Feeling Invisible

Posted on October 16, 2018 by daaorg1214

The first time I heard the phrase, “Complete in Christ”, I didn’t quite understand it, but I was desperate for the truth it holds. I had made the decision at a young age to become a follower of Christ, but like many people who have been abused, my brokenness was deep. Understanding the reality of being totally complete and whole presented a vision for which I had no blueprints to construct. I didn’t see it among those that I loved and had done my best to honor. They couldn’t protect themselves from injury, and in my mind, they certainly couldn’t and didn’t protect me from it. My cherished ones were silent in their pain, and I learned to be as well. I made myself invisible that way.

Often, I felt left out at social gatherings and functions, as if no one thought enough of me to pay attention, or to be interested in my opinions and what I had to say. It took years before I understood that people were simply responding to my tendency to hide. Also at work within me was my need to be validated by others. All the self-help gurus tell us to avoid letting our choices be ruled by other’s opinions. We’re led to believe that seeking validation from others will harm our self-worth. “Be happy with yourself…” they say, but this is much easier said than done.

I didn’t want to be self-indulgent to the point of fooling myself that external pleasures would satisfy an internal hunger. Call it a keen instinct or a gift from God, but I’ve always been able to discern a surface reality from that of something deeply rooted. I wanted the latter for myself. So, on my journey towards accepting the wholeness that Christ offers, one of the greatest lessons I learned is that a physical fix will not take care of a spiritual problem. This level of awareness opens a person’s eyes to what may be buried beneath years of struggling for self-appreciation.

Colossians 2:10(NLT) states, “So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.” God tells us exactly what makes us complete. It’s our union with Christ! He also warns us in Colossians 2:8 against listening to folks that’ll have us searching under every rock for a wholeness that can only be found in Christ. He tells us to watch out for people like that. They try to dazzle us with big, intellectual talk. They spread ideas that really amount to fluff, and it doesn’t get at the root of our pain, or what we truly need for our souls to be healed. Everything of God is expressed through Christ, and when we invite and accept him into our hearts, he begins to live there. His love is the magnifying glass that makes the invisible visible.

God has blessed us with a physical body, but the bounty of His blessing rests within us, the part of us that His Holy Spirit calls ‘home’. 1Corinthians 6:19-20(NLT) tells us, “Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, 20 for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.” When we begin to honor what God honors, to have faith in what He has faith in, and to think and speak what He thinks and speaks, we step into the visible likeness of Christ. Our goals are misplaced if they are to find treasures in the acceptance of others, or in an identity that really isn’t who we are. We need soul surgery by the Master Surgeon. His love is the medicine we desperately need, and we need to open our hearts to our Lord and Savior so he can do for us what no other can.

His love dwells in our hearts through our faith in him. We may feel invisible because we look to things that can be seen to make us feel relevant. Heavenly Father wants us to look to Christ and become rooted and grounded in him. Something spiritual happens when we do this. We will gain a comprehension that defines our true essence, because it brings enlightenment of the width, length, depth, and height of the love of Christ. Our faith in him transforms us, then we’ll see ourselves through the eyes of his love, and that’s what really matters most.■

Understanding the End Game

Posted on October 9, 2018 by daaorg1214

In Hosea 4:6, God says that His people are severely harmed, and indeed many destroyed, because they lack knowledge. The Old Testament is filled with examples of individuals who thought they knew best, but ultimately landed themselves and others in serious trouble. This happened because either they didn’t consult with God or listen to His wisdom. He always knows best and wants the best for us, but we struggle with believing this. We refuse to understand that life is a corkscrew that in many respects can never be straightened.

The one fact that remains constant in life is that the more we think we know, the more we realize that we haven’t even scratched the surface. Solomon, the son of King David, cracked this riddle wide open long before any of us came on the scene. God allowed him this grace to spare us the time and waste of energy. Solomon was the wisest man that has ever lived. In Ecclesiastes 1, he tells us that he assigned himself with the task of carefully looking into everything with scrutiny. His final synopsis; it was a meaningless pursuit, like chasing wind. In Ecclesiastes 1:18, he said, “The greater my wisdom, the greater my grief. To increase knowledge only increases sorrow.”

Some people have interpreted the words of Solomon to mean that it’s useless to gain knowledge, but this isn’t accurate. Solomon was very young when he was called to be King of Jerusalem, and as any of us can imagine, it was a daunting task. He felt overwhelmed by the responsibility and knew that he needed guidance from God. He loved the Lord, and as was the custom of his father, King David, Solomon offered sacrifices and burned incense in what was known as the great high place in Gibeon. 1Kings 3:5 tells us that it was there, at night, that the Lord appeared to him in a dream and asked, “What shall I give you?” Solomon, considering his task, his desire to do it well, and the overall welfare of the people he would oversee, asked for wisdom.

God was pleased with Solomon’s request, because it wasn’t saturated in the selfishness of riches or revenge on his enemies. God’s nature and desire is to always go beyond what we can ask or think. Ephesians 3:20 tells us that He loves to deal in the exceedingly abundant, so he made Solomon’s wisdom unmatched by any human being before or after him.

Knowledge can be a never-ending pursuit. It seeks to uncover, expose, and resolve continually, but wisdom is the crown that few seek to wear. Wisdom will help us apply knowledge well. With Solomon’s request for wisdom came also a ravenous appetite for knowledge and understanding. He wanted to know what was down the rabbit hole of every subject and found it to be an exhausting and unproductive exercise. Solomon’s wise counsel and advice to us is to save ourselves from pursuing knowledge about things that are not aligned with our purpose. If we can’t use it to please God, it is not worth having.

We all carve out a niche in life. Satisfying and fulfilling or not, we move forward. We do so assuming we know who we are and what we should be doing. Sometimes the opposite is true, and there must be room in our beings to question this. The end game of this earth experience is to know who we are, whose we are, and why we’re here. Not knowing the answers to those questions is the gap in our knowledge that causes wisdom to escape our choices and allows destruction a foot hole into our existences.

We spend way too much time obsessing about things that take us away from our destiny, and away from our true identity in Christ. We worry about the things that seem crooked, and we try to straighten them out. Solomon told us in Ecclesiastes 7:13(NLT), “Accept the way God does things, for who can straighten what he has made crooked?” Our time and energy are much better served in exploring all the glorious ways in which God has crafted us to share His love. Doing this will guarantee that we win the end game, and receive God’s eternal reward.■

What If No One Believes Me?

Posted on October 2, 2018 by daaorg1214

The time in which we now live is teaching us many lessons about, first, the value of truth; secondly, how the masses can interpret it, and lastly, how detrimental it can be when we don’t recognize it. Without truth, we are utterly lost, and there is no doubt about this. In John 8:31, Jesus Christ said to those listening that if they believed on him, and continued in the Word that he taught them, they were his true disciples. Their discipleship would be judged authentic and solid if they believed the Words of Christ, because Jesus Christ only spoke the truth. He then said in John 8:32(NLT), “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Knowing and acknowledging the truth ushers in freedom. This is an incredibly important piece of knowledge for any person that is afraid to speak a truth of their own.

The effects of abuse have many tentacles of pain and harm. One of them is its ability to rob a person of their voice. An individual can be articulate and well-versed in a wealth of subjects, but the trauma and violence of abuse will sometimes render its victim speechless; not for a lack of ability, but because the depth, width, and breadth of what has been stolen is inexplicable. It is inarticulable.

Shame is undoubtedly another of its tentacles. Brother Adam and Sister Eve taught us that with shame comes the instinct to hide, to cover up so that truth is never spoken, and the weight of the lie that shame tells is left to fester in our souls. There, it does its greatest harm. The weight of shame becomes heavier as time passes. Meanwhile, the one who has been silenced is split apart, one side managing to look the part of a functioning, sometimes highly functioning, individual. The other side is slowly self-destructing, The other side is slowly self-destructing, starved of the healing medicine of God’s truth and the restoration He offers us through Christ.

The fear of not being believed is the enduring curse from an evil manipulation of power. Generation after generation, this fear is often passed down. It silences our soul’s greatest cry for help, as our ownership of the basic right to be heard is undermined and paralyzed. When it comes to abuse, the ignorant and unsympathetic resolve of lesser and fallen angels has birthed a culture where lies seem to breathe, and truth is suffocated. Let’s pray the tide is turning. Let’s pray that we all rise up with the strength to move with that tide and help it along.

1John 4:18(NLT) tells us, “Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.” The love of God demonstrated through the life, ministry, sacrifice, and resurrection of Christ, expels ALL fear. In other words, God’s love obliterates fear! This is the liberty blockbuster, and the enemy uses every tactic to keep it from falling upon our ears. We don’t speak the truth of what we’ve been through because we fear the punishment. We’ve seen others punished, and to us the risk seems too great. Exactly the opposite is true. The greatest risk and harm to ourselves is that of not speaking our truth, of not ridding our souls of their burdens and giving our Master Jesus the load.

Our discretion and privacy can be preserved, and even honored to a degree, but not if it is surrounded in the lie that fear tells. There are individuals that cannot bear to hear the truth, because the truth is not in them. This is a quorum we must not join. Truth affords us the undeniable luxury of standing in it with unfeigned dignity, and with an absolute and unrelenting hope for liberty. Ephesians 4:15 encourages us to speak the truth in love—in love of self, and most importantly, love of God and truth. This is the way that we are released from fear’s grip and to be free to grow in the blessed existence that Christ has given us. ■

God Loves A Cheerful Giver

Posted on September 25, 2018 by daaorg1214

The parable in Luke 16 of Lazarus corresponds to the person who begs in our modern society, and there are far more of them today than in biblical times. If we’re honest, we have to admit that sometimes we’re uncomfortable looking them in the eyes. We avoid the exchange, because it forces us to grapple with how the person who begs will use the money we give them. Will they use it for its intended purpose, which is to help nourish their bodies with food, or are they lying for the benefit of whatever addiction or habit they might have? As followers of Christ, of course, we want to be compassionate individuals, but there’s a way to do it that is best for the person in need and for us as well.

Jesus tells us in Luke 16 that there was a certain rich man who fabulously adorned himself in the best of the best. Lazarus was a poor man who was covered with sores, and laid at the rich man’s gate begging for scraps from his table. In Luke 6:20, Jesus said that the poor are indeed blessed, because theirs is the Kingdom of God. No doubt God’s heart is moved by the humility of the poor, and His Word tells us that only those that are humble will enter His Kingdom. Lazarus must have been a person that pleased God, because when he died, he was carried by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man died too. Luke 16:23 tells us that his soul went to the place of the dead, and there, his soul was in torment.

Luke 16:24-26(NLT) states, “24 The rich man shouted, ‘Father Abraham, have some pity! Send Lazarus over here to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue. I am in anguish in these flames.’ 25 “But Abraham said to him, ‘Son, remember that during your lifetime you had everything you wanted, and Lazarus had nothing. So now he is here being comforted, and you are in anguish. 26 And besides, there is a great chasm separating us. No one can cross over to you from here, and no one can cross over to us from there.’” We would do well to remember that many people have material wealth, but are wicked in their hearts because they refuse to be generous. Jesus Christ reminds us of their peril in Luke 16, by telling us that the rich man had much, but shared little; greed dominated his heart, and that’s why he called hell his eternal home.

2Corinthians 9:7 tells us that God loves a cheerful giver, because this is a person whose love of sharing and giving is genuine from the heart. I considered myself such a person, someone who loves to give, but there came a time when I had to reexamine both my motives and attitudes about giving.

Frequently, I’m in an environment where I’m in regular contact with those in need, and sometimes their need is overwhelming. Over the years, I learned the hard way that the desire to be a good Christian and citizen can sometimes place us in harm’s way. This was not so much the case back in the day. It was not nearly as dangerous as it can be in modern times to lend a helping hand. I speak from personal experience as a not-so schooled giver, someone that gave money regularly to anyone that asked. I was sometimes targeted, and caught off guard when I was alone.

The times are very different than long ago, but we can’t use this as an excuse for not giving to those in need. That would be a humongous and detrimental error. As with just about every other facet of life, we have to be smarter about how we give of our resources. 1Samuel 16:7(KJV) tells us, “For the LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” God is concerned with our heart’s motivation for giving, and this is a piece of wisdom we should bear in mind continually. He knows that we desire to please Him, and pleasing Him means that we try to be wise stewards of our resources. In other words, we need to be both wise and cheerful givers.

A good giving strategy is to pray first, hear secondly, and lastly, think it through. God knows those in need better than we do, and He also knows those individuals that will benefit most from our help. We must never forget that we’re in partnership with Him, but we are to follow His lead. Praying about opportunities to give and be a blessing, and then hearing from God, will prepare us best to be doers of His Will. As we think it through, the Holy Spirit will whisper messages of inspiration that will help us. The area of giving and sharing with those in need is no different than any other assignment of God; it must be done, and leaning on His divine guidance will help us do it with love and wisdom.■

An Energy Rub

Posted on September 18, 2018 by daaorg1214

The air was thick with tension in the court building downtown, and I felt it before I got off the elevator. For some, I could tell that this incredibly nervous energy was what they were used to. Their lives were always on the line in that way, and they were seemingly immune to the waiting game, legal jargon, and haggling of attorneys. I was there to support my dear friend who was trying desperately to untangle the last vestiges of a very abusive marriage. Her husband’s attorney was unfriendly and carried an aura of ruthlessness, and her husband was there beside him; he seemed unrecognizable to me. I stepped out of the courtroom briefly, and outside of it, I observed a young woman. My eyes immediately locked with hers, and I couldn’t take them off her. I tried not to stare, but found myself compelled to do so. Attempting to be a bit more inconspicuous, I came to my senses finally, and took a seat. Something was about to play out in front of me, and my spirit knew it before I did.

There are times in life where you rub up against the energy of a person that seems to match yours precisely. It’s serendipitously eerie. It’s not a match that equals where you are in your life at that moment, but perhaps at a time when you knew less—had less wisdom, but was trying with every fiber of your being to live your truest self. I saw this in the young woman, and my heart both ached and rejoiced for her.

A young man approached her, and there it was. It was the look that I knew so well—sheer terror. Outwardly, she was beautiful, and so was he; but I immediately saw right past the exteriors. Companions of fear, immaturity, obsession, chaos, and ignorance were attached to his person. I could tell they had been with him for quite some time. So much so that he no longer felt the pain of them clawing his soul unmercifully. He couldn’t see them, but finally she could, and was trying to get as far from them as possible. A restraining order had been the required method of her survival.

I ached for her because behind her beauty I saw battle wounds and extreme sadness. Like me at one time, she was in the throes of survival’s most crucial and uncomfortable phase. It is often necessary to go through it before confidence in God’s delivering power is fully entrenched in our hearts. It’s when the pull of going back to what you know is the strongest, and you have to fight hard for your life.

But I also saw hope in her. Romans 12:12(NLT) tells us, “Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying.” No matter who you are, you can’t rejoice in something unless you’re confident that good is on the horizon. The mere fact that she was in that court building, fighting to let her light shine, speaks to the reality that darkness was being dispelled. Jesus Christ is our hope, because he loves us, and he IS the light! Philippians 4:13 tells us that we can do everything through him, because He gives us strength. By ourselves, we can’t accomplish much, but through faith in him, we can see the pitiful weakness of darkness, and refuse it.

The trouble that God’s Word talks about in Romans 12:12 is the fight to get to the other side. It’s being patient with ourselves even though we’re tired…even though we don’t feel strong enough, and we’re scared of what the other side might look like. Christ will be our rest. He is our refuge, and he’ll be our strength so that we have the courage to make it through.

I walked away that day knowing I had been strategically positioned to pray for her continued strength. It reinforced my belief that our tribulations leave a trace of victory for someone else. Our troubles can deepen our reservoir of compassion and insight, so that we pray well for them. A brief energy rub that day with this young woman was a reminder of how far God has brought me, how He has empowered me through the Holy Spirit to stand in courage and fight for my life. He gave me the strength of Jesus Christ when I had no strength of my own, and He’ll do the same for you!■

The Biggest Cause of Emptiness

Posted on September 11, 2018 by daaorg1214

No one needs to tell me what it feels like to have a big hole in your soul. I have some personal experience with this, and I can’t think of anything more miserable. I was very young when I started to feel it, and as I got older, of course the hole seemed to get larger. I had an appetite for something I couldn’t name, and like many people, I started to look for love in all the wrong places. I wish someone had told me that growing up in an environment where domestic violence was common place can cause an individual to develop false beliefs about why he or she feels empty. We tend to think that it’s because we didn’t receive enough of something or that our lives are unfulfilling and boring as heck. Unfortunately, many people who feel this way try to address the symptoms and not the cause.

I walked around with this dark cloud until my mid-twenties. Then one day, I decided I had to put a stop to the way I was feeling, because I was becoming increasingly angry and disillusioned about my life. I was sick of that cloud, and I grew determined to help myself, because I really believed it when I learned that Jesus Christ suffered miserably so that we wouldn’t have to.

I don’t think I was ever an impatient person, and believe that this is one of the things that has helped me most; because I’ve given myself time to build my relationship with God, and have allowed Him to take the lead. I also must state that I’ve never been able to stomach the ‘pie in the sky’ stuff. I could always see right through folks who were power-hungry, cultish, or fake. So my approach to understanding the Gospel of Christ has always been based on finding real answers to real problems. It didn’t hurt that I met loving Christian people who I believed genuinely cared about my well-being, and took the time to help school me about the deep things of God.

In Matthew 6:33, Jesus Christ instructs us to seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness first; when we do this, the bounty of His blessings will be ours. In my quest to fill up my empty places, the first clue that I discovered was that a spiritual transaction happens when we seek God first. Something that we need for our souls shows up.

1 John 2:11(NLT) says, “But anyone who hates another brother or sister is still living and walking in darkness. Such a person does not know the way to go, having been blinded by the darkness.” Every spiritual person knows that what we focus on grows. For a very long time, I focused on my emptiness, and it kept growing. I was so consumed with being unhappy that darkness blinded me. The discipline of Christian love escaped me, because I thought that another person owed me something that I was without. This is the biggest cause of emptiness. It’s waiting for the hole to be filled, and letting anyone who talks a good game try to fill it.

Emptiness is caused and perpetuated by abandoning the person Heavenly Father created us to be. We are not weak. We are not empty. We are vessels meant to be continually filled with His love. 1John 4:16 tells us that God is love, and the person that dwells in love dwells in God, and God dwells within him or her. We are His children, made from His love, and made in His image. 2Corinthians 3:5 tells us that He’s our Sufficiency. We were not designed to be sufficient unto ourselves. We were created to depend on His love, and when we open our eyes to this, we’ll step out of darkness. It may take a little while to see the light shine brightly, but if we’ll put our trust in Christ, Psalm 23:3 says that he’ll restore our souls, and lead us on the path to right living. ■

The Toad Doesn’t Always Turn into a Prince

Posted on September 4, 2018 by daaorg1214

Lachelle told me that she never loved a man as much as she loved Joe. I knew Joe before she met him. He is a handsome guy, but not overly so, and I found him to be kinda’ quiet. No one would accuse him of being too friendly, but he seemed nice enough. I had always heard that he has a bit of a mean streak, but was conscious of it and tried to hide it. My sister says that you have to watch out for the quiet ones because they always have something to hide, and you wouldn’t want to be the one to find out what it is. In my view, that’s a pretty accurate description of Joe.

I was also struck by how little affection I saw them display as a couple. Normally, this is no big deal. There are plenty of compassionate and kind people that aren’t that keen on public displays of affection, but Lachelle is a notorious hugger and is one of the most affectionate persons I know. At first, I didn’t understand the changes I noticed in her, but one day it all made sense. Joe had no doubt touched something in her soul that she responded to deeply, but he was also physically abusive. She excused it away as him loving her passionately, and not being able to control it sometimes.

Like a lot of abuse victims, Lachelle tried covering the bruises with too much make-up or refusing to meet up with us because her body (and soul) was too sore from the fight the night before. After around ten times or so of witnessing the aftermath of his anger, I stopped counting the times I suspected they had been fighting. They weren’t married, and sometimes she would swear to us that she would leave the relationship for sure, but time after time Lachelle went back to Joe. It wasn’t my first time seeing this kind of obsession play out in a relationship. You want so desperately to help, but the people involved have to want help.

Sometimes, we teach ourselves to have wrong beliefs about love. Too many romantic fairytales, movies, and myths cloud our heads, and we start to believe that we’re missing something that only a prince on a white horse can give us. We wait and wait for him to come to our rescue. And even though our discernment isn’t as sharp as it should be, and we can’t tell when a real toad is just playing the role of a prince, some of us latch on Mr. Toad anyway. We do so because the proverbial toad has been playing the role long enough to spot a particular yearning in the princess, and he knows exactly how to jump on it.

In John 8:32, Jesus Christ said that the truth will set us free. This is a razor-sharp piece of yumminess that will keep God’s children on the path of their destinies, but one thing is required, and it is that we understand what it means to be free. God created us out of His love. He created us to be children of light! 1Thessalonians 5:5(NLT) says, “For you are all children of the light and of the day; we don’t belong to darkness and night.” In this verse, we can clearly see that God has made a distinct separation between light and darkness. From light, we get qualities synonymous with intelligence, liberty, confidence, love, joy, and peace. From darkness, we get the exact opposite; we get qualities that represent ignorance, bondage, fear, hate, sadness, and chaos. So, there can be no question that God’s Will for His children is that we be free, and not weighted down by bondage in any area of our lives. God’s standard for right living is one of liberty. That’s good news indeed!

1Corinthians 13:5(NLT) tells us that love “does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.” If we are going to live with authenticity, with the conviction of purpose and gratitude, we can’t do it by gobbling up myths and lies about what life is and how it’s supposed to be lived. Nor do we have time to label something ‘LOVE’ when it’s not love at all, but a plot sent from hell to manipulate us out of our destinies. Those unable to acknowledge that they are being used for darkness, and not light, will operate in darkness through the wickedness of the abuse they inflict, but ultimately, they will be exposed. When they are, those that have suffered their wrath must have the courage to see them for what they are.

A prince is a gallant individual that helps you shine, and will never do anything to hinder or cause you to hide your light. This is the kind of person you deserve. An abuser is often a toad that will never transform into a prince. He can’t even rescue himself from darkness, so it would be a mistake to assume that he can help rescue you. Be rescued by the light of Christ, and be willing to wait for the prince God will bring across your path. He may not have a white horse, but he knows the light and will help to preserve it in you. ■

Hard to Breathe

Posted on August 28, 2018 by daaorg1214

When a serious relationship ends, it can cause some of the most devastating feelings of sadness. We have no choice but to confront this molasses of heartache and wade through it the best way we can. Struggling with thoughts of facing life alone deepens the pain. You remember what it was like before you were booed-up, and you don’t want to go down that lonely road again. It’s painful to totally invest your hopes for the future in a person that no longer loves you the way you need to be loved. And on top of everything else you’ve gone through, you’re confused, because you gave it your all, and can’t understand why it wasn’t enough to build the relationship you’ve always wanted.

Dealing with emotional issues is challenging, because from a very young age, a lot of us are taught to hide our pain, as if it’s something to be ashamed of. There are so many individuals that are suffering in silence because they don’t believe anyone will understand what they’re going through. For some, the hurt cuts so deeply that it’s difficult to trust there’s anyone who CAN help or offer comfort. The one thing we can’t afford to do is crawl under that rock that seems to be calling our names. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve experienced in the past, when something shakes you to your core, it presents you with an opportunity to see something within that you haven’t seen before.

Spirit isn’t just what we have, it’s who we are. We are spiritual beings having an earthly experience. Genesis 2:7(NLT) tells us, “Then the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person.” We experience the earth in an earth-suit that was made of dust. When our life transitions to the next, and our existence on earth is over, the earth-suit that we’ve been blessed to inhabit for a season will return to that of which it was made. It will return to dust, but 1Peter 1:23 tells us the spirit that has been born-again of incorruptible seed is eternal.

Our pain reminds us of the mortal side, the part of us that is only here on earth temporarily. When we’re cut deep, it’s also a reminder that we need to pay attention to our spirits. The born-again experience through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, is the recreation of our human-spirit. Before we accepted Christ, our human-spirit was dead to God, but when we accept Jesus Christ as Lord, our human-spirit comes alive to God. Because of what Christ accomplished on the cross, 2Corinthians 5:17(NKJV) says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” In other words, our human-spirits become new creations, and the Holy Spirit comes to live inside them. 1Corinthians 6:19-20(NLT) cosigns this and tells us, “Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.”

The Holy Spirit lives inside of our human-spirits. Our spirit and the Holy Spirit are not the same, and it’s so important for us to make this distinction. Romans 8:16(NLT) tells us, “For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children.” From the deepest place within, the Holy Spirit reminds us of who we are. Your spirit is the ‘YOU’ you will always be. It is your authentic self, and contrary to how you might feel at any given time, your spirit is always magnificent!

When we lose someone, and the pain of loss makes us feel as though it’s hard to breathe, it’s sometimes an indication that for too long we relied on oxygen from the wrong source. Real love, the kind that comes from Heavenly Father, never stops loving. It isn’t deterred because someone lacked the capability to return it. God breathed our spirits into our bodies, and we became a living person. No one can take what God has given us, UNLESS we allow it. We are our Father’s children. We are love because He is Love. This should forever be the joy of our rejoicing.

Psalm 30:5(NKJV) tells us, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” Give yourself a small window to feel sad, and for that brief time, feel it as much and as deeply as you can. IT IS a temporary state, one that does not come close to the joy that is before you. Grieve well for the loss of what you thought could have been. Then, turn to Jesus, your Source of light, love, and joy. You gave pain its due, Give God His. Practice patience and faith as you let the Holy Spirit heal you from within. Open your heart to God, and breathe in the joy that only His love can give. ■

Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?

Posted on August 21, 2018 by daaorg1214

How many times do we tell ourselves that things are going to get better? But day after day, we end up with the same set of disappointing circumstances. You think to yourself, “Hey, I may not be perfect, but I’m a pretty nice person. I treat others with kindness and try not to hurt anyone. When is my time coming? When am I going to catch a break?” I think we would be absolutely amazed to know how many people are feeling the same way. You do your best to run the race that is before you, but you’re feeling like your tank is running a little low. When it’s filled, you don’t want regular, you want high-test. You want the premium stuff. Life is short, and it’s about time for you to experience a little bit of high-octane living.

One of the most quintessential questions asked by anyone inquisitive about the way in which the universe works is “Do bad things happen to good people?” The answer to this question is a resounding “YES!” Indeed, bad things do happen to good people. But how does this square with what we’ve been taught about the moral compass of religious discipline? How does it line up with John 10:10, where Jesus Christ tells us that he came that we might have life, and have it more abundantly? If we are to access what he came to earth to provide, why is it that we can’t access it by being the good people he wants us to be?

It is baked into most people’s psyche that good people are supposed to win. There are many cases, some very public, where the appearance of this belief doesn’t seem to pan out. I don’t know about you, but I can think of many instances where folks that are compassionate, caring, supportive, and sensitive are stepped on. Their kindness is taken for weakness, and they seem to always get the raw end of the deal. It may seem this way sometimes, but God is the One with the final say, and He tells us that if we patiently endure, we will reap the reward.

In order that you and I can have a springboard from which to jumpstart a true understanding of why we’re here and more than that, how to live authentically through Christ, we must make new room in our brain cells for a reality of existence that exceeds the realm of what we call ‘good’. To be frank, according to the truth spoken by Christ in Matthew 19:17(NLT), “There is only One who is good.” And this ‘One’ is God the Father. Our good works and His goodness are nowhere in the same vicinity. As students of Christ, we are learning on earth to become more like him with each passing day, and whether our level of goodness will pass the heavenly sniff test remains to be seen. Our motives are not always pure. But despite our flaws and weaknesses, the reality is that even with our shortcomings, we are sons and daughters of God, and brothers and sisters of Christ. How we come to grips with this awesome privilege and honor, as well as the level of our gratitude for it, will measure the degree to which we live completely, fully, and wholly in the bliss of his glory.

The reality is that just being what we call ‘good’ and sincere is to not going to provide access to the kind of life we want. Something more than being a good person is required of us. After Jesus Christ was baptized by John the Baptist, he was led in the wilderness by the Holy Spirit, and there he fasted 40 days and nights. Afterwards, he was very hungry, and it’s not too much of a stretch to say that his strength was not at full capacity. It was in this very vulnerable state that our Lord and Savior was tempted by the devil.

No greater kindness, compassion, love, and humility exists than that of Jesus Christ. If there was anyone who deserved to be exempt from the darkness of evil and bad things, it was him. Yet, we find him facing this extreme evil at a very challenging time. The devil tempted Jesus to turn stones into bread, but Jesus would not acquiesce to the devil’s level. How did he face it? Matthew 4:4(NLT) tells us exactly how he handled the temptation. He said, “No! The Scriptures say, ‘People do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

God tells us in Galatians 6:9-10 that we should never get tired of performing good deeds, and we should do them as often as we have opportunity. He tells us to do good to everyone, especially our brothers and sisters in Christ, but we should be clear that our goodness and sincerity doesn’t exempt us from challenges in life. The issue isn’t what we face, but HOW we face it! We are to lean upon the strength of God. Isaiah 40:29(NLT) tells us, “He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless.” Just like our Master Jesus, we must know that true goodness is every word that comes from the mouth of God. His Word is life to us, and if we place our trust in it, He tells us that in due season we will reap a harvest of blessings.■

A Sealed Deal

Posted on August 14, 2018 by daaorg1214

The word of the day is, and will forever be, ‘TRANSFORMATION!’ It’s one of my favorite words, and I absolutely love that it’s one of the Father’s favs as well. In Romans 12:2(NKJV), He tells us, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” In this verse, we learn what NOT to do, and we also learn exactly what we should be doing. The Lord tells us not to be conformed to this world. What does it mean to be conformed? To be conformed to something is to behave, comply, and/or follow the standards that most everyone else in society is following. It’s to adopt society’s culture as your own. Heavenly Father said ‘don’t do it!’

When we talk about culture, we’re not talking about aspects of unique and rich heritages that are passed down through generations and add flavor to our lives. We’re talking about the culture of unbelief and denial when it comes to the truth of God’s Word. The world has turned its back on the righteousness of God and adopted its own standard. We can see all around us that this isn’t working out well at all. God is our Creator, and His Word sets the standard for humanity. It’s a beautiful standard, and it incorporates the best of the best.

In John 8:32(NLT), Jesus Christ said, “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Only the truth will make us free; we cannot be free by believing a lie. Most of us are taught to conform to everyone else’s thinking, but the Christian is called by Christ to break the chains of conformity and walk in the truth. This is how to be free. Jesus Christ IS the truth! He said in John 14:6(NLT), “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” A lot of us have got some serious negativity going on. We’re down on ourselves, and down on others. That’s not a Christ mindset. We’ve got to let the truth into those negative places in our minds, then we can walk in the extraordinary liberty that Christ extends.

In Romans 12:2, Heavenly Father not only told us what to do, but how to get it done. He said be transformed by the renewing of our minds. To renew is to make new again. This is what we have to do in terms of the way we think. Jesus Christ is Lord because he encompasses every wonderful thing God desires for humanity; it’s all summed up in Christ. And guess what? He gave his life on Calvary so that you and I can know our identity in him, receive the gift of eternal life, and then become ambassadors of his enormous love. Talk about a transformation, this is it!

Jesus was not a head-hanging low, pitiful sounding and looking individual. When he walked the face of this earth, he was the BUSINESS!!! So dynamic, so loving and charismatic; people flocked to him wherever he went. This is the effect love has. It’s magnetic. It’s contagious. Every person that is of love will quite naturally gravitate towards it. You and I are destined to walk in a Christ-kind of confidence; the kind that is full of God’s love.

Confidence and faith begin in the mind, and it’s important to think like Christ to keep our motives pure, with no hint of arrogance or pride. The mind of Christ is pure excellence. His thoughts are those of making life better for everyone. This is the mindset that God expects us to emulate. 2Corinthains 10:5 tells us to capture every rebellious thought and teach them to obey Christ. We can do this because God has equipped every thinking individual with the capacity to examine their thoughts. We can look at them from every angle, and then decide whether to keep them, straighten them out, or throw them away.

We have it on God’s authority that transformation begins in the mind. It’s where the spiritual war is waged, and we must be relentless to stand our ground on the truth of who and what we are. 1Thessalonians 5:5(NLT) tells us, “For you are all children of the light and of the day; we don’t belong to darkness and night.” We’re not defeated, powerless creatures who are meant to be sad all our lives. Christ declared that through him we’re more than conquerors, and God has given us a spirit of love, power, and self-control to seal the deal. Be about the business of renewing your mind to your Christ identity. Philippians 1:6(NIV) tells us “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” You’re a masterpiece in the works! Study the truth, let it permeate your entire existence so that the love of Christ can continue the transformation in you that he has begun.■

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