Does God Care? With the intelligence and reasoning ability that God gave us, we should reasonably assume that in any challenging situation we can anticipate trouble, form a solution and execute a game plan. However, when you are up to your neck in alligators, it’s often difficult to remember that your original objective was to drain the swamp.
People usually have a hard time accepting their own responsibility for the troubles that befall them.
We often blame God
Jesus said that in this life we will have trouble, but why is it that every time trouble comes we ask “why did God do this to me?”
God brought the Israelites out of Egypt, He gave the promised land to them. He gave them His own Son to die on the cross to forgive their and our sins. He gives us ETERNAL life!
Why do we think God doesn’t love us? It’s amazing how our memory fails us. Our own arrogance and pride leads us in the wrong direction.
We push God away
Look at the world today. Trust and faith in the one, true God has been replaced by humanism. Our reason, our desires and our faulty reasoning push God aside and bring chaos.
We are led to believe that God has abandoned us, that He doesn’t care. This is simply not true, but if you tell a lie long enough and loud enough, sooner or later people will believe it, no matter how absurd it is. Political parties use this tactic and have done so for centuries. How did the Nazi Party come to power in 1932? Tell the lie. It’s a classic playbook.
Well intentioned people try to solve major problems with their own meager resources. Before taking action they fail to consult with God for wisdom and direction. What makes sense to man is more often than not just another bad choice that God wants to prevent.
He could easily stop all the nonsense, but to do so would require Him to remove free will. We make our own bed.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight (Proverbs 3:5-6)
And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:5)
Ask God for direction
Do we really come to God and ask His direction? When Jesus and His disciples were ministering to a large crowd, Jesus told His crew to feed them. They thought this was a terrible idea. They had no money to buy food. That’s when a young boy came to them with five loaves of bread and two fish.
There were 5,000 men there, not counting women and children. God fed all of them with bread and fish to spare.
We have free will to make choices
God gave us a free will to make our own decisions. So often those choices are bad, even fatal. God allows us to make those choices. If it were otherwise, the free will would exist and we would be under dictatorial and authoritarian rule. We would have no choice at all.
People make bad choices, like to rob or kill. We tell lies. We cheat. Some people make bad choices and do bad things in the name of God. “God told me to do this.” They take the Word of God and use it to their own, personal advantage. In our minds, we are justified.
In God’s eyes we are sinners and, as the Apostle Paul wrote, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3;23). Paul would later write, “for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 6:23).
God DOES care!
In spite of ourselves, God does care about us and proved that when He allowed His own Son to go to the cross and offer His life for our sins.
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 15:9-13)
God’s love is mentioned over 650 times in the Bible. In fact, the mysterious number 666, associated with the “mark of the beast” in the book of Revelation, is the exact number of times. God’s 666 is far more powerful than Satan’s.