FINDING YOUR WAY BACK TO GOD

One of my most favorite pastimes is reminiscing of days gone by. I so often will catch myself in a haze of past nostalgia, longing for another time, another place. Sometimes oddly enough, it is a sort of longing or aching to go back, homesick for a time in my past or even as illogical as it may seem, a time that I never even lived in. Similarly, King David felt the same way at times. He too had his feelings and longings of earlier times as he wrote about them in Psalm 84. David longed and ached in his heart to return to the place where he used to meet with God. He understood that to do so, would be a pilgrimage or journey that would have obstacles and difficulties along the way. Choices that he would have to be willing to make to get there. Yet he was willing to do whatever it took to get him back to the place, his heart longed to be.

Like David, when we desire to return to the place where we once were, in our walk or relationship with God, it is our faith that will lead us and allow us to overcome those obstacles until we arrive back to that place and into His arms! You see, it is not the place, the situation or the location where God was real to us that is significant, but only a place… of significant because God was there. For Abraham, it was Bethel, for Moses, it was Mt. Sinai, for Zaccahaeus, it was the tree, for Mary it was the ground where she lay with her face down in the dirt ashamed, broken and needing God’s help. For Jesus it was the Garden of Gethsemane, for Peter, it was when he heard the rooster crow, for Paul, it was the road to Damascus. For King David it was the Temple. For in the Psalms he writes about where he use to meet with God. For whatever reason it was that he had been away from the Lord, he was now expressing his feelings in the language of a poem, longing to return. In David’s day, God’s dwelling place was a place, location, a building, a physical temple. Today, according to Romans 8:9-17, He dwells in the heart of every person that has received Him in their hearts, as Lord and Savior. In the Old Testament, God had a temple for His people. In the New Testament, He has a people for His temple.

Longing for God reflects an integrity of our intention, when we cry out for the living God to return to him and be restored. You see David was not really crying out for the house of God but the living God that dwelt in the house or temple. Ps. 84:2 and Ps. 42:1 express David’s heartfelt desire to go wherever God was and be with the true “Living God”. When a person goes to a courthouse they are not seeking a courthouse but the justice that they are hoping to find there. Same thing with a hospital, it is not the building that you want when you go there, but the healing that you believe you will get once you get there.

Longing for God reveals a desire for intimacy with Him. David’s level of desire for God is reflected in Psalm 84 as he says that his soul yearns and even faints for the courts of the Lord; his heart and flesh cried out…that even the sparrow and swallow had found a place of refuge near God’s altar...oh how he envied those birds, that they were where he once was…close to the lover of his soul.

 Do you long to come back to the Lord? Is that longing the most intense in your life? It should be, and it can be! James 4:8 promises that, if we will come near to God, He will come near to us! James 4:7-10 tells us how to come…by submitting ourselves to God resisting or turning away from the things that want to draw us away from Him…and as David often times would do (and this is why He was the apple of God’s eye), humble yourselves to God, change your attitude into brokenness over your situation seeing it as God sees it and be willing to do those things, whatever they may be…that will restore you…and God Himself will lift you up and give you His power to accomplish whatever it is you may need to do, to get to Him.  

Praying for you today, as you find your way back to God and go home….where you belong!

Love you, Bren

WHEN YOUR SITUATION SEEMS HOPELESS

In one of the Psalms the psalmist writes, “He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire”, can you relate to what David is saying? I recall reading an article once that was in the Readers Digest about a couple of guys who went Duck hunting in a rural area in the northeastern part of Anchorage Alaska called Duck Flat. As they both got out of their boat and begin to trudge through the thick mud, one of the men got his wader stuck and hollered out for his friend to help.  Upon returning back to his friend, they both realized that the one stuck in the mud had actually stepped into a patch of quick sand, caused by Alaskan glaciers that forms a loose, glacial silt like consistency of fine talcum powder. While it may appear to look like mud, it is far more deadly. The two friends had hunted those forest together for many years, and knew exactly what they were faced with and they also knew that they were working against time to get him out. Not only were the two men working against a spongy ground that was determined to sink the man that was stuck; they were also working against the Alaskan tide that was among the fasted, most dangerous tides in the world. After trying to retrieve his friend from the slimy pit to no avail, the man told his friend that he would have to go and get help from the Air Force Base and promised to be back. Upon reaching the Air Force Base a special rescue team was scrambled to the site of the sinking friend and they began his rescue. Every effort they made seemed only to worsen the situation. The helicopter pilot tried many different approaches in lifting the stranded man out of the mud and mire. But he grew discontented as each effort failed. Upon each attempt to hoist him up, the stranded man would signal franticly for release; his eyes wide with pain. You can only imagine as how helpless they all felt as they saw this young man, with his whole life ahead of him slowing vanishing into the slimy pit, never to see him again. By this time, the mud was up to his armpits. The tide could come in at any time, and all their efforts would have been in vain. The water was quickly rising at a rate of one foot every twelve minutes. As all hope seemed to be lost, the stranded man felt a sudden shift and when he did, his feet was released from the waders and he was pulled free at last. Wow! I don’t know about you, but that is a gripping story if ever I have heard one.

Like the man stranded in the slimy pit, David the man that wrote, “He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire” also understood the freedom of being released from a pit that was slowing taking him under. While David’s pit may not have been a true pit of quicksand; the feelings he had, were so strong that he felt that he could compare them to what it must be like to actually being in stuck in a pit, just about to sink. Whatever it was that David was feeling at the time, we know that his troubles seemed to be beyond even the greatest human effort that he had access to at that time. His own efforts proved only to be futile. Like the sinking man, David found that the more he struggled over his situation the worse it became and the more his situation drew him deeper into the pit.  

In his writing David was trying to create and convey his deep understanding of what it is like to plunge down into despair and what can appear to be, an impossible situation. The things that caused David to feel that way could have been from his own personal sin in his life, or from the effects of opposition from others be it friend or foe….it could have been from a military defeat or simply the effect of choices made during the course of battle or war.

Not really knowing the cause is actually to our advantage though. Because without knowing what it was that made David feel that way, it allows us a window of sympathy and compassion to know that while others have also gone thru trying times, we are encouraged that we too can come out on the other side freed, once the trouble passes.

Where is your place of absolute impossibility today? In a relationship, a habit, a wrong choice or a relapse of a past sin that you cannot seem to get over?  Is someone opposing you? You never meant it to become what it has become. At first it was harmless, nonthreatening, but now you are stuck in it and feel the mud and mire covering you with darkness and depression. You wish there was a way out!

If so, may I tell you that those are the very things that God is best at! Pulling us up and rescuing us when we cannot rescue ourselves. However, for Him to get to us, we must move out of His way and allow Him to work the way He wants to in our lives and not in accordance to how we want to instruct Him to do. The secret to receiving His help is found in Psalm 40:1 and says, “I waiting patiently for the Lord; He turned to me and heard my cry”. You see the problem is that God knows that we need Him; we are the ones that need to learn that concept and learning comes so many times through trials and tribulations, pain and even heartbreak.

If God places you in an impossible situation, He has a divine plan for your rescue. But you must call on Him, and wait for Him to show up….for He is never too late for those that cry out to Him with the right heart attitude. So, remember, when you cannot see a way out…look to Him, He has the tools to get you to safety.

Loving you today,
Hold Fast,
Bren

THE SERMON OF THE ROOSTER

It was easy to follow Christ in the beginning.  For the three years that Jesus spent with His disciples in ministry, He was busy teaching and preparing them for the coming day, that He would leave them. During those years, He had been observed, studied, criticized and even harassed by the religious scholars and priests within His own race and religion, as well as the Romans who feared by what they saw, believed were political indicators of an upheaval. He was misunderstood by everyone at first, until they had a personal encounter with Him as Peter the fisherman did.  While Peter loved Jesus, He never really understood the full meaning of  the Lord’s life and purpose  until after Peter walked through the tribulation of public denial, of which had already been predicted by Jesus Himself. The brokenness over his denial is echoed by the bitter tears that he wept upon realizing what he had done and remembering, not only what Jesus had predicted that he would do, but by his own words that he had told Jesus, were now coming back to haunt him. Words of loyalty and promise, as He told Jesus, “…though everyone else forsake you, I never will!”.  Peter’s denial would progress from a simple denial of, “I do not know Him” to a denial plus an oath, that he did not know Him and to finally, cursing and swearing with a very determined denial, that he never knew Jesus. Then the moment came, the sound of the rooster’s crow that brought a shock wave to Peter, as he remembered Jesus’ prediction. God had used that rooster to bring a message to Peter that would not only rock his world, but forever change it! Nothing Christ could have ever done or said to Peter, would have had such an impact as that moment.

As Judas’ betrayal of Christ sets him apart, so Peter’s denial sets him apart from the other disciples of Christ by what they did. Peter was closely associated with Jesus from the time that the Lord called him to become a fisher of men, until he fell asleep in the garden, too tired to stay up and keep watch. From that point Peter’s level of commitment went down hill. Jesus had told all the disciples according to Matthew 26:31, that they would all fall away on account of Him. But Peter in verse 33 told Christ that no matter if everyone else fell away, that he himself would not. Jesus told Peter in verse 34 that, “…this very night you will disown me 3 times, before the rooster crows”. Peter responded back to Jesus declaring that even if he had to die with Him, that he would never disown him….and the other disciples said the same in verse 35.

Later that night, Jesus was arrested. They seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest's house. Peter followed at a distance and when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and had sat down together, Peter sat down with them. A servant girl saw him seated there by the fire. She looked at him and said, "This man was with him." But he denied it. "Woman, I don't know him," Peter said. The servant girl said again to those standing around, "This fellow is one of them."  and again Peter denied it. The third denial brought so much grief and strain to Peter, that he was emphatic about his denial as he cursed as he denied knowing Jesus, according to Matthew 26:73-75: After a little while, those standing there went up to Peter and said, "Surely you are one of them, for your accent gives you away." Then he began to call down curses on himself and he swore to them, "I don't know the man!" Immediately a rooster crowed. Then Peter remembered the words Jesus had spoken: "Before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times." And Peter went outside and wept bitterly.

The Gospel of Luke 22:61 describes the moment of the last denial as follows: The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him: "Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times." That rooster preached the same message to Peter,  that the donkey did to Balaam in the Old Testament. A message of rebuke and chastisement.
Matthew 10:32-33 stresses the importance of our public witness as an essential element of our discipleship to Christ and Jesus Himself tells us that… "Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven." Peter's denial is in direct conflict with his human nature and that of the cost of being a discipleship of Christ. We know that Peter was forgiven for denying Christ, because he was broken and repented. Peter went on to become the rock upon who God would use to bring the gospel to a world in need of it. He would never again deny Christ again. He would however be beaten, thrown into jail, ridiculed, observed, studied, criticized and even harassed by the religious scholars and priests within His own race and religion, as well as the Romans who would ultimately kill him for his faith. After he received the sermon from the rooster, Peter began to see Christ for Who He really was and better understood the cost of being a true follower of the living God.
God uses many avenues of outreach to bring us to surrender to Him. If we do not hearken and yield to them, we are of no use to Him and our faith is in vain.  For Peter, the light bulb went off for him as he heard the rooster’s crow and realized the very thing that God was trying to tell him. What sermon has God been sending your way lately and by what means is He trying to get your attention? He tells us in His Word, that if we love Him, we will obey Him. Is there an area of your life that He is asking you to surrender. If so, do it today….drop all that you have been thinking, and run to Him!
Loving you today,
Bren

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU LOOSE YOUR JOY

People oftentimes mistake joy for their happiness. While they do share some of the same characteristics, they are actually different. Your joy always comes through having inner peace. Happiness is an emotion that we experience when things seem to be working out and going our way. There is an aspect of fun and excitement to happiness; where with joy, in the Biblical context, is an attitude of the heart and only comes through self-surrender and self-sacrifice of the flesh, by accepting those things that we can not change and being content with the circumstances that we may be in for a time. Our joy is never dependent upon our happiness. Our happiness comes and goes, but our joy can be full at all times even in the difficult times, if we look to the Lord for our joy. Jesus told us over and over how to have joy and how to keep it. He said that “He came to do the Father’s will”. For the most part we think of that statement as meaning, to die for the sins of the world, and that is true, but there is way more than just His physical death. He also came to show us how to conquer the hard places that we pass through. He said that He delighted to do His Father’s will. That implies that He was making the choice to obey what was being ask of Him, no matter what it may be. You see Jesus had a unique understanding of what it really takes to live with joy in the midst of every kind of circumstance that life would dish out to Him. Jesus even prayed that our joy would be made full, just the same as His was.

Life is not about stuff…not about work….not about wisdom….not about people….not about circumstance, but about perfect communion with the Son of God. It’s about our faith in Him, it’s about our obedience to Him, and it’s about our relationship with Him. The first thing that will hinder our joy in a circumstance is when we begin to start thinking about and focus on the irritation of the situation. John 15:11 says that the reason that our joy does not stay full is because we are not allowing His joy to remain in us. We are trading His joy for disappointment. The cares of this world will always choke out the Word of God in our lives. We will only re-gain our joy when we are rightly related to Him. For the child of God, walking in joy is almost an unconscious effort as long as we are abiding in Him, not allowing anything to hinder that joy. But once our joy is hindered, we must refocus on truth and not what our flesh leads us to do or feel; which is the total opposite of truth.

How do you regain your joy? By embellishing what you already have, if you are in Christ. Romans 15:13a says, “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy…”. you already know of His joy and it is a sweet resting place that we can run to when we need it. But the only way to get there is to let go of the current place and race back to what you know brings that peace and restores the joy that you are allowed in and through Him.

Joy is for the most part contentment, yet for the child of God it goes even deeper. Joy should  never depend upon our happiness; but our happiness should always be dependent upon our joy.  God’s joy is something that He deposits into us at our new birth through the Holy Spirit.  The devil will try everything within his power to steal that joy because he understands its importance in the life of a child of God.  If he can not rob us of our joy he will tempt us with things that can temporarily cause us to drift away from God, leaving us then with a feeling of “lacking”.  The scripture says that the joy of the Lord is our strength….Job had an understanding of that….he knew that the bottom line was, that his joy was all wrapped up in knowing, that the Lord was all he needed! While Job was not privy to the warfare that was going on around him concerning his time of testing from satan, (to break him down and rob him of God’s joy and blessing) he opted to walk through his tribulation and grief, knowing that no matter what, God was sufficient for him in everything that touched his life. While Job was not happy about his circumstance, his joy remained steadfast.

 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do. James 1:2-8

Hold Fast,

Bren