“Buy the truth and do not sell it—wisdom, instruction and insight as well.”
Proverbs 23:23
“May it be the real me, that seeks and finds the real You.”
I’m not much for ‘written’ prayers. I guess it’s an ingrown reaction to ‘religion,’ of which I’m highly suspicious. But I’m willing to accept reciting prayers and even liturgy, if only they don’t develop into a ‘replacement’ for the Holy Spirit. And that is hard to do. The last couple of months, I started praying this ‘one sentence’ prayer. It came to me, out of the blue, but has echoed through the deepest part of me. It is a desire to be real– authentic, and true.
“May it be the real me, that meets with the real You.”
The last several months have been difficult for me. I suppose I was going through the motions: writing, praying, reading. Spiritually I guess, feeling kind of phony and ‘detached’ from anything real. You can only varnish something for the 1000th time before you really need to take it back to bare wood. I feel like that was what I was doing. But I couldn’t figure out ‘how.’
Lately I feel ‘brand new.’ Issues that have plagued me for years are being stripped away. When I started praying with this ‘new’ prayer, and combined with meaning, the heavens just seemed to open up. It’s not the ‘pretend’ me, seeking a ‘pretend’ God anymore.
I sincerely hope, with all my heart, that just maybe this will touch you. I’m not into ‘knocking over any apple carts.’ But I feel compelled to share this experience with the hope you might walk into something real. May the ‘real’ God reveal Himself to the ‘real’ you.
“If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach an imaginary but the true mercy. If the mercy is true, you must therefore bear the true, not an imaginary sin. God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong, but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides.”
Martin Luther, From the Melanchthon Letter no. 99, 1 August 1521
Luther is essentially communicating the things that are real to us. He takes it down to bare wood. We are given an understanding of this World, an a sense of what we can expect from the hearts of all those who surround us. Sin is the issue, and we need to accept that from our brothers and sisters. We should not be surprised when someone we love intentionally blindsides us with their disobedience to God.
Dramatic words, ‘sin boldly’. We instantly see this as a way to sin, without restraint. And let’s face it, sinning is fun. At times perhaps, even a whole lot more pleasure than walking out godliness. Luther recognized the inevitably of sin. As fallen people we should accept that fallenness. We sin, it’s what we do, and we do that very well. And the Lord knows that.
“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
1 John 1:8
Our ‘religious’ hearts often go into this ‘deception mode.’ We endeavor not give in to the viciousness of sin. “We will overcome!” And yet we are so infected with sin, and rebellion that we try to minimize the problem. If the truth be known, we are sick, infested and condemned. There are no ‘quick fixes’ for us. Evil runs rampant. It is the ultimate epidemic.
Looking at our salvation
“Let your trust in Christ be more boldly still.’ The Lord Jesus has decisively interrupted our lives. He has wholesale entered into our darkness and sin. In a way it’s like a ‘roadside’ bomb, and needs a direct intervention of a specialist to disarm it. As people who are completely saturated with sin, we need a third party to step-in and to save us from all the embedded darkness.
Often there is a sense of boldness when we completely understand our depravity. We ‘know’ our sin. For the most part can grasp its deadliness, and its infectiousness. The Holy Spirit’s ministry is to bring us to this transparent moment when we can see the darkness and harm we’ve caused. The fact is, that we are to accept this, it’s all true. We have been this evil and awful to those around us. Most believers would curiously admit that ‘they have sinned more as a believer’ than before they were first saved.
Luther declares a significant point when he tells us ‘to believe in Christ more boldly still’. Simply, our ‘sin’ awareness must never exceed our Christ awareness. We must have a stronger sense of Jesus’ victory then our sinfulness. Our confidence, which has taken a hit on our sinfulness, now shouts ‘hallelujah’ at His victory.
“If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth.9 But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.10 If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts.”
1 John 1:8-10, NLT
“You need not fear because sin still plagues you – instead rejoice that by God’s grace you are on a journey toward eternal life and sin will finally fade into the distant past.”
Luther
“May it be the real me, that seeks and finds the real You.”
“And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
Nehemiah 8:10
“Shout for joy in the Lord, O you righteous! Praise befits the upright.”
Psalm 33:1
There is a power emitted from a life of joy.
We can see it and hear it in the lives of joy transformed people; many others, not so much. The deep joy we see is the most significant evidence we can know of the real presence of Jesus Christ. As we journey with joy, we become a living ‘billboard’ of God’s reality.
This is an awesome thing, when you think about it. But it also ‘takes the pressure off’ a believer’s witness to a watching world. The light is God’s, and when it shines out of us it is the ‘clincher’ for many people. (So, you should relax some.)
My first contact with Christians was at a ‘hippie’ commune in the early 70s. These were ‘Jesus People’ and when I saw peace and joy in their faces, I just knew it was real. It wasn’t anything that was said, rather it was the way they said it. Their countenance was filled with a joy that couldn’t be faked. (I would’ve known it if it was.)
Evangelism has more in common with joy than with a formulaic presentation. It is good to know ‘the Romans Road’ method of preaching; it is far better to know the God behind it. The witness of joy will significantly touch hearts when nothing else will. There is no better witness to an unbeliever than ‘Jesus inside’ a believer!’
I led teams of evangelists in the streets from 1986-1989 with S.O.S. Ministries in San Francisco and Berkeley. We distributed tens of thousands of tracts and Bibles. I learned to preach at ‘the cable car turn-around’ on the streets at Powell and Market, and many other places. We would always prepare out hearts beforehand by a time of praise and worship. We would seek the ‘infilling of the Holy Spirit’ before we stepped out into the city.
The infilling part was critical, and we knew it. The methodology could be learned– but we weren’t salesmen. We had to be ‘in tune’ with the Holy Spirit first and foremost. Today, 2014 we still must radiate Jesus to those who don’t know Him yet. Mother Teresa once said, “Joy is the net we use to catch souls.”
Come away with Jesus, and spend real time with him. Joy and peace will follow you when you truly meet with him. He makes his servants shine. “The joy of the Lord is your strength.’
At http://www.Brokenbelievers.com, our focus is mostly on the spiritual realities of being disabled, and yet a believer in Jesus. We honestly need these things as a man needs air. They are things that we look into, and are crucial to our spiritual survival. Yet sometimes we encounter something on the physical/medical side that is important enough to merit our attention.
The latest off the wire, is a recent study on prescription sleep aids. For many years, our doctors have strongly suggested that if needed, we take a sleeping pill to enable us to “rack out.” A lot of people use them. In 2010, between 6 and 10% of adult Americans used a sleeping aid. Recently, researchers took another look. The drugs tested were Ambien, Restoril, Lunesta and Sonata. These, and a few others were tested. If your really interested, you will find the report on WebMd.com.
What they found was that users of these drugs to promote sleep faced a 5.3-fold higher death risk. They also had a 35% higher risk of cancer, the study found. That made me perk right up.
The study was conducted at California San Diego which commenced in the early seventies. I encourage you to dig this up, and especially if you are taking a sleeping aid prescribed by a doctor. It could help you to decide on taking these meds, or not.
Perhaps, the issues are not substantial or significant to you. I do confess that the results are provocative. And yet they do guide us into a fuller understanding. I have taken “Lunesta” for almost 4 years, every night. My psychiatrist has explained to me that in his mind Bipolar Disorder can pretty much be a sleep issue and we need to treat it as such. Hence the Lunesta. But my shrink is not alone on this.
I suppose that I must admit a fear of not being able to sleep. Sleep has been quite honestly the state that has carried me through many of my issues. I guess when I do sleep, I retract many things, and my “decks” are cleared for new ones. The fear of losing this ability to really sleep, keeps me from not taking seriously the Lunesta I take every night. Inside, I just can’t see giving it up, in spite of the statistics.
In many ways, I suppose that sleep has become my deliverer. And as a believer, this should scare me. Jesus, after all, has redeemed me. He has done the work, after all. And yet I look at sleep as a sort of deliverance from my difficult issues. I don’t know what you are getting, but right now I’m sleeping 10 or 11 hours a night. And somewhat rarely I’ll take a 1 or 2 hour nap in the late afternoon.
“At this I awoke and looked, and my sleep was pleasant to me.” Jer. 31:26
Something funny: I once saw this posted on a wall in a church nursery, and thought it was very humorous, “Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed” 1 Corinthians 15:51.
Broken Believers 