Christianity Oasis Forum

[saint701]

Hello All,


Blessings!

Now the Lord has been dealing with me about learning as much about his grace as His grace will allow me learn, which I pray is a lot. I have been guilty in the past of using His grace as a license to sin, but of course it is not that at all. It is the opposite. It is a license to do right.

However, that license to do right can take some odd turns in a person's life, and today we are going to look at the lives of Lot and Noah, their righteousness, as opposed to lives of self righteous people.

First of all, Lot and Noah. These two had some things in common. They both were saved from calamity by God, and they both got drunk afterward. Yet the Word of God says they were both righteous. Lot even went farther. He let his daughters make him drunk so they could preserve seed as their mother was no longer there for that purpose. So just how were these men righteous? Here is how.

They acknowledged God as the source of their lives. Such hadn't been forgotten because of the fall of Adam. God made Adam. God made them. They acknowledged God as the source of all they possessed. They humbled themselves before the Lord and did what He asked them to do. In short, they believed in God. And because of that God gave them His grace.

So now what about self righteous people? The Lord Jesus said of such that unless a human person's righteousness exceed that of the scribes and pharisees such can not enter the Kingdom of Heaven. I will tell the story here of one Howard O. Pittman, a Mississippi gentleman I came to know several years back.

He had been a hard working County Sheriff where he lived. He was a Bible believer in the respect that he felt going to church every Sunday and taking in orphan children made him righteous. As far as I know he was also a tither and a giver. But one day all came crashing down when the main trunk artery in his body burst. He was rushed to the emergency room with little hope of survival.

Next thing he knew his angel removed him from his body and delivered him before the gates of the Kingdom of Heaven and told him to pray. So, being the righteous man he thought he was he decided there would be no problem being bold before God and telling God why he thought his physical body should be healed. Bad decision.

Howard said that after he prayed telling God what a good ol' boy he was and about all his wonderful works and how he had lived such a good, honorable life before him, the voice of God came over those walls and knocked him on his face. The Lord was angry! All his works of service before the Lord were filthy rags, the rags of self worship, not a personal relationship of service to a loving Heavenly Father he, as yet, did not know. Petition denied!

His angel began to carry him back to his dying body. Howard was worried. He sure didn't get his healing! What to do? What to do? He was just 60 years old wanted a longer life. He had been a student of the Bible and remembered the story of King Hezekiah found in Isaiah 38. King Hezekiah received a sentence of death from the Lord, but humbled himself and was given 15 more years.

Howard decided such humility like that of Hezekiah was his only hope. So, he asked his angel to take him back before the gates of Heaven so that he could pray one more time. His angel obliged him. However, the prayer of Hezekiah didn't work either. Howard was made to understand his utter inadequacy before the Almighty.

However, thank God there is a however! When Howard accepted his utter inadequacy to please the Lord with his dead works, the Lord revealed himself to Howard as his loving Heavenly Father. It was then Howard realized service to God has to be on the basis of doing the will of God from the heart as a son that loves Him and submits to Him in all things, even death.

Our Glorious Dad gave him his physical life back.

You can read the entire story of Howard O. Pittman by typing his name in your MSN browser and hitting Rev. Howard Pittman.

But my confession this afternoon before all you saints is I honestly didn't find an end to myself until earlier this week. Paul said it is no longer I that live, but Christ that liveth in me. I am yours Lord for whatever you will.


Blessings!

[Mackenaw]

Saint

God bless and keep you.
Love,
Mack

[saint701]

Hi Mack, All,

God bless you all too! Let's just love each other with our Heavenly Dad's love with everything we've got loving Him more and more as He gives us increasing great grace with which to do so!



Love ya, Saint701.