You get hammered in life, but you get hammered into interesting shapes.
Like most, I'd prefer my blessings to come without disguises! And then Life happened.......
A son discovering the reality of God as his Father.
Words that do not become flesh in us remain "just words." They have no power to affect our lives. If someone says, "I love you," without any deep emotion, the words do more harm than good. But if these same words are spoken from the heart, they can create new life.
It is important that we keep in touch with the source of our words. Our great temptation is to become "pleasers," people who say the right words to please others but whose words have no roots in their interior lives. We have to keep making sure our words are rooted in our hearts. The best way to do that is in prayerful silence.
The Cross of Christ was a triumph for the Son of Man. It was not only a sign that our Lord had triumphed, but that He had triumphed to save the human race. Because of what the Son of Man went through, every human being has been provided with a way of access into the very presence of God.
'Until the crisis-dis-illusionments come into our lives, the greater-higher purposes of the Father remain hidden.' (totally obscure to us)
No assembly, no church, no movement, no testimony, no fellowship, is justified in its existence from God's standpoint except insofar as Christ is expressed by it.
We who preach the gospel must not think of ourselves as public relations agents sent to establish good will between Christ and the world. We must not imagine ourselves commissioned to make Christ acceptable to big business, the press, the world of sports or modern education. We are not diplomats but prophets, and our message is not a compromise but an ultimatum.
“For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
What meaning or purpose is there for anyone as long as they have ‘hope’ in anyone or thing other than Christ? Blessed ARE the poor!
I loved this quote from the OZ man himself (Oswald Chambers).
"We have sinned with our fathers; . . . and have forgotten" - then put a stiletto in the place where you have gone to sleep. "God is not talking to me just now," but He ought to be. Remember Whose you are and Whom you serve. Provoke yourself by recollection, and your affection for God will increase tenfold; your imagination will not be starved any longer, but will be quick and enthusiastic, and your hope will be inexpressibly bright.”
It is a major hurdle to embrace, learning to trust the Father when everything within you screams for action when you see a person who is being slowly reduced to nothing. The need is the call, Lord what is the truth in this situation, in this person who ‘appears’ to be so hopeless? Learning to move, do, say only that which is made know to us by the Father is that which will bear fruit now and through out eternity.
It hurts like hell seeing real suffering all around us and knowing unless He says, sets into motion His directive, the best we can do is carry them in our heart before Him as He brings them to that blessed place of total bankruptcy.
Here is one of the things that sticks in my craw big time. What a farce hearing of how others who basically suffered a minor speed bump in their life and then, like a cat dropped from a second story window, simply landed right side up, on its feet once again. There are those who, in my opinion, had everything working for them as unbelievers, people with what I call had a predisposition toward 'niceness’, and then Jesus, as an afterthought, was just one more award ribbon Velcro-ed to an already great and exemplary life. That's what I mean when I say I have no tolerance for those who do not have to trust Him to BE their future now, let alone tomorrow. For example, if Jesus doesn’t work out for these folk, they still have all their stocks and bonds and retirement savings in the bank as a back-up. I wonder if that adage which goes something like, 'burn all of your bridges behind you', might be very much to the point here? Isn’t this akin to Jesus criticizing those who ‘gave out of their abundance’ while singling out, as an example, the widow woman who ‘gave out of her need’ – and consequently gave her all?
Also while I'm wondering here, i personally think we're drowning in a toxic stew of “niceness”. Let’s imagine for a minute that when Jesus was asked, 'Good Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” that we put a spin on that word 'good' and change it to 'nice'. Of course this might fly in the face of those who actually believe they are nice, but put it in the context of Jesus saying, 'Why do you call me nice, for no one is ‘nice’, not even God! To be ‘nice’ is hypocrisy! I have a friend who says that ‘nice’ is a political term. NO ONE IS NICE!!!
Without Christ, we are all worse than crap (pardon the language – substitute the biblical ‘dung’ if you prefer). We are without hope. We are utterly depraved! Yet, I see Christians walking around pretending to be nice when in actuality they are seething on the inside! They think they HAVE to act nice by virtue of the fact that they are believers…yet on the inside they are walking powder kegs. These are the type of people who ‘go postal’! They end up either imploding or exploding simply because OUT OF THEIR OWN EFFORTS they try to be ‘nice’ in adverse situations and circumstances that make them feel otherwise. Inwardly, they are full of rage. These are the folk who end up with stress-induced heart attacks, because they are trying to do the Christian thing... without Christ!
Let’s give an example: a husband makes the bed, does the laundry, makes dinner, etc. etc. because he feels an inward prompting from the Lord to be a blessing to his wife. Isn't he, like her, not tired and frustrated after a long day at work? But he does it all anyway. He does it purely for the Lord. He denies his ‘self’. He uses ‘self’ control, and by that I mean he controls self. He puts ‘self’ under his feet so that Christ can prevail in his life. Let’s add to this scenario. Let’s say the husband never gets any thanks or appreciation from his wife for all he does. Self would have him say, ‘Screw you! YOU serve ME! I’m the man of this house! Don’t you think I get tired too? I’m hungry! Feed me!’ Yet he doesn’t. Even though he may feel unappreciated and angry…he denies his own wants and needs in order to be Christ to his wife. He knows within himself he doesn’t have what it takes. He knows that often he doesn’t have a fat bank account of warm feelings toward his wife. He isn’t drawing from his abundance. He knows that the ONLY reason he can continue to bless his unappreciative wife is because of Christ in him, the hope of glory, and the more he subdues his own flesh and in the process allows his mind to be transformed, the more the life of Christ is evident to all around him. See the difference?
Shoot, let’s do a little detoxing (give it a year or so) now that we're outside of the 'box', let’s learn the whole new in-Christ lingo, and bang, we're off to the races! Nope! I don't think so, friends. Christ is not an add-on to our already nice selves. I honestly think that some folk hit a speed bump somewhere along the road, in panic turn to Christ, then continue along their very well-paved and manicured nice life-lanes.
Maybe this hidden, but ever present under-tow of nice self-reliance is a hideous entity that works seemingly wonderfully outside or inside of religion? Maybe this transformation of Christ in us, AS US, is far more than simply us hitting a speed bump and being momentarily inconvenienced? Maybe it’s a lot more like this, quoting a fellow sojourner: “Because of this man Christ Jesus I have suffered the loss of ALL THINGS”.
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