In The lord is Life
The life of every creature is in the Lord's hand. Job said this when lamenting to his "friends" who were telling Job that for all the misfortune that had fallen on him was due to something he had done. That he was being punished for a sin that he had committed. Job's response to his friends was, "no, I have done nothing wrong."
He went on to say, "ask the animals that the Lord has created, they know His actions and why He allows things to happen as He does." God allows evil to rule to fulfill His purpose, but only for a time, and only for as long as is necessary for His purpose. That is a hard truth to understand. Read the first two chapters of the book of Job and you will see how the Lord did nothing to Job, but allowed the enemy to afflict Job, for a reason. Yet notice that even the enemy could do no more than what the Lord allowed him to do. All things are under full control of the Lord.
Romans 1:18-31 is another great passage to see how the Lord intervenes, in the affairs of man, and what the Lord does when man just will not listen to Him; He gives them over to their selfish desires. Sure, He can keep all types of sinful behavior from happening, but He gave us free will. If we continually sin (voluntarily disregard His divine rule) He will be a gentleman and allow you to go your way. It is not the Lord that causes us to sin, it is our own nature that we have the ability to put to death and live according to the Spirit (Romans 8:13).
The Lord holds the life of every creature in His hand. Praise Him for that! We have the choice to live according to His ways and continue in life, or to reject those ways and bring a curse upon ourselves.
See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse— the blessing if you obey the commands of the LORD your God that I am giving you today; the curse if you disobey the commands of the LORD your God and turn from the way that I command you today by following other gods, which you have not known. Deuteronomy 11:26-28
Choose life today, both physical and spiritual. Accept that you are a sinner (Romans 3:23) and that you deserve death (Romans 6:23), but that thanks be to God, through His son Jesus Christ, he has made a way for us (Romans 7:14-25). Accept that is all you have to do to is believe Jesus has paid your penalty for sin and choose to live in the way that brings you life (Ezekiel 3:17-27 & chapter 18).
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