Last night I had a burden over a friend of mine, a friend I have shared Jesus with in the past. Life can take us on different journeys, and I think we all have seasons of struggle, or we probably haven't lived very long! Struggles help us learn and find breakthroughs. They help us understand HOW God wants us to overcome.
Because I have been around a few years, I have heard a lot of good testimonies and I am blessed for that. What a difference someone's testimony can make to us and help us! They will show you His Word in life and in action! Light can come in for us, to explain things, and widen our horizons.
The internal work makes a big difference, and it is necessary to see us get to "the other side." I think we all want to make Heaven. Christ, the "christos" or "anointing" is IN us who have accepted Him, and it wants to grow in fellowship. Because it has power, it also must have discipline. If we didn't learn to tie our shoes correctly, something little like that could make us stumble, sometimes with injuries.
I know we all have our stories in leaning how life works and sharing that with the Body of Christ is one of our richest and most rewarding experiences. But sometimes, we really do struggle. Sometimes faith is hard.
Do we just point the finger at people and condemn them like we are God's junior partner? Sometimes that will lead US into needing correction! We MUST know the tenets of the faith! We must also work to apply them. We can talk about "exceptions" all day long, but we are a FAMILY of faith, but God is our Father and Jesus is our Elder Brother. And the Holy Spirit is working to encourage us and keep us going! EVERY PART OF US MATTERS.
I have a friend who has struggled in some areas, and I would not be where I am today, if I had not had my own struggles. I remember when it seemed things were going great and then suddenly all these demonic spirits would show up. They used to really buffet me, and I had to learn how to run them off.
Binding, loosing, looking for Scriptures to focus on, just reading the Bible to learn and looking for messages and testimonies to help, we need those. And we can thank God that the internet and church meetings and conferences have opened up a world to us of people who share. We are not alone, but finding the right messages are sometimes the challenge. We don't stay the same, we grow from strength to strength and from glory to glory!
Nothing Like a Breakthrough
There is nothing like a "breakthrough" when the devil does not intimidate us any more in a certain area. What rejoicing! Then we mature and find some are truly happy for us and some are not! Wow, that is a kaboom when they aren't!
But then sometimes we take things for granted and want everyone to stop what they are doing and notice us and have compassion for us! Oh, what a snare because the devil has gotten trickier, but the Lord is really trying to show us a greater glory. After some maturing, just like a teenager, we can think that now we know it all, because we have discovered some of "our power."
And of course, we reason, we are not stupid, and work has been required of us so we should have some benefits! And truly we have been given some, but we may not be carrying the full weight. God has ways of showing us that we need Him.
And WE have to learn that we need HIM more than we need "other people" because sometimes some of that is for show and comparison We want to be "great" and "significant" and we forget Jesus in that process! We have learned the tricks to the trade, so to speak, but look at other's personalities more than His and our own. Uh oh, fact check! but by the Lord.
Maturing in the faith is a challenge and having been around a while, I know that people struggle and stumble as I myself have. Not always in the same ways, but the working of the Spirit INTO us is a battle. But God is not a Father without helping us when our eyes are on Him.
I was thinking about my friend last night and the struggles, and I got these different waves of emotions. It kept me awake for a while. Because I am not "all knowing" I had to ask God to help me understand what I was experiencing. He started speaking to me about commitment to Him.
We can take a lot of things for granted when we have not gone through a lot of changes for a while. Stability is such a luxury we learn! But sometimes we try to bring in the old wrongs with the new good and God is not going to go for it. Wow.
Last night the Lord spoke and said, "I went to the Cross to pay for your sins. But if you or someone else takes that for granted, you become My enemy. It's as if it didn't happen, or didn't matter, and it's like the Story has changed." It's like crucifying Him afresh or again.
Wow, I was starting to get His point. We all want to make excuses for those we love, including ourselves! Some have gospels that are all about self-hate but that is not the true gospel. But just as wrong as that is the gospel that we call the "greasy grace" where people overlook their sins and still claim God.
Now I don't know if all this was about my friend that I haven't seen in a while, or my understanding. It doesn't matter to me, what I needed was to understand how it works. When I got the perspective right, the peace came. But He went on to further explain His position and I know that was for maturing me.
An Honest Relationship
He wanted to emphasize to me that if He fought for me and if I acted like it was nothing, then I cheapened Him. Now I know some people who have become experts at lying, but this is about honest RELATIONSHIP with Him. Passing Him off for small things was what Judas Iscariot did, the one who betrayed Him.
Jesus is not a decoration, or a one-time earned badge, He is a relationship with a mighty and holy God! He has power but it WORKS when the terms are understood. The amazing thing is that He WANTS to work with us, but we are not a "thing" to Him and other people should not be "things" either.
We can experience God and know Him and then act like we are the experts. Somewhere, humility took a vacation. Sometimes big things CANNOT happen because part of the formula is missing! I can use the example of missing sugar in a cake, or how about a missing part in the structure in an airplane or bridge you drive over!
God is LIFE for us! I remember having a flight delay one time and being upset, and then they said they were checking the hydraulics. I thought, "Take your time, take your time!"
Sometimes people count on us, but we aren't there for them, or sometimes they aren't there for us! Now we are dealing with "issues" and sometimes we can have wrong expectations! Sometimes things happen that we don't see, and this is WHY we have to continually keep working to hear His Voice, for us AND for others.
Not only that, but our faith has to require of us that He CAN bring good in the face of evil, even in overcoming victory. Again, people fail, they have and they will, and so will we! But God is going to do His part and be the Rock, the pillar of strength and integrity, the Word that does not fail, the Living Spirit of strength and power.
If others play Him off, it does not mean that He failed. When we honor Him for Who He really is, then He can be a deliverance and a breakthrough for us because we are in faith. We learn the beauty and power of repentance, but for Him, it has to be true. Would we want it any other way?
Our faith is not just poetic words. It is not just skills in speaking or writing or singing or preaching or even in creating. It is the honor of the relationship that matters, the grace we receive and give to others, but most of all the discerning of the integrity He really has and is. Keep believing! There are rewards!
Pam Clark
