"The word of God is the ONLY book that cuts through to the heart of people." Which is very true. There is no other book that challenges me or sheds light on my life quite like the holy word of God.
"We do battle every hour of every day." Very true. She pointed out that Satan can try to get in through TV, music, movies, friends, books....many, many different way, and we need to always be on our gaurd against ways he tries to seep into our minds. For women he tries to feed us lies like we are not beautiful if we don't look like women in Hollywood and we need to be skinnier etc. He tries to tell Christians that they can never be used by God with their past. But for every lie from Satan there is ALWAYS a verse to counter it. To women we need to say back to Satan, "No, I am fearfully and wonderfully made." To Christians who worry about being used, "No, Behond I am a new creation; the old is gone and the new has come." To any who struggle with insecuries, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!" Yes? When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness by Satan what did He do? He verbally quoted scripture back at Satan. I have been actively memorizing verses since I was about 9 in Awanas. I have countless verses memorized which I know helps me in the battle in my mind with Satan or the flesh. God's word is hidden in my heart, and has been for quite some time now.
I used to be much better at this in high school. I had a huge stack of 3 by 5 cards and would work on scripture memorizing all the time. May God stir in me a passion to do so again.
How our lives work; we have thoughts that lead to feelings which lead to our actions. If we could learn to reign in our thoughts in and "take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ", we would be able to live life much better and more free. Everything in our life originates in the mind.
Our minds left to themselves are very carnal and it can be an easy battleground for Satan to try to defeat us in various ways. He temps us as Christian women to get angry easily or insecure or depressed. For Christian men Satan usually tempts with outter things such as alcohol, drugs or pornography. For women the battle is very much in our minds and our thoughts. That is how Satan tempted Eve in the garden. He "reasoned" with her. It was faulty reasoning obviously, but what he did was he got her to believe a lie; that God was not good. How often does Satan try to do that now with women? He wants us to believe God is not good and God does not love us. But we need to get aggressive sometimes in our counter attacks with Satan. Sometimes it would probably be good if we actually yelled back at him. lol, I'm serious. :) When we are lazy, that is when Satan does his best work on us. When we ignore that he is there and that he is a real enemy, he easily sneaks in. "The devil prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." So be on your gaurd. Be alert.
When he tries to deceive us into thinking God does not love us, remember "God so LOVED the world that He sent his son." He DOES love us, very, very much, despite how much our lives seem to "suck." But even then we need to consider what is really "good" and what is really "bad." Good and bad are relative terms. Sometimes what is bad is good; we just need to change our perspective. Also remember, "God works all things together for the good of those who love him." And "for I know the plans I have for you; plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future." Amen? Do you really believe it? Do you trust Him? I hope so. :)
We are to renew our minds day by day as Christians. It is an ongoing process. Paul did not start out in his Christian walk knowing how to be content in all situations. He said, "I have LEARNED to be content in any and every situation." We learn all kinds of things on our Christian walk. Nothing comes to us instantly. Often times God does the most work when we are in pain, actually. I know personally I have felt the closest to God when he has put me through the fire. And He has done so many, many times; to refine me, to renew me, to make me more shinny. lol :)
We need to learn to have an entirely new mind now that we are in Christ. We are constantly being conformed by God to being more and more like Jesus every day, little by little. He is chipping away at us and painting over various parts of us. He is doing a house remodel on us really. So in every situation we can think "What is God trying to teach me?" Cause if you don't learn it the first time, guaranteed He will put thing after thing in your life until you do. lol. It is like the phrase, "Bend the knee or have it broken." God will have his way in your life, He simply asks you, "Ok, are we going to do this the easy way or the hard way?" lol. Right? God is a parent and he chastens those He loves. Yes, I am saying He just might be making your life "suck" because He loves you. It seems backwards but it just might be what He is doing. Would you want to gain the whole world but loose your soul? No. So often times He needs to bring us to our knees because that is what He knows is best for us. He knows what it will take to draw us to Himself, which is the greatest good in the end and what will bring us the most joy. Having things easy all the time usually is not best for us, because think about when things are easy, do you forget God? Do you stop leaning on him and start to lean on your own understanding? Do you get comfortable and become prideful? All of us do that. When all our needs are met and we have plenty of money we push God off to the side and try to go it on our own. But what does Jesus say, "Apart from me you can do nothing." Nothing. Nothing at all. But we still think we can don't we? We can try all we want to be happy on our own, but it's not gonna work. We can try to do things our way all we want, but our own efforts will fail every time. If God is not behind it, it will not work, whatever it is that you are trying to do on your own. Give it to God. Surrendur all. And follow His leading in everything.
Prov. 25:28 says, "Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls." Meaning, if we do not keep careful watch over ourselves, we have no defense against the enemy. Our enemy can be the world, our own flesh, and Satan. How do we gain self-control? My favorite means are by writing this blog and meditating on the Word of God. We also need to pray and seek God in all we do.
In all things in our lives we need to ask ourselves three questions, "Is this profitable to me?" "Could this potentially control me?" "Would Jesus do this or go here?"
Some things simply are not good for us but we do them anyways. Why? And sometimes we let things control us even though we know we shouldn't. Why? Paul said, "All things are permissible for me, but I will not be mastered by anything." Nothing but God is to master us. Often times people let food, relationships, school, work, money, or things master them. They then become idols and we loose sight of God and look at these other things. This should not be. God says that He is a jealous God. He does not want other things to take over our whole hearts because that is where He belongs. God can give us good things, but if we let those things control us or master us, He may then decide to take them away for our own good. He does this often times in relationships that people are in. If that other person becomes God in our lives, God will take them away somehow. He has his ways. So it is quite crucial to always keep things in perspective; to not worship anything created more than we worship the Creator. By worship I mean think about it all the time, worry about it, let it possess our minds and feelings. God alone deserves our whole devotion. Anything created is temporary. It could be gone tomorrow. Don't put your stock, your faith, your everything in something temporal. Who knows if it will still be here tomorrow or next week. Trust in God and God alone, and you will have joy in this life. Paul says, "So we fix our eyes on what is seen, not on what is unseen, for what is seen is temporary but what is unseen is eternal." Store your treasures in heaven. Invest in heaven and your investment will not return void. Invest in people by spreading God's good news to others. Love people like Jesus loved them and you will have more treasure in heaven. Give generously, speak kindly and love all people and God will reward you.
It is important that we are humble in regards to God. God is God and we are not. It helps to constantly remind ourselves of this fact, really. I believe pride is at the root of all sin. That is why the Bible says, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." We will not be actually wise until we realize we are mere dust compared to God. We appear as grasshopper to the Lord Almighty. God loves us, yes, suprisingly lol, but we also need to realize our place. When Job questioned God what did God say back? "Brace yourself; I shall question you and you shall answer me....where were you when I laid the earth's foundations?" And how does Job respond? "I had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you....I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes." Why? Because it hit him, finally, that God is God and He is not. God is not one to be questioned. We can't tell God what we think he should and shouldn't do. He DOES NOT answer to us. We answer to Him. He is in charge; we are not.
Our pride wants to say, "I don't need to change ANYTHING about myself." "I can fix it MYSELF." And "I can do everything MY OWN way." And what does God say, "Um....no you can't fix yourself, and you can't do it on your own, and yes you have A LOT of things you need to change about yourself. If you only knew......" lol. The question is, will we let him change us, fix us, renew us? Or will we keep trying to do it ourselves? Will we keep resisting Him? I hope not. Thus is the process of sanctification, learning to trust God more and more and letting him change us more and more into becoming more like Him. We will never reach perfection in this life, but that doesn't mean we don't strive for it. That doesn't mean we don't try to become more and more holy. "And my God who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to do according to His good pleasure." God works in us but we have to LET Him. So let him. Let the walls down. And let his ocean of love and holiness flood over you and transform you. :) He can help you, and He wants to. :)
The analogy was given of gold going through the fire. The more times gold goes through fire the more refined it gets. This is why Paul said, "For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us a glory that far outweighs them all." We may THINK life sucks, but perhaps our perspective needs some adjusting. Perhaps we need to see with NEW glasses. If we saw as God sees, would we still be angry with Him for certain things? Would we still question how much He loves us. What if he casues us pain BECAUSE He loves us? What if He is trying to mold us and shape us through our trials? We are finite beings and we often only think of the here and now. "God this hurts me NOW." "God I am not happy NOW." But what if we had eternal eyes? What if we could see the whole span of time like God does? God is outside of time and sees all of time in one glance. He sees the beginning and end of our lives simultaneously. He knows exactly how things are going to pan out. What if He is weaving an intricate web in our lives and we just need to trust Him? What if we actually believed He knows what He is doing? What if we fell back into His arms and leaned on Him for once to support us and guide us? What would that do us; to our contentment, to our joy, to our faith? Parents love their children, do they not? Therefore, why don't we see how MUCH God loves us? He loves us 100 times more than you have EVER loved ANYONE. He loves us with a perfect love.
I have sometimes struggled with the question, "God why did you create mankind when you KNEW we would mess up SO much? When you knew we would disappoint you and each other time and time again." But He did so because He loves us. Why do people get into relationships and stay in them when the other person lets them down time and time again? Because we love that person right? They are worth it. Well to God we are 100 times more worth it in His eyes than any man or woman we might be in love with. He loves us soooooo much. If we could only see it, we would think, act and feel way differently. May God give us new eyes to see and new ears to hear and new hearts to feel Him and how much He loves us. Don't let trials make you question how much God loves you. The person closest to me in the world died 5 months ago, but I still know God is madly in love with me. He may have had that person die BECAUSE He loves me so much. Perhaps God wanted to have my whole heart back. Perhaps He was jealous of how invested I was in this other person. Perhaps God missed me.
The entire Bible is a grand love story of God with humanity. He is constantly trying to draw an adulterous people to himself. But God IS LOVE, so he does not force himself on us. He wants us to be happy. Just like if you loved someone, you would not want to force them against their will to be with you would you? You want them to be free. God wanted us to be free. "When you love something you let it go" yes? So God let Adam and Eve go in the garden, and my how quickly they let him down. How quickly they ran to something else to fulfill them. :( And how quickly do we run all the time to other things to fulfill us. We think God isn't enough for us.
We let Satan deceive us and think God is holding out on us. That He doesn't want us to have fun or that He is a kill joy. When He is in actuality saying to us, pleading with us, "I want you to be SUPREMELY happy. Don't you see? I really, really love you. I know what will most bring you joy. But if you think all of that will make you happy then go ahead. I will not stop you." And then what ...do we do? WE GET MAD AT GOD FOR LETTING US EXPERIENCE PAIN. But did we not do it to ourselves often times? Yes. Like a child running to touch the fire after the parent repeatedly tells them not to, we have a perverse nature. Our innate sin is always telling us to go against God's will. It tells us to eat the forbidden fruit, "do that thing that you know God tells you not to." And then we experience pain. And what does God say, "I told you so. I told you if you did x,y, z you wouldn't be happy. But you didn't listen to me. I'm sorry that you decided to learn the hard way. Now will you listen to me? Because I love you, and I know what is best for me. Come sit on my knee for a bit and learn from me. Let me teach you everything I know about you for I created you. Let me love you and show you a better way."
May we crawl up on God's lap sometime, after we are tired, after we are done wrestling with sin and the world and Satan and our flesh. May we rest in his huge arms that are spread out wide open for us, waiting for us to just run to Him. Fall into his arms, cry on his shoulder, let Him embrace you. He cares. He loves you. He would love to listen to your pain. He would love to embrace you like a father does his son. He is waiting. God is waiting for you. To come home.
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