“Be imitators of God in everything you do, for then you will represent your Father as His beloved sons and daughters. And continue to walk surrendered to the extravagant love of Christ, for He surrendered His life as a sacrifice for us. His great love for us was pleasing to God, like an aroma of adoration—a sweet healing fragrance.” Ephesians 5:1-2 TPT.

Jesus is our own personal visual aid for our lives here on earth. It is a mistake to think we can serve Him and live the same sort of life that the people around us live. We are not from here anymore – we are travelling through this world representing SomeOne Else, with the Holy Spirit’s help. Our home is elsewhere. Now we have eternal eyes, not just eyes fixed upon the immediate. The thing is, to stay in those places we find challenging and difficult –  we must fix our eyes on Him, not our circumstances.

Walking surrendered to Christ’s extravagant love means no matter what goes on around us, or what happens to us, we must never ever forget we are dearly, over-abundantly, loved. As far as this life is concerned, realistically speaking, it is hard to feel loved, when people are being mean, or you are in pain, or your circumstances have gone awry. But the Cross changed everything. Christ’s freely-given Grace is our ever-present help in times of need. The difficulty is this, we must learn how to fight our enemy for our God-given rights, as well as yielding to the Holy Spirit’s leading. 

There is no room for striving in yielding. We cannot afford to berate ourselves for our dumb remarks and our accidental, or even intentional, lack of response to His Will. Jesus Christ understands humanity – and the Holy Spirit is now with us to continually remind us that we can be our renewed self – with His help. However, we cannot give Grace away if we do not take Grace in!There are times that the way to fight for victory over our circumstances and feelings is to refuse to entertain the thoughts that we are somehow exempt from that GRACE. 

When the day to day earthly realities remain difficult… and God’s goodness comes into question – our resting position is to hold fast to the fact that He is good. Even if we’ve prayed and prayed to no avail, and so have other people, we must learn to stand firm. At the same time we aren’t denying the reality of pain and heartache, rather we face them with the quiet confidence that the Lord has a way through our current circumstances.

I have had many increased physical limitations after those falls I had, now I get very tired. Some nights I barely manage 4-6 hours of very broken sleep. Let’s be clear, I’m still praying, hubby is still praying for me even at 2.00am when I can’t sleep for the pain in my arm. PAIN has a plus, it keeps you honest! Other faithful people are regularly praying for us, including both our families. Yet we are still stuck going round and round. WHY? I dunno but our God is doing something I can’t see …YET! 

I just know that in order to cultivate eternal eyes, I need to deliberately keep my eyes on Him. I know that God is not the Author or the sustainer of my discomfort, but, nevertheless, it is still daunting and exhausting. At these times I have to watch over my feelings and thoughts and focus on the God I know – Who is always good! I can drive myself batty trying to figure out why this has happened or what can I do to escape or … I can yield and wait. 

I have found great comfort in the Psalms because good old King David doesn’t seem to always be cheerful when things go bad for him either. However I cannot recommend the ‘smash them, get them, squish them, kill them all dead … mindset’  he had either. 🤪

Now let’s look at what smells good to God – a life laid down for Jesus’ sake, no matter what our external circumstances look like, and yes, we do that without lying! We need to remember that the Lord God called some things a pleasing aroma. Things like dead burning flesh from cattle, sheep, birds  (Genesis 8:20,21;  Exodus 29 :18;  Leviticus 1:9) —  my conclusion is this —HE DOESN’T LIKE WHAT I LIKE!  My death to self may hurt me, but HE is pleased by it.

Ephesians 5:2 says: ‘Jesus’ death was a pleasing aroma.’ That’s hard to comprehend, but true. If we tell Him “I want to know You more”  then we must remember the journey Christ took – ‘He learned obedience through suffering.’  Hopefully, right now, that is what I am learning too! 👋🏻