“Cause and effect” are a relationship between events or things, where one is the result of the other or others. This is a combination of an action and a reaction.
Something happens (a cause) that leads to an effect.
For Example ……
Cause: As we were waiting for a bus, we received 7 inches of rain in 4 hours.
Effect: My Umbrella did not keep me dry. The roadways were flooded.
Cause: I flipped the light switch.
Effect: The light came on and I saw the mess I made last night all over again.
Cause: The boss was busy.
Effect: Their secretary rolled their eyes skyward, took a telephone message.
THE REALITIES OF CAUSE AND EFFECT
From the time you are a child until you die, you understand cause and effect.
“Cause” is the action that produces a result or consequence.
And “effect” is the product, result, or consequence of that action.
As a baby you learn that if you cry, mom or dad will change you, feed you, or hold you.
As you grow into a toddler you learn that if you drop something from your highchair, somebody will pick it up.
As a kid working your way through school, you learn that if you study hard, you will earn good grades and increase the likelihood you will receive scholarships.
As a college student you learn that if you study hard, you increase the likelihood of receiving great grades and Latin Honors and the likelihood of that great job.
As a young adult you learn that hard work pays great dividends and increases the likelihood you will gain an excellent reputation and promotions on the job.
As an adult, you also learn that if you are not a particularly hard worker and are making excuses, chronically late to work, you get into trouble and lose your job.
Proverbs 24:30-34 The Message
One day I walked by the field of an old lazybones,
and then passed the vineyard of a slob;
They were overgrown with weeds,
thick with thistles, all the fences broken down.
I took a long look and pondered what I saw;
the fields preached me a sermon and I listened:
“A nap here, a nap there, a day off here, a day off there,
sit back, take it easy—do you know what comes next?
Just this: You can look forward to a dirt-poor life,
with poverty as your permanent houseguest!”
This thought comes to King Solomon after he considers the fields of a lazy man:
The field is overgrown and in general disrepair.
He sees the danger in staying in bed too long, although most of us might enjoy more of this practice. Poverty and lack attack if this behavior is not conquered.
There is always a cause and effect.
This same principal is found in the kingdom of Heaven:
The Cause: God loves you with an everlasting love. God gave His Son as a sacrifice so that you could be reconciled to Him. Love has victory over death.
The Effect: You experience the love of our Father, which fulfills you in a way that nothing else can. You share in His victory over death. You desire to share God’s love with others, so they, too, will experience His 100% love for them.
There can be no effect without a cause. God’s love for you should always be the cause for your walking with, for Him. If it’s not, then your work will be in vain.
Without faith in God, it is impossible to please God.
Without hope in God, it is impossible to please God.
Without love for God, it is impossible to please God.
Without faith, hope and love in and for God, it is impossible to walk with Him.
Walking with God does not lead to God’s favor, but God’s favor leads to walking in favor with God. If I walk with the world, can I genuinely say I walk with God?
Deuteronomy 5:32-33Amplified Bible
32 Therefore you shall pay attention and be careful to do just as the Lord your God has commanded you; you shall not turn aside to the right or to the left [deviating from My commandments]. 33 You shall walk [that is, live each and every day] in all the ways which the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live and so that it may be well with you, and that you may live long in the land which you will possess.
Deuteronomy 5:32-33 The Message
32-33 So be very careful to act exactly as God commands you. Don’t veer off to the right or the left. Walk straight down the road God commands so that you’ll have a good life and live a long time in the land that you’re about to possess.
The Word of God for the Children of God. Gloria! In Excelsis Deo! Alleluia! Amen.
After Moses instructed God’s people in the Ten Commandments, he added the Cause: they must walk “obediently in God’s way.” Then added the Effect, he said, God would bless them richly and make them prosper in the promised land.
To interpret this promise wisely, we need to know that prosperity in the Bible has more to do with spiritual blessings than material or physical things.
All over the world there are people who interpret God’s blessing mainly as a promise to make them healthy and wealthy and wise. But that is a mistake.
While some people do experience blessings of “never having spent a day in the hospital” or “never worrying about how to pay the bills.”
There are also those who have experienced the blessing of “having spent time in an ICU Bed, an Oncology ward or other long term care facility, their health in a critical state of flux: of life versus death.” Likewise, there are those who have experienced day to day struggles with how to pay the bills and feed their kids.
Trying to survive on our own strength and our own wit and wisdom is costly.
Frankly, genuinely walking with God can be even more significantly costly.
So many have lost their jobs and their health and their marriages. Have found themselves struggling through circumstances in life for which only the biblical Patriarch Job could Identify with, give the best counsel for surviving day to day.
Yet, amazingly, these same Christians will declare that in the midst of deep sacrifice they were blessed. Even Job declared his blessings. (Job 1:20-22)
When we walk with God, we live in community with our Lord. We feel God’s delight in all things good, and we sense his pain in the face of sin and evil. Such a close walk with God is itself a blessing. The joys and peace that flows from our relationship with God far outweigh the cost of being a follower of Jesus Christ.
Living our lives with God in it, makes things easier and gives us hope.
We may not be the most cognizant.
We may take God for granted, not realize it, not consider it for one moment, not pray over it, but walking with God is so much better than walking without him.
and here is why.
1. Walking With God Makes Things Possible
The Lord never said that our lives here on earth would be easy.
We are all absolutely going to go through hard times, and we are absolutely going to have our struggles. But our time here on earth will be worth it.
We are here to spread the Truth of God’s Gospel, the Truth of God’s love and light to others and spread the absolute greatest news ever that he is our Savior.
When we walk with God, it may not make things any easier, but it certainly and surely makes them infinitely more possible.
Walking with him gives us blessed assurance of his presence and power in our lives. Our God is powerful! With him all things are possible. We can endure trials and heartache. Because of Christ’s resurrection power in us, we can overcome.
“I will also walk among you and be your God, and you shall be my people” – Leviticus 26:12
2. He Is Our Comfort
The Lord is always walking beside you.
The Lord is always walking beside me.
He is going through every situation with you.
He is going through every situation with me.
He loves and cares for you and will always stand by your side.
He loves and cares for me and will always stand by myside.
Walking with Him will give you and me the absolute comfort of knowing that He is always there for you and me. He is always with you and me when we need someone to lean on and a shoulder to cry on; He is always there with open arms.
“Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” – Psalm 23: 4
3. He Will Help You
No matter what you and I are going through, God will help you and God will help me. We can always cry out to him for help. When we are frustrated and angry, cry out to him. When we are upset, feel like we cannot go on any longer, cry out to him. He will always be there to pick us up and move us ever forward.
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” – Hebrews 4:15-16
4. Walking Without Him Is an Unnecessary Struggle
When we are not walking with God, we are going to struggle even more because we are completely on our own. We feel we have no other choice but to just figure things out for ourselves, we are the only ones with all the right questions, all the correct, viable answers, and it will be much more difficult than it should be.
God is the only genuine light illuminating our path.
He will show us the way, but without him, we have to find our way through the darkness. Why do we permit the struggle, when we can have God to guide us?
“When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” – John 8:12
Hebrews 11:1-6Amplified Bible
The Triumphs of Faith
11 Now faith is the assurance (title deed, confirmation) of things hoped for (divinely guaranteed), and the evidence of things not seen [the conviction of their reality—faith comprehends as fact what cannot be experienced by the physical senses]. 2 For by this [kind of] faith the [a]men of old gained [divine] approval.
3 By faith [that is, with an inherent trust and enduring confidence in the power, wisdom and goodness of God] we understand that the worlds (universe, ages) were framed and created [formed, put in order, and equipped for their intended purpose] by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible. 4 By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which it was testified of him that he was righteous (upright, in right standing with God), and God testified by accepting his gifts. And though he died, yet through [this act of] faith he still speaks. 5 By faith [that pleased God] Enoch was caught up and taken to heaven so that he would not have a glimpse of death; and he was not found because God had taken him; for even before he was taken [to heaven], he received the testimony [still on record] that he had walked with God and pleased Him. 6 But without faith it is impossible to [walk with God and] please Him, for whoever comes [near] to God must [necessarily] believe that God exists and that He rewards those who [earnestly and diligently] seek.
We know very little about Enoch.
His father was Jared, and his son was Methuselah, who lived longer than anyone else.
The most surprising thing about Enoch is that he did not die.
“By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death: ‘He could not be found, because God had taken him away.’ For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God.”
Enoch was one of two people in the Bible who never experienced death.
The other was Elijah. (See 2 Kings 2:1-14.)
Enoch’s walk with God made him stand out from the crowd.
Only a few generations later, God would send a flood to wipe away a humanity that no longer understood what it meant to live close with God.
Only Enoch’s great-grandson Noah and his family would be spared so that human beings could make a new beginning.
God’s special gift to Enoch reminds us walking with God is the way to true life.
Of course, unless the Lord returns in our lifetime, we will all face death.
But Jesus, who identifies himself as the way to God (John 14:6), also said,
“I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even though they die” (John 11:25).
Then Jesus turns that belief around and against us – “Do we Believe this?”
With Faith pleasing to God ….
With Hope pleasing to God ….
With Love pleasing to God ….
Do we believe the cause: walking with God in faith has this effect: puts us on a level road that moves us forward and takes us beyond death to life eternal?
In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
Let us Pray,
God, my Guide and my Guardian,
Take me to task today,
Search me, and know me …..
Hold me accountable to thy Gospel Truth,
I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,
Exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O Glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
Thou art mine, and I am thine. So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
Let it be ratified in heaven. Amen
Loving God, Living God, Loving Hope, Living Hope, Loving Living Life His Way! "Many things are possible for the person who has hope. Even more is possible for the person who has faith. And still more is possible for the person who knows how to love. But everything is possible for the person who practices all three virtues." - Brother Lawrence (1605-1691), Practicing the Presence of God (1692). 