With Or Without

by Norm SawyerJan 30, 2015Devotional0 comments

Proverbs 15:22 Without counsel purposes are disappointed: but in the multitude of counsellors they are established.

I had a friend show up one day from my far distant past who was asking me about all the mutual friends we used to hang out with and where they had ended up. The people he was asking about was history from before I knew the Lord as my Savior. Back in the early 1970’s, there had been about eight of us who had moved out from Eastern Canada to Vancouver Island, British Columbia in particular.

As we reminisced about the times long gone, I became aware of the fact that there were three of us friends who had received Christ as Lord at the end of the 1970’s and the rest had not gone through this miracle of life. The fact that the three of us who had asked Jesus into our hearts, myself included, all live in the same town of Kelowna B.C. to this day. We are all still married to our first and same wives for over thirty years now.
We men and our wives are serving the Lord in some capacity. My friend was in awe of this coincidence of events as he called it, where I call it Divine appointment and God’s grace. “What about the others?” he asked. “Well,” I said, “This one died of an overdose and that one is having a hard time dealing with a meth addiction in his life, and so and so is dealing with alcoholism and all of them are divorced.” Deut. 30:19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.

There it was, as plain as day. The conversation I was having with my friend was bringing something to light. With the Lord, there was a description of life and living. Without the Lord, there was a lot of self-inflicted woes and heartache leading to death. Do we three who have Christ as Lord have any problems in life? Absolutely we do, and some of the problems are real doozies. However, we have the Lord and His love to help us get through them.

Are there failures and losses in our lives? Yes, there are, but Jesus gives us the strength to go on and continue to choose life. Phil. 4:13 I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. The more I think about it, how do people get through life without God? With Him there is life and without Him, there are vast amounts of questionings about life and only distorted answers faintly coming through. Prov. 21:30 There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the LORD. There is no outwitting life on our own terms. We are either with the Lord or without Him and His counsel and eternity will declare that fact.

When we become slothful in our walk with Christ and living our lives without praying and reading the word of God, we end up without. When we also stop acting upon the illuminations that are poured into our spirits, we find ourselves without. Without peace, without grace for others, without direction, and without a clue of what is going on as we think we are the main focus of Satan’s attack because we are being blinded to the truth of our Lord’s word. We become children without purpose and end up self-deceived. James 1:22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
This is why we have to stay with the Lord, through thick and thin. Psalm 119:105 Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. When we are walking with Christ our Savior, we have everything that comes under Christ’s authority and the Kingdom of God at our disposal for the blessing of the saints and the needs in the world. We become proper ambassadors of God’s kingdom. 2 Cor. 5:20 So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God.
With God, the joy of the Lord is our strength. With God, we are more than conquerors. Rom. 8:37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. With God, we have peace that is beyond explanation. Phil. 4:7 And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Why do so many fallen Christians wait until the world is falling down around their lives and living in a self-destructive way before they wake up to themselves and get back to walking with the Lord? The question is simple. Do you want life with or without blessing? Do you want your children with or without health? Do you want your marriage with or without peace? Do you want your soul with or without a God in it? That is the question. With or without God? Josh. 24:15b But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. Well, what say ye? With or without God?

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