Extreme situations

[visionary]

What do you do? Do you defend yourself or trust God to defend you?

There are the miracles for those who were unharmed facing the extreme situations. How can you not trust God to care for you if you are defending yourself?

Luke 4:
…28 And all the people in the synagogue were filled with rage as they heard these things; 29 and they got up and drove Him out of the city, and led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city had been built, in order to throw Him down the cliff. 30 But passing through their midst, He went His way.

This cliff was the Sabbath walk limit, aprox 2 miles away. God allowed this to go so far but no further.

Have you had situations where God has stepped in to rescue you?

 

[psalms 91]

It comes down to what God directs you to do, sometimes it is nothing trust in Him and others He requires you to use some action, all comes down to hearing from God

 

[visionary]

Yep, and every test of faith, either strengths or weakens. If you lift up a weapon, are you strengthening your faith in Him or weakening it? Remember all wickedness, evil, and violent behavior is not of God. There is no reason for believers to get involved. Prison gates open at night,... That which we fear could be our downfall.

Ephesians 6:12
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

If every situation is an opportunity for God, then who are we to be contrary to His Will?

 

[Josiah]

I try to do what the words of Scripture counsel AND (under that) what Christians counsel (the whole corpus of believers over the past 2000 years).

I try NOT to look in the mirror - to what I think or feel. I'm too stupid and too easily led astray to do such a silly thing.

 

[TurtleHare]

What do you do? Do you defend yourself or trust God to defend you?

If I can defend myself in a situation I can and do because the Lord God gave me a brain to use and skills to use to be protected, in that I am trusting of Him and his gifts to me because to sit back and wait for intervention fro him or the angels neglects the wonderful body parts he gave to me.

 

[visionary]

David was victorious through Him.

 

[Lamb]

I bet God protects us daily in numbers of ways we aren't even aware of.

 

[tango]

If I can defend myself in a situation I can and do because the Lord God gave me a brain to use and skills to use to be protected, in that I am trusting of Him and his gifts to me because to sit back and wait for intervention fro him or the angels neglects the wonderful body parts he gave to me.

I think this sums it up pretty well.

If we refuse to do anything because we figure God will work it all out then logically we shouldn't work for a living (because that indicates a lack of faith in God to provide), shouldn't lock our doors (because that indicates a lack of faith in God to protect) and so on. I agree with you in that God has put resources at our disposal and we are expected to be good stewards of them. That said sometimes life throws something at us that we can't possibly cope with on our own, and it's in times like that we can clearly see God at work.

What troubles me with the way some people describe their "reliance on God" is that so much of what they describe is just the world at work. A while ago I was talking to an older lady whose windshield washers froze, so she couldn't clean her windshield. She didn't put more antifreeze in her washers, she prayed about it. And, remarkably enough, when it warmed up her washers started working again. She sees this apparent correlation between her praying for something and it happening, ignores the fact that an increase in temperate thaws out the frozen nozzles regardless of whether or not she prays, and so her behavior pattern is reinforced.

I don't doubt for a minute that God can intervene to help someone who is stuck in a situation they cannot resolve themselves, but assuming that frozen nozzles that thawed when the temperature rose is a specific answer to prayer is something I really struggle with.

 

[Alithis]

-it raises the question ,,

if we truly believe he is able to raise us up again -how could we say he did not protect us..if we happen to die the first death ?

"Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered.".. but he does not know the moment of our passing ?