{"id":8968,"date":"2017-03-26T16:55:11","date_gmt":"2017-03-26T16:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pjhmail.wordpress.com\/?p=8968"},"modified":"2017-03-26T16:55:11","modified_gmt":"2017-03-26T16:55:11","slug":"preferring-the-imitation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/8968\/preferring-the-imitation\/","title":{"rendered":"Preferring the Imitation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pastor John,<\/span><\/p>\n

Jesus gave me a thought this morning, I wanted to share it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Before God had appointed the Israelite named Saul to rule as king over God’s rebellious children, the Israelites possessed the real thing (or perhaps I should say, the real thing possessed them!) \u00a0They had the “King of kings” and the “Lord of lords” already judging for them, watching over and protecting them, and providing for all of their needs.<\/span><\/p>\n

But their flesh was not satisfied, and they preferred an imitation, (“make us a king to judge us like all the nations,”)<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0to the real love, authority and protection from God (their true King), who had faithfully kept them and provided for them all of those years.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

God gave them what they wanted; the Bible states it was with a heavy heart. But, nonetheless, the Lord God himself, in\u00a0His continued love for His people, chose for them a man from among them to stand in the place that belonged only\u00a0to Him<\/em>. And while that man, Saul, now stood as the object of adoration of God’s children, God, in His unwavering love for them, silently continued providing for their needs as he always had done, and protecting them as he always did, from the unseen dangers that surrounded them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Today, it is the same way. With God’s real authority, real love, real protection and blessings being offered freely, and in abundance, here in the Earth, through a life in the Spirit that his Son purchased for us all, many men, if not most, still prefer an imitation.<\/span><\/p>\n

And God in His infinite goodness has even provided for that, for rebellious men. Though\u00a0it be not good for man, God has given him that which he demands, to wit,\u00a0“a form of Godliness, that denies the power thereof.” \u00a0 Or, as God Himself put it in the book of Samuel, \u00a0“..they have rejected Me.”<\/span><\/p>\n

And while men praise a powerless God that cannot save them, and give their obeisance\u00a0to that which was fashioned by their own hands, the only true God, the King of all kings,\u00a0still sends the rain and the sunshine to us all, the warmth and the cool breeze in its time, and the meat and the crops in their due season. \u00a0He is always there for those who truly seek Him, and He is always ready to forgive those who repent. \u00a0He is ever so “Real”, \u00a0and He is available, full of power and full of love that can be felt and that can change lives and\u00a0heal broken hearts, for any and all that grow weary of powerless christian imitations, and come to Him.<\/span><\/p>\n

He is our God. Praise His name forever.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jerry<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pastor John, Jesus gave me a thought this morning, I wanted to share it. Before God had appointed the Israelite named Saul to rule as king over God’s rebellious children, the Israelites possessed the real thing (or perhaps I should say, the real thing possessed them!) \u00a0They had the “King of kings” and the “Lord […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-netmail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8968"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8968\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}