Have you ever wondered what God has planned for you in time to come?  I have.  I used to think we would be floating around on some cloud forever playing some stupid harp.  And truthfully, while that might be ok for a while, it’s not something I’d want to do forever and ever, ages without end.  But the Bible reveals the future to us, and so we don’t have to wonder.  It is written in Ephesians 2:1-8:

1  And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
2  Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
3  Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. note
4  But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
5  Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) note
6  And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
7  That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
8  For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

I don’t know about you, but I get pretty excited when I get down to verse 7.  God is going to love on us forever and ever, and of course we are going to love on Him forever, too.  And we don’t even have to earn it, it is a gift from our heavenly Father, unto us His children.

There is no excuse we can offer why we should refuse a deal like that!  Usually, when something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.  But in this case, it IS true, and we must not let our skepticism of how mankind treats us get mixed into how God treats us.  Though mankind often has good intentions, it is pretty normal that somehow they become unable or unwilling to follow through.  But as it is written, God is not a man that He should lie.  He is always true to His Word, in fact the Bible says this about Him in Psalm 138:2,

2  I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.

Exactly what does that mean for you and I?  Well, years ago I heard a minister say, “God said it, I believe it, That settles it.” And the LORD said to me, “No, Jerry, it’s like this:  I said it, and that settles it.” Whether we believe the Word of God or not, what He said is absolutely going to happen, and nothing, and I mean NOTHING is going to change His Words.  So how do we reap the blessings and benefits that God has laid up for us by His Word?  We take Him at His Word and believe Him with abandon.  When circumstances appear that are contrary to what God has said in His Word, you throw out the circumstances in favor of the Word.

But you see, that’s where many people miss it.  And you have to understand, God created us with five senses; touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing.  So it’s only natural then, if feels like a duck, tastes like a duck, smells like a duck, looks like a duck and sounds like a duck, then SURELY, it must be a duck.  But that isn’t always so.  Let me share an experience from years ago.  Jenny and I happened to be at a flea market, and this guy had a trained parrot that he sat on the floor.  This parrot was beautiful red, blue, yellow and green.  This parrot started waddling around on the floor like a duck, quacking like a duck and I cracked up.  Then it started clucking like a chicken, walking just like a chicken, scratching and picking on the floor, and you’d swear it had multiple personalities, but it wasn’t a duck or a chicken, it was a parrot.  I laughed till I cried, never saw anything like it before.  I was thoroughly convinced I had seen a red, blue, yellow and green talking chicken.  Our senses can deceive us.

And so it is with God’s Word, our senses tell us one thing, and the Word tells us the opposite.  So which do most people believe?  They believe their senses, and would never believe they could be deceived by them.  But we CAN be deceived by our senses, in fact it happens pretty often.  And ESPECIALLY when it comes to circumstances we find ourselves in, and the Word says one thing, and our senses say something else.  And when we listen to our senses, we lose every time.  Why?  Because God freely offers us His Holy Spirit to be an unerring “sense” that overrules the five we are born with.  The challenge comes when we are trying to “unlearn” listening to our five senses, and learning to zero in on what the Word of God says, to the point that we no longer even pay attention to what our five senses are screaming to us, but fully rely on the Holy Spirit to lead us the way we should go.

Maybe it isn’t so hard for a young person to learn to hear the Holy Spirit, but the older we get, the more established we are in relying on our natural senses.  The Lord Jesus said in Matthew 18:2-4;
2  And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them,
3  And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
4  Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

As I said, it’s relatively easy to train a young child to hear the LORD’s voice, but not so much an adult, because they have become set on relying on their own senses.  And like a child, we must be willing to humble ourselves and be “re-trained” by the LORD contrary to our human nature.  But once we have done that, God can effectively lead us through every adverse circumstance the devil throws at us, and we always come out on top.  When the devil throws symptoms of sickness on us, our Spirit man KNOWS the Word of God says WE ARE HEALED BY THE STRIPES OF JESUS, and we can shake off sickness like a duck shakes off water, because God said it, and that settles it, period.

The Word says in Deuteronomy 28:1  And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth:
And the following verses through 14 tell us of all the blessings that will overtake us.  And all the while, our natural senses may be telling us, “That’s just too good to be true”, and because we don’t take God at His Word, we won’t diligently hearken unto His voice to obey Him, and we will miss out on all the good things He has in store for us.  And all because we believe OUR SENSES over HIS WORD!  So how about YOU?  Are you willing to start taking God’s Word over your circumstances?  If so, you can start turning your life around this very hour, into days of heaven on earth, which is what God intended for us to live in the first place!

In man’s beginning in the Garden of Eden, God spoke to Adam and Eve and they heard His voice clearly, and they had perfect fellowship with Him.  There was no sickness, no sorrow, no lack, strife or death.  It was only when they stopped hearing God’s voice that their world fell apart.  What happened?  They listened to the devil who was appealing to their five senses.  In doing so, they lost their ability to clearly hear the LORD, and it’s been a mess ever since.  Determine TODAY to tune in to the voice of the LORD and He will begin untangling the messes in your life.  Don’t wait!!  Ask the LORD to let you hear His voice clearly.  And this will be the beginning of blessings that never stop in the ages to come. What a future God has for you!