6-26-20   THOUGHTS

Forgive my sobering thoughts this morning.  We live in SOBERING TIMES!
There’s an old saying about “fiddling while Rome burns”.  The idea is that we miss significant times in our lives or events in our lives where a difference could have been made!  
Messiah came to a world that was looking for him... but they refused to see him! 
Luke 19:41-44    When He approached Jerusalem, He saw the city and wept over it, 42  saying, "If you had known in this day, even you, the things which make for peace! But now they have been hidden from your eyes. 43  "For the days will come upon you when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, and surround you and hem you in on every side, 44  and they will level you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not recognize the time of your visitation."
Luke 13:34   "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, [the city] that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen [gathers] her brood under her wings, and you would not [have it!]
Rom 1:28   And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper,
Hos 4:6    My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being My priest. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.
Surely the following verse rings a bell in our time in America...
Jer 9:6   "Your dwelling is in the midst of deceit; Through deceit they refuse to know Me," declares the LORD.
2Thes 2:7-12    For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. 8  Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming; 9  that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, 10  and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. 11  For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, 12  in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.
I won’t tell you that this time has come!  I don’t know that much.  But surely “a time has come”?   I feel like I live in a time of  “VISITATION”?  
Is there something I need to KNOW or DO that I am missing?  
Surely we must heed   Rom 8:8   “and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”  
Rom 13:11     [Do] this, knowing the time, that it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep; for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed.

My Prayer:
Holy God of all creation, forgive our foolish ways.  Strengthen us to be the children we ought to be.  Separate us from this world, that we may see YOU as we ought to.  Help us draw closer to you, with all our hearts, souls, and minds!     

                               In the name of Jesus            Amen