Is God Hiding?

PSA 139:8  If I ascend up into heaven, thou
art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. 

It appears that we are living in a time of concealment when God has hidden His face from us. There is so much uncertainty. It is as if we in the Body of Christ have been put on pause and we are waiting for something to happen to lift us out of the catastrophic proportion of distress that we are experiencing. Countries are at war internally as well as externally. Parents are killing their children and children are killing their parents. There is an inordinate amount of natural disasters, earth quakes, tsunamis, droughts and storms. With masses of knowledge and technology there are still illnesses that man can’t heal.

PSA 75:5  Lift not up your
horn on high: speak not with a stiff neck.6
For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor
from the south.7  But God is the judge:
he putteth down one, and setteth up another.

 

The word of God says in Psalms 75:6 that promotion comes neither from the east, west or south. However, the psalmist fails to mention the North. During biblical times the people believed that the mountains that lay far to the North bordering the Mesopotamian Valley were the end of the world. The Hebrew word for North is sapon meaning “hidden or secret” and it was commonly thought that the North was outside of the natural domain therefore it was hidden from human view. The psalmist’s lack of use of the North is a tacit indication that there is nothing in this tangible, material world, the world as we know it that can cause real promotion. He implies that in order to be lifted out of our current situations we must seek relief in a place that is outside of our natural realm. Only from the secrets of God’s counsel can real promotion and elevation come.

PSA 121:1  I will lift up
mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.2  My help cometh from the LORD, which made
heaven and earth.3  He will not suffer
thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber.

 

I have good news for you God is not hiding. You can look to God for help because He is reliable. His word says that He does not sleep. Regardless to what you are going through you can depend on Him. The word says that He is the same yesterday, today and forever. He will never leave you or forsake you. The same God that stood by Moses in the cliff of the rock stands beside you in your every situation.

By. Dr. Olivia Hines

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Work the Investment

HEB
10:35  So do not throw away your
confidence; it will be richly rewarded.36
You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you
will receive what he has promised.

An investment is the commitment of something to a project with the expectation of some worthwhile result. If you have a made a commitment to have Jesus as the Lord of your life this is not the time to liquidate your investment and take back the control. You have to work the investment.  Keep trusting God as if everything depended on him, while working as if everything depended on you.

1KI 18:42  So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And
Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; and he cast himself down upon the earth,
and put his face between his knees, 

God promised Elijah that if he went to see Ahab that God would send rain upon the earth. Elijah made an investment, he did what God told him to do but there were no signs of rain. Elijah refused to give up and he kept working the investment.  Elijah trusted God so much that he sent his servant up to check for rain seven times. He could have stopped believing on the third or fourth time but he worked his investment and told the servant to go again. Certainly when he got to the fifth and sixth time there was reason to believe that God had breached the promise. However, Elijah believed God so much that he continued to work the investment. He put his face between his knees and prayed.

 

1KI 18:44  The seventh time the servant
reported, “A cloud as small as a man’s hand is rising from the sea.”
So Elijah said, “Go and tell Ahab, ‘Hitch up your chariot and go down
before the rain stops you.'” 

Finally, Praise God, on the seventh time when the servant went up to check he said, “There arises a cloud about the size of a man’s hand”. No big black clouds, no whirl winds, no claps of thunder, just a small cloud. That tiny cloud was just enough to confirm that God had not breeched His promise.

When God makes you a promise and you believe God but you can’t get any confirmation; you have to work your investment. Do like Elijah. Go down before the Lord and put your face between your knees, get in the fetal position and call on the name of the Lord then:

P—-Pray

U—-Until

S—-Something

H—-Happens

He is the same God for you today as He was for Elijah on yesterday.

Work Your Investment!

 

Dr. Olivia Hines

Logos Christian Center

Pastor

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Worship Has No Boundaries

EXO 25:21  And thou shalt put the mercy-seat above upon the ark; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee.22  And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy-seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel.

 

God told Moses to instruct Bezaleel in how to construct a box. God designated the building materials and gave specific measurements including the length, width and the height of the box. The box, known as the Ark of the Covenant traveled in the wilderness with the children of Israel and it served several functions. It became the container that housed the tablets of the law, it was a guide and it went before the Israelites when they went to war. Most significantly the box was symbolic of the presence of God. Many years later when David was king he brought the Ark to Jerusalem and the Ark eventually took it’s place in the temple where the people recognized it as the presence of God.

The Babylonians invaded Jerusalem, defiled the temple and led the people into captivity in Babylon where they no longer had access to the Ark. This was a problem because the children of Israel believed that the presence of God only existed in the box so they felt that with out the Ark they could not worship and enter into the presence of God.

EZE 1:1  In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month on the fifth day, while I was among the exiles by the Kebar River, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God. 

 

As Ezekiel stood by the River Kebar he had an encounter with God and this brought about the realization that you could enter into the presence of God with out the box.

Worship requires no material artifacts because the essence of worship is spiritual in nature. Our physical conditions do not control God. God has no limits and He does not exist in a box. He controls situations, persons and even nations. Worship does not depend upon impressive buildings, practiced leaders, sheets of music and resounding musical instruments. Worshipping God is contingent upon us having submissive hearts. God is universal we can not confine Him to any specific boundaries because He has no boundaries. Our God is sovereign. He is able to do what He pleases, when He pleases and how He pleases.  Therefore, we can’t restrict God to the narrow vicinities of a particular style of worship. We can’t confine God to a box.

REV 15:4  Who will not fear you, O Lord, and bring glory to your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.” 

 By Dr. Olivia Hines

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