Jesus loves you

Calling God’s Truth To Mind

bible, Christian lifestyle, spiritual formation

“Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope.” – Lamentations 3:21

What a struggle it is to recall the good when everything around us is failing. Perhaps that is my negative perspective, but I am sure I am not the only one who is challenged when people say things like, “Just trust in God, it’ll be okay.” or “God is good, He will work it out.” Oh boy, do those statements rattle me. I get the good intention, but I feel they do not lead to the most peaceful results. Because the reality of an anxious and weary heart is a daily battle against lies that we are truly not strong enough to fight off on our own.

This morning I finished reading Lamentations. Now, I certainly had many thoughts as I read through it, but what struck me most was a reference I found to Matthew 28:20. In this verse Jesus says, “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” In the notes section of my Bible, this verse was used, alongside Deuteronomy 31:8, to support the hope that the author of Lamentations speaks about. Honestly, this caught me off guard, because the verses that end the book are not the most hopeful.

They state: “Why do you always forget us? Why do you forsake us for so long? Restore us to yourself, Lord, that we may return; unless you have utterly rejected us and are angry with us beyond measure.”

Surely this prayer might sound familiar to the ones we cry in our low moments, I know it does for me at least. Which is exactly why Matthew 28:20 nearly brought me to tears. Now I may not be the greatest at seeing the bright side of things, but that does not change what Christ did in the past. Knowing that I would doubt His love, He still gave His life for me.

Whether I ever see another miracle or not in my life, Jesus still went through death and back to express His love and desire for us. What could be more meaningful than that?

The conviction hit hard as I realized this morning, more often than praises, my prayers reflect a discontent heart. Whether it be anxieties, disappointments, fears, or doubts, I have come to a point where my honesty with God stops right there. At simple honesty. Not vulnerability.

A professor once told me that honesty and vulnerability were in fact not the same thing. One (honesty) gives information on the past or present while keeping a wall between us and any change. Kind of like just stating hidden facts. Meanwhile, the other (vulnerability) is to open up about the reality of our situation and actually allow outsiders to influence us through wisdom or discipline.

I wrote a blog about lamenting a long time ago , but I feel I may have become complacent with the freedom of honesty, leaving me to forget the whole point of why lamenting is different and better than complaining. What lamenting does, is “honors the honesty of pain and anger while also honoring the truth that God is the one who reigns and whose hesed love never fails.” (quoted from a book called The Justice Calling).

When we lament, we are to do exactly what we see in Lamentations, which I am sure is surprising haha. Truly though, if you look at the structure of these chapters, we see a pattern of honesty that turns into vulnerability as the author reminds himself of the truth of God’s heart and authority.

Thus, directs us back to the head quote. Lamentations 3:21 states:

“Yet..”, meaning in spite of his reality of despair. “..this..”, referring to the truth about to follow in verses 21-27. “..I call to mind..”, disciplining himself to taking captive his thoughts for the glory of God. “..and therefore..”, surrendering his concerns to the reality of God’s sovereignty over all, “..I have hope.”, choosing to walk in belief that God is who He says He is and will remain faithful to His word.

We have a choice when it comes to our feelings, to either desperately call to mind the truth of God’s love and mercy, or to make room for the lies to take root in our hearts.

Those common phrases that I mentioned aggravate me in the beginning of this blog may actually be the kind of simple truth we need to stop overlooking as “basic” or “shallow”. They may not be specific to our current trials, but that does not make it any less true or powerful.

God is good. His timing is perfect. His love is unconditional. His mercies are new every morning. And surely, He is with us “always…to the very end of the age.”

My dear friend, lamenting is beautiful because it is the practice of being vulnerable with a God who longs deeply for a relationship with you. His truths sound so simple, but they can be some of the hardest things to remember to live in. Yet calling His reality to mind is the only way to win the war against the lies in an anxious and weary heart.

There is a hope we can rest in despite our circumstances because we serve a God who already claimed victory over the lowest, darkest place.

Thoughts to consider:

Would you say that you make room for God’s truth to transform you in your doubts or do you dwell more on your anxieties?

What difference would it make in your life if you started living more vulnerable with God instead of just honest?

What is a discipline you can practice to help store His truth in your mind so that you have a defense when lies begin to overwhelm you?

Consider the growth you could experience in your relationship with God if you started living from His victory instead of trying to dig yourself out of the grave.

“Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope.” – Lamentations 3:21

March Musings: On The Inconvenience of Believing

Christian lifestyle

“For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” – Luke 6:45

Paul Tripp once stated, “I am a man in moment by moment need of the rescuing grace of my Redeemer.”

Such a short statement, captivated me by it’s depth.

The other day, I was sitting and thinking of how to grow engagement in my church when I realized the majority of the complaints I read online from others about various churches were based on things not being convenient enough.

In my research, I read parents complaining about driving their kids to youth after work. I read elders saying the messages weren’t a deep enough exegesis of scripture on Sunday mornings. I read comments about coffee’s not tasting good enough from people who never volunteered a day in their life.

Needless to say, I read a lot of complaints about the church not being convenient enough to satisfy everyone’s needs within the hour and a half service on Sunday morning.

However, I too am guilty of this, as I recall every remark I have made about service being far too early in the morning for me to ever be on time.

If you have not recognized it yet, we as humans tend to blame outside factors for our inconvenienced heart.

But my dear friend, as gently as I can say this…it’s not the church, the traffic, the bad coffee, nor the hassle of attending a small group mid-week that is at fault for your frustrated heart…it’s yourself.

Scripture tells us countless times that to follow Christ, we must deny ourself. That does not just mean holding in our anger at someone who cut us off on the way to work. No, rather, it means going against every desire for self-glorification and immediate satisfaction that our hearts hunger so deeply for.

Paul Tripp, on the topic of communication from the heart, stated that humans have organic consistency. As an apple tree is an apple tree from its roots to its fruit, what we speak is not sometimes “what we did not mean”, rather, it is what our hearts truly felt, but our mouths did not filter.

In Luke 6, we see Jesus compare the way one speaks from the heart to a tree that produces the fruit of it’s nature. Neither man nor tree can produce what is not truly at their core.

Then it hit me. Christianity is not hard because people may mock us.
I have been a Christian for nearly 10 years and can still count on one hand the number of bullies I had that were strictly because of my faith. Nor is Christianity hard because the church makes us join groups or serve in order to grow. Anything you want to do requires a sacrifice of time, so the question for the one who blames the church is this; is your faith not worth the sacrifice?

Those things may be factors that play into the struggle of being a Christian, but the true reason Christianity is so hard, so inconvenient, is because believing requires us to deny the desires that run through our bones and the hunger for immediate gratification and getting what we want, how we want it, when we want it.

The inconvenience of believing is because we are fighting ourselves, trying to convince ourselves of a hope we cannot see.

But the beauty of the Gospel is that we are not alone in this fight. The victory was already claimed by the resurrection of Christ.

The road to Him is narrow, inconvenient, and tight. It will pressure us, it will challenge us, but also discipline us to remain in pursuit of the only path to true life.

I love Luke 24:5, as the angel says to the women who went back to the tomb on Easter, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

Why, my dear friend, do you believe any growth, or new life, will stem from a perspective that the journey with Christ will be convenient in the slightest?

It is not hard because the church requires too much of us, or people think we are silly. It is hard because you made the decision to step out of a lifestyle of death and into one of everlasting life, while still living in a world that has been dead at it’s core since the fall of man.

So as you rationalize a life in pursuit of Jesus, do not seek convenience, seek the only source that can fully satisfy your heart…the only path to life we have. Perhaps the greatest prayer we so often forget to mention is the transforming of our heart, the shifting of our perspective, and the desire to love others more than ourselves.

On the Significance of God’s Righteousness

bible, Christian lifestyle

“God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭3‬:‭25‬-‭26‬ ‭

Shame has been on my mind lately. It is an quite an interesting concept when broken down.

Though our bodies have a survival instinct, when shame is present, it is as if we give that up. Rather than fighting for life, we give into fighting ourselves into this belief that we are not worthy of good, and sometimes, not even worthy of life itself.

Shame holds the power to turn a soul against itself.

Now we have heard the value of God’s love preached a million times over. His love is what drove Him to fight for us even when we rejected Him. But what I recently came across was the significance of His righteousness. His justice. The characteristic that demands the virtuous thing. The just thing.

When I read this verse above, it was not just the cost of my sin that seemed to be forgiven, but also the effects of my sin that were overcome.

Yes, God loves us, and we can rest in that truth. But God also demonstrated His justice on the cross and through the empty tomb.

The cross paid the debt. The cost of our wrongdoings. The punishment we were responsible for.

And the empty tomb revealed that death, and it’s grip on our lives, has no power over those redeemed by Christ.

My dear friend, shame speaks death that has already been defeated. It is rooted in a punishment that has already been paid. And it bounds us in chains that are already broken.

The sacrifice and resurrection was not just the perfect display of love, but the perfect act of righteousness for the sake of making freedom available to those who did not deserve it.

Shame will come often. And as our hearts tends to forget the significance of God’s righteousness, shame tends to distract us from the reality we now live in; the reality of redemption and grace.

This is not that we may walk in our own pride, as Paul says in verse 27, “Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded.”

No, rather, we walk in confidence of the perfect atonement for our sins – being just that…perfect. Forgiveness for our straying, and freedom for our bounded souls.

Daily Death For Eternal Life

bible, Christian lifestyle, encouragement

“Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done.” – C. S. Lewis

I think the mind can often draw us towards two extreme ways of thinking. Either we fall into a place where we see ourselves as god, or we see the things, people, and opinions around us as god. Both, despite sounding like polar opposites, are ultimately places of pride.

Whether we feel inferior or superior in the world we live in, we are constantly being pulled away from the one place we belong, and in turn, tempted to rely on anything BUT God.

I think what makes the idea of living in humble confidence under God so difficult to wrap our minds around completely is because we are called to be surrendered, and in result, raised up and set apart.

When I stumbled across this quote by C.S Lewis, I was honestly not sure how to approach it.

Not having the original context, I struggled to understand if it we ought to take this as a freedom call, from the shame and bondage of sin from our past that we are attacked by, or perhaps, it is meant to be a daily call of repentance from the pride we are tempted to lean into as we long for ultimate control of our lives.

Though I feel both could be broken down, I am going to run with the latter interpretation.

I have heard the saying “rejoice, mercies are new every morning!” as Lamentations 3:22-23 suggest. But lately I have been wondering why we ought to rest in that so much.

Honestly, I have come to notice that I am quite the cautious believer. I don’t take pride in the lack of child-like faith I have, but it is the way my mind works. So, I rather challenge the lies in my head and be sure of truth than try to manipulate myself when I know my brain requires a little more time to catch up to my heart.

So as this verse had been running through my head over the last few weeks, I realized it wasn’t because I felt inspired in my faith by it…no, unfortunately, I actually felt aggravated.

Mercy from God? Okay, I saw that displayed on the cross. Understandable. But NEW mercies. Every. Single. Day? Trying to believe that stirred nothing but guilt. I began feeling the weight of inadequacy, and because of that, a lack of faith that the verse actually included me among those who God desired to forgive.

But then I saw this quote from C.S Lewis that rocked everything.

“Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done.”

God provides new mercies every morning because He knew we would need it.

Track with me here…

Our heart longs for what only God provides. But because of our sin-nature of pride and hunger for immediate satisfaction, we sacrifice God’s plans for our own. We may not notice at first, but that decision means that we sacrifice life for death.

Death is existence apart from God. In a just court, we would be ruled guilty of rejecting Him and in turn, rightfully condemned.

Oh but what a loving God we serve…

Paving a way to be free from the ruling of death, by the sacrifice of Jesus, God revealed His grace on the cross.

But He knew that wouldn’t mean perfection for our future, nor did He expect it to on this side of Heaven.

He knew, that because of our brokenness, there would be times where we would still choose ourselves over Him.

He knew, that even though we love Him, we would cave under the temptation to reject Him.

And He knew, that no matter how hard we tried, we would never be strong enough to live the life He called us to alone.

So God gives new mercies…every single morning. Why? Because He knew we would experience new temptations…every single morning.

When C.S Lewis calls us to rely on Jesus as if nothing had yet been done, I realize it is a call to open our eyes to the reality of the war going on every single day.

Every day we are given the choice of life or death. Truth or lies. Forgiveness or bitterness. Love or shame. Trust or control.

Spiritual warfare is not just in big trials. It is unfortunately the ground our hearts reside in until we see Heaven.

My dear friend, you have your choice in battle. You have a loving God who wants to protect, nourish, and redeem you in this war, for He has already claimed victory.

But the choice is yours. Every. Single. Day.

May we never get complacent in our relationship with Jesus. May we strive, for nothing else, but to be closer to Him day by day. And with all my heart, I pray that we may rejoice in His mercies being new every morning…for if He held back for even just one day, we would never see the glory of true life.

So, will you make relying on God a daily act of surrender?

The Gentleness of Jehovah Jireh

bible, christian, Christian lifestyle, encouragement, Worship

Burnout. I am sure that is a familiar feeling many of us have experienced at some point in our lives. As the responsibilities, classes, workload, bills, and expectations from others pile up so high beyond our vision, there comes a time where the way things are can no longer continue without paying the cost of ourselves. Whether it be our health, time, or sanity, we often trade in a hefty portion of our beings out of fear or for the burden of control.

But what happens when the pile begins to lean? We lose grip. Despite our desire to maintain held together, the weight has become unbearable. We fall. And we fall hard.

The contents in this pile may be from the Lord. They may have been given with great clarity and have resulted in much fruit. But as time went on and our arms began to shake, at just a whisper of temptation and deceit from the enemy, the stack of good things trembles as our fear takes over.

This, my friend, is not a feeling only you have felt. Flip back to 1 Kings 18 and 19 with me…

Elijah, a great prophet of the Lord, faced seemingly one of the hardest days of his life. But surprisingly, it did not follow a trial, loss, or anything of the sort. Rather, it came just after one of the greatest showdowns in history. In chapter 18, Elijah goes to Israel to correct those worshiping foreign deities (baal). In doing so, the prophets of these gods came face to face with Elijah on Mount Carmel to have a challenge. Whichever deity brought fire on the altar they made was the one who they deemed worthy to worship. Long story short, baal did not even make the wind warm, meanwhile God brought a fire so powerful that it engulfed the trench of water surrounding it.

After an awe-striking event like the one just described, you would assume that Elijah was not only amazed, but joyful over the power and faithfulness of his God. But such was not the case.

At the beginning of chapter 19, Elijah is threatened to be hunted and killed by an evil lady named Jezebel. Even after such an incredible act of God, Elijah was fearful. So much so that after running and finding a tree to lay under, he “prayed that he might die.” The verse goes on to say, “I have done enough, Lord…Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.”

How heartbreaking. But also, how similar has it been for some of us to get so overwhelmed and drained that even though we are confident in the power of God, we fall into the taunts of the enemy to give up. To leave it all behind. Or if you’re like me, just numb it all out and seclude yourself.

However it is that we handle our moments of feeling overwhelmed, I want you to pay very close attention to how God responds to Elijah.

After being completely honest with God in his despair, Elijah did not wait for a response, instead, he actually just fell asleep. (verse 5)

But thank goodness we serve a God who is not only powerful, but the most gentle provider. Jehovah Jireh means “the God who provides”. Though this characteristic is often used in reference to the story of Abraham, I feel as though it is also so beautifully exhibited in this scene to come…

Hearing His child cry and seek comfort under the shadow of a tree, scripture immediately goes into revealing the caring heart of
God as the verse reads, “all at once an angel touched him and said, ‘get up and eat.'” with bread appearing over hot coals and a jar of water lying beside it. And so, Elijah did. Then shortly after, he fell back asleep. Honestly, I find this so sweet that with such peace and comfort in the presence of the working hand of God, Elijah doesn’t ask questions or try to pay God back. He just accepts the care and food provided and continues resting.

It is so nice to know that when we come to God, our striving can cease. He knows we cannot properly handle this whole life thing on our own, so my dear friend, please stop making yourself carry a weight not meant for your limited capacity.

Moving on to verse 7, it begins with a patience so wholesome. Revealing God’s understanding of us and our drained hearts, He does not make His angel force Elijah to stay awake after eating and drinking. Instead, there is a moment where God gives Elijah time to sleep before the verse stated, “The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, ‘Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.'”

Wow. I pray in your moments of feeling scattered and empty, you may rest in the loving care of God. He does not condemn us for how we feel. Rather, He does everything He knows will bring comfort and true life into our dying hope.

I encourage you to go on reading through chapter 19 as God eventually ends up speaking in a soft, gentle whisper after Elijah feels strengthened. But for this blog, if you take anything, I pray it is openness you pursue towards the things God wishes to fill you with. Not to preach the false health, wealth, and prosperity gospel, but for the sake of remembering who truly has control.

It wasn’t until Elijah began fearing Jezebel’s threat based on his own strength that he felt overwhelmed and in despair. His focus was lost. Whether it be a common struggle we have to rest in the hope of God’s provision or not, I warn you fellow Christian, that the enemy can so easily slip into even the smallest of cracks in our unbelief. But when, not if, you find yourself in this position of fear or despair, do not push aside the only source of strength and love that is capable of restoring your hope.

God understands your flaws and limits. Yet He still desperately pursues a relationship with you. I pray that you, my dear friend, take heart in the gentleness of Jehovah Jireh. For no other can provide your every need in the same perfectly compassionate approach of Him who came off His throne for you to have a path to redemption.