Last Sunday, I guess I forgot to set my alarm clock and woke up to find that it was 10:50 in the morning. I couldn't believe it. I hadn't missed church in years, so I set out to make this right. Most days I slip a little and don't live my life according to the Bible at times, so I told myself that since I missed church I would live exactly how the Bible says to live for the rest of the day.
So I set out to fulfill my mission.
First I prayed to God, "Please let me see your face. I have praised you all the days of my life, and I have still not even caught a glimpse." I had my Bible by my side for the day of do gooding I was to set out on, so I turned to (Exodus 33:11) and said see you spoke to Moses face to face as a man speaks with his friend. But then there on the same page about 9 verses later, (Exodus 33:20) I saw that Moses can't see God's face for no man shall see God and live. So I apologized to God for even requesting to see him since it so clearly says in his Word that no man can see his face, except for Moses when they spoke face... to...... face...........like brothers...... now WAIT a minute...If no man can..... Well, never you mind I will have the Pastor explain this away to me Wednesday night at church.
I turned on the news to find out we were going to war with Australia, but I knew it didn't matter if we were at war or not because God is the God of peace (Romans 15:33), and the Lord is a man of war (Exodus 15:3) so everything would be okay either way. I mean God IS everything! He is good to all (Psalm 145:9), but he does create evil (Isaiah 45:7) so to try and understand him is silly. He works in mysterious ways; we humans cannot begin to comprehend. Here's an example. Just try to understand his ways. He is a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation (Exodus 20:5) but the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father (Ezekiel 18:20) So how, you ask, does the third and fourth generation bear the iniquity but the son shall not, and why, you ask, are we not all granted our own Garden of Eden to decide for ourselves to eat from the Tree of Knowledge? You can never understand. Because our fathers sins do and don't affect us. He works in mysterious ways.
Then I went out to do good deeds, because our works here on earth do and don't matter. I know that by grace we are saved through faith, not works (Ephesians 2:8-9) but by works a man is justified , and not by faith only (James 2:24) So I do some good works just in case. I don't really like to do good works and want to believe we can really be saved through faith alone, but I want to be rewarded so I do some good works sometimes. But as soon as I left the house there was a man at the corner of the town square going on and on about how there is no God and the Big Bang. I wanted to tell him only fools say in their heart that there is no God. (Psalm 14:1) but I knew Whosoever shall say Thou fool, shall be in danger of hellfire (Matthew 5:22) so I didn't SAY to him that I knew he was a fool, I only thought in my head. On other days I very well might have just said it to him then asked for forgiveness, but that day I was doing only as the Bible says to do.
This is where my day started to get tricky, because of course I should let my light so shine before men that they may see my good works (Matthew 5:16) but I should also take heed that I do not my alms before men, to be seen of them. I should do them in secret (Matthew 6:1-4) So since I wasn't sure if I should do my good deeds in front of other people or not in front of other people, I just didn't do any at all because there is a chance I could be saved by faith, not works and I wanted to only do exactly as the Bible says that day.
So I took a break and studied the Bible for a while during the time I was trying to figure out what I could do next to please God. I just wanted to be like Zechariah and Elizabeth who were both righteous before the Lord, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. (Luke 1:6) and like Noah who God saw as righteous in his generation (Genesis 7:1) but I know there is none righteous, no not one (Romans 3:10) and there is none that doeth good, no, not one (Psalm 14:3) So of course there are some righteous but none righteous.
This brief study break confirmed my hope that we could be saved by faith alone, because even if I tried to do good works there are none that do good so I can't do good works anyways. So, I headed for home and stayed there for the rest of the day just believing, having faith, and studying the Bible. I found that Abraham was not a man, but rather some sort of God himself or mermaid because God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man (James 1:13) but God did tempt Abraham (Genesis 22:11) I discovered that Jesus was crucified twice because he was crucified the third hour (Mark 15:25) and also crucified sometime after the sixth hour. (John 19:14-15)
As dusk approached, I concluded my study and got in bed to take a nap until dawn. And as I was counting sheep, trying to get to sleep I couldn't stop thinking to myself how glad I was that I could be saved through faith, because after studying so vigorously throughout the day I knew exactly what I was supposed to believe.