Righteousness

Psalms 36:5-9 Your mercy, O Lord , is in the heavens; Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the great mountains; Your judgments are a great deep; O Lord , You preserve man and beast. How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God! Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Your wings. They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of Your house, And You give them drink from the river of Your pleasures. For with You is the fountain of life; In Your light we see light.


This is the relationship God desires with mankind: to reveal His perfect righteousness, His precious lovingkindness, His faithfulness, His mercy, and then to receive in response our trust, our willingness to find the fullness in His house, and to drink from His river of true pleasure, and find satisfaction in life. This REALLY is what God made man for...to be satisfied fully in a relationship with a God who calls Himself a father.


But God has chosen a relationship based in...subject to...love. Love requires free will...a choice to love back or to say "no" to love. We are not obligated to live trusting God and witnessing His lovingkindness, faithfulness, righteousness, and provision. To the degree I want those things, and am willing to make choices to agree with them coming into my life, I will get to experience them. Because it is a relationship of love, I get as much of God as I am willing to open the door of my heart to. My heart only opens from the inside. I open it by inviting agreement with God into my decisions.


The entire true story told in advance in the book of Revelation is about man's final choice for, or against, love. It is God's final attempt to reach the greatest number of those He loves (everyone), at the deepest heart level, using the least intense means necessary, without EVER violating their own free will...God is unwilling to suspend love.


God is unwilling that any would die (attempt to live out eternity apart from Him...the author of all life), so He has a plan to show mankind...incrementally ...what that choice really looks like. The plan increases in intensity from beginning to end. It is described as seals (the introductory measure...the "opening" of the plan), trumpets (the intermediate measure...the announcement or revelation of the plan), and bowls (the final measure...the fullness of the plan).


God wants no one to choose to try to "live" apart from Him...the source of all life. As God reveals the reality of the choice before man, to live with or without the source of life, many will see the truth and agree with God, accept Jesus as the way to reconnect with the author of life, and escape the rest of His correction. But the Bible says that as the first waves of correction are felt, MANY will harden their hearts and accuse God of evil for allowing the events to take place. Even many who go to church right now and profess Jesus. This calls for wisdom and endurance:


Matthew 24:7-13 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved.


Jesus said the tribulation will offend many Christians. One aspect of the tribulation is that money will be removed from the saints:


Revelation 13:15-17 He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.


There is going to be a global currency that no one will be able to participate in unless they make an agreement to worship the antichrist. This is not a fairy tale...this is really going to happen. If you watch the news, you can actually see for the first time in world history several world leaders calling for a global currency. This is no longer far-fetched.


Many Christians trust in their money, or ability to make money, right now. I can measure my trust in money by my feelings about giving it away. Trusting in money is a shaky place to stand. God desires mankind stand on Him. Jesus laid out a brilliant plan to free me from trusting in money: secretly give it away until it stings. This is not because He is against wealth. He is FOR truth. The truth is, earthly wealth is temporary. The future wealth I store up by giving away my temporary wealth is permanent. Jesus owns all the resources of the earth, and He is going to get them very soon:


Revelation 5:11-12 Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures, and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain To receive power and riches and wisdom, And strength and honor and glory and blessing!”


Right now, mankind, under the delusion of demons, believes it owns the resources of the earth. God has a plan to demonstrate there is no wealth apart from Him, His plan begins with removing currency from His own people to demonstrate His faithfulness, righteousness, and lovingkindness. He did the same thing in the Exodus story:


Exodus 16:1-6, 14-16, 19-20 And they journeyed from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came to the Wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they departed from the land of Egypt. Then the whole congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And the children of Israel said to them, “Oh, that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in My law or not. And it shall be on the sixth day that they shall prepare what they bring in, and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily.” Then Moses and Aaron said to all the children of Israel, “At evening you shall know that the Lord has brought you out of the land of Egypt.


And when the layer of dew lifted, there, on the surface of the wilderness, was a small round substance, as fine as frost on the ground. So when the children of Israel saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, “This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat. This is the thing which the Lord has commanded: ‘Let every man gather it according to each one’s need, one omer for each person, according to the number of persons; let every man take for those who are in his tent.’ ”


And Moses said, “Let no one leave any of it till morning.” Notwithstanding they did not heed Moses. But some of them left part of it until morning, and it bred worms and stank. And Moses was angry with them.


God is serious about His people trusting Him, because He is serious about demonstrating who He is. He is going to remove their dependence earthly wealth to show the world who He is. What He did in the desert with Moses, He is going to do globally...I believe soon...in our generation to show He is a Father who provides.


This will be glorious for those who agree with it, and painful for those who are blind-sided by it. Now is the time to free my heart! I do this by giving up trust in a dying currency and making some heavenly friends with my resources...no matter how great or small they are. My resources (time, money, possessions) are really my master's wealth. Trusting God in this is the decision that opens my hearts to more trust in the author of life. This "foolish" decision in the world's eyes actually prepares me to enjoy abundant life in a time when the rest of the world will be freaking out! Jesus told this story to make this point:


Luke 16:1-9 He also said to His disciples: “There was a certain rich man who had a steward, and an accusation was brought to him that this man was wasting his goods. So he called him and said to him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.’ “Then the steward said within himself, ‘What shall I do? For my master is taking the stewardship away from me. I cannot dig; I am ashamed to beg. I have resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses.’ “So he called every one of his master’s debtors to him, and said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ And he said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ So he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ So he said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ And he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’ So the master commended the unjust steward because he had dealt shrewdly. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light. “And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by unrighteous mammon, that when you fail, they may receive you into an everlasting home.

There is a soon-coming shaking of currency. This will be the beginning...a warning. Now is the time to listen!