DON'T WORRY, BE HAPPY!

During the formative years, humans are cautious about life until the time experience has set in and lessons are learned anywhere from joy to sadness, hurt or excitement.  The older we get however, inhibitions become less and less a nuisance in our lives because we care less and less about what people say about us behind our backs.

But then there are those who never get past that stage.  They continue the charade throughout their lives perhaps worried that others get a glimpse on their deepest, darkest secrets.  They never really get to relax and everything they fear is suppressed and tucked neatly into their psyche.

The devil is the sinister master of fear.  He clamps his icy cold talon fingers around your heart and you become fearful of what he can do to you if you take a stand for God and fight your own inhibitions and truth against him.  

God will take care of us.  In Joshua 1:9 states, "Be strong and of good courage, be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest."  

To fear is to sin against God because you are pretty much affirming that God doesn't have enough power to rid you of fear.  You underestimate His ability to give you grace and peace.  

It is an incredible light bulb moment that I realize that fear should be confessed as sin.  Asking the Holy Spirit to show you what your fears are, confess them as sin, repent, then reach up and take hold of His right hand that is outstretched to sustain you and give you the victory!

Don't ever be afraid.  Fear is an insult to God, who said, "I will be with you."  Fear will destroy you.  Make a choice, destroy fear instead.

Until my next rant... LOVE ONE ANOTHER!

R.I.P. PRINCE ROGERS NELSON

We pause this week to remember a musical genius but not only that, he has touched and inspired the world with Love and died a follower of Jesus Christ.  Heaven gained another awesome soul.

A Cup O' Wisdom

A forced smile, a blank stare with dead eyes, a response to a question that honestly, doesn't make any sense at all.  This is what I get sometimes when I have a conversation with empty people these days.  If the subject isn't makeup or the Kardashians, I might as well be speaking Vulcan.  (For those of you who are unfamiliar, this is the language that Spock spoke on Star Trek.)

I don't know if it is due to information overload that some people refuse to make an effort to consistently analyze the world around them or did our educational system fail?  I know first hand that teachers do try but disengaged parents undo all the school's hard work on children as of late.  It is such a shame that the wisdom of the people from past generation is on its way to extinction.  

Perhaps it is the sign of the times, when biblical prophesies are now reality.  Everywhere I look I see that the Book of Revelation is at hand.  No one trust anyone anymore.  Trust is a fictional ideal, integrity is a figment of the imagination and the dying breed of humanity is manifesting itself.  Good people are the gerbils on a wheel exerting that much effort to keep from reacting in a way that is not acceptable from the provocation of politically correct demands of society.

Indeed, without sounding too much like gloom and doom, we have reached the age of gloom and doom, whether we look at life positively or not.  

Among these chaotic times though, there is still that hope.  The hope in Jesus Christ.  The Christ who will wreak havoc on this planet in one blink of an eye, unannounced, to punish those who arrogantly blaspheme and mock His name and the sacrifice of His Life!  Oh how I long for that day to come and look forward to my own salvation, not so much to see unrepentants suffer but to see that all of these toil and turmoil today is not for naught because Jesus Christ will save us.

Until my next rant... LOVE ONE ANOTHER!  

Faith and Patience

It's 2:15am and He says, "Write the blog post" so who am I to refuse to do so?  Anyway, it is a very warm night and with this hot flashes, who can sleep anyway?

This post is about Hebrews Chapter 11.  Yesterday, it popped up on YouVersion and it started out to say, "Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.  Through their faith, the people in days of old earned a good reputation..."  

The people the Bible refers to are the ones from the beginning whose faith was so strong that they overcame all obstacles, because God had their backs.  Starting with Abel's offering to God his choice harvests, to Enoch not dying but instead raptured by God, to Noah who, against all odds and jeers of his peers built a humongous arc and saved the animals two by two (can you just imagine how much the people were laughing at this crazy old man?), to Abraham obeying God by leaving to go to the promised land and then having to "almost" kill his precious son because God asked him to.  It goes on Isaac, Joseph, to Moses and the list goes on and on. 

Just because the Bible has been bound to be the final cut, people of strong faith continued throughout the ages.  Faith is the thread that continued all throughout the generations and kept Jesus' purpose for us alive.  Even though the skeptics say that the Bible was written by humans, the miracles keep happening, God continues to use simple people to keep the testimony of Jesus alive, that He is the Savior of the world.

But I digress, perhaps from lack of sleep.  It's ok, I will come back to my point.  The whole point of Hebrews 11 that Faith denotes much more than believing in the Almighty God.  It encompasses the very core of life.  Precious lives of the faithful mimicking Jesus' offering of His own life to save ours.  When you live like Jesus lived, being faithful means you are damned by the world.  The world that doesn't or refuses to understand the true essence of being faithful to the Almighty God.    Christians are tortured, even to this very day, beheaded.  Christians gamble their own earthly lives in exchange for a perfect eternal life.  This world has nothing for them.  It cannot offer the true happiness of God's provision.  So we endure the sneers, the jeers, the physical pain and even death because of what we look forward to.  The grand prize awaits us if we stay faithful.

I love verse 39, speaking about those mentioned above and all others who have gone before us, "All these people earned a good reputation because of their faith, yet none of them received all that God had promised.  For God had something better in mind for us, so that they would not reach perfection without us."  They are all waiting for us, in heaven because one day, we ALL will reach perfection and happiness both  body and soul in the eternal and everlasting glory of God through Jesus' sacrifice!  That is so beautiful.  Praise God!

Until my next rant... LOVE ONE ANOTHER!

FORGIVENESS

Perhaps the most favorite theme for me to write about is forgiveness.  To forgive is powerful.  It is the very essence of who God is.  If God didn’t forgive our sins, we are all doomed even before we were born.  I can’t even imagine what that could be like nor do I even want to imagine.  

Along with forgiveness is humility.  Realizing that I am not God would be the first step in the act of forgiveness.  Of course the presence of hurt is a factor.  We falter as humans, we are also prideful.  But if we earnestly believe that a merciful God exists and wants to be first place in our lives, we are able to give our lives over to Him and let him deal with our issues.  Similarly, we should openly confess and examine our own faults, submit to God and be willing to make the change.  Lastly, we need to evaluate all of our relationships, offer forgiveness to those who have hurt us, make amens for harm we have done.

So why forgive?  Why not just forget about the people we don’t want to have anything to do with because of the hurt they’ve caused?

Because resentment is not effective.  In unforgiveness you become resentful and bitter.  “To worry yourself to death with resentment would be a foolish, senseless thing to do.” Job 5:2

God has forgiven us so we need to do the same to others and because we will need forgiveness in the future.  “If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you.  But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins.”  Matthew 6:14

But how?  What are the steps in forgiving?  First we have to admit our hurt and then confess it.  Some of us go through other ways such as repressing the hurt, ignoring the hurt or suppressing the hurt.  None of which work.  To forgive, we need to release the power of those who have hurt us in our life.  Then we need to release the offender.  Pour out your heart then forgive that person using an empty chair, or write a letter you don’t intend to mail.  Lastly, pursue God’s peace.  It is the kind of peace that when experienced, is far more wonderful than any human mind can understand.  Philippians 4:7

Alternatively, if you are the one who caused another’s hurt, you need to make amends. How?  with humility, without excuses, with no exceptions, with restitution and with sensitivity.  Then refocus your life on doing God’s will.

This is a very tall order for sinful and imperfect people such as us but to be honest, once you have made a decision to be godly, you are inspired to always do the right thing!  We are all works in progress, but the least we can do is make an effort for God, right?

Until my next rant… LOVE ONE ANOTHER!!