"Drawn Out of Darkness"

"He brought them out of the darkness and the shadow of death, and brake their bands in sunder."
(Psalms 107:14)

 I truly hope that you caught that one part of the closing Scripture, "Mark well the path by which you came," because that is pretty much the point I was trying to make about not being able to loose our salvation. Realistically, there is no way for a true child of God to shake off that well marked path; it is  like that song by Daniel Amos called "Glory Road," anything else is utter destruction and we can't back out now! What else are you going to do? At the very least, you keep focused upon the saving grace, and just hope that it all works out in the end; but if you really want to experience all of the blessings that come from serving God, you must serve Him only, and stop serving yourself. Oddly enough, we might thing that we are just serving ourselves, but in reality, the enemy has us bound up in something totally different. The easy way to see this illustrated in a way we might understand is by looking at the  three temptations that Jesus was tempted by in the wilderness. The first of which was "bread," the second was "power," and the third one was "glory." The first thing that the devil will cause us to do is to be focused upon provisions and substance; what we need to live on and how we feed our families. Jesus clearing tells us in Matthew 6:32, "For after all these things do the Gentiles seek;" in other words, those that do not believe to God's ability to provide for all of their needs, are the ones who are concerned about provisions and substance. The second distraction that the devil will pull us into is that of power, or the lack thereof. Power is a very tricky thing to deal with, because it is something that really cannot be seen until it is used; so it is totally hidden, knowing its strength or weakness remains unknown until you flip the switch and turn it on; which simply means, until you test it! Faith is the only thing that we have that no one can touch. So if we cannot trust God in the little things, like provisions and substance, how will we trust Him in the bigger things, like jumping off a high pinnacle and expecting Him to catch us? The third thing is the most complex of all, glory. There is something we do not understand about God's glory when we are not walking in faith: we are part of His glory! Seriously, how can we doubt God in the little things, not experience the power of His resurrection, and then not be drawn into worshiping something else? There is really not a fine line between serving God and serving ourselves; it is a pretty big substantial gap...

"Don't be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins, for the anger of God will fall on all who disobey him. Don't participate in the things these people do. For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light! For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true. Carefully determine what pleases the Lord. Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them. It is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly people do in secret. But their evil intentions will be exposed when the light shines on them, for the light makes everything visible. This is why it is said, "Awake, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will give you light."" (Ephesians 5:6-14) NLT