"Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live." (John 5:25 KJV)
"Praise the Lord; praise God our Savior! For each day he carries us in his arms. Interlude "Our God is a God who saves! The Sovereign LORD rescues us from death." (PSALM 68:19-20 NLT)
If you needed to place a reason for the pressing forward, even through great pain and suffering, it would and should be the fact that we can! Even in the face of death, we can press forward, without fear and without loosing the joy of our salvation. As a matter of fact, we have every right to rejoice and praise the Lord, when we are facing death, because that is the time we really get to experience the power, the mighty wonder working power, of Christ Jesus our Lord!
I know that there are things that hinder us from living out the joy and peace which the Lord has given us; I live it, I deal with it, and I ask forgiveness for it, almost every day. Mostly because I let it keep beating me up, day in and day out, almost constantly! I have asked God to change me so many times, it has almost become a habit. Shout and bark, then ask God for forgiveness; it is really beginning to get old, the older I get.
That said, I know for a fact that it is the enemy that brings these stupid little issues around; most of which, have nothing to do with anything that even matters, but for some reason or another, they seem like they are there just to ruffle my feathers. Looking back, it would be really funny, if there were not for the other people that get in the line of my fire. As James clearly says, "Indeed, we all make mistakes. For is we could control out tongues, we would be perfect and could also control ourselves in every other way." (James 3:2 NLT)
Regardless of all these personal issues, I know that I can get pricked easily by small little issues; but I also know that big and hard to handle issues are the things that don't bother me. Odd or weird as that is, it is the absolute truth. Those little things can get under my skin because I take them on in my flesh, usually without even realizing what I am doing; but the big-ticket items, they go straight to the throne of God!
It's a start; but I'm still a work in progress...
"We have an altar from which the priests in the Tabernacle have no right to eat. Under the old system, the high priest brought the blood of animals into the Holy Place as a sacrifice for sin, and the bodies of the animals were burned outside the camp. So also Jesus suffered and died outside the city gates to make to make his people holy by means of his own blood. So let us go out to him, outside the camp, and bear the disgrace he bore. For this world is not our permanent home; we are looking forward to a home yet to come." (Hebrews 13:10-14 NLT)
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