Hey! It’s Family

Being a child of God and belonging to his family is the most satisfying and infuriating relationships I have ever encountered. In the book, the storm-tossed family the author writes that children are both humbling and humiliating, in other words in one moment their humbling because of the privilege God gives parents to raise such precious creatures. They are humiliating because at any moment, in public, they can reduce you to tears.

In my book my dysfunctional love affair with the church I talk about how the local church has hurt me, and yet, I am inexplicably drawn to her because she is the bride of Christ. I hear on occasion that someone has been hurt by the church and they are thinking of leaving. I get it, relationships are hard, family can be cruel, and it is easier to leave than to reconcile. We can treat one another with such kindness and then turn around tear into one another, humble and humiliation. No, it shouldn’t be this way, but to ignore it and run from it changes nothing. What if we chose a different path?

”1 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are…The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil…10 By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil…whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.” 1 John 3:1,8b, 10.

The greatest damage Satan can cause is to tear apart the family of God. But in Christ, the devil is defeated, and in victory, we have the power to love one another. Have you hurt a brother/sister in the church? Intentional or not, go and reconcile. Have you been hurt? Sure, you shouldn’t have to be the one to take the first step, but do it anyway. Swallow your own pride and reconcile with your brother/sister or leadership. 

Our love for one another is evidence that we are practicing righteousness. Don’t be deceived, you cannot be mature or grow in Christ if you do not have love for one another. I know, I’ve been there, and I am telling you, there is nothing sweeter than a relationship mended. I’m just saying.

The Golden Years

I was sitting with her in the hospital. It hadn’t been too long before, that her husband had died of cancer, a long lingering episode. Now her health was failing. Bits and pieces at first. Aches here and pain there, until they jumbled together in a constant rhythm. ”So, much for the golden years, ” she said.

The Golden years ”The Third Age is now considered by many to be the “golden years” of adulthood. It is generally defined as the span of time between retirement and the beginning of age-imposed physical, emotional, and cognitive limitations, and today would roughly fall between the ages of 65 and 80+.”

It is a concept sold to us by an affluent society that believed it could forestall aging and cheat death. In first world countries, our lifespan has increased, but the golden years are hit and miss. For other countries, forget about it, the struggle for daily life is all-consuming. The fact is, you don’t even have to be in your senior year’s to have the golden years snatched out from under you.

• An expectation not met/disappointment – I believed God would heal my father, but he didn’t.

• A relationship gone bad/promise not kept – My spouse cheated on me, left me, is a workaholic.

• A lifestyle not accomplished/sense of insignificance – didn’t get the career I longed for and my job is meaningless.

• A future not realized/overwhelming hopelessness – I am all alone and each night I feel that no-one cares.

• A pain too great to bear/a God who doesn’t care, or maybe the God I’ve been told about. I can’t have children so how can a loving God give them to undeserving people and not me.

In his book, ”The Problem Of Pain, ” CS Lewis acutely makes the point of mains dilemma with the golden years, 

the creatures cause pain by being born and live by inflicting pain, and in pain, they mostly die. in the most complex of all the creatures, man, yet another quality appears, which we call reason, whereby he is enabled to foresee his own pain which henceforth is preceded with acute mental suffering and to foresee his own death while keenly desiring permanence. it also enables men by a hundred ingenious contrivances to inflict a great deal more pain than they otherwise could have done on one another and on the irrational creatures. this power they have exploited to the full. their history is largely a record of crime, war, disease, and terror, with just sufficient happiness interposed to give them, while it lasts, an agonized apprehension of losing it, and, when it is lost, the poignant misery of remembering. every now and then they improve their condition a little and what we call a civilization appears. but all civilizations pass away and, even while they remain, inflict peculiar sufferings of their own probably sufficient to outweigh what alleviations they may have brought to the normal pains of man.

 God, however, didn’t promise us golden years, he promised abundant life. For some, that sounds the same, but there is a vast difference. Golden years are rooted in the things of the world. Abundant life rests in the sufficiency of Jesus. In Christ, I see the world for how it is, sinful and decaying. In Christ I see compassion, and in grace help out those who are forgotten. In Christ grace is abundant, not overlooking sin, but to see it paid for and forgiven. In Christ, the Father’s Holiness condemns sin, but in Christ, we are more than conquers. In Christ, I endure the pain, the disappointment, the loss, and the unknown because my patience means salvation for others. Is it easy? Heaven’s, no, but the end of the story is magnificent. Move over golden years, give way for His glory years. I’m just saying…

From Trial to Opportuniy

Grief is one of the strongest emotions that we can experience. It’s not just grief in the loss of someone we love. It can be the grief of a lifestyle lost, when the economy buckles and you lose everything, it can be the loss of an ideal marriage when a spouse cheats (wether it is with another woman/man, pornography, drugs, or alcoholism), trust is still lost. It could be the loss of what could be if your child is diagnosed with an incurable disease or born with a handicap. Maybe it is the loss of identity when you come down with cancer and that’s all people see you as. There is so much to grieve in life, because sin steals so much away from us. 

With each loss we move through the stages of grief, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The length of the grieving process depends on a lot of factors, and the kind of loss experienced. When our youngest son was diagnosed with diabetes at five it was life changing, but the process was different than, when in 2008 we lost everything when the economy collapsed. The stages were the same, but how we responded, the length of time it took to move through each stage was different. Yet, the denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance were real, deep, and painful.  But, the experiences weren’t devoid of hope.

“11 In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory” Ephesians 1:11,12.

“2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” James 1:2-4.

Every trial is an opportunity to trust God, love others, forgive sinners, offer mercy, be gracious, and experience hope. We learn to love and forgive because we have been loved and forgiven. We often think that our loss is worse than anyone else’s and our pain is deserved, our regret understandable, our anger justified, and therefore we withhold grace because the recipient is undeserving. However, if we saw ourselves the way God sees us and yet He loves and forgives us, maybe we would look at life a little differently and deal with our loss with a little less anger.

Your loss is real, but if you don’t make it past the first four stages you will end up bitter, and bitterness changes nothing. It eats out the very soul you are trying to preserve. If you have been dealt a bad hand, reshuffle the deck. If  you have been cheated on, if the partner has confessed, then forgive. If your ideal for life has changed forever, embrace your new life, God's grace is greater than you can ever imagine.

There is nothing easy about it, but, SPE NEMO RUET, With Hope, No One Shall Fail! I’m just saying.

Is There A Difference

Anti-Christ, they are are all around us. They are the liars who come into the church pretending to be one of us, but have an agenda to subvert our beliefs. They are the deniers, who, despite all the evidence to the contrary, declare that Jesus is not the Son of God. They are the deceivers, who use well spun tales that sound reasonable but lead the susceptible away from the promise of life. Yes, antichrists are all around us. But, is there a difference between Antichrists and non-believers? Obviously, Antichrists are non-believers, but are all none believers antichrist, and does it make a difference?

Yes, there is a difference. Antichrists are specifically liars, deniers, and deceivers. They join churches and Christian movements for the purpose of subverting the faith. Other non-believers have little interest in what is going on behind the walls of our church, as long as it doesn’t bother them. They may come at our invitation, but hold their disbelief quietly, even if firmly. 

Don’t get me wrong, their destination is still the same. They both need the transforming power of the gospel. I believe one of the biggest difference is that a non-believer has never claimed to be anything else, where antichrists have tried to come across as one of us. The writer of Hebrews gives an almost impossible scenario when he writes,

4 For it is impossible, in the case of those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 and then have fallen away, to restore them again to repentance, since they are crucifying once again the Son of God to their own harm and holding him up to contempt.” Hebrews 6:4-6.

• Been enlightened — Antichrists have heard the truth and even, at some points, agreed with the truth, until it comes to the nature of Jesus.

• Tasted the heavenly gift — I take the heavenly gift to be the abundant life in Christ we have today. They have experienced the joy, grace, forgiveness, and love that believers offer one another.

• Shared in the Holy Spirit — The sharing is different than filling. Their experience shares in the outward manifestation of the Spirit of believers. They are recipients of the Spirit’s fruits as they are lived out by others.

• Tasted of the goodness of the word of God — Tasting is different than devouring. Antichrists experience the word of God being taught and lived out, but never consume its life giving words.

• Power of the age to come — I take this to be the power of the resurrection life, the eternal hope that rests in those who believe.

Antichrists experience all of this and then they leave. And John says, “19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.” 1 John 2:19.

Like the wheat and the tares, eventually, Antichrists will been known, but in the meantime we must be vigilant, testing everything against the Word of God. As for the unbelievers in your life, share the Good News that God is with us, that Jesus gave his life so our sins can be forgiven, and that he rose again from the dead in order for us to have eternal life. HE IS THE SON OF GOD. I’m just saying…

A Bitter Pill

I was taking a few pills the other day and one  didn’t go down right away and started to dissolve, and the taste was nasty and bitter. Even taking a drink didn’t wash the bitterness away. There is nothing worse than a bitter taste. For the life of me I can’t figure out why God would create taste buds that register bitterness. Oh, wait, it’s probably so that you won’t continue to eat it, except for rhubarb. I love rhubarb pie, but to get it to taste good you have to add a lot of sugar. What did Mary Poppins say, “Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.” So, bitterness is useful to ward us from something potentially harmful.

 Bitterness in itself is not good, especially when it comes to relationships, whether physical or spiritual.  Bitterness is the result of disappointment that is unresolved. For example.

I can feel myself becoming bitter and angry due to loneliness. I go to church but no one talks to me. I go to an ABF and see people talking and laughing, but they really don’t include me. They smile, ask me a couple of questions, but no one ever invites me over. I just feel that breaking into the inner circle will never happen. It hurts me to think the body of Christ isn’t working the way it should. Now I’m at home alone, and the only thing on my mind is how I feel hurt. I can’t get it out of my head and resentment and bitterness is taking root.

  Bitterness takes when we are slighted or an expectation isn’t met. They may be ligetimate expectations or not, but the hurt is real. The offended party can’t forgive and begins to hold a grudge and then bitterness takes root. Bitterness rarely affects its object, it eats at its victim and like rust erodes from the inside until it is completely destroyed. 

“See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble,” Hebrews 12:15.

Bitterness shows that grace is neither offered or received. When relationships are not reconciled bitterness becomes overwhelming and when it takes root trouble crops up. So how do we overcome bitterness?

Forgive - unfirgiveness is at the heart of bitterness. By forgiving the person who has hurt you, they are robbed of any power over you.

Stop dwelling and retelling — dwell on whatever is pure, good, and holy. When you dwell on a hurt you rehearse it to the point that you begin to justify your unforgivess, and the pain festers like a puss filled soar.

Seek Grace — Grace is acting on behalf of someone else’s benefit. When bitterness reads it’s ugly head act in God’s promise of Grace, both to you and others.

Seek Spiritual Guidence — if you still have difficulty forgiving and letting go of bitterness, find a trustworthy Eli ever who can help you through your difficult time

We may want to wallow in bitterness and self pity, but there is no better feeling than to be washed clean forgiven and forgiving. Go ahead, get out of the mire. I’m just saying,