Hope

Discerning the voice of the Holy Spirit

/ Renee / Leave a comment

As I prayed over the topic the Lord had for me to consider today, and these words came into focus, I admit, I didn’t want to type them. I don’t feel like an expert on this front. I may have said even a year ago that I felt more confident discerning the voice of my Lord, but then I walked through a period of trial that caused me to doubt and question, do I really know the voice of my Lord?

Further, I realized a doubt cloaked in the guise of self preservation and wise discernment came.

Do I trust the voice of my Lord?

As humans, our flesh is bred to believe the lie that when things are going well, it must be because we did something right. Contrarily, we believe that when things are tough, and trials come, that it must mean that God is displeased and that we are being punished. However, walking through a trial isn’t an indication that I hadn’t rightly heard the voice of the Lord and obeyed. I don’t need to look any further than the book of Job to know this to be true. Job 1:1 states, “In the land of Uz there lived a man whose name was Job. This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil.” The writer of Job establishes, in the opening line of the book, that Job is blameless, upright, feared God, and shunned evil. These characteristics, if my flesh logic is correct, should mean that Job will face no adversity from this point forward. Certainly, God would be pleased with a man like this and therefore, have no cause to punish him. But, Isaiah 55:8-9 tells us of the Lord, “my thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways are it your ways. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” And so, as we read on in Job, we learn that not only does “good behavior,” not always yield “good results,” but we also gain understanding into exactly where the source of trial, destruction, and death come from.

Job 1: 6-12, “Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. 7 The Lord said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” 8 And the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?” 9 Then Satan answered the Lord and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? 10 Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” 12 And the Lord said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.”

In this ethereal exchange we gain critical insight into the nature of God and the tactics of the enemy. First, Satan is among those who come to present themselves before the Lord. He has been given authority for a time, but it is not omniscient authority. Satan still has to present Himself before the Lord. 2 Corinthians 4:4 reveals, “The god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.” The “god” of this world, refers to Satan. He has been given authority for a time, but not eternally. Jesus says Heaven and earth will pass away, but that His words will never pass away (Matthew 24:35). When this world passes away, so will the reign that Satan has been given. Second, it is the Lord who brings Job to Satan’s attention, “Have you considered my servant Job?” If we reflect back to Isaiah 55:8, we remember that God’s ways are not our ways, His thoughts not our thoughts. We know that God works together all things for the good of those who love Him, and have been called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). We know that God had a purpose for drawing Job to Satan’s attention, and that the purpose was good. However, this does not mean that good things were about to happen to Job even though he was righteous. And yet, God was working those things together for the good of Job, despite his despair and suffering, the goodness of God was not diminished. Neither was Job’s conduct the cause of despair and suffering, which means that despair and suffering is not viewed by God in the same way as it is viewed by us. He has the whole picture, while we just have a small window. Finally, Satan misunderstands a critical element of the believer’s source of hope in that he associates our loyalty and faith to that which he can impact: our physical and temporary state. He falsely believed that by impacting Job’s life in such a negative way that Job’s spirit would reject the Giver of life and all things, in whom Job knew was redemption and recognized this as a greater state than any temporal belonging.

Job 1: 21 reveals the rightful position of the heart in response to suffering and trial.

Job 1: 12-21 states, “The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.”

Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.

13 One day when Job’s sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother’s house, 14 a messenger came to Job and said, “The oxen were plowing and the donkeys were grazing nearby, 15 and the Sabeans attacked and made off with them. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”

16 While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, “The fire of God fell from the heavens and burned up the sheep and the servants, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”

17 While he was still speaking, another messenger came and said, “The Chaldeans formed three raiding parties and swept down on your camels and made off with them. They put the servants to the sword, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”

18 While he was still speaking, yet another messenger came and said, “Your sons and daughters were feasting and drinking wine at the oldest brother’s house, 19 when suddenly a mighty wind swept in from the desert and struck the four corners of the house. It collapsed on them and they are dead, and I am the only one who has escaped to tell you!”

20 At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship 21 and said:

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
    and naked I will depart.
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away;
    may the name of the Lord be praised.”

Understanding God’s will isn’t exactly as mystical as it may at times seem. 1 Thessalonians 5: 16-18 says, “rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” The will of God is to rejoice always, and pray without ceasing. The will of God is to give thanks in everything. Job was stripped of every blessing, his livelihood, his belongings, his future, his children. In response, he fell to the ground and worshipped.

Job says something else that has always confounded and amazed me. A statement of such assured hope, in the midst of such egregious crises, heartache the likes of which I can only imagine, and gives me such hope. In Job 19:25, Job says, “For I know that my Redeemer lives, And He shall stand at last on the earth.” Job knew that, in the end, the things of this world are temporal but my Redeemer will stand. In that day, the agony and heartache of this world will fade. The tears will dry. The doubt and fear will flee in the face of His glory. Knowing this adjusts and aligns the pathways of the heart necessary to open channels of gratitude that flood my heart with His grace.

Gratitude is easier when things are going well. It’s much harder leaving the clinic with a cancer diagnosis. It’s not as simple while walking through the tender ground of a cemetery with your back to the loved one who isn’t coming home. It’s much harder in these moments.

But, the will of God is to give thanks.

So, how do I know when the voice of the Lord is speaking to me versus my own idealization of circumstances? As well intended as they may be, they still aren’t the perfect and sovereign understanding of a holy God. Discerning the voice of the Holy Spirit begins with walking closely, knowing the Lord, so that when trials come I don’t forget that He is good. Discerning the voice of the Holy Spirit comes with a critical check question: Am I giving thanks in this trial? Bad things don’t mean that God has forsaken us. Bad things mean there is an enemy constantly seeking to undermine God. Reject his attempts to take your eyes off the giver of every good and perfect gift and cling to the hope that is in Jesus Christ.

Today is the day of salvation. If rejoicing during trial seems like a language you don’t speak, the words will come into focus when rejoicing during trial means a heart overflowing with gratitude in response to the sacrificial death of a sinless savior who erased the debt of sin, and imparted righteousness in its place. Receive the joy of salvation today.

God bless.

Spiritual warfare

/ Renee / Leave a comment

The longer I walk with the Lord, the more I realize that nothing happens as coincidence, as bad or good luck, as fate, happenstance, or any other cultural mindset to preclude the existence and intervention of an omnipotent, omniscient, and sovereign God.

If you look closely at world patterns, at religion and belief systems, ideologies, you begin to see the way that the enemy has infiltrated our thought patterns, behaviors, and social norms. His undermining of God’s authority has come by the interweaving of a double sided coin intended to spread lies and suppress truth. The enemy would have us believe that we have more control in the outcome of our circumstances than God. We may not consciously think this, but how often do we plan out our day without consulting Him? How often do we seek His kingdom over our own? How often do we sacrifice comfort for the labor of taking up our own cross to follow him? How often do we die to self in order to obey?

God is either sovereign over all or He is sovereign over nothing. His word is either infallible or it isn’t. There is no middle ground by which we’re able to accept the pieces that make sense and dismiss, modernize, or ignore the pieces that we don’t understand. We don’t have to understand it to accept it. In fact, without the Holy Spirit, the Helper, teaching and revealing truth to us we won’t understand a bit of it. God has chosen to reveal Himself to His people through His word, but it is the Holy Spirit who opens our spiritual eyes, who removes the veil so that we may see the truth of God’s word, and as we journey in our walk with Him, the revelation of God will come during the process of our individual sanctification.

To ignore the intervention and action of the enemy would be short sighted. It would dismiss fundamental truths taught in scripture. It would ignore the experience and example of Jesus’ life and ministry. From the very first book of the Bible, Genesis chapter 3, at the very beginning of scripture, the enemy heard the prophecy concerning a coming Messiah who would crush him. He knew that this foretold Messiah would defeat him. From this point forward, Satan has sought to destroy God’s plan. He has gone to extreme lengths, including the genocide of Jewish boys beginning in the book of Exodus, the second book of the Bible. Pharroh realized that the Jews had grown mighty in number as slaves under his command. He ordered the murder of thousands of Jewish male children. In this story a baby named Moses was delivered by God through the hand of his mother in the Nile. Later, God would use Moses as a picture of redemption when he would raise Moses up as deliverer to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, out of their bondage and slavery.

Satan tried again when Herod heard, through wise men traveling to Bethlehem, that a king for the Israelites had been born. Again, this wicked king sought to destroy the male toddlers and babies born in that region during this time, and he succeeded to kill many. But, Jesus was delivered to Egypt through a dream sent to Joseph, the husband of Jesus’ mother Mary, warning him that the family was in danger.

Satan has sought to destroy the Israelite people since the beginning of scripture in order to prevent the foretold Messiah from accomplishing the will of God to bring redemption for mankind and reconcile us to the Father. He thought that he had succeeded when Jesus drew his final breath on the cross.

At the point of Jesus’ death, Satan knew that Jesus was the foretold Messiah. God announced the ministry of Jesus, Himself, as Jesus obeyed in a public declaration of faith by being baptized by John in the Jordan. Immediately after Jesus was proclaimed as Messiah, Satan began his attempt to destroy him. You can read about this in the book of Matthew chapter 4. He followed Jesus into the desert and sought to entrap Him into sin, which would have invalidated His ability to offer Himself as the sinless savior. But, Jesus was able to resist Him by refuting His lies with truth. In our engagement with the enemy, the Bible doesn’t tell us to declare war, take up arms, and seek to do God’s job. Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. As far as we’re told, we are to resist the devil, and he will flee” (James 4:7).

Satan must have sighed in relief as Jesus’ body was laid in the tomb but, oh, how he must have trembled when that stone rolled aside. Satan knows that God’s people are key to the second coming of Christ, so he has continued His attempt to defy God and stop God’s plan by the destruction of God’s people, and His church during this time. However, the books of Isaiah, Revelation, the Gospels, all reveal that Jesus has already defeated Satan. He is simply working within his God ordained time until the day when Jesus crushes him once and for all. The Bible says that the enemy will ramp up the attack as he feels the last days coming.

God is either sovereign over all or He is sovereign over nothing. We know how the story ends. Those who have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus, who have had truth revealed to them by the power of the Holy Spirit, know what’s coming. If you don’t know how the story ends, seek the Lord today.

Today is the day of salvation. The plan includes defeating Satan once and for all and establishing a new heaven and new earth where he will no longer have any reign or control. Don’t ignore the spiritual attacks the enemy will wage against you to keep you blind and consider the truth of the gospel. The Bible says, “for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18).

God bless.

Even if

/ Renee / Leave a comment

The study of scripture and making it part of daily practice, even when we don’t feel like it, is part of the refining process that God uses to make us more into the image of Christ. I remind myself, when I’m called to obedience that just feels too hard, that if I’m not sweating drops of blood due to the agony of understanding what obedience will require, I still haven’t been asked to obey to the same extent as my Lord. But life really has a way of knocking us down. In some of those hard moments, I’m prone to sarcastically, even bitterly, lament, “well, I’m not Jesus. I don’t have the strength that He did.” He was, after all, God in human form.

While it is true that Jesus is God, and was God while He was on earth, when he took on flesh He became fully man, which means He surrendered His authority, willingly submitting Himself to the will of the Father. At the point that Jesus sweat blood in the garden of Gethsemane, He had the same amount of power that I have access to by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. So, really, when I find myself in a pool of self-pity thinking that I have every right to wallow because I’m not Jesus, what I’m really saying is, I’d rather wallow in this pool of pity than I am willing to come to the table of discipline and ask God, “what,” instead of “why.” When we ask God, “in what way are you desiring me to grow in your likeness through this,” rather than, “why could you let this happen to me,” we enable the sort of growth that the Lord mercifully uses to sanctify us.

Anxiety drives a lot of my function. I’m afraid of the outcome of events, to an almost paralyzing degree at times, even if all that is being asked of me is simply to interact in social settings. My thoughts turn into a raging series of “what-ifs,” that play like a highlight reel in my mind. Some of these fears are products of things I have actually experienced. Some are the result of knowledge I have due to some of those experiences, but remain hypothetical, and only serve to make me more anxious and more withdrawn. When I fall into these pits of fear and worry, it’s most often during periods of time when I’ve placed myself into the driver’s seat, thinking that if I can just budget well enough, if I can parent well enough, if I wife well enough, if I daughter well enough, if I person well enough, that all will go well. But, the diligent study of scripture teaches us that when things go well, it is simply because of God’s grace, and not as a result of anything we’ve done or not done well enough.

We study scripture because it teaches us about God’s character and rightly positions Him in the driver’s seat. What I learn from my savior, is that willing submission leads to the accomplishing of God’s will through me. When I yield to His control, rather than seeking to cling to the idea that I harbor the capacity for control myself, He is able to accomplish His will through me. Nothing I do will prevent His will from coming to fruition, but when I toil, wrestle with God, seek to fulfill what I believe His plan to be on my own terms, I rob myself of the ability to be used by Him. As long as I dwell in the fear of “what if,” I will never abide in the perfect peace of “even if.”

Even if things go poorly, His plan is perfect. Even if everything looks hopeless, He is still on the throne. Even if I feel like I can’t go on, I know His strength will sustain me. Even if I am called to sacrifice for the name and glory of God, I know that He is making all things new, and will one day restore all that I’ve lost. Studying scripture, even when I don’t know where to start or what to do, and diligently practicing the implementation of its instruction, brings me into the shadow of His wings, as I dwell in the secret place of the Most High. (Psalm 91:1)

Even if I can’t see the plan unfolding, and don’t know the outcome, I can be certain He is bringing together all things for the good of those who love Him and have been called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28).

Today is the day of salvation. Even if you’ve spent a lifetime running, rejected, hurting, alone, it’s not too late to see Him work miracles for your good, and to His glory.

Isaiah 55: 6-7 provides this promise:

Seek the Lord while he may be found;
    call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake his way,
    and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him,
    and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

No matter where you are in life, seek the Lord. He will have compassion. He will abundantly pardon even if you’ve run from Him for a long time. His desire is for you to come to Him.

God bless.

Necessary changes

/ Renee / 2 Comments

My life does not look the same today as it did ten years ago. This summer, in July, marks ten years of salvation for me. Ten years of reborn living, ten years of trials that ultimately have led me into the walk I am in today with the Lord. Ten years from now, I pray that my life is marked by ten more years of a daily pursuit of the Lord. The hinge point of salvation marked a point in my life where, from that point forward, the Lord was moving me into obedience. But, it didn’t happen overnight, and it didn’t happen easily.

Ten years ago I was living a selfish, sin filled life. I was regularly using marijuana, and drinking almost every day. My view of God was that He probably existed, and even that He probably created the world -to an extent- but that He had no time or interest in the lives of the people now inhabiting earth. I believed that He’d left us to our own devices and that if He was even aware of our suffering that He didn’t care.

A drastic change was necessary for my view of who God is to change. It started with the near failure of my marriage. I was engaged in an affair, something that is not abnormal for someone who had been the victim of childhood sexual abuse, as I had been. I justified the behavior by blaming my husband for the problems in our marriage, and choosing to believe the lie that the intruder in our life understood me better and would be a better support for me to behave in ways that were ultimately destructive and dangerous. At the same time, I didn’t want my marriage to fail, was afraid of my husband discovering the affair, and lied copiously to him, family, and friends in an attempt to conceal the true details of the nature of it.

When I reflect on this period of my life, I am filled with sadness and shame. I wish I could stop the old me from engaging in behavior that was driven by my flesh, fueled by sin, and in such contrast to the will of God for my life. Change was necessary for me to be brought into the fold of God. That July, God performed a miracle in our marriage. By the grace of God, that came through a conversation with our pastor at the time, communication barriers and walls of self-preservation that I had built with the mortar of conditioned survival behaviors and layered on brick by brick since childhood, were penetrated by the love and grace of Jesus Christ. The day after the transformation of my heart occurred, I broke off the affair. It took ten years for me to fully confess to my husband and seek forgiveness. I also confessed to the pastors and deacons of our church, seeking their forgiveness, which they all graciously granted.

I had a knowledge of God’s word. I’d grown up in church learning scripture and all the Bible stories, I even professed salvation as an eight year old, one year into the sexual abuse that continued until I was fourteen, I was baptized and believed for all intents and purposes that I’d been saved. However, it wasn’t until this point in my life, when my marriage was on the brink of failure, I was engaged in such intertwined sin patterns that I had no hope to unentangle myself on my own, where God began healing the suffering and exposing the sin that was keeping me enslaved to a life of despair and hopelessness that I surrendered to His authority and governance of my life.

From this point forward, the Lord has been moving me further from the darkness and into the light. My life would not transform overnight, there would be more sin patterns, more destructive behavior, and more hardship that, as a result of the suffering, would shepherd me into a life marked by obedience and transparency. But, a lifetime of hiding didn’t morph into a life in full view overnight. Through a series of necessary changes, the Lord moved our life into a place of greater obedience day by day, as we pursued His word and will for our life.

It’s easy to view Christians as if through a lens of having a distance from sin and, therefore, the accessibility to salvation, by someone still entangled in the chains of sin, seems out of reach. However, I exist to tell you, as someone who Jesus burst into the middle of my entanglement, loosed the chains Himself, and pulled me free, there is no place where you are hidden from His sight, no place where He can’t reach you.

The appearance of a Sunday morning sanctuary where everyone is buttoned to the collar, polite, and seemingly unattainable is a far cry from some of the bathrooms floors where I found myself, dirty, broken, and hopeless. But, God was just as present with me there as He is in my row on Sunday morning. He is just as present as I load and reload the washing machine as He was beside me when I was pouring another drink.

The Psalmist wrote in Psalm 139,

7 Where shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
    If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
9 If I take the wings of the morning
    and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
    and your right hand shall hold me.

There is nowhere that is hidden from God. No aspect of our lives that He is disinterested or disengaged from. My life underwent a series of necessary changes for me to realign the warped view the enemy had instilled in my mind regarding God’s position in our places of suffering.

But, I exist as a testimony that the life of obedience is marked by light, peace, and rest in the atonement made by Christ on my behalf.

Today is the day of salvation. If you haven’t accepted Christ as your savior there is no impediment to receiving the gift of His death and resurrection made on your behalf. I was addicted to drugs and alcohol, engaged in an extramarital affair, angry at God for the abuse I had suffered, and conflicted daily by the enslavement to sin, and that is where Jesus met and saved me.

Don’t neglect such a glorious salvation. Receive His free gift of grace, by faith today.

God bless.

The facade of control

/ Renee / Leave a comment

Last night, around 5:30pm eastern standard time, a jet carrying 64 passengers departed from Wichita, Kansas. Sixty four families had someone they loved aboard that aircraft for what should have been a routine flight less than five hours from their departure.

At around 9pm EST, sixty seven families’ lives were impacted in a way that will forever enact for them a “before and after,” phase of their lives. The American Airlines jet collided with a military black hawk helicopter that was carrying three passengers. The collision occurred as the jet attempted the descent to land at Reagan National Airport, just outside of DC, plunging sixty seven people, dads, moms, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers into the thirty seven degree waters of the Potomac River.

One eye witness described the collision as a “fireball,” in the sky. An emergency rescue operation is underway to recover any survivors, but early reports presume that all sixty seven people are dead.

All of them had plans for today. All of them had agendas, meetings, schedules. I would wager that they all had plans for tomorrow, this weekend, next week. Personally, my family has plans as far out as July. I know the crater that would devastate our home if my husband didn’t come home from work today. I feel the dread in my bones. For sixty seven people, they received a phone call informing them that there has been a terrible accident and they need to prepare themselves, their children, their parents, for the worst.

The illusion that we have a say in the events of our lives is simply a coping mechanism. We live under the idea that our meticulously organized, color coded schedule blocks are somehow the fibers that hold together the circumstances of our moments, but this just isn’t the case. The aviation world, experts, pilots are shocked by the “swiss holes” in flight technology that aligned perfectly and allowed this sort of tragedy to occur, but God wasn’t surprised.

I don’t believe in coincidences, whether good or bad. This was a tragic occurrence that was completely within God’s control and timing. The wives who are now widows, the children who will grow up without their mom or dad, the parents who lost children in this horrific accident are not unseen by God who is sovereign over all. His power and presence doesn’t stop tragedy from occurring. It is within the scope of His knowledge that tragedy occurs, and He does have the power to stop these terrible things from happening before they occur. However, the moments of despair and despondency, when we are faced with a trial that we don’t have the strength to endure on our own, are exactly the circumstances that drive us to the foot of the cross.

It is grace when we face suffering beyond our comprehension and mercy that is extended in the form of comfort and peace by the hand of His sustaining power because it is one means by which God will draw us to Him. The problem is that we view these circumstances through the lens of our temporal perspective and not through the lens of his eternal one. This doesn’t mean that grieving, devastation, anger or shock are inappropriate. At the tomb of his friend Lazarus, “Jesus wept” (John 11:35) and in the Hebrew the connotation for this use of the Hebrew word, “wept,” was a guttural cry of anguish and dismay at the suffering of God’s people at the hands of the consequence of sin, which is death.

God’s plan of redemption for the world began before the foundations of the earth were laid. He knew the serpent would deceive Eve, and Adam who was with her, in the garden and therefore introduce sin into the world. He knew that the law He gave to Moses for the Israelites would be impossible for them to keep, and that they would continually fall short of the holiness required of them to be reunited with Him. He knew that only by a savior could those who trust in Him be redeemed. Jesus came to earth to redeem His own and by His word we are provided all the information we need to understand why tragedies like this occur: because satan introduced sin into the world which separated creation from a holy God and allowed for pain, despair, destruction, division, and death. But Jesus came to overcome these things.

Jesus states in John 16:33, “these things {His instruction and teaching} I have spoken to you so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”

When Jesus came, died on the cross, and was resurrected three days later it was to secure, for those who would believe, a future that does not include happenstance tragedy. It will not include sickness, pain, or death. He died so that the payment for the sin of man, which made man irreconcilable to God through any other means than by grace through faith, was made.

Today is the day of salvation. Confess the sin that separates you from God and trust in the payment made by Christ on your behalf.

Pray for the families of this most recent tragedy. Unfortunately, there will be another one somewhere today, tomorrow, soon. The facade of control is that we have any but Jesus provides a solution. The tragedy and brokenness have already been overcome and can be accessed in a future day because of the blood of Christ.

Come soon, Lord Jesus.

God bless.