Does your gift satisfy you?

Brother's and sisters, first I want to wish you all very Merry Christmas.  I'd also like to encourage you to focus on your relationships this holiday season.  I've learned that gifts mean very little if the relationship is strained or even bad.  But that is not my topic today.

My topic today is about a choice we all will make.  It is rooted in eternity and it will determine our destiny.  We all know that Jesus is the reason for the season.  However, what is Christmas without the gifts.  Yes, the pretty wrapping paper, the excitement of opening the presents, the anticipation, and yes the disappointment.  Gifts are a critical part of Christmas.

Brothers and Sisters there is a war raging in places we cannot see and in ways we cannot understand.  But it is happening in us and around us.  The war is between the ruler of this world and the God of the universe.

Ephesians 6:12 - For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high [places]

1 John 5:19 ESV / 11 helpful votes

We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.

The ruler of this world is not God.  Not yet.  This world belongs to our enemy and he is controlling it more completely everyday.  Brothers and sisters we have only to look in the newspaper, or TV news to see that the enemy in engaged in all out warfare on Christians.  He wants to discredit us, ridicule us, marginalize us, and make our beliefs so unattractive that no one would want to come to Christ.  

So, then, what does this have to with gifts----------everything.  Read on.

Our enemy has more gifts to give than the fat man himself.  Call him Satan Claus.  He is in the business of giving great gifts.  He is the ruler of this world and he will give you your hearts desire.  Because he knows the nature of the human heart----because it is his own nature.  

Jeremiah 17:9 ESV / 6 helpful votes

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

Ephesians 2:3 ESV / 9 helpful votes

Among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind

So the enemy of your soul knows exactly what your flesh wants.  And he will give it you to keep you satisfied and complacent.  He gives those gifts so they will become important in our lives.  He gives us things that become 'gods' to us, or 'idols.'  Ask yourself these questions:
Who gets more of your time, God or your Facebook friends?
Who gets more of your attention, God, or your iphone?
What is more important to you, spending time with your TV, or spending time with God?

I wont ask you what your answers are, but I can guess many of you want to punch me in the face right now.  

So, here is your choice.  Christ, who actually does own the place, came down to offer us an alternative gift.  He lived a perfect life and gave himself up as a sacrifice to give us a gift that we cannot redeem while we live.  His gift requires faith that if we believe and repent that we will have an eternal life in paradise with Him.  He offers it free, hence the term 'gift.'  We also know that the alternative to His gift is eternal damnation.  

Romans 6:23 ESV / 8 helpful votes

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The enemy's gifts are prettier, bigger, shinier, and more fun looking.  The problem with those gifts is that they have the illusion of satisfaction, but they cannot satisfy.  This is why Satan is always inventing new things (he must be exhausted).  The enemy understands that all of his gifts have a shelf life and sooner or later we will need a new idol.  So Satan Claus and his evil elves from hell are constantly at work on the creation of new idols.  

His gifts are like food.  You eat and are satisfied for a time, but you will get hungry again.  The gifts of the enemy always disappoint. Everything in this world is like that.  But Jesus says this:

John 4:13-15 ESV / 86 helpful votes

Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

So here is the choice.  You can love this world and worship the things of this world and have a great time indulging your flesh, and go to hell.  Or, you can believe, repent, trust in Jesus and still enjoy your life and live in paradise for eternity.  

I've walked both roads.  I have followed after my flesh and I can testify that your flesh is never satisfied.  It always wants more and it will literally kill us to continue to feed it.  I walk with Jesus today.  And His words are true.  He satisfies fully and completely.  Nothing lacking, nothing missing.  He satisfies the soul.  

This year, consider opening the true gift of Christmas.  Consider doing the one thing you can do that will last forever and never cease to satisfy.  If you have already opened the gift of salvation, tell someone else about it.  Pray with them and guide them to receive the gift you already know is the best gift ever.  

Free Will and Pain

You have heard that life is a journey.

You have heard that life is a box of chocolates.

I say to you that life is a multitude of journeys and each journey is its own separate box of chocolates.

I am nearing the end of one of my great journeys.  And as I press on over the final peak I cannot see what lies ahead because of the fog. 

I believe that I have lived with false hope for a very long time that God would not allow this particular journey to end.  I have prayed and fasted and obviously misinterpreted scripture,  believing that God would move on my behalf. 

What I just now realized is that in order for God to move on my behalf he must interfere with the free will of another. 
And while God can do that,  I realize that this is something He wont do.

I am greatful for God not affecting our free will.  You see, brothers and sisters, our free will is what makes us free.  God wants us all to be free.  So he chooses not to cause us to do anything.  But rather allows us to choose on our own. 

Free will allows us to love one another and love God.  If God put limits on us and we love Him then that is not love, but bondage.  So the act of allowing us to have free will also allows us to love unconditionally. 

So then I have been foolish.  I submit this to the reader in hopes that someone else will be helped.  I trusted God as long a I believed he would fix it.  I found every verse in the Bible about it and I read them again and again.  I knew God would move if I just stayed still.  But He did not.  Because what I asked for was His desire, but it was not the will of the other party.  And I was expecting God to give me favor with the person.  But that is an issue of free will.  And that was just recently revealed to me.  And I have been angry ever since I realized what a fool I was. 

Doors close and windows dont always open.  Things are lost and stay lost and are not replaced.  Broken hearts are not always  mended.  People leave and dont return.  Dogs die.  Things end.

But I have to remember two things.  1.  God is sovereign.  2. God is good.  So if the one in control of everything is good then there must be purpose for all of this pain I am in.  I dont see it now, but I will.  I dont understand it now but I trust God to sustain and lead me to where He wants me to go. 

Naomi lost a husband and two sons.   Her loss became a blessing for all of mankind.   Job lost everything and God gave it right back.  The Hebrews lost their freedom many times, and today they are back in the promised land. 

I dont know what God is doing.  Or why this happening to me.  I will trust the Lord and lean not on my own understanding.
Paul said this and I must commit this to memory because I will need it

11Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.

 12  I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.

 13  I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

 

Crushsed by the Potter's Hand

Maya Angelou wrote a book called "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings."  I never read that book, but the title is speaking to me today, like it never has before.  I'm not saying I'm in a cage.  I'm not saying I am a bird.  But the last 5 years of my life have taught me that God is with us, even in the deepest, darkest valley.  He will sustain us through every trial even if the end of the trial is not the end we sought.  That knowledge, if we hold on to it, will allow us to sing.  We may sing with tears in our eyes.  The words of the song may get strangled while we gasp for air.  And we can still sing, because God said that he will never leave us or forsake us.

The bird sings during the trial because that is what the bird was designed to do.  We were made to praise God and bring Him glory.  If we are not doing that then God will allow or even send a trial to remind us that we are to be constantly seeking Him and conforming ourselves to His image.  Thus we are like clay in His hands as we go through the storm.  A potter, when making a piece of pottery will shape and form that piece on the wheel.  When it comes to a point that the piece of pottery takes on a form that the potter does not will, then the potter will grasp and knead and shape the pottery.  If that piece of pottery still does not acquire the desired form, then the potter will crush that piece of pottery and using the same material, begin the process again; shaping and molding the piece of pottery.

God has crushed me on His wheel.  He has taken His mighty hand and slammed it down upon me.  I can only thank Him that he loves me enough to do this so that one day I will acquire the desired form.  It is painful to go through this process.  There are tears and times when all I can do is wait on the Lord.  But the Lord is faithful to fulfill his promises and in this place of remaking it is quiet enough for me to hear his still, small voice.

And, my God says to me, David: I created you to worship Me.  I loved you so deeply that I made My son to suffer for all of your sins.  David, if I love you that much, then surely you can trust me to lead you and to restore your soul.  Son, I know you are in pain.  I know your heart is broken.  I know you feel like you are unwanted and unloved by man.  I know you feel worthless.  I know you feel weak and powerless to stop this thing that hurts you so much that you want to take the very life that I gave you.  But David, My word says to fear not over 80 times.    My Son, what the enemy has taken I will restore in time.  You must go through this so that I can perfect you and prepare you.  Those are no longer your people.  That is no longer your home.  I am taking you to a new place and I will be with you every step of the journey.

And I say to my Father: Lord, I have fasted and prayed.  The burden is yours now.  I cast my care upon you and I await your perfect answer.  Through tears I say that I am yours and yours alone.  My mind cannot comprehend what you are doing, but Your word says you are working all things together for my good.  I ask you to protect and preserve those that I love.  I ask you to allow your spirit to enter into their hearts and minister to them.  I ask you to bless them and prosper their lives with much fruit.  Father I ask that you would restrain the hand of the enemy in their lives.  That you would cancel any assignments given in an effort to upset your plans.  I ask that You would forgive them of their sins and replace their hearts of stone with hearts of flesh so that they will be sensitive to You.  And I will praise you Lord, all of the days of my life.  I will sing to you at midnight when I am in jail.  I will sing your praises from the depths of my soul in the dry places.  I will speak of the joy only you can give.  And I will   Father I ask these things in the name of Jesus Christ.  

How to Respond to a Hard Heart

Brothers and Sisters when I posted my previous post I was unable to understand the importance of this concept.  Having said as much I need to warn the reader that I may need to break this into two segments.  

Firstly, as I wrote in the previous entry, there is someone close to me who has a hard heart against me.  If you don't know what that looks like, or feels like, please read that part again before reading ahead. 

So, brothers and sisters, the first thing I must do is reveal the effects of a hard heart on those that love the possessor of such a heart.  To avoid confusion, from here on the hard hearted person will be the "victim" and the object of the hard heartedness will be the 'bystander'. 

 In order to put it in a perfect context (I think), there is a death that occurs inside the bystander that changes them.  It is a humbling sort of emptiness that can be consuming.  The victim's behavior is so thoroughly degrading that the bystanders state is perpetual melancholy and extreme anger.  It is this state of the bystander that is both dangerous and necessary.  

It is dangerous because we have an enemy that wants to tempt us.  He knows us, and he is aware of the conditions that make us weak.  The greatest danger for the bystander is 'sin' because what the bystander desires more than anything else is to escape the pain.  The easiest way to escape is to self-medicate through sin.  Overeat, get drunk, let a few choice words fly, slam doors, kick things, go hangout at places you should not be in, look at things you shouldn't look at; listen to music you shouldn't listen to, all so you can forget how badly you are being treated if only for a short time.  And then, your opinion of yourself is lowered even more because you sinned.  So a cycle begins and the bystander struggles mightily to maintain an identity in Christ while they are in the storm.

But this is a necessary condition in that the bystander must exist in this state so that God can be glorified!  The bystander must understand that nothing can be done for the victim's heart apart from God.  The bystander learns to trust God by continuing to 'go through' the storm which is the victim.  The bystander learns to depend on God's grace and learn that God's grace is sufficient.  What the bystander must learn is that a person cannot control another person's heart.  They can only pray and continue to love unconditionally.  From this perspective, the bystander becomes stronger in Christ by picking up that cross and following Jesus.  Once again, God can show victory in those who are broken.  Not by their own power, but by his grace.

^{Hebrews 12}

⁷ But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.

⁸ We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;

⁹ Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;

¹⁰ Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.

¹¹ For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.