Getting yourself and friends to Jesus

Have you ever had someone tell you that they were a Christian, but you saw no evidence of a commitment to Christ in their lives? Maybe because they bore no fruit that reflected a change or spiritual growth, or maybe that they had never had a personal encounter with Him. In the scriptures you will find that those who came to Christ had personal encounters with Him as they saw and believed Him for who He was. The Pharisee did not encounter Jesus as the Messiah and Savior, but as a hypocrite and troublemaker.

Maybe, this may be true of you. Maybe, you’ve been reflecting upon your own spiritual life lately and on a lifestyle that you know should Jesus come back today, He either would not know you or He would not be pleased with what He found. 

The Bible says that all we like sheep have gone astray, each to his own way. Most people see their sin as just that; they see sin in their own way! But they do not truly understand what sin is. Oh, they may know that sin is the "bad stuff that they do", yet they never consider the penalty for it; nor understand how God may consider it. They seem to have some sort of unrealistic view as to knowing that, "yes, they sin", yet they somehow feel that they have some sort of deal with God when it comes to their own sin. Their faith is based on the old song, “Me and Jesus, got our own thing going!” and somehow take comfort in believing that God somehow understands that they are just human and can not help themselves over all. 

To express their false understanding of real salvation, they love to consider hypocrites in the church as being worse off than they are, and find great comfort in finding fault and making accusations towards God's church and the imperfections that they all bear. It is easier  believing that, because they do not see themselves as hypocrites, and believe that it somehow gives them more credibility with God. Oddly enough, they are worse off than those that they criticize.

When a person understands that it is their own sin that separates them from God, they will do everything and anything to get to Him, as did many in the scriptures. This is a plumb line that we can measure our faith by. If we love others and have encountered Jesus ourselves, then nothing will be too costly for us to get them to the one that we know can help and save them as well.

There is a story in the Bible that I just love that talks about 4 friends that tore the roof off of someone’s house just to get their friend to Jesus. For they knew in their hearts that their friend needed Him and that only Jesus forgives sin and restored lives. 

In Mark 2:1-12 upon returning to Capernaum, many people had heard of Jesus’ return.  Outside and in the surrounding buildings the crowds gathered to see and hear Jesus. It was so crowded that there was no room left to stand or walk let alone enter through the door with a stretcher that held a cripple. There were four friends that were so sure that Jesus could bring about healing to their friend, that they climbed up on top of someone’s home, dug through the thatched roof and then lowered their friend who couldn’t walk by himself through the opening into Jesus’ presence. 

Talk about love and faith! The faith of those four friends showed sheer determination to get their friend to the only one that could help him. Jesus recognized the faith of the man’s four friends. They believed that their crippled friend, no matter what he had done, could be forgiven and healed. The friends struggled to deliver the man who couldn’t walk into the presence of Jesus. As always, in His compassion, and because of the faith of the cripple man and the effort of his friends, Jesus spoke to the cripple man saying, “your sins are forgiven” and after being confronted by some teachers of the law, he told the man to get up, that his sins were forgiven and to take his mat and walk. The man got up, picked up his mat and went out in full view of everyone, including the teachers of the law that were being critical.

It was ordained before the foundations of the world that one day, 4 friends would come together to take their friend in need to get the help that only Jesus could provide. They were so desperate to get to Jesus that they tore off a man’s roof, just to lower their friend down to Him. Sweet friend, what are you doing to get your friend to Jesus today? Are you loving them in spite of the sin that you see? Has their sin been so great that it has crippled them as with the man in the story. Do you love your friend like those men loved their friend in spite of what they knew about him? Are you like one of the teachers? Jesus asked those that were thinking ill in their heart, “Is it easier to tell the man, get your mat and get out of here…or simply forgive him his debts, and watch him walk in victory and truth”. I tell you that we are all so quick to judge someone when we seem to be doing so well. Yet, it is the burden and love for others in humility that Christ honors, as He did in the friendship of those 4 men who brought their friend to Christ. 

The scripture says in Proverbs 17:17 that "a friend loves at all times" our friends need us to love on them by speaking the truth, but moreover, to be the example in how we ourselves may be living for Christ and even if we have to tear off a roof to get them there; we do it, because we love them that much!

Hold Fast,

-Bren

God is not absent during His silence

 If you read the book of Esther in the Bible you will find the absence of God being mentioned, as He is, in all of the other books of the Bible other than, the Song of Solomon. The book of Esther is about those moments in the history of God's people and in the history of our lives where God does not seem anywhere to be found, and where God seems to be absent yet, He was not. The story of Esther is a precious reminder to all of God's people, that even when He appears to have abandoned them, He has not.

I learned years ago to never judge the quality of my faith by my excitement of a mountain top experience on a Sunday morning when I was surrounded by God's people in worship and reflecting on the truths of the gospel and being filled with joy.

But I learned to judge the nature of my faith in those moments when none of that existed and I was alone in a dark place, maybe a wilderness of sorts, and it seemed to me like the heavens were shut up and the promises of God no longer included me. When it seemed like God had walked away, and everyone else was prospering from His kindness and fellowship and I had somehow been left out. It appeared to me in those moments where God seemed most absent, and no longer actively working on my behalf.

However, I learned that as I confronted those negative thoughts and lies, taking them captive and remembering what God had told me in His word, He would never stop working in and for me until His work was completed in His plan for my life.

This is the theme throughout all the Old and New Testaments. God raises up unlikely situations and instruments like He did in the story of Esther. He raised this woman, whom He used to continue to protect and propel His plan for His people and His plan for the ages, His plan of redemption. God who seems absent to us at times is actually working to protect and preserve His story.

You should never conclude, because you can't see the hand of God, that God isn’t at work anymore then you should conclude that the sun isn't shining because it is nighttime, and you can't see it. These are the moments where we must do what Hebrews 11 tells us to do, “You must believe that God exists, and He rewards those who seek Him.” The story of how God raised Esther and used her in His redemptive plan confronts the deepest of our questions and gives us hope that, as we are yielding to Him daily, He is using our lives as well, even when we do not see or understand what is going on.

We do not have to see God at work to trust His word to be faithful and true for us. God is not absent during His silence in our lives. He is always behind the scenes, working on our behalf to complete the work He started. That is His promise to us according to Philippians 1:6, "being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Has He begun His work in your life today sweet friend? If not, ask Him to and mean it with all your heart!

Hold Fast,
-Bren

God Has Not Forgotten You

Webster's Dictionary defines “remember” as to “bring to mind or think of again,” or to “retain in the memory.”  It doesn’t necessarily imply that someone has forgotten the thing they are mindful of, but rather that it is on their mind. So, for God to “remember” means for God to have it on His mind.

God's Word tells us in many places that He remembers His people. In Genesis 8:1 His tells us that he remembered Noah and even the livestock that was with Noah.  In Genesis 30:22 we are told that God remembered Rachel in her situation.

In Exodus 2:24, God heard the groanings of His people Israel, who were slaves in Egypt, and He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as He called Moses to lead them out; of the bondage that they had gotten themselves in.

King David cried to the Lord in the Psalms just as much for effect as for affection. He had learned through past experiences and knew where to turn in times of trouble.

 In every instance of God remembering, there is always an action on His part that takes place. 

While God remembers both good and bad, and will repay them both, to those who come to Him seeking forgiveness, He is faithful to forgive and put their sins as far as the east is from the west, never to remember again according to Psalms 103:12. 

God never forgets His promises or His people. He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, and the creator of the universe. He doesn’t suffer from memory lapses. But He makes it clear that His people are to continue to cry out to Him with prayer and petition, with praise and thanksgiving.

Just as God remembered, we are to remember Him as well and honor Him. When we ask for forgiveness and talk with God in prayer, we are engaged with Him and are in essence calling His attention upon us. We can trust that He will act on our behalf as we humble our hearts and seek Him in every situation.

Hold Fast,

-Bren

Bearing the Burden of Weakness

 According to 2 Cor 12 a believer's strength is found in their weakness. Oftentimes, I find that I am ashamed before the Lord for being so feeble and weak in my life choices. The things that I want to do, I don’t seem to do, and yet the things that I don’t want to do are the easiest things to give in to and do. While it is very hard to comprehend why this happens, it is the very place that we must get to before the Lord will step up and assist us in that which we cannot do ourselves. 

It is through our adversity that our fleshly and common sense of things are brought to light by the hand of God. But once we see that light, we know that we have seen truth and that is what sets us free. When God shines His light on something that we are struggling to understand, it becomes truth to us, and it is at that point that we must decide what we will do with that truth.

When you think about the life of Peter you may see him as a flawed, indecisive weakling who kept disappointing the Lord by his distractions and fears. Yet, in spite of his short comings, Peter chose to go back each time he failed and try it again as he placed his feeble faith in what his heart compelled him to do, trust. It is not easy walking on water, and we would be wise not to be so quick to judge Peter for sinking, when he took his eyes off Jesus, the One who was the "truth and way" that was enabling Peter to walk on the water as Jesus was doing.

 

For like Peter, sometimes the course that Jesus charts for our life is directly into a storm as well. Jesus will meet us there as the storms rage around us and as with Peter, at just the right time, He will reveal Himself to us in that storm, and our joy will deepen as we reach out and trust Him; because we have realized that we are too weak and cannot make it ourselves. 

Paul felt weak as well. So much that his weakness became a thorn to him that constantly buffeted him. He even pleaded with the Lord to remove it. His weakness was a lack of humility. God wanted Paul to learn that he could trust Him to help him, in spite of his weakness and learn humility through his struggle with it. Paul had even confessed when he said that his thorn in his flesh was meant to keep him “from becoming conceited” and to give him a more obvious experience of the power of Christ in his own life. So, Paul spent his life struggling with his thorn that kept him always going to the Lord for the strength to bear and overcome his weakness day after day.

I too am always learning that God has ordained in my life, a thorn to buffet me, and through genetics and life-experience, we all are flawed, limited, broken, weak and while we all suffer with different areas of weaknesses, our struggle is the same. God is trying so hard to teach our tough thick hard heads that, it is when we surrender to Him and admit that we cannot do it, that our flesh is rendered weak enough for God to take control and give me the strength I need. 

There is a great lesson to be learned by Paul asking that God take his weakness away in 2 Cor 12, and God telling him no. It means that sooner or later, maybe we should stop praying against the weakness and accept it as God’s design for whatever character that God is trying to build in us and for the glory of Christ in us. We must all decide for ourselves if we are to bear the burdens of our weaknesses until they teach us the lessons that we must learn. 

I am learning that God is all sufficient for my every need, but if I am to call Him, “Lord, Lord”, then I must do that, which He tells me to do. Though I am flawed and weak, I have found Him to be a strong tower to which He never fails! 

Hold Fast,

-Bren

THE WILL OF GOD IN YOUR PRAYERS

Communication is always taking place between people, through making requests, stating facts, offering apologies, asking questions or giving thanks for something. It is essential if we are to have strong and healthy relationships with one another. The same is true with our prayer life. In prayer we are communicating to God in adoration to Him, giving thanksgiving, making confession and supplication. That very act of communication is what cultivates and builds the strong relationships that we desire and need with each other and with God.

As long as we are in constant communication with others, we need not feel the isolation and loneliness that's found in being loners on an Island that we oftentimes can create and live on, for ourselves. While we may need the stimulating interaction with others to keep away the blues, we don't necessarily have to have them. 

Our prayer life on the other hand is essential in the life of every believer. Without it a person cannot even become a Christan. For the repented sinner must call on the name of the Lord for their salvation according to Romans 10:9-13. Prayer, however, is not necessarily made with the mouth only, but with the heart. For it is with the heart's attitude that God judges us all. For example, a person that cannot speak can still pray. For their prayers are heard through their heart's intent.

Jesus himself says in Mark 14:38 that prayer was essential in having victory over satan. You see, prayer appropriates the power we need to overcome the things that we need to overcome and live the life that He asks us to live obediently. 

As you read through the scriptures concerning the life and ministry of Christ, you will always see where He begins with prayer. He demonstrated that importance and the priority of prayer by His own example. When He began His ministry, He prayed Mark 1:35. Before selecting His disciples, He prayed Luke 6:12. In the book of John He prayed before performing miracles, before He ate, before He left His disciples, in preparation for His crucifixion, when He was in anguish, and while He hung on the cross in Luke and Mark. His entire life serves as an example of prayer.

Moved by Jesus' example of prayer in Luke 11, the disciples ask Him to teach them to pray. Jesus gave them a model prayer to go by as He showed them how to pray. Jesus knew that God's power is released to every believer when by their faith, knowing and trusting, God's will as they make their request known to Him, that God would hear their prayer and answer them according to His will. 

So many times, you will hear Jesus softly add to His prayers, "not my will Father, but thou will be done!". Jesus knew that He could ask what He would in faith, but it should always be tempered by the will of God.

The problem with many of our prayers is not that we ask too much or too often, but with wrong motives. James 4:3 reminds us of that. Effective prayer is always based upon a sincere desire for God's will to be done in and through a situation. When James and John wanted to call down fire on Samaria, it was not in God's superior wisdom to do so. 

Proverbs 3:5-6 reminds us to "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct thy path." When we trust in His will, we lean on and acknowledge His judgements, and then He shows us the way, or the reasons that He does what He does; and if He still does not give us exacts, then He gives us a peace to accept what we do not understand, and it no longer matters!

Your prayer life is only a breath away from the fellowship and power that you need on a day-to-day basis, if you are a believer. For the believer that desires a deep fellowship with God, they must stay in and maintain regular communication with him. Seek Him while He may be found!

Hold Fast,

-Bren

OFFENSES BRINGS OPPORTUNITY TO REFLECT GOD'S CHARACTER

 As I have grown in my spiritual walk with Christ through the years, I have noticed some distinct changes in my life, my attitude and even in my responses to others as I have felt the painful hand of hurt and offense touch my heart. 

When I choose the road less traveled and embrace the reality of my situations and think about them in terms of how God may be looking at them and not what my mind churns up about them, I am relieved from the pressure of having to have an answer concerning them. I have learned that my only response in any matter is to show the love of God and trust Him in the things that I do not understand, knowing that in due time, He will reveal to me what I need to know and understand. 

Every offense against me, can be used as an opportunity to reflect the Character of the one that lives inside me, if I will only change my perspective and see them as God does.

One day a young nurse was complaining to her pastor that she had been offended by some patients, “Thank God for that” her preacher replied, in which the young woman said, “What do you mean by that, preacher?”, “Why, if you were carrying a vase and someone bumped into you, that which is inside the vase could possibly spill out on them”, he said, and “As we go through life and people bump into us, we have the opportunity to spill out the Lord Jesus on them” he concluded.
 
You see, we have the choice when we are offended to spill out anger, bitterness, jealousy and revenge, or broken and contrite hearts. This is how God’s Character inside His children spills out into the world. 

We may never be called to suffer an agonizing death for our faith. But any time that we quench the fleshly nature in us that is constantly warring to show it’s ugly face, by yielding to that which compels us to do the right thing, then we are denying the flesh it’s gratification of glory, thereby, bringing honor to the One who deserves it.  

When we allow our perspective to reflect or mirror the embodiment of Christ in us, then any suffering that we may undergo will be worth it. Think of how the world would be, if we would walk more cautiously in trying to eliminate our critical attitudes that repels others away from us, when we respond to them in a wrong way, no matter what they have heaped on us. 

Proverbs 19:11 tells us that, “A man’s wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense.”  Godly wisdom helps us to have tolerance for the person who has offended us and gives us patience to find God’s plan to restore the situation. God always has a plan of restoration.  Sometimes we just need the patience to believe it will happen.

 
Will you today sweet friend, face your trial that you may be going through with an attitude of good cheer, humility and a godly patience with the one who has wronged you and above all else, have the faith that God will honor you by your seeing things from His perspective and not your fleshly way of responding to a bad event. Matthew 7:5 tells us to first remove the beam from our own eye, then we can see clearly enough to help remove our brother’s speck. 

We can only see clearly, when we remove that which is causing us not to see the situation clearly.  How we respond to our offenses will reflect the strength of our walk, in Jesus! 

Hold Fast, 

-Bren

WHEN HUMAN PRIDE IS MISPLACED APART FROM GOD'S WISDOM

 Our pride deceives us! It makes us think that we are self-sufficient, capable of determining our destiny and are safe in the little clefts of our comfort zones. It will cause us to imagine that we are protected by our skills, resources and misguided friends. Yet, God is able to destroy our defenses when they are misplaced apart from His wisdom in our lives in a moment.

Obadiah 1:3 tells us, "The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rocks and make your home on the heights, you who say to yourself, “Who can bring me down to the ground?”.

God is determined to break our pride and make us realize just how dependent on him we are. Pride is obnoxious to God because it’s a lie which presents a distorted view of life. It puffs up our view of ourselves and dethrones God from his rightful place in our hearts. Pride gives us a false sense of security which overlooks real threats to our spiritual well-being. 

Pride will make us insensitive to the needs of others and will cause us to question others, with thoughts like, "if we can successfully manage our own lives, then why can’t they?". But  when we realize our shortcomings and limitations, we have more empathy for others by realizing that, but for the grace of God in our lives,we too are limited by our pride.

God deals with our pride for our benefit. He knows that we will never be truly happy until we’re holy, set apart for Himself and living the way He intends. He longs to see us functioning the way that He created us to be. That is, in a close relationship with Him where we trust Him to supply us with grace so we can make wise decisions, live an upright life and be people of integrity. 

God designed us to think for ourselves. That's one reason the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was present in the garden. Adam and Eve had known God as a Father of joyful permission, who overwhelmingly said yes to them and the serpent played on that fact. He told them that the God who had said yes so often, was misleading them about His one no.

The serpent wanted them to believe and choose the one thing that would change their intellectual dependency on God and empower them to think on their own. Something that he said would “not surely” kill them, but make them really alive and be like God and that God had hidden that something in the tree’s fruit as stated in Genesis 3:5 “God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil”.

God was true to his word: the fruit did indeed yield knowledge as “the eyes of both were opened” in Genesis 3:7. But the serpent wasn’t true to his word. The knowledge did not make them God-like, it only made them lost and miserable. They experienced a dark enlightenment that immediately produced shame.  

Very quickly they discovered a tragic truth about leaning on their own understanding: “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death” according to Proverbs 14:12.                                               

The knowledge they thought they wanted was far beyond what they were designed to bear and all of us have been laboring under the crushing weight of this burdensome knowledge ever since. 

Hold Fast,

Bren