Year: 2019

I’m giving up on you

https://youtu.be/wd8t3-QS684https://www.smule.com/p/797364732_2863589621It’s hard when we realize that it is time to move on. Whether we have to give up on a relationship, town we live in, job we work at, hobby that we are involved in, bad habit that we are comfortable with, risky behavior or addiction we are wrapped up in, etc. — it is rarely easy for us to part ways with the old, in order to move on to something new.Even when we have seen the warning signs for a long while — many times, we would much rather see the current circumstance “correct itself” rather than us have to uproot something so central to our own lives and introduce drastic changes.Sometimes “I’m giving up on you” is exactly what we need to say to certain things in our lives that we realize hold no hope for our future and are holding us back from where we need to be. It isn’t an easy thing…We aren’t called as Christians to never walk away. We are called to be mindful of not wasting our time and resources in useless and fruitless pursuits, even as we hold out hope and offer mercy.We are not to remain stagnant and ineffective, but to press on.“Whenever you enter a city or village, search for a worthy person and stay in his home until you leave town. When you enter the home, give it your blessing. If it turns out to be a worthy home, let your blessing stand; if it is not, take back the blessing. If any household or town refuses to welcome you or listen to your message, shake its dust from your feet as you leave. I tell you the truth, the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah will be better off than such a town on the judgment day. “Look, I am sending you out as sheep among wolves. So be as shrewd as snakes and harmless as doves.
Matthew 10:11‭-‬16 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/mat.10.11-16.NLTWhen I wrote to you before, I told you not to associate with people who indulge in sexual sin. But I wasn’t talking about unbelievers who indulge in sexual sin, or are greedy, or cheat people, or worship idols. You would have to leave this world to avoid people like that. I meant that you are not to associate with anyone who claims to be a believer yet indulges in sexual sin, or is greedy, or worships idols, or is abusive, or is a drunkard, or cheats people. Don’t even eat with such people. It isn’t my responsibility to judge outsiders, but it certainly is your responsibility to judge those inside the church who are sinning. God will judge those on the outside; but as the Scriptures say, “You must remove the evil person from among you.”
1 Corinthians 5:9‭-‬13 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/1co.5.9-13.NLT“If another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the offense. If the other person listens and confesses it, you have won that person back. But if you are unsuccessful, take one or two others with you and go back again, so that everything you say may be confirmed by two or three witnesses. If the person still refuses to listen, take your case to the church. Then if he or she won’t accept the church’s decision, treat that person as a pagan or a corrupt tax collector.
Matthew 18:15‭-‬17 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/mat.18.15-17.NLTYou adulterers! Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God.
James 4:4 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/jas.4.4.NLT

Oh Blessed Sickness

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man who had been blind from birth. “Rabbi,” his disciples asked him, “why was this man born blind? Was it because of his own sins or his parents’ sins?”
John 9:1‭-‬2 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/jhn.9.1-2.NLT

Being sick for several days can truly have you amazed that first morning you wake up well.
Some of our greatest blessings go quite unappreciated until we experience their absence.

We have so much to be thankful for that we haven’t even realized or recognized yet!

And if we are living through the realization of a missed or absent blessing that is challenging us today — how amazing it was that we had something so sweet and precious that we can now appreciate it in the trying times. It won’t be dark forever, and whatever blessings you are currently missing won’t be stolen away from you forever. They might just show up to you in the morning in a slightly different form than before.

Let’s be grateful first for today’s blessings and today’s challenging realizations so that we can be gratefully active and humbly reverent — in the right measure and time. Let’s be grateful second for realizing the blessings of days past, for the very same reasons.

And let’s not forget the hope that lies just past the night, the sun breaking through the clouds, the yellow and pink beginning to show on the morning’s horizon as new blessings await.

And mostly of all, let’s not forget ther God from whom all blessings flow, and give Him honor and praise, when He gives and when He takes away. Amen.

——————-

Without the blessed blindness since birth, the man in John 9 wouldn’t have experienced the miraculous healing of Jesus’s spit upon his eyes. Many of us would buy nature rather forgo both the blessed affliction/trial and avoid any thought of God “spitting in my eye” — or we might even encounter the affliction and consider it a curse and say to ourselves, “that God if there is such a thing, has spat in our eye, not blessed us.” Yes, we all have been blind at times to the blessings of revelation that will have eternal consequences, and given up to grumblings instead about our current comfort and ease — not knowing our recognizing what opportunity lies waiting for the hand of God, for the healing power of Jesus, to turn even our current challenge to good.

Trusting in the Lord can see every wall fall, every door torn open, every mountain cast into the sea, and every blessing revealed. Do you want to begin to see how deep the blessings flow in ther Kingdom of God? Do you want to try counting your treasures and find that they all come from the only treasure worth having and keeping?

Do you know that Jesus loves you, and that there is a plan and purpose that you can trust in, because He isn’t seeking to harm you or destroy you but to lift you up to new heights?

“Fall, fall on your knees,

O hear the angel’s voices”

Look to that blessed night, when Christ was born, when God on high took on the lowly flesh of man, to live a sinless life of a persecuted, suffering servant, to die a criminals death so that you can be freed from the bondage of blindness to only what your eyes of flesh could see before — to the glory of ther blessings and mercy of God.