Cogitations

Dead and Gone

2012-01-22T06:09:00.000-08:00

“You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, Do not resist the evil man [who injures you]; but if anyone strikes you on the right jaw or cheek, turn to him the other one too. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your undershirt (tunic), let him have your coat also. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two [miles].Give to him who keeps on begging from you, and do not turn away from him who would borrow at interest] from you. You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy; But I tell you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, To show that you are the children of your Father Who is in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the wicked and on the good, and makes the rain fall upon the upright and the wrongdoers [alike].For if you love those who love you, what reward can you have? Do not even the tax collectors do that? And if you greet only your brethren, what more than others are you doing? Do not even the Gentiles (the heathen) do that? You, therefore, must be perfect [growing into complete maturity of godliness in mind and character, having reached the proper height of virtue and integrity], as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Matthew 5:38-48

So I’ve had several conversations this week that made me think of these verses.

How hard is this to put into practice?

It is so easy for me to TELL you how you should respond when you are the one who has been hurt by someone but when it is me? How do I respond? Sadly, I do not always respond with love towards those who have been unloving to me.

The truth is that I want to, but then there is that whole sin thing that I struggle with.

The harsh reality is that it sucks to do the right thing, to turn the other cheek, to love as He loved and give till it hurts. Let me clarify. In the moment, it sucks, it hurts, it is painful, but only because you are mortifying your flesh. It is so opposite everything your flesh and the world tells you to do that it sometimes produces in you a physical reaction, or at least it does in me.

The question posed at the end of that passage is this: What more than others are you doing?

Isn’t that the point? That we who call ourselves Christian should resemble Him in our actions? Shouldn’t we love the unlovable and forgive the unforgivable? Aren’t we are called to live lives that show we’ve been changed?

However, its because we ARE Christians that our lives SHOULD reflect that our focus is not on the trappings of this earth but on the heavens, where our real home is. That doesn’t mean it will be easy, or that in the doing we secure our “spot” in heaven.

Charles Spurgeon said it like this:

“Precepts are not given to us as a way to obtain life, but as the way in which to exhibit life. The commands of Christ are not upon the legal tenor of "this do and live," but upon the gospel system of "live and do this.”

For me, it is all about swallowing that bitter pill called pride. How many times are we to forgive? Is it literally only seventy times seventy? Do we have the right to avenge any wrongs done to us, really? Isn’t Scripture pretty clear, that vengeance belongs to God alone? We have a shining example of how to respond to those who would mistreat us, those who would gossip about us, and those who would spitefully use us.

I know, you aren’t Jesus, I'm not either.

Trust me I struggle with this more than I want to admit, but it is something I needed to blog about. I think as believers we need to be honest about our struggles. There are times it gets overwhelming, and seems too hard (despite the promise of I Corinthians 10:13) and you just want to withdraw into yourself and check out of “all this”. Because THIS is not what you signed up for.

You feel abandoned by God and man and you ask yourself, “Why I am doing this again?”

I’ll tell you why:

Because Christ did this for YOU. He did this for ME. He came and ate with sinners. He was perfect, he had no reason to sully his garments, and yet He strode through this mess we made and became oh-so-muddy as He sought out each one of His own. As they beat Him and jammed that crown of thorns on His head He said it is finished, He was thinking of US.

We don’t have to live in the mess any more.

His act lifted us out of the muck and mire and gave us a hope that our lives have purpose and meaning. That some day we would see God face to face and instead of killing us He would call us sons and daughters.

It is for THIS reason that I continue to DO what Christ commands me to do,however imperfectly, and in the doing I become His arms, his feet, and I share His heart with those who may or may not know that they need it. Some day though, as they look back over their lives, I believe those acts done for Christ as a sacrifice of my self will stand out to that person. To the one who meant to harm me, the one who said an unkind word or who with held comfort from me when I was at my weakest, a memory will float in and they will know there is a God, not because of me, but in spite of me.

There is a rapper who wrote a song a while back that I really enjoyed. In it he talked about all of the senseless fighting that stemmed from pride. This hook from the song for me, says it all:

"I turn my head to the east, I don’t see nobody by my side

I turn my head to the west, still nobody in sight

So I turn my head to the north, swallow that pill that they call pride

The old me is dead and gone, the new me will be alright"

The implication to me is that you’re only accountable to ONE, and He’s told you how to respond to hurts and abuses. Remember the old you? Dead and Gone. The new you? You’ll be all right.

;)

But God has Shown Me...

2012-01-18T09:43:00.000-08:00

It has been quite some time since I have blogged. As you can see I have removed everything that was previously posted on my blog and retreated into a dark silence. While I was there, in silence, and at times confusion, God has been dealing with my heart. Some how, some way God manages to take all of my confusion, all of my anger and all of my why’s and use them for His glory. I am not sure how or what triggered my decent into silence, but I have my suspicions.

I grew up in a family that was dysfunctional. One of my sisters and I joke now that our family put the FUN in dysfunctional. The reality is, is that my extended family, the one I was born into, is broken. That brokenness remained even after I became a believer. I was being made whole, but my extended family members were not. While I was being made whole, I had not yet developed the skills needed to interact with them. As a new believer I was quite obnoxious. I was constantly quoting the bible AT them, refusing to associate with them because of their sin and when I did interact with them I believed that in order to be a good witness I needed to take whatever abuse was heaped on me without a word.

The churches I attended early on did not do a very good job preparing me on how to interact with my family, after Christ. In fact, they encouraged me to cling to them, the church body, as my new “real” family and shun my extended family, because after all, they are/were sinners.

The more I became involved in the church, the more isolated from the real world I became. Unbeknownst to my naïve heart, the church is full of sinners too. There are people in the church who are actively involved in their sin and doing absolutely nothing about it. There are also wolves. Those are the folks who can speak as Christians, act as Christians, but who are not Christians and who are looking for weak or naïve Christians (like I was) to take advantage of.

Enter, our former Pastor.

To be honest I am not sure where he falls on the spiritual spectrum, and it is not really my place to say. I can only speak from my own experience with him and from what I experienced; I still believe he is a wolf, patiently awaiting his next victim. When the reality of the situation was thrust upon me in a hotel room in Arkansas where I was supposed to be getting training to become a biblical counselor, I realized that something was terribly wrong, with me, my marriage, my “brand” of Christianity and our church.

The other men who were in leadership were EIT’s as I like to call them, but actually Elders in training. The previous Pastor did not like sharing the mantle of authority with anyone else, but after several years, a church split and many conversations with me and his wife he finally agreed. The EIT’s slowly began to realize what had happened to me and as I began to be honest about what happened between me and my former pastor the strangest thing happened.

They believed me.

My former pastor told me if I ever told anyone how he related to me and how inappropriate our relationship had become everyone would side with him and I would be shunned from the only community I knew. It made sense. Most women in my situation are cast off like so much garbage when an inappropriate relationship with someone in leadership is revealed. My surprise at their support was evident, my gratefulness ran deep.

However, the wounds left from that encounter with my former pastor, have taken many years to heal, just when I think that the last one has scabbed over and on its way to complete healing, something rips off the scab to reveal that there is still a wound that needs a healing balm just beneath the surface of dried and crusted blood.

As a result I no longer trust people the way I once did. As a result I am skittish and tend to be hot and cold at church, and with the relationships I need to develop there. As a result I become angry with God and question why He would allow me to go through THAT particular trial.

I know why THAT trial was necessary.

God wanted me to realize just how hard my heart had become from the day He softened and opened it. I had forgotten how precious His grace was to me, and that it was freely available for everyone. I had forgotten that Jesus came for sinners like me, and like Paul I should have boldly proclaimed I am a chief sinner. Somehow I began to think that I was better than other people because my sins were not as BIG as other people’s sins. I had forgotten that all sins are detestable to God.

I had become a Pharisee.

It has been a long road from the realization that I was a sinner and could do NOTHING to save myself from the wrath of God that was surely being stored up for me, to somehow believing if I crossed enough t’s and dotted enough i’s my miserable efforts would please God. Somewhere along the line as I smugly made my check lists of do’s and do not’s I began to pity those who were not like me, those poor miserable souls who could not get their act together and live their lives RIGHT. As if somehow I had figured out the formula to pleasing the Almighty.

What a fool I was.

He has used all of the events of my life to humble me and to test me and to know what was in my heart and to see if I would keep His commandments or not. (Deuteronomy 8:2) Sometimes like the Israelites, I have wandered in circles and made idols for myself, sometimes I have demanded food, or meat or water, sometimes I have pretended I could not hear Him at all, but He has proven to me over and over that He is a FAITHFUL God, who pursues His people.

The lesson learned for me, during my own personal wilderness was that I am to love.

PERIOD.

To love without exception, to love completely, to love as He loves and let HIM deal with those wandering hearts. Am I ever supposed to confront, to speak of sin to correct my fellow traveler? Of course I am, but that blog is for another day… for toady I leave you with the verse that struck my heart on Sunday as our current pastor exposits the book of Acts.

“And he said to them, You yourselves are aware how it is not lawful or permissible for a Jew to keep company with or to visit or [even] to come near or to speak first to anyone of another nationality, but God has shown and taught me by words that I should not call any human being common or unhallowed or [ceremonially] unclean.” Acts 10:28

Let your LOVE for Him move you with compassion and love as He loved.

From Amy~

2007-04-30T03:19:00.000-07:00

Hast thou no scar?

No hidden scar on foot, or side, or hand?

I hear thee sung as mighty in the land,

I hear them hail thy bright ascendant star,

Hast thou no scar?

No wound? No scar?

Yet, as the Master shall the servant be,

And pierced are the feet that follow Me;

But thine are whole. Can he have followed far

Who has nor wound nor scar?