Right and Wrong get blurred...

In today's christian culture we are made to believe that if we are right with God or right where God wants us then all will be right with our lives as well. Like, the closer we get to God, living like Christ, less sin, however you want to say it, our lives should get increasingly better.

Job's friends believed that since things were going wrong in his life, there must be wrong in his life. I know that sounds weird, right. But they assumed that he must be sinning somehow (wrong) because there was bad stuff happening to him. Today it seems like the only way to get people to give God a chance is to say, "everything will get better in your life if you follow Jesus, do what He wants." But I just can't buy that. You see, if following God made your life better, everyone would do it! If by making Jesus the Lord of my life I "get" stuff, better car, bigger house, higher-paying job, etc. then everyone would be jumping on the Jesus bus!

But I see no where in the Bible where that is promised or plays out in the biographies of the Apostles. Let's take Paul.

In Acts 21-23 Paul is on his way back to Jerusalem, because he believes (correctly) that God wants him to go back there. In chapter 21 it is prophesied that he will be bound and chained when he gets there - but that doesn't stop him. In chapter 22 he meets with the leaders/Elders of the Jerusalem church and they try to keep him from being discovered but that doesn't work. In chapter 23 Paul is beaten and arrested and put in jail. And while there God speaks to him and tells him not to worry because God is making a way for him to take the Gospel to Rome.

It seems like the exact opposite of what some popular religious speakers of today tell us! When we do what God wants things should get better in out lives (right should be rewarded with a better life). But in the Bible the more right things the apostles did the more wrong (persecution) they suffered! How do we reconcile this?!

My prayer today was this, that whether in plenty or need I would be right where God wants me. Our circumstances in life do not determine God's blessing or curse. They are simply by-products of the world we live in. It is better to be right with God then wrong with the world.