Elijah called his fellow countrymen to take a stand. He knew very well that you are either for or against. You cannot be on both sides. Just like Joshua’s call to his people: “If God be God then serve Him”, Elijah asked for a decision – for or against. He said, “If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.” My question to you this day is similar. Whom do you worship? What guides your belief system? Is it the God of Heaven or someone else? Make up your mind.

Let us rebuild our family altars. In the morning when we rise, let our praise ascend heavenward in thanksgiving to our God. Let us keep Him with us throughout the day. And in the evening, let us turn off our electronics in favor of spending quality time, in thanksgiving to our God. When we spend time to call on God, He promised to hear and to answer. Needless to say, He delights to spend time with us. Let’s do the wise thing – repair the Lord’s altar.

Being obedient and keeping God’s law isn’t a prerequisite for salvation. Only God’s grace can cleanse us from our sins. Nevertheless, obedience to God’s law is still required to show our love response to Him. We should be very careful that we do not equate our efforts at being obedient as God’s righteousness. It isn’t. We are saved only through faith in God’s gift of grace. And it is through faith with the help of the Holy Spirit that we will be able to remain obedient to God’s righteous requirements.

Irrespective of the water restriction, would you not wash your car for the entire period? Would you really allow your beautiful flowers and herbs to die? Whether or not you are facing a spiritual restriction of God’s words, do not allow yourself to die. Christians in the middle ages didn’t. They ‘ate’ the word of God at every opportunity they got. In-spite-of the restriction of their time, God’s words was more precious than physical food. Let’s not wait for such a restriction to affect us. But let us begin now to feed our souls that we may grow in grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

In the last days, the enemy of souls will be allowed to perform similar miracles of causing fire to come down from Heaven. Not only that, there will be sightings of Christ in different parts of our world. All these are designed to deceive. Many will not see the signs of deception posted along the way. I can just imagine many solidly booked flights bound for those destinations!

There is never a dull moment on our planet. Always, something is happening somewhere. Even though we sometimes eliminate the bad ‘egg’ in an effort to restore peace; another, and still yet another is always hatching somewhere. Our world is filled with hatred and wars everywhere; and this dated back to the origin of sin. As long as sin is around, we will not be free from the plague of wars and destruction.

How have you been asked to defend your faith and belief in Jesus Christ? Was it through your job, your studies or relinquishing your faith? How did you respond? If you stood firm or not, how did it make you feel? Some pressures will seem really hard to bear; but remember that Jesus’ encouragement is not to stumble. Let them do what they will; but no matter what, we are to stand for God.