Do Not Give Up Meeting Together

Malachi 3:16-18 

16Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored his name.17“On the day when I act,” says the Lord Almighty, “they will be my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as a father has compassion and spares his son who serves him.18And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.  

Hebrews 10:23-25

 23Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds,25not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

It's been a while since I've written a post here. The summer time trips and events are heavy on me and we've suspended our small groups until fall. So as a result this passage hit me a little differently than it has in the past. It hit me fresh the reasons why meeting together and sharing what the Lord is teaching us is so important.

I'm so glad to have a father who desires my company and values the time I spend with others talking about Him. I live in a world that is judged by performance and works. It's impossible to keep all the rules and please everyone. When the end comes for me will people look at all I've accomplished for myself or will they understand that I've invested myself in them; in building relationships with the one who really matters? 

I am more and more convinced that as the enemy distracts us with the busy, and isolates us with critical judgement of one another we miss out on the power and solace that comes from having two or more gathered in the fellowship of shared love for someone who covers our sins and calls us his own. 

While we are distracted with the "busy" and criticizing one another into fear-tied isolation we forget that The Day is approaching.

Well, this is where my mind wandered this morning in my quiet time. Thanks for walking along with me.

One Flesh: Notes on Ephesians 5:29-33

After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church - for we are members of his body.  "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh."  This is a profound mystery but I am talking about the church.  However, each one of you must also love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.Ephesians 5:29-33

It's fascinating to me how God uses everything he created to point back to His Design and the reason He did it that way in the first place.

He created the heavens and the earth and the animals on it out of nothing. He makes a point of describing man as coming from dust or clay with His breath infusing him to give him life... and then He makes woman from the core of man, from his own flesh.

He could have just made us all from nothing just like he did everything else. But the fact that he didn't means he was trying to make a point about relationships and intimacy. Paul picks up the conversation and shows us how the fractal pattern of his design fits into all the bigger relationships.

Follow this: God is not alone but lives in community within the triad of the trinity. They are all equally God, but there is also a design of order within them, where Jesus submits to to the Father.

Then He creates man from his own breath... the echo of Spirit from His own Body and contained in his lungs (near the rib?) where presumably the wind of heaven (Holy Spirit) resides.

When he makes woman he takes a rib from Adam pointing back to his own creation telling the man that in the same way I have shared and care for you so you should care and love her.

Paul puts the pattern in the next larger context of community saying that collectively WE are the body of God since through creation, marriage and family - then in community as the body of Christ we are intimately HIS.

Even through those intimate relationships (the Godhead, man and woman, and then in the body of Christ)  there is mutual submission with a clear sense of order.

I don't pretend to understand all the complexities contained within this structure of intimacy, but rather, I am like the child who sees the kaleidoscope fractal patterns and says, "ohhh pretty!  What does it mean?"

He Who Separates Himself Seeks His Own Desire

He who separates himself seeks his own desire, He quarrels against all sound wisdom.A fool does not delight in understanding, But only in revealing his own mind.
PROVERBS 18:1-2 NASB

This is how pride takes over and self delusion and self destruction begins. The word says that the enemy prowls around like a hungry lion. Lions hunt herd animals by singling them out of the crowd; targeting those who are weak, hungry, lonely, tired... alone. If we are isolated it's easier to wear us down, feed us lies, and convince us that no one else understands what we are going through.

It's why we are commanded to live our life in community, so that we can admonish and correct and love and support one another. It's why we are supposed to confess our sins to one another, so that we can live in the truth with one another instead of the complicated justifications we make to avoid our own sin and culpability.

I grieve for those who have withdrawn from fellowship with believers and now follow what is right in their own eyes. The reasons and the stories vary but ultimately, they don't want to be told that the thing they are doing, that is meeting their core needs, is wrong. They don't want to give up this thing that God calls sin ...and they call precious.

The enemy encourages this by telling them they are smart, enlightened, empowered. And by this time, many have burnt relational bridges behind them and used scorched-earth tactics to avoid the guilt and shame of their behavior.

I know and care about many who have fallen away some pick fights with me because they fear that I will preach at them or judge them. I guess it's true, I judge that they have made some terrible choices. Those decisions have consequences. I will and I do preach the good news. I have to. In my mind right now I am listing them by name, I do this every time I pray for them. They are in my prayer list, and there are enough of them that they are their own line item for prayer, all grouped together and mentioned by name every time I pray for them. I haven't given up.

Why?

*Because their lack of belief doesn't make God un-true.
*Because HE knows them by name.
*Because HE loves them even more than me and he is faithful and just.
*Because I take refuge in His judgments instead of my own, I must keep praying for them like one does CPR. I cannot write them off and out of my life until death.
*Because He is the great physician, and they aren't dead until they are dead, I will continue to pray until He notes the time in His book of life.

What I haven't done is written them off. I grieve for them. Pray for me to have the right words to draw them back!

What about you? If you have stuck with me on this journey I am on, I will assume that you too have a list of people that used to believe and now do not. Let me encourage you to write their names down. Pray for them regularly and often. The bible says that there is no where we can go that He cannot reach. The Prodigal Son found his way into a pig pen, at rock bottom and penniless . King David committed murder by proxy to keep another woman through adultery. Where are your friends and family that have fallen away? Their story isn't finished yet. HIStory, is still being written and there is still time. Because God can reach them even where they are.

I pray also for you, that you do not give up doing good. Hold the hope for them for a while if they have lost their own. Hope is a powerful thing, and one of the three that remain (1Cor. 13:13). My prayer for you, dear friend, is that the Holy Spirit stoke your hope. May the breath of God breathe new life into your hope and make it burn bright.

I pray it light the way home for those lost in the dark and alone.

Amen.

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God is For Me

8You have taken account of my wanderings;Put my tears in Your bottle.Are they not in Your book?9Then my enemies will turn back in the day when I call;This I know, that God is for me.10In God, whose word I praise,In the Lord, whose word I praise,11In God I have put my trust, I shall not be afraid.What can man do to me?12Your vows are binding upon me, O God;I will render thank offerings to You.13For You have delivered my soul from death,Indeed my feet from stumbling,So that I may walk before GodIn the light of the living.Psalms 56:8-13

As I read this passage I am reminded of the place in scripture where an angel of the Lord visited the Israelite army before a battle and they asked "Are you for us or for our enemies?" The angel replied "Neither, but in the Lord's name I have come." (I will look it up and add the reference in the comment section when I am done here.)

If I were honest I think I would always want God to be on my side, backing me up. If God is for me, who could stand against me? Right?

But while the essence of the truth is that God loves me so much that he died to make a way possible for me to be with him for ever, that doesn't mean that he is behind all the situations I find myself in. Just because I believe passionately in a thing doesn't mean that I will have his support in pursuing said thing. He can be on my side for the sake of my soul without my using him to justify the things I want. He's not my big-brother body guard he is the parent who can love me completely, even when I mess up badly.

He says nothing can separate us from his love, and no matter where I go on this earth I can't run farther than he can reach. He is for ME. And that is different from being FOR me.

It's about humility and power. About acknowledging how deeply we mess up and go wayward. It's about firmly holding to the truth that no matter what the dire circumstances, HE is for ME. He won't give me up, He won't get tired of my whining, He wont leave me in the middle of the messes I make.

It's a subtle power shift when you re read this passage and see how much better it is that it's Him that is in the right and he is on your side, than the other way around.

Wisdom and Foolishness: A Mother's Plea

A wise son makes a father glad, But a foolish son is a grief to his mother.Proverbs 10:1

Parenting is tough enough without prideful willfulness and our proclivity to sin mucking things up.

When you do have wisdom on an issue and you watch your kids still choose a painful path, where is the line between reality discipline (letting the natural consequences do the teaching) and not being a party to their self destruction? (Prov. 19:18)

This is where I am struggling today, Lord. I pray you still my desire to micro manage. Help me hear from you to know what is right for my  teenage children, and to know what I should do  for where they are at in their growth. Teach me how to do this right. Amen.

Deep Calls To Deep

Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls; All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me.PSALMS 42:7 or

I am so glad that the Holy Spirit within me knows God better than I do. So glad that He can speak to me even when I am confused or hurting, Because He doesn't have to wait for me to understand Him in order to teach and guide me.

1 Cor. 2:10-11 says "These are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.  The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.  For who knows a person's thoughts except their own spirit within them?  In the same way no one knows the thought of God except the Spirit of God."  I don't always have to have the answers.  

Yet, even though I have access to the infinite God, I am small.  I learn slowly.  I fall down and make mistakes.  I also am willfully disobedient sometimes too.

So I wonder why He bothers with such a frail container for His Holy Spirit to dwell within.

All I really know is that without His mercy and faithfulness, that continually works with me and patiently loves me, I would not be who I am. There is nothing special about me, and left to my own devices and my own resources, I would be a hot mess.  But He has promised to love me and speak to me through the spirit.  He's promised not to abandon me.

He is making me into something new.

Fasting, Weeping and Mourning

"Yet even now," declares the Lord, "Return to Me with all your heart, And with fasting, weeping and mourning;And rend your heart and not your garments." Now return to the Lord your God, For He is gracious and compassionate, Slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness And relenting of evil.JOEL 2:12-13 NASB

The point of the scripture of course is that we would lock eyes with God and agree with him on what the sin is.  That we would actually see our sin as actual sin and not try to justify, minimize, or redefine it.  This scripture is the heart-cry of God to have his people return to him.

Something else caught my attention though.  "...with fasting weeping and mourning" I find it interesting that fasting is linked with the fine art and high tradition of lamenting. something we don't really talk about much here in the states. We are quick to take on praise and even service, but I wonder how much of our spiritual walk is hampered by our decision  to avoid fasting and our inability to enter into a lamenting frame of mind.

So many of the psalms are laments.  Ecclesiastes is a whole book on lamenting.  Old testament times it was common to fast, tear your garments and put ashes on your head.  Even in our country in years past we would wear black arm bands, or wear all black for a period of time. During this time of mourning, people were more gentle with you, didn't expect you to jump right back into the busyness of life and gave you time to grieve, and so in this modern time we keep moving and don't do the reflection and repentance that generates a lasting change

I believe that if we saw our sin for what it truly was (not the minimizing and redefining thing we've turned it into), we would see the damage we've caused  and we would weep and mourn.

You Thought I Was Just Like You

"These things you have done and I kept silence; You thought that I was just like you; I will reprove you and state the case in order before your eyes.PSALMS 50:21 NASB

 "...you thought I was just like you." Wow... the truth of that statement keeps hitting me fresh, it's not the first time I've read it and it's not a new concept for me, it's just that it never looses it's punch.

Michael Card wrote in one of his songs "We've made you in our image so our faith is idolatry." that was the first time I'd come across the concept and it rocked me then. Here I am a quarter century later and that truth still challenges me.

Sin... our pride makes us so myopic and self serving. And even now as I use that distancing language to separate myself from it I know that my flesh and the desires I have battle for the wheel and for control. Every. Single. Moment. And I wonder why He bothers with us, I get whelmed with the struggle to contend with my own spirit, to bring it under his head ship and discipline my body and it's drives. It is too much - and I can't even do that without his help. How is it possible that can He engage all of us and never seem to tire with our selfishness?

The Lord is patient with us to withhold His wrath so long, he has such grace and mercy... but in the wake of his kindness, there are those who take his silence for what it is not.

In my mind I see his wrath held back like the walls of the Red Sea. The passage is temporary and dry ground is our gift of grace to give us the chance to see the wonder and the consequences in time to make choices.

Lord, today I ask you to help me be aware of the choices I have in connection with the sin of pride. I don't want to assume you are like me in your silence. Help me hear you speak into the quiet and remind me that you are remaking me and I cannot remake you to suit my own comfort. I ask that you discipline me to serve you and not myself.

But Love Covers All Transgressions

He who winks the eye causes trouble, And a babbling fool will be ruined.The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, But the mouth of the wicked conceals violence.Hatred stirs up strife, But love covers all transgressions.PROVERBS 10:10-12 NASB

Today I am struggling with the power of words. The natural tendency is to take this verse and think it applies to someone else; to objectify the behavior as belonging to a certain kind of person.  But humans are rarely all of one thing or another.  We are complicated.

These verses speak of hatred stirring up strife and when I overlay the flavor-of-the-day trouble I can hear myself back pedal and sanitize my anger... calling it concern instead of hateful. I don't think of myself as being that way. It occurs to me that we can sometimes be the worst version of ourselves and say mean things without thinking of ourselves as troublemakers, fools or wicked as the verses describe.

We get caught in the moment of carelessness and once a thing is said we then have a choice. We either have to own it as truth or disown it as not being truth, but maybe a reaction to an emotion or a perception.

How wedded we are to our own authority or power will dictate the lengths we are willing to go to save face. And so when we want to be perceived as righteous it's the "other" who is wicked.

I think that when we harbor this wickedness within, but refuse to disown it, let alone even look at it, we end up concealing the violence in our hearts. To validate our state we stir up others to see it from our perspective... This validation enables us to nurture our own hurts, disappointments and the subsequent bad behavior and rebellion that follows as justification.

Lord, help me admit when I am the worst version of myself, when I stir up trouble, act wickedly or foolishly. Help me seek your approval instead of mans. I don't want my desire to be "right" put me in a place where I cannot back down or be transparent when I behave badly. I desperately need your love that covers my sin. Amen.

Trust In The Lord And Do Good

Do not fret because of evildoers, Be not envious toward wrongdoers.For they will wither quickly like the grass And fade like the green herb.Trust in the Lord and do good; Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.Delight yourself in the Lord; And He will give you the desires of your heart.Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, and He will do it.He will bring forth your righteousness as the light And your judgment as the noonday.Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, Because of the man who carries out wicked schemes.Cease from anger and forsake wrath; Do not fret; it leads only to evildoing.For evildoers will be cut off, But those who wait for the Lord, they will inherit the land.Yet a little while and the wicked man will be no more; And you will look carefully for his place and he will not be there.But the humble will inherit the land And will delight themselves in abundant prosperity.PSALMS 37:1-11 NASB

I find that I carry such affection for this set of verses. Psalm 37 is my go to for when I am struggling with worry and fear. I like how practical it is. Many of the other Psalms are clear about where to take our fretting but this one outlines what to do with it.

Clear steps, reminders that it's what we DO when upset and not how we feel that matters. "Trust in the Lord and DO good. Dwell in the land ( no running away from it) and cultivate faithfulness. It says that He Will Do It. Cease from anger and forsake wrath, do not fret, trust, delight, and commit myself to Him. All those are actions intended to replace the destructive emotions that if left in the drivers seat will shipwreck my calm and as the Psalm says: "leads only to evildoing".

The enemy camps out here and whispers that it looks like it's just giving up and not doing anything about the injustice. The enemy would not have us look very closely at the self control and faithfulness that is required to trust in God to do what he says he'll do in his own timing.

For those who are accustomed to letting desire be in the drivers seat... this act of trust and faith is incomprehensible. There is no satisfaction for the anger, no promise of vindication in this life to balm the wound that our flesh can't think around. Our flesh does not think. It cannot accept faith in what it can't feel... it can only feel and consume.

I believe the steps outlined here in this Psalm are the baby steps that outline what faith is; the "how to". Do you want to know what it means to walk by faith and keep step in the spirit? Here is where you start. It begins when you are worried, in fear, desperately angry... any strong emotion that wants in the driver seat of your life. Throttle that feeling and submit it to God by replacing it with what Doing Good looks like. It's not the "giving up" lie that the enemy tells you it is. Rather, it's cultivating faithfulness, an active self control that looks to a Savior to do the job of saving. It's getting into the habit of demonstrating to your flesh through study, prayer, fasting and meditation that it does not get to drive the bus. Your hungers and desires, your thirsts and drives are not going to control how you respond and behave.

Trust in the Lord and Do Good sounds so poetic... until you realize how much of a fight you are in for.  Your emotional flesh wants to be satisfied.

Lord, help me dig out the enemy camps in my life, ground I've surrendered by believing the lie that waiting on the Lord was giving up. Help me to look at my self delusions square on and reclaim your truth from the lie I bought.

Amen

Cease Listening...

Cease listening, my son, to discipline, And you will stray from the words of knowledge.PROVERBS 19:27 NASB

 Following my earlier train of logic about the Holy Spirit standing at the gate of where thoughts that shape the words written or spoken - this verse fairly leapt off the page to me. Our goal oft repeated in scripture is to listen and follow the words. This verse clearly says that if we stop listening we will stray.

 So many voices shouting for our attention. Th real trick is to slow down long enough to tease apart the voices of the world and the ones in our own head that scream from fear, insecurity, pain, desire and envy...

So grateful for the Spirit who promises to keep us close and speak truth.

Lord deliver me from the lie that I must always do things to be in your favor. Help me slow down and hear you. I can't even reach for you on my own without your Spirit drawing me. I want to be so filled with the life and knowledge that your words bring that the doing of your word takes root in me not to earn favor for myself but because your manifestations of the word through me is what brings about your favor.

Amen

The Voice Of The Lord

The voice of the Lord is powerful, The voice of the Lord is majestic.PSALMS 29:4 NASB

Okay, my brain is weird. This whole psalm is about the Voice of the Lord... the spoken word, the Word that is voiced and with it creation came into being.

So if God is the spoken Word... and if the bible calls Jesus the Word made flesh... then does that make the Holy Spirit the Words unspoken? Is the Holy Spirit that part of divine communication that proceeds the Word before it is spoken, written, or manifested in action? The written word we carry around and memorize was inspired by the Spirit, one intellect, guiding such a diverse collection of individuals...

I don't even know where I am going with this, chewing it out loud I suppose, but it gives me clarity when I think of the Holy Spirit as the one who stands between the idea or inspiration of the thing to say, and the formation of the word that crafts and shapes it.

Not surprisingly that is also where temptation, guilt and fears reside too.

I am so grateful for a loving God who sent one who can help us battle the internal demons as well as the ones who stalk us from the outside.

Power Of The Tongue

Death and life are in the power of the tongue, And those who love it will eat its fruit.PROVERBS 18:21 NASB

Sometimes I wish that the product of our mouths actually manifested. Instant biofeedback. A physical and plain way to tell our effect on others that cannot be spun into platitudes of minimizing importance.

What we say matters, things are loosed or bound in heaven by our words. James talks a lot about the power of the tongue, using word pictures just so there isn't any confusion about the meaning.

The world was created with a word.  The Holy Spirit is the CONTENTS of the Breath of God... and when we use this borrowed breath to speak there is power in it.  Borrowed power.

So the question is, what will you do with the words you have inside you?  What will you do with the borrowed power that's been lent to you?

Will you use your power for good?

Hope Deferred

Hope deferred makes the heart sick, But desire fulfilled is a tree of life.PROVERBS 13:12 NASB

For years I've regarded this as an axiom for human responses concerning the disappointments of life... but what if it's instead referring to the need to put our hope in God who never fails and never lies and always seeks out life?

In either case it makes me look at where my hope is placed, questioning the sources of what makes me feel fulfilled, and looking square at the things I desire.

Prudence: A Language Shift

"I, wisdom, dwell with prudence, And I find knowledge and discretion.PROVERBS 8:12 NASB

 I am struck today as I am often by the language shift in just a few hundred years.

Take the word prudence for instance. Culturally that was a strong and wise word until the 60s. I know this because it used to be what parents sometimes named their daughters back in my great grandparents day.

My parents generation associated that word it with "the establishment" and the free love movement shortened the word to "PRUDE" and turned it into something it was never meant to be.

 I was born after that and grew up on messages in the music that was defiant and angry, where those angry people protested war and checked out of responsibility.

Then the rise of birth control gave women the freedom of sex without the consequences of pregnancy. As a result the divorce rate soars. Suddenly the word prudent was seen as shackles to keep a woman in her place... barefoot and pregnant. Then they legalize abortion so it didn't hinder her ability to have choice. And suddenly we are not very far from the Aztec who threw their babies off the temples as human sacrifice.

I am also struck by the tension it creates for a translator who needs to speak to the heart of a passage to a generation of people who's social mores no longer recognize God's truth as absolute. The boundary stones of meaning have shifted so much in just my lifetime ... and I know that there is nothing special about this generation. Every generation slips this way.

Lord, I desperately need your wisdom -- the Holy Spirit to keep the truth clear from the semantics and cultural references I drag behind me as I read your word. I get a glimpse now and then of how our short life spans keep us from truly grasping and passing down your wisdom. It takes such careful thought to try to untangle what you say and the heart of your meaning when my worldly wisdom and emotional roots are completely knotted in my own experience.

Words matter. They define the container of our understanding and when they shift it breeds delusion. I worry for a generation of people who don't understand what Gods will is because the plain words are no longer plain.

Help me, Lord. I want to know you as you have revealed yourself in the Word. Help me let go of the cultural shackles and truly let Your Word define me. Amen.

The Innermost Parts

The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord, Searching all the innermost parts of his being.PROVERBS 20:27 NASB

To know in my head that the Lord searches my heart is one thing... but do I govern my heart in such a way that my life reflects this belief?  Do I ACT as though this is true?

When temptation comes, Lord, please give me the will to reject it and not allow it consent to stay. Give me clarity and strength to hold each thought captive!

He Who Separates Himself Seeks His Own Desire

He who separates himself seeks his own desire, He quarrels against all sound wisdom.A fool does not delight in understanding, But only in revealing his own mind.PROVERBS 18:1-2 NASB

This is how pride takes over and self delusion and self destruction begins. The word says that the enemy prowls around like a hungry lion.  Lions hunt herd animals by singling them out of the crowd; targeting those who are weak, hungry, lonely, tired... alone.  If we are isolated it's easier to wear us down, feed us lies, and convince us that no one else understands what we are going through.

It's why we are commanded to live our life in community, so that we can admonish and correct and love and support one another. It's why we are supposed to confess our sins to one another, so that we can live in the truth with one another instead of the complicated justifications we make to avoid our own sin and culpability.

I grieve for those who have withdrawn from fellowship with believers and now follow what is right in their own eyes. The reasons and the stories vary but ultimately, they don't want to be told that the thing they are doing, that is meeting their core needs, is wrong.  They don't want to give up this thing that God calls sin ...and they call precious.

The enemy encourages this by telling them they are smart, enlightened, empowered.  And by this time, many have burnt relational bridges behind them and used scorched-earth tactics to avoid the guilt and shame of their behavior.

I know and care about many who have fallen away some pick fights with me because they fear that I will preach at them or judge them.  I guess it's true, I judge that they have made some terrible choices.  Those decisions have consequences.  I will and I do preach the good news.  I have to. In my mind right now I am listing them by name, I do this every time I pray for them.  They are in my prayer list, and there are enough of them that they are their own line item for prayer, all grouped together and mentioned by name every time I pray for them. I haven't given up.

Why?

*Because their lack of belief doesn't make God un-true.
*Because HE knows them by name.
*Because HE loves them even more than me and he is faithful and just.
*Because if I take refuge in His judgments instead of my own, I must keep praying for them like one does CPR.  I cannot write them off and out of my life until death.
*Because He is the great physician, and they aren't dead until they are dead, I will continue to pray until He notes the time in His book of life.

What I haven't done is written them off.  I grieve for them.  Pray for me to have the right words to draw them back!

What about you?  If you have stuck with me on this journey I am on, I will assume that you too have a list of people that used to believe and now do not.  Let me encourage you to write their names down.  Pray for them regularly and often.  The bible says that there is no where we can go that He cannot reach.  The Prodigal Son found his way into a pig pen, at rock bottom and penniless .  King David committed murder by proxy to keep another woman through adultery.  Where are your friends and family that have fallen away?  Their story isn't finished yet.  HIStory, is still being written and there is still time. Because God can reach them even where they are.

I pray also for you, that you do not give up doing good.  Hold the hope for them for a while if they have lost their own.  Hope is a powerful thing, and one of the three that remain (1Cor. 13:13).  My prayer for you, dear friend, is that the Holy Spirit stoke your hope.  May the breath of God breathe new life into your hope and make it burn bright.

I pray it light the way home for those lost in the dark and alone.

Amen.

3 months ago

Deliverance and Justice

But You, O God, the Lord, deal kindly with me for Your name's sake; Because Your loving kindness is good, deliver me;PSALMS 109:21 NASB

 I can't help but marvel at how the Israelite viewed injustice as coming from man and God as the one who delivered justice. Today in our culture man is so quick to blame God for all wrongs and then use it as the excuse to not trust or believe in Him.

Lord, help me to trust in your justice, help me lean heavy on your mercy.

Perfect, As Your Heavenly Father is Perfect

Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.MATTHEW 5:48 NASB

This whole chapter is just hard. No one can be perfect! It's an impossible command if we try to do it on our own.

And maybe that is the whole point, that we can't do it on our own resources.

Could it be that the whole point is that the Holy Spirit is to be what is perfect within us? That rather than being perfect in and of ourselves, we submit to Him and let Him be what is perfect in us?

How To Break The Cycle

For they cannot sleep unless they do evil; And they are robbed of sleep unless they make someone stumble.PROVERBS 4:16 NASB

 Submission to the Lord means that we adopt his rubric for right and wrong, not our own.

The world (our sinful nature) does not submit to him and continually seeks a flawed and short sighted vengeance for personal wrongs. It chews us up. While in pain we lash out -causing even more harm, continuing the cycle on others. When we accept that God will settle the accounts without causing residual harm, it frees us to break the cycle.

You can be RIGHT or you can be in RELATIONSHIP. If you are so focused on the the things done that were wrong it's very difficult to release it to the Lord and allow Him to make it right. Proverbs tends to make everything so black and white for teaching purposes, but people are complicated and never all of one thing or another. I've had my share of times when I couldn't sleep for wanting to make someone pay for something they'd done. This observation isn't just about "the world" but about me too.

The lesson in this for me today is to remember who has my back when I am wronged. He sees the heart of the people around me when I am blinded by my own emotions. Lord, help me trust you with my outrage. Help me lay my own agenda down, to submit to your leading and take up your cause instead of my short sighted and emotion - fogged one. Amen.