When I am out of synch (part 20)

In my time of sin, (Joel 2:1-32) there is an arid climate, there is a desert, there is close to unbearable heat and excruciating light, because day by day I am confronted with the truth of who I have become. My life has become barren and empty. But God tells me there is an army to save me, while I tremble in the fear of total annihilation. It’s Jesus’ army, the only army that can overcome the darkness the heart of darkness, the only one who will overtake my heart and change me so that I can truly love God and be blessed in Him. What I don’t comprehend is that Jesus’ army is not an army of strife, of physical brute strength where I am forced physically to change, but an army of love, of the spirit in which I change because I come to know the riches that are in Jesus and because I am allowing God to control my life. Jesus overtakes and overcomes my heart.

When I am out of synch (part 19)

When I sin, things eventually go badly for me, if not for my heart then with things physically. I am in a desert and will not be blessed. (Ezek 5:5-17) God promises to give me an out, allowing me the chance to repent. Because I have told Him in baptism I am His and He is mine, and while I cannot force God to sever that relationship, I myself can choose to deny it and live how I want to live. (Hos 2:1-23) But I must take Him seriously. My repentance must be godly sorrow. (II Cor??). Not because I get caught in my sin, but because I know I did wrong and I want to do what is right. I want to change. I may not want to die to myself and lose all the bonds of sin, but I know the only way to do this is to die to myself and put on Christ, living as He does, walking as He does. I need to humble myself in His presence – although it may hurt and may not be what I want to do, in fact not what I want to do at all. But it is what will bring me back into His throne room, submitting to His rules, because I am choosing God and I can go to Him and love Him the way He wants. That’s God’s way. Obey Him and His commands, love of God according to Christ is obeying commandments and they are not many. Just two. Actually following God is the paradox of being easier and harder than thought of. Easier because there are only two commandments that God is so desiring of me to follow. Hard because God has given those two commandments knowing that I am so legalistic I will look for something more, putting my aspirations and expectations on others and watching to see them measure up.

When I am out of sych (part 18)

And then I am willing to risk the fire of hell for my moments that I think I deserve. And I can see Him throwing up His hands to say “Why, why?” But yet He is willing to deliver and heal me, while I am yet a sinner. Why? I don’t have a clue. It wouldn’t be me, in my self-righteous mode I go. But I do know that when I treat God badly I am in for it eventually, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but I cannot live in His house and not follow His rules. He says I break the rules, there are always consequences, and that has always been the case, whether I disobeyed my parents or whether I disobeyed my teachers in school, or whether I disobey God. I will be punished. What I fail to see is that while there are those that seem to get away with whatever they want they really aren’t, God is preparing something for them too. He just doesn’t want what I do to get me so off line because knowing my heart He knows that’ll happen quite easily. He punishes me now because He loves me. It’s when He doesn’t punish me that I begin to worry, that maybe He is giving me over to my sinful nature. But God’s mercy is infinite and boundless. (Jeremiah 10:19-25) If Isreal or His people in the church that have strayed just come back to Him then He’ll welcome them with open arms. And God knows that if I am happy with a particular lifestyle, then perhaps He should let me wallow in it awhile so that I can truly see how awful I am, much as what happened before I was saved. (Jeremiah 18:11-18) Because consequences are really the only thing that bring anyone of us back, and sometimes these take time to develop and sometimes not. Consequences are the only thing that brings a scattered, tattered and torn people to their knees. And yet He still promises that I and all nations are invited to come to Him and to return to Him. (Jeremiah 50:4-7) He calls and desires all should come to Him and that is why He sent His son – but this is the last chance. I have only to believe that His son saves and only His son. But I have to believe that or He cannot save us. Because if I don’t believe that, I will surely not believe anything else about Him, least of all His promises.

 

When I am out of synch (part 17)

 

When I sin, not only do I make Him cry, but I anger Him. When I lie through my sacrifice, and make it false, I upset Him. (Is 43:20-28), because all things respect and obey God – ox, beasts of the fields, owls, flowers, they all know their creator, which is probably why I have to tame them, because why should they follow me who couldn’t even make the chemical compounds in the proper proportion to make these things the way they are. And when and only when I see I have hurt Him and that He is truly angry at me, then I have to beg for mercy, come into His throne room embarrassed by the tatters I have made of my clothes I call my life and then ask with my heart and humbly bow before Him, not trying to appease Him, but truly understanding that His way was best from the time I decided it wasn’t until forever. I fall on my knees in front of Him and remember His son hanging up on the tree knowing I would sin and sin again and I read in Ps 80:1-19: “Give ear, O Shepherd of Isreal, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock; thou that dwellest between the cherubims, shine forth. Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh stir up thy strength, and come and save us. Turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved. O LORD, God of hosts, how long wilt thou be angry against the prayer of thy people? Thou feedest them with the bread of tears, and givest them tears to drink in great measure. Thou makest us a strife unto our neighbors: and our enemies laugh among themselves. Turn us again, O God of hosts, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved. Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt; thou hast cast out the heathen. And planted it. Thou hast preparedst room before it, and didst cause it to take deep root and it filled the land. The hills were covered with the shadow of it, and the boughs thereof were like godly cedars, She sent out her boughs unto the sea, and her branches unto the river. Why hast thou then broken down her hedges, so that all they which pass by the way do pluck her? The boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it. Return, we beseech thee, O God of hosts: look down from heaven, and behold and visit this vine; and the vineyard which thy right hand hath planted, and the branch that though madest strong for thyself. It is burned with fire, it is cut down; they perish at the rebuke of thy countenance; Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, upon the son of man whom thou madest strong for thyself. So will not we go back from thee; quicken us, and we will call upon thy name. Turn us again, O LORD God of hosts, cause thy face to shine and we shall be saved.” David cries for Jesus to come, cries that he needs strength and example, discipline from which the word disciple comes. He needs not just laws, he knows he cannot keep the laws entirely, but he needs to see the Word made flesh. O God, how do you want me to walk, he cries. And that is my cry too. Only when I am studying and taking to heart God’s word and applying it using the power of God’s spirit that is within me am I following Christ’s example. Is this right or wrong? Well, not that right and wrong disappear when Christ is here, but it becomes more of a concern with doing God’s will. In His perfect will, there is only right. As the people of Israel did in Jeremiah 2:5-37, I have chosen to hurt God, unknowingly perhaps but I’ve done it. Because I turned against Him and then I filled what He created with my own substances, and with what pleases me. I have to fill the holes in my life with something, you see, something other than the living spring spoken of in John 4 by Jesus with the Samaritan woman. I cannot see that living spring, cannot touch or feel him, but I can with the indiscriminate pleasures that are in the world waiting for me to take advantage. After a while, I am desolate, that too is God’s design because He is giving me what I have chosen to have and I will mark my character, my wants, my desires, by my actions which only lead me to wear fig leaves, as Adam and Eve did, in my vain attempt to hide from Him. I do not understand Him and so I fall even deeper into desires to fill empty spaces and holes in my life with things I think make me feel that much better. In doing this God has allowed me to see that whatever I do has consequences and a place in the future, and I will reap what I sow. (Gal 6; Jer 3:1-25; Jer 8:5-21) I am a whore because I don’t want to be married to only God. I want to be an infidel because it is more fun on the surface, and carries more gratification. But He will call me and others and He wants the best part of me. He will, there is no doubt or question, collect up the remnant of what is in me after that which sins is cut away as He tells me I must do, as He will with everyone and our place will be a new Jerusalem, better than that which is on earth, with streets of gold and all in harmony with one another and all in peace.