Chapter Three - The Mercies of God
By Ed Wrather
Chapter Three
THE MERCIES OF GOD
"It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is thy faithfulness." - Lamentations 3:22-23.
The amazing grace of God is beyond human comprehension, but not beyond human experience; and I am very thankful for that. Walking with God, living the Christian life doesn't just happen. We still have spiritual choices to make. We can choose to follow the Voice of the Good Shepard, or we can choose to gratify the desires of the sinful nature. Romans 8:5-6 makes these choices clear, "Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires, but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what that nature desires. The mind of sinful man is death but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace." Romans 13:14 clarifies this even more, "Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature."
I am so thankful that once we are in the hand of God, that "...we have been sealed unto the day of redemption," and that nothing can take us out of God's hand, not even ourselves, because "...His mercies are new every morning." God's salvation through Jesus Christ not only saves us from past sins (justification), but keeps on saving us (sanctification); until someday we will meet our Lord face to face, and this fleshly body will be changed, and we will live forever in the House of the Lord (glorification).
However, just because we have fire insurance and we know God's mercies will never end, does not mean that we should, or even can go on living the life of the seemingly happy pagan. God will not allow that, and we have a new nature (2 Corinthians 5:17), we can never go back to living like we were and enjoy life. The most miserable people I know are Christians who have turned their back on God and are trying to live in sin. I know they are miserable because I have tried to do that myself. I'm thankful that God did not give up on me, but continued to work in my life, and continued to allow things to happen in my life to draw me back to Him.
In 1975, I began working in the oilfield in pipe inspection. The money was good, but it was the most miserable job that I had ever had. I was still praying every day, and before long I was asking God to give me a different job because I hated the one that I had. It was as though God wasn't listening. He knew exactly what I was asking, and thinking, and doing, and feeling; but He was not answering, because sin had entered into my life. The oilfield for the most part was filled with many forms of evil. Alcohol and drug abuse was rampant along with other forms of immorality. The hard work seemed to be used as an excuse to go out and live like the devil. Party all night, and work hard all day. Every month or so, we would have a job out of the area, and would have to spend a week or two living out of a motel. Of course this only increased the availability of all of the above that I mentioned. After work we would go eat, and before going back to the motel we would all go to the bar. It was the expected and accepted thing to do in that environment. During that time period I saw what it was like inside of a biker strip joint, I saw a man shoot up once with some kind of drug, and have a very bad trip. And I saw other things that I don't like to remember.
Now I knew that what I was doing was wrong and every night I would ask God to forgive me and to give me another job. But I kept on doing what I wanted to do and kept on missing out on what God had for my life. However, we most of the times sell God short on what He is able to do. We believe that He can change other people and do things in their lives. But when it gets right down to it we don't really believe that He can do it in our lives. At least I didn't believe that He could do it. But God surprised me with His amazing grace and demonstrated that He knew right where I was and what I was doing and that He still cared enough about me to warn me.
(A Letter from God)
One night when we were working out of town and having to stay in a motel, I called my wife. Jeanie told me that I had gotten a letter. Now I had had a mail order business of setting words to music. I didn’t make but fifteen dollars a song and it took me hours to do each song but I enjoyed it. Apparently this woman that wrote me the letter had seen my ad. It was an anonymous letter and began, "Dear People.” the lady that wrote the letter obviously had some mental problems but God was able to use her anyway. The letter was some seven or eight pages long and Jeanie read every word and with every word the conviction of my sin grew. The letter basically told about how sin had destroyed this woman’s life and it was a warning to others to flee from Sin. By the time Jeanie had finished reading the letter I knew that this was not a letter from some mentally deranged person, this was a message STRAIGHT FROM THE HAND OF GOD TO ME.
I had a choice at the point I could listen to God or continue my rebellion even in the face of His warnings and love for me. It was enough for me to immediately be on my knees crying out for my Lord’s forgiveness. The next day I left my driver’s license at the motel and after work as usual we ate and then I tried to get them to take me back to the motel room but they wouldn’t do it. They took me with them and tried to force me to go in the bar with them, the same one we had been in the night before. But they wouldn’t let me in because I looked so young and didn’t have an ID. So I sat out in the truck for several hours until they decided to go home, and that’s what I continued to do the rest of the time we were gone from home.
I believe and have experienced God’s blessings upon my life when I do what He wants me to do. Two weeks later after my encounter with God through the letter I suddenly had a job like paradise compared to the one that I had had. I had heard some of the men on my crew talking about a position that was going to be open soon with a new company. This new company was just getting into electronic inspection of tubular goods. By that time I had learned some basics about electronic inspection and was an assistant operator on the casing inspection unit. But basically my job was still rolling and cleaning pipe.
We would work all day and all night many times so that we could get to another job and work all day and all night. It didn’t matter whether it was hot or cold, I remember working in an ice storm and having to use a hammer to beat the ice off of the joint of pipe so that a stripe of paint indicating inspection could be painted. The surprising thing about the new job was that I heard two men on my crew saying that they thought they were going to get this job with the new company. My wife had a friend who owned an answering service and she told the owner of this new company about me. Suddenly I had a new job, I wasn’t qualified for it, but I had it and I knew that it had come straight from the hand of God. God gave me the ability and wisdom to do that new job. Once again God had surprised me in an amazing way. But then, God enjoys doing exactly that.
Are you living a life of sin? Have you never experienced the abundant life? God is able to change your life to empower you to live a life that for all practical purposes is free from sin. Why not ask Him to help you to live such a life? Why not ask God to make your life a miracle to make your life fruitful for Him? He may not send you a letter but He will get your attention and change you in a very personal way that perhaps only you can fully comprehend. God loves you and He is able to change you and transform your life so that you have life and that you have it more abundantly. Why not ask God to help you, right now?
