Following the Ten

I’m just going to put this out there and hope that if you have read my blog for a while you know my heart and  can know that I am on a journey just like any of you and this is helping me to become closer to God.

Over our Thanksgiving trip I had great conversations about grace and love.  We can become victims of our religious upbringing, and it can stifle our growth, and then something like this conversation can reveal the heart of the matter and free us of stuff that we have hung on to.

Think about the bible and all the things that it records, then think about what Jesus said it ALL boils down to.  All of the law boils down to this, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul and love your neighbor as yourself.”  I know that many things in the bible are dictated by the culture of the time.   I also know that the bible in its entirety was inspired by God.  It was inspired into imperfect men.  The only part of the bible written by God’s finger, the 10 commandments.  Not that we can’t pull the beneficial from the entire bible, because we know that it is ALL a benefit to us, however, I want to focus on the 10 and the one the 10 boil down to.

1. You shall have no other gods before or besides Me.

2. You shall not make yourself any graven image [to worship it] or any likeness of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; You shall not bow down yourself to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me, But showing mercy and steadfast love to a thousand generations of those who love Me and keep My commandments.

3. You shall not use or repeat the name of the Lord your God in vain[that is, lightly or frivolously, in false affirmations or profanely]; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.

4. [Earnestly] remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy (withdrawn from common employment and dedicated to God). Six days you shall labor and do all your work, But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, your daughter, your manservant, your maidservant, your domestic animals, or the sojourner within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. That is why the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it [set it apart for His purposes].

5. Regard (treat with honor, due obedience, and courtesy) your father and mother, that your days may be long in the land the Lord your God gives you.

6. You shall not commit murder.

7. You shall not commit adultery.

8. You shall not steal.

9. You shall not witness falsely against your neighbor.

10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house, your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.

Now, if you take those ten commandments and follow them earnestly, and then you take Jesus’ command to  “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.” Luke 10:27, you will be doing what you need to do to live the best life that you can live.  The overflow of just that, will be placing God first and loving ALL the people around you.

Here is the analogy that really struck me.  There are many people who don’t eat pork because they are restricted by their religious code to do so.  They have taken that from the old testament and held on to it.  However, I don’t hold to that because the dream that John was given was that all things were permissible.  That is left to interpretation and if I am wrong I am counting on God’s grace, and if those who hold to it are wrong, they should also count on His grace.  We cannot judge one another on those things that we hold to or don’t.   We also cannot say that in Heaven there will be no homosexuals, no murderers, no liars, no, you fill in the blank.  Yes, they will all be in their forgiven, perfected, selves, but in their former earth suits, this is what they were.  Judgement is only going to push the un-saved farther from us and our goal in life should be to bring all men into relationship with God.  How can we do that when we are bickering over all the messiness of each other?    And so, while the entire bible is definitely good for us, beneficial in all ways, we need to change our focus to ourselves, follow the 10, love each other, love God and give grace in abundance.  I think when we do this we will find that it is easier to embrace one another and to embrace ourselves in light of how God sees us.

Help!

The definition of help is to make a task easier for someone by offering aid or assistance.  Some synonyms for help are as follows:  assist, aid, relieve, support.

Where does your help come from?

Psalm 121 (ESV)

My Help Comes from the Lord

I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper;
the Lord is your shade on your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time forth and forevermore.

My goal is to study the word of God looking for the word help.  God has promised us help.  All we have to do is ask for it and then claim it.  We can’t be like the guy in the modern parable who is sitting on his roof during the flood.  He asks God for help so God sends a boat.  He turns it down, telling the rescuers that he is waiting for God’s help.  God sends a helicopter, again he rejects the help.  He cries out to God to ask why he hasn’t helped and God tells him, I sent you a boat and a helicopter, what else do you want me to do?

We have to keep our spirit open to receive the help that God sends.  Some circumstances can’t be avoided, but God will certainly help us to persevere through it, and more that persevere, even prosper.

So the theme of most of my posts are going to be about help.  I am going to start in Genesis and work my way through.  I want to see what promises of help God has for us.  It’s important to know so that we can become what God has for us.

Waiting

I’ve been out of the loop the past few days and I really missed writing.  Due to overwhelming, to me anyway, medical circumstances, I have been in too much pain to think clearly.  In fact, I had a couple of different conversations that I don’t remember much of.  Pain does funny things to us, especially our minds.

I really dislike waiting.  Recently, we had to wait for news about a new job for Matthew.  It was in my thoughts every day and I really didn’t enjoy the waiting to hear.  We finally got an answer but the waiting was hard.  God had it all worked out for us.  The plan He had is so much better than what we could have come up with.

Now we are waiting again.  This time about matters of my health.  It’s hard to wait in those situations too.  It’s hard because I am impatient, I am a planner, and I constantly feel the need to be in control of the circumstances.  In this case, I can’t be.  I can’t rush the results, the radiologists, the lab technicians, the doctors, the insurance.  There is absolutely nothing I can do, nothing, except wait in God’s peace.

So, that is what I am doing.  I have to be patient enough with the process and rest that God will hold me until it’s all done with.  For everyone who knows me personally, you know that isn’t easy for me.

I know that I will have to have surgery and I know that things could go terribly wrong in the meantime that could turn it into an emergency.  We are all aware and keeping a very close eye on the situation.  There are other variables that we are still unsure of and I suppose those are the ones that I struggle with the most.  I never have an easy time with unknowns, I suppose there are few of us who do.

This weekend I am clinging to this Psalm:

Psalm 40:1-5 (AMP)

I waited patiently and expectantly for the Lord; and He inclined to me and heard my cry^.   He drew me up out of a horrible pit [a pit of tumult and of destruction], out of the miry clay (froth and slime), and set my feet upon a rock, steadying my steps and establishing my goings.  And He has put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many shall see and fear (revere and worship) and put their trust and confident reliance in the Lord.  Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is the man who makes the Lord his refuge and trust, and turns not to the proud or to followers of false gods.  Many, O Lord my God, are the wonderful works which You have done, and Your thoughts toward us; no one can compare with You! If I should declare and speak of them, they are too many to be numbered.

 

Focus

I have often wondered why I never felt as if I were growing in the Lord, I always felt my failures were much more apparent than my victories.

Recently it has been brought to my attention through the current book and bible study I am doing, as well as some quotes that I have appeared on my Facebook, that it’s because I have focused my thoughts on the wrong things.  Introspection is rarely productive, thinking on your failures and not the goodness of God, to teach you in those moments, is counterproductive to growth.  We can’t see growth if we are focused on our failures.

The enemy wants us to focus on our shortcomings, while God is begging us to see what He is doing in spite of them.  Graham Cooke says it this way, “God doesn’t worry about any mistakes you make. He’s got it all covered. All He’s really asking of you is that you love the learning.”

What a difference that would make in our lives, in my life.  I would actually start to see the growth, the bigger picture.

I am doing a daily bible reading on YouVersion that is excerpts from the Joyce Meyer book, “Battlefield of the Mind”.  I chose this study because of something my mom-in-law said and because it seemed to coincide with the other book I am reading “The Supernatural Ways of Royalty” by Bill Johnson and Kris Vallatton.  I have to say that there are some days that I feel absolutely overwhelmed by what God is showing me.  Yesterday I read only a short part and had my thoughts wrapped up in pondering for the remains of the day.

I was never taught about the spirits that we can be held in bondage by.  Fear is a spirit.  Worry is a spirit.  In Philippians God tells us this,

Philippians 4:8 (AMP)

 For the rest, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is worthy of reverence and is honorable and seemly, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely and lovable, whatever is kind and winsome and gracious, if there is any virtue and excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think on and weigh and take account of these things [fix your minds on them].

Why would God tell us this if He didn’t want us to focus on this instead of that other thing.  Our glory is held captive by all the negative spirits that we are unknowingly agreeing with.  My goodness, why aren’t we teaching these things in our churches?  Why isn’t this mainstream teaching?  I’ll tell you why.  Our enemy wants to kill and destroy us, if he can keep us from learning these things and realizing our true selves, keep us from God’s glory, he will do it and if you think he hasn’t infiltrated good Christian men and women to fulfill his purposes, you are wrong.  See, he’s being held back from physically hurting God’s children, but he can still attack our minds.  He’ll whisper the lies in our ears and we will focus on them and believe them and in doing that, we are agreeing to them.  This can all manifest in physical ways like sickness and depression.  But God tells us something different.

Isaiah 43:1b-2 (AMP)

Fear not, for I have redeemed you [ransomed you by paying a price instead of leaving you captives]; I have called you by your name; you are Mine.   When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned or scorched, nor will the flame kindle upon you.

While our minds our focused on our past sins, our current failures, and our future fears, our enemy has won.  When we are focused on what God is creating, molding us into and focused on our good hearts, the blood of Jesus that is covering that past, God is winning us, healing us, and He is so proud of us!

God encourages us to keep going.

Galatians 6:9 (AMP)

And let us not lose heart and grow weary and faint in acting nobly and doing right, for in due time and at the appointed season we shall reap, if we do not loosen and relax our courage and faint.

This life takes courage and God will give us what we need.  Just remember that our focus needs to be on Him.  Let go of your failures.  He has!

Battling for the Heart

Since posting about my encounter with God in the park, I have struggled to keep a handle on believing in my heart that indeed, my heart is good and God is in fact concerned with the matters of my heart.  I was forewarned that the shift in thought and belief would bring on whatever my enemy could send my way.  A testing, if you will.  The onslaught has been intense and thorough.  Satan tends to attack on all levels and the attacks have been aimed at my relationships, and my security within them.

God tells me one thing and Satan throws in a question.  I am no different from Eve.

“Are you really worthy of love?”  “Do you really believe in your heart that God can heal your heart?”  “Are you sure He gave you peace about that?”

My mind is taken to dark places that I don’t need to venture without God holding my hand and yet, there I go.  When I go there alone I get caught in the snares set for me, tangled in the web of lies that he spins, and then I am scared, forgetting that I can just cry out to Jesus and He will be there in an instant to calm my fears and beat the enemy in the head.  I need to remember that I also have the ability to tell Satan to shut the hell up!

I have also been called to remember certain things these last few days .  I should say that I have been bombarded by specific memories and I wrote them into my journal since I didn’t have time to deal with them right at that moment.  However, I am finding that  because I didn’t deal with them right away, they are waiting for me, and that makes my heart afraid.

Another thing that hit me wrong was a visit to my psychiatrist.  My family doctor doesn’t like to deal with antidepressant management.  So I went to see the psych, explained that I had weaned myself off of the meds, told her my process, and then the question came of “why?”.  I knew that she wasn’t going to get it, but I told her about the book I’m reading, which raised even more questions.  You can’t grasp the concept if you don’t have the Truth in you, and the only reason I am leaping there is because of the condescending tone that was taken in her comments about my “idea” to allow Jesus’ love to heal me.  So, there again, Satan inserting doubt into something God had already done and said.  In my weak state, I bit the fruit.

I suppose all believers, if willing to go there, have been tempted and taken the fruit that was being offered.  Even when the bite is bitter we tend to chew and swallow because we have been taught that it’s rude to spit it out.  Let me get this straight, if you take the bite and then wake up to realize that you are buying into a lie, SPIT IT OUT!  There is absolutely no rudeness involved here.  Better to spit it out than to swallow it and digest it.  Better still is to never take what is being offered.  I think God must be frustrated by all the poisons that I allow to get in there, especially after He just cleaned a bunch of them out.  He will still have the grace to do some more heart cleaning.

I am learning that sometimes you get the complete instant healing from things, and sometimes it’s a battle that is waged for days.  Sometimes, it’s a little of both.  This time, it’s been both.  I suppose that I am learning a lesson here, hopefully one that I don’t forget when I walk away from it.  Just now, I thought of Jacob wrestling with the Angel of the Lord.  Jacob was left with a reminder that he had battled.  Every step that he took, from that day on, was a step that reminded him of the battle that was fought for his soul.

We need those reminders of the battles for our hearts.  God is not satisfied with just part of us, it’s all in.  That doesn’t mean that He is not going to forgive our missteps or give us the time we need to ASK Him to fix our broken places.  Jesus doesn’t go where He isn’t invited.  If I invite Him to fix it, He will be faithful to do so.  I am ransomed by His blood, shed on a cross.  We all are, but we have to be willing to ask Him to come and dine with us.   We have to ask Him to come take residence.  Then we have to ask for Him to heal the broken places and be willing to follow Him wherever that healing needs to go.

The path is not without its rocks and hills to climb, that means it’s not without the valleys.  He wants to take us to higher ground, but getting there means dipping into valleys and climbing some craggy rocks, facing some long hills.  Don’t worry, He’ll be there to catch you, bandage your scrapes, and carry you when needed.  All we have to do is ask.