Hebrews 11: 6 NKJV
I couldn't believe that God would do this to me. Here I was in the middle of some heart breaking situation, diligently lifting prayers for deliverance to my heavenly Father. This is what I had been taught to do in times of turmoil, seek the Lord. I found myself wondering, "where are you, Lord?" I began to have discouraging thoughts that perhaps God was angry with me over some unspoken sin I had commited. After all, God see's everything, right? So, I prayed for Gods forgiveness if I had angered Him in some way. Still, my struggles continued. Had my Savior who had promised to never leave me nor forsake me gone back on His word? For those who have ever been in the situation of desperately seeking God, the you know the struggle I was enduring. So, where was God in the midst of the turmoils of my life? Closer to me than I would have ever thought. As I worked through my situation, the thought never occured to me that my heavenly Father would be there with me. No, there must be something I had done to anger God and that was exactly why I was enduring these troubles. It had to be something with me, God was perfect and He certainly would have helped me when I asked Him, right? I never gave it a thought that God could be in this struggle with me, guiding me through it as I went. No, it had to be something with me. Unfortunately, this is all too often our first reaction when it feels like the prayers we have offered to God have gone unaswered. The reason that I I believed that my own sin had kept God from helping me was due to my own distorted view of Him. In my mind, I was the issue. I had to be, I was a sinner, and God can never be in the presence of sin. I guess it's at this point that I should clarify my condition. See, in Gods eyes I HAD BEEN a sinner. That man which I had been was now dead {Romans 6:6}. That's right, I am no longer a slave to the sins I once lived in. The love of Christ Jesus has assured me of that. So, if it wasn't my own sin which was keeping God from me, what was it? Not a thing. See, we've fallen for the myth that God is somehow seperated from His children. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, the truth of Christ might just be a life changer for you.
20“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."
Galations 2: 20 NKJV
What is the truth of Christ Jesus? The truth of Christ is what I prayed for way back then. As I endured my troubles, I prayed that God would walk with me as I went. Well, He already was. God had not abandoned me in my darkest hour. On the contrary, He drew closer to me as my heart sank searching for Him. The issue I was having had nothing to do with God but how it was that I was seeing Him. I never thought for a minute that He could ever be IN me. Yet, that is exactly where the apostle Paul tells us Jesus is, in us. This is the liberating truth of Christ. For once we realize who Jesus truy is, we are free to live in His love, which has been Gods plan all along. It was never Gods intention that we would live our lives apart from Him. This idea has nothing to do with God and everything to do with church ideology. It is His love for us that removed our sins, that we would be with Him. Even in those darkest hours when we feel that He is far away from us, He is closer to us than we could imagine. The whispers will assault us. "God is holy, He could never be with me, God despises sinners." These are the words of the accuser. Satan has much to gain by having us believe his lie that God is far out of our reach. For once we trust and believe in this lie, our own view of God becomes distorted as mine had once been. Do we believe in the truth, that God indeed is who He claims to be? A rewarder of those who seek Him? Do we trust in the fact that God is love? {1 John 4:8}. Do we indeed have faith that it is God who loved us first? {John 3:16} You might even believe that God looks forward to those times of trouble in our lives because it is here where we draw closer to Him.
~Scott~
No comments:
Post a Comment