…Those Things Which Can Be Shaken… Sunday

The Sifting:

Where the Lord remains active, the sifting process remains actively growing, still. The Lord remains active universally. Wherever we go, as Christ’s representatives on earth, we are being winnowed and sifted.  In all countries God’s people are being tried “like as corn is sifted in a sieve.”  Sometimes the devil holds the sieve, and tosses us up and down in a great shaking of our lives, with the earnest desire to be rid of us forever.  Unbelief is quick to agitate our heart and mind with its restless fears and fretfulness.  The world lends a willing hand in the process, and shakes us to the right and to the left with great vigor.  Worst of all, more of the mainstream church, so largely apostate as it is further infiltrated by willful impenitence, comes in to give a more furious force to the sifting process.

“For, lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth” Amos 9:9

Sifting Corn

And, So!  Let it go on.  Thus is the chaff severed from the wheat.  Thus is the wheat delivered from dust and chaff.  And how great is His mercy which comes to us in God’s promise, “yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth!”

All shall be preserved that is good, true, and gracious.  Not one of the least of His committed ones shall be lost; neither shall any believer lose anything worth calling a loss.  We shall be blessed in the sifting that it shall be a real gain to us through Christ Jesus. 

And again:

“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” Lk. 22:31-32

And here:

“See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking. For if those did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape who turn away from Him who warns from heaven.  And His voice shook the earth then, but now He has promised, saying, “YET ONCE MORE I WILL SHAKE NOT ONLY THE EARTH, BUT ALSO THE HEAVEN.” This expression, “Yet once more,” denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.…” Hebrews 12:25-27 

And much, much more are the Saviors promises, with His desire for our response in Him, to keep us, ourselves from destruction.  -g.w

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I may have written this for my own soul to hear. For although I know Him and trust Him and believe Him and listen intently to Him and allow Him, alone, to lead as I follow — yet I know and I see the things that are happening beyond my door that also spreads around the earth — that it still happens, as my own heart becomes troubled and I cry out to Him in agitation and fretfulness, “Lord, have mercy and remember that we are but dust!” and He replies, “Duly Noted! I so remember! I have not forgotten! I have each name engraved in the palms of my hands so placed by the nails at the cross!” In Christ, alone is our salvation, on earth as it is in heaven!

Praising the Lord Almighty for His manifest faithfulness and His manifold goodness and wisdom!  -g.w.

“His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches over me!” Those song lyrics always lighten my heart. And the twenty third Psalm I keep in a quick-access island of my mind.