A whole year! Time sure flies, when you're having fun...NOT! Miserable does not begin to describe the past year! Fed up with people. Fed up with God. Fed up with myself for being fed up. I think the frustrating part of walking with God, is every time you think you finally get it, you are confronted with the sad truth that you don't. And the confrontation is violent and tears your heart out. You fight with yourself. You question your purpose. Why are you wasting your time trying to do something that does not matter to anybody else? You could feel this way without God and His people. You felt like this, before you came to Christ. How is this better? It's supposed to be better.
It shouldn't hurt like this when you walk with God, should it?
And then I got my devotional for today. Here it is:
TGIF Today God Is First, by Os Hillman
12-18-2007
If an enemy were insulting me, I could endure it; if a foe were raising himself against me, I could hide from him. But it is you, a man like myself, my companion, my close friend. - Psalm 55:12-13
"You will always be attacked in the place of your inheritance," said the man sitting across the breakfast table. "God has called you to bring people together and to impact other people's lives as a result of this anointing in your life. You must make sure that you seek to maintain righteousness in all of your relationships." Those words came from someone who had the wisdom and authority to speak them to me.
I have had a number of close relationships that ended in betrayal. I am very loyal to my friends and those with whom I have covenant relationships. Yet there are times that no matter how righteous you are, when someone means to betray you, he will do it. Loving those who betray you is "graduate-level Christianity." The religious community and one of His closest friends betrayed Jesus. Those who were closest to David betrayed him. Joseph's own family betrayed him. Loving our enemies cannot be accomplished by mustering it up. It can only happen when we have come to a death in ourselves so that Christ can love through us. It is truly one of those acts of identifying with the cross.
If you are a leader, you can be sure God will allow you to experience betrayal. It is one of those courses in the Kingdom that may not be required until God has seen that you have successfully passed other tests. It is the most difficult and most gut wrenching of all tests. A godly response goes against all that is in us. Our natural response is to protect, retaliate, and retain unforgiveness and bitterness. Our natural response is satan's most powerful weapon; to overcome it requires much grace from God. Ask God to build His nature in you now so that when such attacks come, you will be aware that it is a test and you will respond in righteousness.
Look at it again:
It is the most difficult and most gut wrenching of all tests. A godly response goes against all that is in us. Our natural response is to protect, retaliate, and retain unforgiveness and bitterness. Our natural response is satan's most powerful weapon; to overcome it requires much grace from God. (you can get this every day by clicking on the link to the right side of the page)
My NATURAL response is satan's most powerful weapon!
I am so wrapped up in my circumstances, that I miss some very important elements. The first thing I missed is that my response does matter. It is important to Christ. Yours is, too!
The second thing that I missed is this is a spiritual attack. God allows satan to use my NATURAL emotional responses against me, to teach me how to control my emotions. Why? Because, if I do not learn to control them, they become a weapon against me. Not just ANY weapon, either. The enemy's most powerful weapon.
The third thing that I missed is, if I am walking around with unforgiveness and bitterness in my heart, AFTER Christ has forgiven me for everything (go get your Kleenex! It gets real ugly right about here!), then I blaspheme the Blood that Christ shed for me. My requirement, once I accept Grace, is to give that Grace away in the same manner (Unconditional) and the same amount (Unlimited) that I received it.
Busted, aren't you? I was.
I want God to forgive me for everything that I have done and stuff I haven't even got to mess up yet. But, my flesh is walking around in unforgiveness and bitterness. I am more important than God (to me) when that happens. I know that is wrong. How can I struggle with something that I know is wrong? If I am a servant of God, how can I make that decision?
And because I understand the consequences of my willful decision, I don't ask God to forgive me. Now, I am separated from God.
I feel the distance between us. I put it there. I want tangible evidence, that in the midst of all of this pain others inflicted upon me (DING! DING! DING!), that God cares about what's happened to ME!
When it's not about me. That is what God wants to teach me. That it is never about me, when I think it should be. AND, it always about me, when I think that it shouldn't be.
I did not sign up for this, Lord!
Oh yes, you did, Errol. In your haste to get "Fire Insurance", you failed to read the fine print. It reads, "give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO TRESPASS AGAINST US". Been saying that since you were knee high to a cockroach, haven't you? Never paid attention to the fine print.
Go back and read the fine print. Read Psalm 55. God put it there to show where your greatest hurt will come from. And to show you what the right answer is. Go read John Chapters 14 through 17. God put that there to show you that, if you are following Him, they are going to hate you and talk about you. He wants to show there are those who call themselves Christians, who are not of Christ. He will provoke them to show their true colors. The crisis of faith will be too great for them to go any farther than their character can carry them.
Read: IT'S NOT ABOUT ME!
And just as Christ set an example of just what Grace looks like when He forgave His disciples for abandoning Him, even after they all proclaimed their allegiance, He is asking me...you...to sacrifice your rights and be an example of what Grace and Forgiveness looks like.
Read: IT'S ALL ABOUT ME!
Don't you have a right to be hurt and angry? No. The only right you have, as a child of the Living God, is to obey.
If you don't make that choice, well, God says that if you do not forgive others, then He cannot (Not WILL NOT, CANNOT!) forgive you.
Think about that for a moment, will you?
