9689	Forums / Theology Forum / The Bible Driven Church	on: February 02, 2006, 01:54:33 PM
God is a refuge in times of trouble. Being in trouble is not foreign to a christian. The problem with us is that we as Christians do not take refuge in Christ. A refuge is a place of safety. Having a refuge in the spiritual life of a believer is volition. First resting in Christ is an exercise of faith. Resting in the spiritual realm is not an absence of trouble or opposite force. Its having peace based upon faith in an object that overcomes all adversity. It is a battle in the mind will and emotions. If you dwell in a shadow, you experience many sensations. You experience a cool breeze, and you are over shadowed by a taller object. Then you would be engulfed in that shadow. I can get an understanding of the shadows by being in the mountains, being shadowed by a storm, having the clouds block the sunlight on a warm day, the planets block the moons light and so you are in a very black  universe. Any thing that is higher than my vision abilities brings about these sensations of safety if i dwell on these great high things. The highest being in the universe is God. If you can visualize immediate places and things that are high then you can try to imagine from that perspective of things that are beyond this universe. If you think about it God overshadows from the highest point. Nothing gets beyond Him. Now just thinking in these terms creates in me an ultimate refuge. If nothing is higher than God and then looking at these objects for a sensation of safety then i have the ultimate refuge in God. Think now about what the highest being could do by His power as He sits on His throne with His footstool as the earth. Think about the ability He has to over see the universe. He could as it were throw down hail, shoot lightning out from His throne, blast snowstorms all of the earth, even shoot arrows at His enemy's, send storms over the earth and hurricanes ,even a blowing of a breeze into the ears. All done as He sits on the highest throne. He could reach down His hand and pull you out of trouble. He could come down as a mighty warrior and enact punishment on the wicked in war. See at that height there is nothing outside of His vision. He could come down as a mighty warrior and save you from any thing that threatens you as a believer. Now this is the picture of Gods refuge for us. Thinking like this is only half the concept. How can we rest just thinking of the Height of Gods rule? Its got to at some point become personal to us. If we just conceived of God as the highest being who does these things then it would only give us reasons to trust in a God who does these thing.  He must be owned as my God. My Savior. It must be a confession on my lips. When i speak of Him it is not the Great God in the sky, it is my refuge! my Most High! All of these great powers that God displays on a daily basis are seen by the whole world. Yet they really do become to my personal benefit as a christian. What would i consider a threat to my well being? It comes in the word \"snare\". These are traps set by an enemy. Think about what causes snares to come into our lives. You have your own sin, other peoples plots, accusations from friends, and then traitors. Now we start from the towering objects in our world , we go to thinking in terms of Gods throne as the most high and that vision works its power in our every day problems. This is part of the concept of refuge. Refuge is a place of trust in the midst of all of these snares. It is a place of trust where our finite vision is tried. We see trouble encircling us. We see enemies within and without. There is an adversarial experience in taking refuge in God. Peace comes when we rise above our finite vision by faith as we look into the face of trouble. Faith must be like a shadow, where we actually experience peace in resting in Christ. If i said that there is a refuge i go to and do not experience that peace then i would not value that place of refuge. If i dont value it i would not spend time experiencing it. In faith we act to plead the promises, we look at the circumstances and cast ourselves on Christ in prayer. In faith we seek to walk a grace pathway as we rest in Christ not trusting in our own power or abilities but in His ability to deliver us as we see Him in faith