The Word To Live By: 8-4-26
Phil Waggoner
Oh, give thanks to the Lord for He is good! For His mercy endures forever. Psalm 118:1
The Word to live by: This may have been the most important revelation about God the centurion and the Canaanite woman. I know that sounds strange because everything that is attributed to God is called good, but to them, it wasn’t. And you have to understand that for great faith. Don’t allow anyone in any position to tell you anything different. I remember spending summers on the Gulf Coast and hearing on the news that hurricanes were an act of God. I remember going to a funeral and hearing a preacher say the father of a girl in my sister’s class was killed in a car wreck on a major highway into New York City when a car went over the center line and hit him head on. It was called an act of God. Think about that statement. God caused a car (whatever happened to that driver, I don’t know) to cross a median and hit another car with a man in it coming home from work and leaving a wife and two kids without a father. And that was good? I think the reason we believe that doctrine is because we don’t understand or, in some cases, believe in active devils. (I say devils because the Bible tells us there is a kingdom of darkness and that we wrestle against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Ephesians 6:12.) The Bible, in John 10:10, clearly denotes a difference between good and evil when Jesus said, “The thief comes but to steal, kill and destroy. I have come that you might have life and life abundantly.” God is good and good in the old Hebrew and Greek means good. As an adjective, it means to be desired or approved of. As a noun, it means that which is morally right; righteousness or benefit or advantage to someone or something. Where in any one of those definitions is killing, stealing, or destroying? When the centurion and Canaanite woman learned that God was on their side, that He cared about the things that concern them and nothing they did/do could separate them from His love, it changed their life immediately. It made things better outwardly, and they knew God’s will for them wasn’t emotional and physical sickness on this earth, that God wasn’t testing them with calamity, or that if anything could go wrong, it would. That part of the salvation of God was deliverance, protection, healing, to do well and be made whole. When they changed what they believed they were off to the land of superabundant life that Jesus said He came to give them. Am I saying their life became perfect, or that they had no problems anymore? No, I’m saying they learned what the root cause of them was and Who can and will fix them. What about Romans 8:28 though? I’m glad you asked, because it’s the subject of tomorrow’s WTLB.
Read through the Bible in a year: 2 Corinthians 4:1-5:10; 2 Kings 17; Micah 6;
Read through the New Testament and Proverbs: Proverbs 4, Matthew 18:1-17, Romans 7
The sum of Thy Word is Truth Psalm 119:160