Beat the Heat!

Summer heat makes us long for cooler places.  My thought is there’s really only two places to be -- at the pool or in the house!

 

Have you ever noticed how much we want to live "out of the heat," and I'm not just talking about the temperature.  Believers fall into this terrible trap of Satan.  We’re tricked into believing "we've beat the heat," because life is good -- pleasantries, restful times, joyful moments, peaceful and tranquility.  Then comes the heat ... kablam!  The unpleasant, the pain, and the stress blindsides us and that deceitful facade tumbles us!  How foolish when we believe we manufacture this life, designing it as we like it and want it, thinking … we've beat the heat!  Here's what Oswald Chambers says, " Never forge ahead with your religious common sense and say, 'Oh, yes, with just a little more Bible reading, devotional time, and prayer, I see how it can be done.'"  We don't know all the details of his struggles, but God revealed this through Paul’s life-circumstances, "For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not."  (Romans 7:18).  How better to show me I haven't "beat the heat," than by bringing the heat to my life.  Then it's nothing that I do, but simple trust -- simple faith in One Who can quench the heat and bring sensibility and joy to life in spite of the heat.  As Oswald Chambers says, "God's Spirit continually reveals to His children what human nature is like apart from His grace."  In truth the heat is hottest, strongest, most unbearable apart from God's grace.  I must be wise and remain in Him and He in me, then with confidence and success ... beat the heat!