Do Not Be Alarmed

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW

DO NOT BE ALARMED

Matt 24:4-8

4 Jesus answered: "Watch out that no one deceives you. 5 For many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am the Christ,' and will deceive many. 6 You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7 Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of birth pains.

NIV

Having considered how many deceivers there were and still are today, we should also ponder on these words of Jesus that have to do with wars and rumors of wars. We should not be alarmed about how many wars have raged through the ages of time since Jesus spoke these words. A simple fact is that in the last 3400 years of history the human race has been at peace for a total of 268 of those years. This would imply there have always been, at least for the most part wars or rumors of wars since Jesus said these words. In America alone since 1776 we have been at war 93% of the time, that is 222 years out of 239 years up to 2017. So, we should not get too excited about this being the end times or try to determine when the end times are based on wars and rumors of wars. Jesus said such things must happen, but the end is still to come. It is interesting that Jesus knows the hearts of all men, that he knew wars must happen. The heart of man that is void of the love of God will always find a way to war, for the void of God in a man’s heart leaves only hatred, which is one of the main suppliers of war. This is why Jesus said that we should love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind soul, and spirit and love our neighbor as ourselves. How can we engage in war if we love each other?  The problem is that in many cases of war, we as an individual, especially a follower of Christ, have little to no say in nations rising up against nations. We have found ourselves, as citizens of this country, in the middle of wars within our lifetime. If we personalize this truth then we must make sure that we are always at peace with each other. This would mean we cannot allow feelings that would hinder a peaceful and harmonious relationship with all believers. Therefore, all evidence of jealousy, envy, rage, bitterness, unforgiveness, criticism, judgmentalism, prejudices, or any other ill feelings would have to be put aside for the greater good of living in peace and love with each other. Again, although the earth does experience many famines and earthquakes in various places, we can again, personalize these in the sense that we can experience a famine with respect to our union with God. There are times when we might have dry bones, so to speak, or have feelings of separation from God. We might cause this ourselves through the feelings of guilt and shame over a recurring sin problem we are struggling with overcoming. Guilt and shame are a result of not feeling forgiven, and we know that is not true for God forgives us all our sins, past, present, and future because of the blood of Jesus. Guilt and shame can cause an internal earthquake as well, shaking us to the core because we can feel that we will never overcome some areas in our life. But we must remember, as with the earth having wars and rumors of wars, famines, and earthquakes, it is only the beginning of birth pains. This can also apply to us as well. It is not the end, but only the journey of life that will have some struggles, some wars that wage within us, sometimes of feeling forsaken, because of guilt and shame. But, praise God, we are not stuck in this situation, for another time is coming. So we do not need to be alarmed.