Quote:
Originally Posted by UntoHim
"Some people are so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly good"
Oliver Wendell Holmes.
In my many years of experience and observation, I find it's more than enough for us Christians who live in the cushy, comfortable Western world to just overcome taking for granted all the privileges and blessings that surround us. If we can just overcome higher gas prices and FaceBook being down for a few hours, maybe, just maybe we can start to work on the real overcoming. You know...where you have to worry about where your next meal is coming from, or whether or not the government is going to arrest you for having a Bible, or get beaten half to death for holding a Christian meeting in your living room.
Speaking for myself, I would like to overcome the temptation to go a day without reading a few verses. I would like to overcome all the garbage that is splashed before my eyes on the very computer screen that I am typing these words on. I would like to overcome the ease and comfort of a prayerless life in which I don't worry about people who are trapped within a system of error that teaches them false notions about what it is to be an overcomer. May God have mercy.
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So very true! Where I live, Scottsdale, we have things pretty good it seems and while I take many things for granted a good deal of the time, I am thankful for what we've been given - it is simply where He has placed us. Some time ago, a brother related something that came from a brother who I believe lived in Africa. He evidently said that while they have a multitude of hardships in their country and even a degree of persecution, he was blessed by his circumstances in that they caused him to regularly cry out to the Lord. He said he considered what we have in America as possibly the bigger test and temptation, in that we could more easily be lulled into total complacency.
This also reminds me of something another brother said (who the Lord recently took from this life) . . . he said he told the Lord, "Lord, if I could I'd live without you, but thank You, You don't let me!" He was referring to the things the Lord is merciful to bring our way, to humble us and cause us to turn to Him.
When we talk of overcoming, I'm reminded of something the Lord showed me a couple years ago. In Matthew 5:23 the Lord tells the faithful servant, "you have been faithful in a FEW things, enter into the joy of your Lord." So brother, only the Lord knows those few things we are expected to be faithful in . . . in the things right where He has placed us!