Hurts

Funny the things we pick up along the way that have truth in them. This saying is from Jack London, author. 😂 “The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my time on this earth just existing.” Boy is that challenging food for thought!

The following scripture talks about how to use our time – and it’s something to chew on, alrighty! It’s a real challenge. Today I found this verse in first Thessalonians.“Be cheerful no matter what; pray all the time; thank God no matter what happens. This is the way God wants you who belong to Christ Jesus to live.” 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 MSG. OK, We know that Christianity is more than having some sort of faith – it’s a lifestyle. When I think about Jesus and what He did for all of us and we didn’t deserve it, that makes me pretty cheerful.

I imagine that many people could get stuck on the phrase: “pray all the time,” because it can seem a bit daunting. That’s when I realised that the kind of prayer I normally pray is quite simplistic. I dunno if it is theologically sound, but I try to live my everyday life aware of Jesus, and include Him in everything I do. Praying all the time, is a challenge worth accepting. Why? FOCUS. We all need that kind of focus and any kind of prayer helps.

I’ve also learnt to thank God no matter what happens – I know He’s got a plan, the bible says so. The thing is I just don’t know what it is – YET — but my job is to hold onto His goodness until I do.That can mean I have a pretty fat ‘pending’ file! The funny thing about pending files is that sometimes what seemed urgent and immediate, turns out to be a big bag of hot air as time passes. Time makes all the difference, and His timing doesn’t even remotely look like mine. Sometimes the best thing I can do is just hold on to Him because it’s going to be a bumpy ride! Here’s some cheerful challenging advice from the past:

‘Time is filled with swift transition, mm, mm

None, none on earth unmoved can stand

Build your hopes on things eternal

And then hold, hold onto God’s unchanging hand

Trust in Him, Who will not leave you

What, whatsoever the years may bring

When your earthly friends forsake you

Still, still more closely to Him cling

Everybody oughta hold (on to his hand)

Hold to God (God’s unchanging hand)

Everybody outghta hold (on to his hand)

Hold on to God (God’s unchanging hand)

Build your hope on things eternal

And just hold, hold on to to God’s unchanging hand!’ Amen.

There are a number of songs that seem-to-be like prayers. I think they are simply a prayer set to music, that’s all. Meanwhile music accesses a whole other part of our brains, which means we can actually hear the Lord and what He wants to say in stereo! Here’s a laugh, I have no idea how I know that song, but I was sitting here writing this and the title popped into my head … and lo and behold … I knew all the words! Hilarious. I kept on searching for things that help me with my own life’s challenges.

Up until quite recently I have struggled to find some meaning in the kind of life I had in my childhood. But then I became aware that God’s redemptive power shines so brightly, when it is seen against the darkness of pain, loss and misunderstanding. So now, I look at that! The challenging Godly thing that turned the corner for me, was learning to exercise forgiveness. The thing I discovered is that most of the time, we don’t just need to forgive once, because the people involved aren’t necessarily convicted about whatever it was they did. We must keep on forgiving them over and over again. So every time my mind wanders off to ruminate on someone else’s sins – I’ve learnt to forgive them, again.

The second challenge that helped was not talking about what happened, anymore. Somehow, talking about hurts and injuries just magnifies them on the screen of our minds and hearts. And whatever has happened to us it probably doesn’t need any magnification! When we focus on what they did, the whole thing gets worse. Eventually avoidance becomes a “go to” course of action. Mainly because we can’t stop them from hurting us.

The Holy Spirit ministered this thought to me through the Gospels — forgiveness is not an optional extra — it’s a bonus buy!! We literally buy it by obediently responding to His Ways of thinking, being and doing. And that is costly. Then we throw human logic in the bin, because logic says punish that rat! However, GRACE says – that rat can be ME! Here’s the last challenging verse: “I counsel you to buy from Me gold that has been heated red hot and refined by fire so that you may become truly rich; and white clothes [representing righteousness] to clothe yourself so that the shame of your nakedness will not be seen; and healing salve to put on your eyes so that you may see.” Revelation 3:18. Remembering that we are ALL naked before God, reminds me I need the blood of Jesus, often.

Perhaps we also need to be more like Gehazi, Elijah’s servant, and remember that the things we can’t see are much bigger than the things we can, you just can’t beat living your life on the Lord’s side! Growth may be challenging and optional, but it is rapidly becoming essential. Bye. 👋

Our identity is IN CHRIST. So if I want to find the real me, I can’t look in the mirror, or even at what our society says about who we are, or what we think we are. We will need to look into the mirror of His Word. Unfortunately, that’s also the place where we will discover the places where we are unlike Him as well! And our destiny lies in what we choose to do about those things. When we brush His Word aside, we can end up going round and round chasing the things of this world..

Romans 6:6-14 (bits of it) “For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, [that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin… …In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to Him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.”

What Paul is saying here, is that the way we regard ourselves now we are alive in Christ, matters. We have not been set free to please ourselves, we have been set free specifically so we can choose to obey Him. At the same time we no longer have to sin – those desires and their accompanying actions went to the cross with Jesus so we don’t have to live with them anymore. When we choose to deny ourselves, pick up our cross and follow Him, every day, we are choosing God’s way over our own.

Then we have put away the immediate gratification of indulging our feelings, or what we think we want, in favour of giving God what He wants.That’s when we act like His kids and begin to become more than conquerors. The biggest enemy in our lives for us to conquer, is the enemy of SELF, not somebody else. We must put away our old attitudes, hurts, actions, and the past, and begin to renew our minds by reading and obeying the Word.

The Lord Jesus was motivated and activated by what His Father wanted. Did He feel like it? We certainly know of one occasion when He didn’t! But we are clearly told that Jesus was mirroring our Father’s attitude toward us and sin, and that helps us to see Father God more clearly. When our desire to please our Heavenly Father overcomes what we imagine that we want, we will begin to walk like Christ did. His Grace, and the power of God is there with us to undergird us, as we step forward into a brand new way of thinking about this life. This process is not a happy walk in the park! Each one of us still has some sort of wilfulness and a desire to get our own way, inside us.

The Lord wants us to choose to do what He has said in His book, simply because we love Him and want to be with Him. Personally I am learning that I want the Holy Spirit’s guidance in my life – more than I want my own way. But it still can end up in a real wrestling match, especially in these dark times when everything we see around us is about self-gratification! Also we can each have a poor perception of what we can really accomplish – mainly because we’ve been acting a certain way all our lives, and it seems insurmountable to us to act differently.

The point is what Joshua said: “Choose this day Who you will serve … as for me and my household we will serve the Lord!” Our obedience comes down to our choices. And when we choose His way, we will die a little. Personally, I have found that being dead looks much better than having my own way! Yes really!! Father God can do a great deal with even one ordinary person who is happy to stop living for themselves and start living for Jesus’ sake.

We simply don’t have to be slaves to sin anymore. Jesus Himself personally showed us the way through that trap – obedience to God’s Word works! Romans 6:17-18 “But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.” When we see something in the book that the Lord told us to do, that’s when we pray, ask for His help and go out and co-operate with Him.

It is good to ask the Holy Spirit if we are a slave to anything other than Jesus’ righteousness. There is no shame in discovering places inside your life where we’ve been trapped by our own dumb choices. But because we can see it, that means we need to pray over whatever it is, repent, and ask Him to show us the way through it. Then we go out and live differently. So, instead of saying something inflammatory, now we deliberately choose to go with love, kindness and patience etc …

Here’s a tiny clue that helps me: Pray first. Secondly, don’t expect happy feelings to overcome you, this is about stretching your faith. It hurts – just like stretching out a calf muscle will hurt! Find out what the Lord thinks in the bible, and do that. Things can seem to be very entrenched into our personalities – so repetition also helps! That’s how I learn who I am. I am His child, learning His Ways, because He chose to love me first. Bye. 👋

firstfloormessages

"Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.." Philippians 3:13,14.

P 3157 Now here’s a challenge.

P 3145 Who Am I now?