Guilty or Not Guilty

The feeling of guilt is something we all face, Christians and non-Christians alike. In some schools of thought, there shouldn't be any guilt in the life of a Christian, since, Christ died on the cross for our guilt, our shame, most importantly our sin. But, what brings us to repent? What brings us to know that the way we've been living is wrong? Very simple, conviction. And from conviction, can, and should, come some guilt for what we've done.
     But, what about the other type of guilt? The guilt that holds you down, weighs on your heart so heavy that you want to hide your face in a pillow forever? That is something that is not healthy. That is guilt from condemnation. There is a huge difference between conviction and condemnation. Conviction says, man, I really messed up, I was wrong, but I am going to learn from it and with God's help I know I can do better. Condemnation is, I messed up. I am stupid, a loser and will never be able to do anything right. Now you may have experienced condemnation from a friend, parent, teacher, guardian, etc. This guilt that you're feeling from that act is something you should pray that God lift right now. And you don't have to feel guilty about coming to God about it, at all. There is no hiding it. He already knows, and it's ok to go to him.
     As you may or may not know, the primary ministry and goal of this blog is to reach out to the people battling depression, the abused, the broken, the scarred. I want to end with something so very important. You will have people telling you how you can and can't feel. Well, something I learned a long time ago. Never apologize for what you feel. Your feelings aren't the problem, even if you feel something for a stupid reason. You need to work past it and yes there are times you shouldn't feel certain ways, but when you do, the point is, you do. And nobody should invalidate that. They should help you through it and help you to handle it in a way that is beneficial to you and others involved. It's not how you feel that is the problem, it's what you do to handle it. Don't ever let anyone make you feel guilty for being sad, or angry, for having emotions. But instead, if you know Christ, take those feelings to him and he will give you peace, that only he can give. I pray this encourages all of you. May the peace of God be with you. Hold your head high and remember that Christ died for you. He made it so you don't have to hide from God. You can come to him with anything and lay it at his feet and leave it there. It's that awesome!

I'm back!

It's been too long since I've blogged. This past year has been a great, all be it, difficult, very difficult year. A little background. I had been doing a series on verbal abuse called When Hell Comes to You. You can read parts 1 and 2 if you go back further in this blog. Then... I just stopped. I didn't fully realize why I stopped when I did, but honestly, it was for 2 reasons. The first was time and just being completely consumed by other things. The second and biggest reason was that, I have taken several backsteps in my healing. I felt that I couldn't write a blog on learning to heal, without being healed. God convicted me for a long time and it's taken me until now just to be able to find time and strength to write this. But I look back and I realize something I said in my introduction to that series, that in my trials I'd forgotten that God didn't intend this blog series to be written just for me, but for others that he could use all of us to help with each others' healing in some way. So, first thing's first, that series will be continuing very soon. Second, I'm going to be doing posts inbetween that have nothing to do with the series, so that I can pace myself with it, making sure I seek God on how to word things, as I would do for everything I post here. I pray any new readers, or those of you who have read this in the past would know one thing. If you read back to my first post, you see the mission, the calling that God put on my heart for this blog, first to lift up Christians who are battling depression and to provide everyone else with the only way out. Jesus is absolutely for you. He loves you and that goes for everyone. All he asks is that you come to him and follow him. I pray that God would bless you in your situation, throughout this week. I also pray that the Lord would have his hand on this blog, that I would only say what he wants me to say. Check back often. Things are going to be picking up. May the peace of the Lord be with you all.

When Hell Comes to you Part 2 Do Words Matter?

You've heard the phrase, "Sticks and stones will break my bones but words/names will never hurt me." You may have been taught that words are just... words. Well let's look at what Scripture says about words before continuing further.
Proverbs 18:21 (Nlt)
The tongue can bring death or life;
those who love to talk will reap the consequences.
We need to be very, very careful of what we say to others. Words can encourage, or they can curse. God gave us mouths to glorify him and to lift others up in encouragement, and to correct one another in love. Yet so many people use their tongues to destroy a person's self-worth, to distort one's view of God and to manipulate a person into guilt. Let's examine some other verses.
James 1:26 (Nlt)
If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless.
God's not looking for lip service from us. He wants real, pure hearts with a desire to serve him. He wants obedience and love. We encounter many who use his name for personal gain however, and use his name to cause friction in a family or household. Verbal abuse is not only vocal but it's spiritual! That's what many people don't understand. You don't just say something when you abuse verbally, you start something. It may start out as a small problem, but it leads to bigger ones. Let's examine one more Scripture. Some encouragement for victims of verbal abuse directed at you because of your faith in Christ.
Matthew 5:11-12
“God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are my followers. Be happy about it! Be very glad! For a great reward awaits you in heaven. And remember, the ancient prophets were persecuted in the same way.
Remember that you brothers and sisters in Christ are blessed, despite what anyone says about you or your Savior. I have personally experienced this so many times. The "natural" reaction is to lash out against the mocker and say, No! You have no right to say this! But the best thing we can do is go to the Lord in prayer and ask him to help us maintain an attitude of peace and that he would cover us. Father, I ask right now that you would reach out to the hearts of both the abused and the abuser. It is important Lord for both of us to realize the power of words, for the abuser to realize what his words do and how much they can hurt, and for the abused to remember not to throw the same abuse at the abuser. It's so, so, so hard Lord, but you give us strength to fight through this. You give us hope and encouragement that you loved us then, you love us now and you will continue to love us. In the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.

When Hell Comes to You (Introduction)

     Abuse. It's something you hear a lot about in our society. Domestic abuse, child abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, unfortunately sometimes spiritual abuse, verbal abuse? What? Yes, verbal abuse! This is more than just your average everyday name calling on the playground, or sharing a laugh with someone and throwing jabs at one another, this is painful. It's the regular attack of someone's self-worth, or the use of horrible words to manipulate someone's emotions. If you read the very first post I ever did in Out of the Ashes, I told you this blog was going to go to dark places. And you may not think this is one of them, but it is. There are so many people that have had their lives ripped in two by verbal abuse. It not only affects self-worth but it stirs up emotions to the point that one is unable it seems to control how he/she thinks because those words ring over and over in their heads. I'm not here to compare one form of abuse to another, but verbal abuse leaves scars that people don't always see! I say this, because like so many others, I have been affected by this. God has been and still is working on me to heal me and I believe this blog series will not only help me heal but God is going to use me to show others, we can overcome this. There is freedom from the pain it causes. There is freedom in Christ Jesus from the guilt, the shame, the discouragement, the death! May this blog challenge all who read it and I pray God's blessings on it. Lastly, I pray for his strength and guidance as I write this series. Because the one thing I want to make very clear throughout this whole series is that even though it will take dark, sometimes angry turns, I love my abuser, and it took me a long time for me to say that, a very long time. In a later post I will show how God brought me to a place of being able to love, but for now, may this series challenge you, and encourage you as well.

Priorities...

As I began to read the Word today, God led me to Luke 14. As I read this I was deeply convicted. Let's look at particularly verses 16-24. This is the parable of the dinner. I would encourage you to turn to this section in your Bible as I am only going to give a short paraphrase. Jesus speaks of a man, who threw a big banquet. Many were invited to this banquet, and many had accepted. But, when asked to come, they started making excuses as to why they couldn't come. The banquet was ready, but they weren't. One man said, I bought a piece of new land and I need to go out to look at it, excuse me please. One man said, I have bought a new ox and I want to try him out, excuse me please. Another said, I just got married. I need to spend time with my new bride, excuse me please. Then the man who had been sent out to tell them the dinner was ready came back to the master of the household. Angrily the master told him to go out into the streets, and bring the less fortunate, the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame. The slave said, master, this has already been done and there is still room. So the master instructed him to go out into the hidden places, the hedges and highways and tell those people to come. Because those people that were originally invited didn't come, they shall not have a taste of my dinner, but these people will.
Wow, let's see what happened here. Jesus is speaking of when we are invited to attend to God's blessings, to become like him, to take part in his divine nature. Some of us (and this is where my conviction came in) have accepted this invitation, but when the time comes to attend, other priorities get in the way -- idols. Think about this. We tell God, excuse me please, I have other things that are more important. Yikes! Really? I just said that to God? Yes I did. And so have all of us. It doesn't matter how many times we've put God on the back burner. God's not keeping score of how many times we commit this sin, but that we sinned in the first place. But He wasn't done with me, He then took me further into the chapter. Let's move to verses 26-27. Once again this is Jesus speaking. Before we go into what the passage says, let's turn to a part of a commentary I was reading after I read the passage. This is taken from that commentary.
So Jesus calls for a follower who will hate his mother and father, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life. The point of the list is that no other relationship is first for a disciple. "Hate" is used figuratively and suggests a priority of relationship. Jesus is first. To follow Jesus means to follow Jesus, not anyone or anything else. A disciple is a learner, and the primary teacher in life is Jesus. This total loyalty is crucial, given the rejection and persecution that lie ahead. If His followers care more about family than about Jesus, when families are divided under pressure of persecution, they will choose against Jesus. This is what lies behind Jesus' remarks. Discipleship is not possible if Jesus is not the teacher.
Well, the commentary basically paraphrases the passage. As a new Christian, I used to have problems with the word "hate" as it is used here. Now that God has grown me into something more, I see just what this means. This commentary confirms this. In order for one to truly follow Jesus, he must "carry his cross", which means, we put Christ first, and we suffer what he suffered, we bare what he bared, we face the same rejections that he faced. No relationship, not family, not job, not anything must come before him. Our very lives must be thrown down. I ask you readers today. What is your excuse? What is keeping you from the blessings of God? We as the body of Christ need to make sure our priorities are in order. If we really are disciples of Christ, we must repent because we have not put him first, above everything.

When "Love" isn't Love.

Love seems like such a simple word doesn't it? Love! It's what you feel for your family--what you feel for your girlfriend/boyfriend or husband/wife. But... it's more than that. The world tries to make love out to be this magical, almost invincible state of tolerating others actions. If you love someone (according to the world), you'll always try to make them happy and you never say anything that could hurt their feelings, even to the point where punishment is looked at like it's hatred even if it's meant to strengthen the one who receives it. In this little box we believe we've defined love, however, this isn't love at all. So, what is it? For this answer we go to the Word of God.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 says the following: (taken from the NASB, with my emphasis)

4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails.

What does this mean then? It is so very important to have a correct understanding of love. We must understand how to love others, how to love God, and how God shows love to us. This is so crucial. You can't miss this. The most awesome act of love that God could possibly show us was found at the cross, where Jesus died for our sins. There is no greater love than this.

But... what is the wrong understanding of love? It happens when we enter into a way of thinking that says because we love, we can't correct, we can't hold someone accountable for their actions. Let me remind each of you who reads this (also myself) that Christ's death on the cross saves us--absolutely, but, if we don't accept it, we will be held accountable for our unbelief. There must be accountability in love! There must be discipline. God is the perfect Father. It's very difficult for some of us to think of God as our Father sometimes, because some didn't grow up with a father, or they had a horrible relationship with their dad. Nonetheless, God is our Father, and in some cases when our father isn't an example of what he should really be, God stands as the Father we dreamed we had. He loves us so much that he'd adopt us into his family. But how do we show him we love him? One word, obedience. If we love God, we follow him and keep his commandments. And how does he love us? He is our constant, our comforter, our strong tower. And since he is our Father, he also disciplines us.
Hebrews 12:6 says, "FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES,
AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES." Love means caring enough about someone to not only lift them up, but also caring enough to warn, to correct, to make one humble. Love is not tolerant. Out of grace comes love, which requires accountability and discipline. This is the love I know, God's love for us. This is the love we as Christians must show others. So today I challenge you. Are you looking for love? Or are you looking for someone to tell you everything's ok when it's really not. Having the wrong understanding of love can cripple you spiritually and emotionally. Read this and pray for God's love to overwhelm you. God wants you to love Him with everything, because He gave everything for us.

God! Where are You?

The question we've all asked... Christians ask it when we can't see Him, unbelievers ask it when they see "bad" things happen, and I can not tell you how many times even I've asked it. In the blackest of blackness, we go through trials, we breathe in nothing but sorrow and anxiety, and we ask Where Is God?

My friend and GoFM Founder, Kevin, wrote a post fairly similar in nature to this called, "The Need for Sorrow." The following quote from this article does well to answer this question and, more importantly, how we view our trials.

"First off we have to realize we can't BLAME God for these things. Without free will, love cannot exist. Being that God gave us free will He cannot control our actions without revoking it and forcing us to love Him. This free will of ours also leads to free will of others... You make a decision to go to the store at late hours and a person in the same area makes a decision to rob you at gunpoint. You are not at fault, but neither is God."

And what if we stop... listen... look around for a bit... And what if we take into consideration everything we know about our Father in heaven. He is a soverign fortress. He will never leave us nor forsake us. He cared enough about us to send His Son to die for us. That's a lot of love. He sees your pain, He sees that trial or the trials you are going through, broken homes, broken bodies in need of healing, broken lives. The message is... God is able to bring you through this, not because He has to, but because He wants to. Where is God? Right where He always has been, looking at you no different than He did yesterday... as His beloved, His treasure, His child, His friend.