Light pierces through the darkness. Jesus breaks through our hurt, depression, loneliness, regret, doubt, and fear. There is nothing that can put out the light and there is nothing that can stop our God! Look to the Light in every situation. We are all struggling with something and whatever that may be, stomp your foot down and declare victory to overcome that struggle in the name of Jesus Christ!”
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” -1 John 1:5
Samson at his finest (Taken with instagram)
My cousin Chris died from an overdose on heroin. I haven’t been on here to update but long story short, both of siblings are abusing drugs once again.
My Mom just told my sister “you need to be careful because I don’t want to go through what uncle Tom is.”
I cannot describe how much fear this puts in me.
The phrase ‘used by God’ while now commonplace in the Church and Christian circles, can often be misleading.Many people want to be used by God in ministry or to ‘do His work’.
Many people are still stuck under this performance mindset in which God is seen as a taskmaster they are trying to please and if they just work hard enough or do enough or be enough, they’ll earn the privilege of having Him do mighty works through them.
This just blew my mind to think about.
“Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.”
Taken with instagram
So here’s what happens in the church. I think there are two things that are really wreaking havoc on Evangelicals right now. The first is the Prosperity Gospel which is so dumb it’s hard for me not to attack it weekly. Hebrews 11 says by faith some were made kings, by faith some were made wealthy, by faith some were imprisoned, by faith some were sawn in two, by faith some were killed by lions. So spare me this ridiculous nonsense that if you just have enough faith, you’re going to be wealthy and healthy. That is a fool’s errand that is not found in the Scriptures. Now it is found in the Scriptures if you want to just take that first part of Hebrews 11 and not go down to the bottom part where by faith men were attacked by lions and killed. Anyway, let’s keep going.
Here’s the second problem as I see it, and this one is probably greater than the first. The second problem is the bulk of us have no real affection or pursuit of Jesus Christ at all; we are simply trying to become better people morally. So what we do is look at our past and go, “I’m not the college version of me.” Or some of us are like, “I’m not my dad. I’m a better man than he was.” And we do this comparison thing where we look back on our lives and go, “I’m not as bad as I used to be, so God’s okay with me.” And you’re wrong. That’s not how this works. That’s not what this is. You’re not going to be able to be obedient enough. And even if you can by discipline pull it off, you’re just going to become a religious bigot who uses his morality to beat up everyone else and judge them. So what do you do when you have churches filled with people who have no real love, no real affection, no real pursuit of Jesus Christ when that’s the fulfillment of the promise?
It’s also why I contend so many of us have these circular sins in our lives where they really just own us and we get better for a season and we use all our energy and all our discipline to stay away from this or not do this or not go here and we just hang on and hang on and eventually the grip gives out and we fall back into our sin. Because sin is not conquered by shear discipline, but by a growing love for Jesus that wins out over the power of this thing. I’m telling you, I think that’s why church has gotten so goofy. Because we’re operating out of a system that doesn’t work. “Be good…be good…be good….” Yes, but how? By a single-minded, ferocious pursuit of Jesus Christ. And in that relationship the heart begins to change and that fulfills the law.
Today my pastor talked about how our walks should be personal not private. This hit home for me personally. My walk was always private because I didn’t want someone to know the close things that could be used to hurt me. However this isn’t healthy.
When your walk is private, you don’t open up as you should to others about what’s going on.
When your walk is personal, you have your intimate time with God and are willing to talk to people about it.
In my life, God has told me some important things in our alone time. I fear telling people, especially non-believers, about this because I don’t want to seem crazy. Instead of not telling others and keeping him for myself, I have hurt myself severely. This caused me to slip and forget that I am setting an example.
I need to learn to keep my walk personal, not private, or else it will just keep collapsing.
And I need to rely on God to do the saving, perfecting, and forgiving, while I just do the trusting.
