Beloved: grace, mercy and peace be yours from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. I am delighted to welcome you to the second week of this month, the month of June 2024. My prayer is that God will put His sweetness back into everything in your life that the devil has polluted with bitterness, so that it will be useful for your enjoyment and also for His glory. Amen.
As we see in the bible, after the children of Israel had witnessed the destruction of the armies of Pharaoh in the Red Sea, they first travelled in the desert for three full days without finding water. Then, when they came to a place called Marah, and they were about to start rejoicing that water was there, their rejoicing was cut short because the water they found there was bitter and could not be drunk. (Cf. Ex 15:22-23)
Now why was the water in Marah bitter? We are not told. But it is clear that God was not the one that made it bitter, for everything God created in the beginning was good (1Tim 4:4). So, something must have happened to that water at some point that introduced bitterness into it. And this is showing us that the fact that God has provided us with something good does not mean that bitterness cannot enter it. Bitterness can enter it through Satan or man’s activities. That is why we must always be prayerful and watchful so that we will not permit bitterness to spoil any good thing God has given to us.
Well, because the water the Israelites found in Marah was bitter, they grew impatient and began to insult Moses for bringing them out of Egypt to perish in the desert. But just three days before that time, these same people had witnessed God’s mighty hand for their deliverance from years of slavery in the land of Egypt. They had seen how He made a road for them through the Red Sea and also destroyed their enemies that were after their lives in the waters of that sea. Why, then, did they not think that handling the bitter water of Marah was not going to be a problem for Him? They did not think that way because they were only concerned about their comfort; they were not concerned about nurturing their relationship with Him. (Cf. Ex 15:23)
Sadly, there are still many of God’s people in the world today that are like those children of Israel. They too are only concerned about what God can do to comfort and lift them up in life. They are not concerned about having a meaningful relationship with Him. So, any time they are faced with a new problem, they will totally forget about all the good things God has done for them in the past and begin to complain that He does not care at all about them or that certain people in their lives are not doing enough for them.
Now why do people act like that? It is because they think that if God is with someone and also cares about the person, He will not allow even a fly to touch the person. But there is nowhere we are told in the word of God that we will not face challenges in life because God is with us or because He loves us. God loved Jesus very much when He was in this world and was also with Him all the time. Yet that did not stop Him from facing all kinds of challenges, including death. And did He complain because of that? No! Why did He not complain? He did not complain because He knew that God, who loved Him and was always with Him, would give Him victory over all those challenges. And did He give Him victory over them or not? He did.
In like manner, regardless of the challenges we are faced with in life, we must never forget that God is with us and will give us victory over them all because of His love for us. So, instead of grumbling against Him or accusing our spiritual leaders of not praying enough for us, we should turn to Him in prayers for the way of victory. And He will answer us.
As we see in the case of those children of Israel, when they began to grumble against Moses and God, Moses did not join them. Instead, he turned to God for the solution to the problem at hand. Look at how the bible puts that: “Then Moses cried out to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a piece of wood. He threw it into the water, and the water became sweet…” (Ex 15:25NIV) Did you see that? It was the man that cried to God that He revealed the solution to. He showed him how to heal the water in Marah of its bitterness. And when he did what God had told him, the water was healed and became fit for the people to drink.
So, God can show us how to heal everything we have that has been ruined for us by the bitterness in it. All we need is to cry out to Him for His revelations on what to do. And He will answer us. Then the bitterness we are experiencing in using His provisions for us will be replaced with sweetness. Will you, then, begin to talk Him about those things in your life that have been ruined with bitterness?
Have a great week.
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