6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, 7 casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.
God’s grace which He gives to the humble (v. 5) will be in the form of exaltation—and it will be given at the proper time, just when we need it. And (from verse seven) that casting of our anxiety on Him is part of the process of humility; and we should do it with the knowledge that He cares for us; and so, He will strengthen us in the entire process of humbling ourselves.
5 You younger men, likewise, be subject to your elders; and all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.
Here Peter begins to address those who are not elders. I am not sure if he is saying that only older men can be elders. But I suppose that is mostly true. Certainly, a teen would not be an elder, but one in his twenties or thirties may—if he has godly qualities. Nonetheless, they all are to be subject (under and submissive to) their elders. And all, even elders, are to be humble toward each other, for “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” This is a statement that we ought always to remember. Those who slip into pride I’m sure lose their memory of this pronouncement.
Bahrain is a very small Island/ Country just west of Qatar.
Work. It’s Monday, not a lot going on as far as work. I have a small job on Wednesday; I just have to paint three doors, Tarrytown green. Fun.
Mice. Following up on my latest article about my mouse problem: I haven’t seen any mice for a few days. But I am convinced that I did have one or two mice—and I was not hallucinating. My evidence, besides seeing them, was finding a few black, small droppings under the stove, in back of the juicer, and on the bathroom floor in the corner. Gross! I am more motivated now to clean and make sure I have nothing laying around where they can nest. I would be mortified if I found a nest with baby mice in it. And I asked around to all the other apartments in my building, and no one has seen any mice. Why is it just me?
Bahrain. Just too days ago, Bahrain came on board with UAE. Now we have two nations at peace with Israel, which confirms my previous article on the fact that bible prophecy is now happening; and so, the Ezekiel Invasion (Ezek. 38, 39) is coming soon—which also means that the Rapture is coming soon. It is so exciting to see these things falling into place.
My church looking at racism. I tend not to want to talk about or hear anyone talk about racism. I think that is mainly in our past. And for the most part I think it was dealt with back in the 60’s. But our pastor has chosen to tackle it. Well, so far, I think he is doing a great job. His main motivation is evangelism in our community, which has a mixed race. So, we figure that our church should really have a mixed race of people. And, for the most part, we do.
His text was from Revelation 7:9: “After these things I looked, and behold a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb…”
So, he got from that verse that in heaven there will be a mixed race of people: all nations, tribes, and languages. It is a beautiful picture. We should not see heaven as a blend of the races, say all brown people. No. It will be multi-colored. Very colorful! And we will love and accept each other as we are. So, the main message is that we need to humble ourselves, face up to, and talk about where we are concerning how we feel about each other—people of other races. Sin wants to hide; but redemption demands honesty, humility and transparency.
But we also need to be careful and wise. Riots are not the way to deal with anything. Anger will not solve anything. And we know now that there are anarchists that want to take advantage of any hurtful situation in order to destroy our country. We don’t need another civil war. We need prayer and revival, and we need law and order to go along with it.
My reading. I just started reading Live Free Or Die, by Sean Hannity. Good grief. I had no idea that the book would be so deep. I mean, it is like a text book with tons of research. It’s a book I could definitely read more than once. There is so much in it. It is not that hard to read, just so much in it. Oh well, I will just read it slow, a little at a time. It is good. A lot of good information about our great country.
Stephen Nielsen 