone has reason to smile, it’s Christians, so don’t go around looking glum”.  While I can understand and appreciate the point being made, I usually find the person who makes that sort of proclamation one of those people who does not pay much attention to, nor involve himself in the opposition of, the evil taking place around us. Though some people do prefer a head-in-the-sand approach, that statement  is not necessarily an indictment of negligence or lack of compassion on the part of the speaker who says those things.  It simply may not be their calling.  I get that.  I just wish that the person who says those things understood that if there were not those “assigned” to concern themselves with those less pleasant things, who would be the caring voice of God to the ones who suffer under that evil?  Who would be the hand that pulled them out?  If you or  I don’t take it personal, who will?

Did you ever wonder why it was that Jesus wept over Lazarus’ death ( John 11:35)?   It was not because He was going to miss the man, He knew He was about to raise Lazarus back up.  Verse 33 says Jesus “groaned in his spirit and was  troubled”.  Jesus is a High Priest that is “touched with the feeling of our infirmities” (Hebrews 4:15).  This event took place only days before Jesus Himself would lay down His own life as a ransom to pay the sin-debt of man, and I imagine He grieved over the tragedy of sin, the curse of it which leads to death, for the unnecessary suffering which sin created and continues always to create, and for the horrible cost of it all.

I read an article today which, on top of the harsh and secret realities recently exposed behind the very people leading our government, and on top of the awareness of evil in general, really made me physically sick.  It is a story about one of the leaders, one Donna Hylton, of the recent marches of angry women in all their “pro-choice, anti-Trump and anti-hate” rage.  It is about this one woman’s criminal record, one heinous crime that flies totally in the face of the supposed “oppression” she and her “sisters” claim to loathe and speak out against and want to see come to an end.  A woman who, along with 2 other women,  bound, tortured, sodomized, and killed a man.  I thought the article was surely some sick attempt at satire.  But I checked the sources.  It’s not fictional.  This is what those “millions” of women worldwide who marched the day after Inauguration, uphold as their mentor. Along with the likes of Madonna, and Ashley “I am a naaaasty woman” Judd.

When the Bible talks about homosexuality as an abomination and a curse, when it addresses the fact that women partake in this sin, it uses an interesting adverb.  It says “even” their women exchanged the natural use into that which is against nature. 
This seems to indicate that there is something particularly awry when women have started to do something that men already have been known to do.  After all, women are mothers, nurturers, they have special intuition and a capacity for compassion which men can more easily suppress in themselves because of their role as warriors and as hunters/gatherers. The women who marched in those “protests”, have rejected these God-ordained qualities and differences between male and female, as God designed them.

Christians know what is sin.  The unsaved are not enlightened to the things of God, but everyone has a God-given conscience and knowledge of good and evil, right and wrong.  Those who have seared their own consciences are the ones who can participate in horrific things without the slightest qualms, and not only that, but come to love it, to have an insatiable appetite for it.  Those who “take pleasure in” their evil deeds are as guilty in God’s eyes, as the perpetrators, and there were all those women cheering this reprobate woman.
If that is not an example of  calling evil  good and good evil, putting darkness for light and light for darkness, (Isaiah :20) I can’t imagine what is.

I read about the thirteen year old girl last week who live-streamed her suicide on Facebook, and I wondered yet again how long the Lord will continue to restrain the coming judgment.  That little girl’s blood is on someone’s hands.  She was no saint, I heard her foul mouth on other of her posts, however, she stated she was being molested by her mother’s boyfriend.  Where was the mother?  Where was her actual father?  Who will and does care about these neglected children and the dying babies, and the women and children, both male and female children, who are captives in the sex trade industry?  God cares.  And I won’t apologize for caring.  I pray, and yes, I grieve.

Rapture-Ready had two posts today that particularly resonated.  One was an expose on the role Obama may have played in the change of Popes, and the role both he and the Pope have in the goal of a New World Order.  I believe the Pope is the False Prophet, and the developments will ultimately be all in God’s plan, however, we know that the way the world responded to Obama was at the very least, proof of the world’s readiness to embrace one man as their leader.  Obama  was literally worshiped.  The other post was a submission by Gene Lawley entitled “Making Sense Out of the Swirling Scenario” which was featured on several other prominent end-times websites as well.  Lawley repeated a phrase several times in this piece.  It was “sometimes things are not as they appear to be”.  And I think that is the word for this hour.  Deception, mind-games, sleight-of-hand, bait-and-switch, you name it, we are in the thick of it.

Wearing the armor is crucial, but remember, in the end, sometimes all God expects is for us to stand our ground as Christians, remain standing, and “Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will shew to you to day”. There are 279  different accounts of  the Lord delivering His own from the hand of the enemy in the Bible that use those very words. That is not to say we are idle.  It’s not to say we don’t continue to fight the good fight, but  Hope deferred makes the heart sick (Proverbs 13:12a).

We want Him to wait a little longer, as Lawley mentions the words to an old song, “for our loved ones to come in”, but our hearts long to leave the pain and sorrow, the sin and filth, of this world.  It feels hard to breathe this air.  We stand. We are weak but He is strong.  No one is more  grieved by these things than Jesus.  To Him, you better believe it’s personal.