Category: believer

When Being Crushed is Part of His Plan

“Crush Me”

“Oh, that I might have my request,
that God would grant me the thing that I long for!
That it would please God to crush me . . .”  Job 6:8

I have been in crushing times when relief didn’t come like I wanted.

Lord, I can’t always understand what is going on in my life or the lives of loved ones, and so I cry out for Your mercy.  And here’s a simple poem . . .

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The Crushing Place

Source- asterick.apod.com
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We may not know
what it was like
to be Job

in a place
so desperately thin
he’d ask God
to crush him

but for those that
do know
that are there

we cry out
for mercy
and hold them
in prayer.

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Deb Feller’s Blog– Simple Poems, A Simple Blog:  http://wp.me/K8fw

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The Transfiguration, (Or “Let’s Get It Right, This Time”)

“Six days later Jesus took Peter and the two brothers, James and John, and led them up a high mountain to be alone. As the men watched, Jesus’ appearance was transformed so that his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as light.” 

Matt. 17:1-2

We observe that Jesus ‘picked and choosed’ three men to go with Him to this incredible place.  Nothing is fabricated, nothing is manipulated.  The three are given a backstage pass into the supernatural, where things are more real than they seem, not less so.

They were led with the pretext of loneliness and separation.  It was critical that they step into this quiet place, with no distraction or disturbance.  The entire situation was based exclusively on the person of Jesus.  He would be the ‘canvas’ on which everything would happen.  Jesus would display and exhibit the spiritual reality of what was about to happen.

All the men could do is observe, and from our text this was their fundamental purpose.  They watched, and Jesus did not disappoint them.  He commenced to radiate from within, an intense light.  It says, ‘He was transformed’.  We don’t have the freedom to make any conjecture of what this entailed.  We can only understand that what was happening was purely and entirely supernatural.

I think that we often we get a little confused about the transforming presence of Jesus in our own lives.  It seems that it happens apart from His presence.  We somehow get changed apart from the direct intervention of Him.  We inexplicably think that this is the way it works, that somehow I will start radiating peace, wisdom and godliness on my own.  Kind of a ‘self -glowing in the dark’ Christian.

But Jesus Christ is the exclusive initiator and upholder of the Christian life.  Jesus is not a by-product, but the entire ‘kit and kaboodle’.  He is at the center of our salvation, both the justifier and sancifier of our being.  We cannot trust Him to justify us, unless we believe that He will also make us holy people.  He takes it all. And all that He takes He will transform.

I guess I’m advocating the return of Jesus to His walk of transfiguration in our lives.  We make Him the center, and let Him shine.  This is not heretical; it is fundamental.  It is also critical.  Only when we arrive at this point can we say “Jesus, why, He is my Lord and King!  He is the Center of the entire universe, and He is my all, in all.”

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ybic, Bryan

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Help! I Need a Doctor

“And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” 

Mark 2:17, ESV

We get ‘schooled’ when we try to figure out Jesus.  It is a radical adjustment to process His thoughts and motives.  We watch and try to understand.  Jesus dictates a certain level, and we as His disciples will need to adjust.  Jesus declares that a select group will not need a doctors ministrations.  But the doctor does have a role.  There will be the ‘sick’, who need his attention.

The reality is that many are diseased and ill.  It is something that links and connects us to each  other.  We are desperately sick, and we have no medicine.  Jesus steps forward and intervenes.  He takes us and ministers to us in our desperate condition.  The diseased will be made healthy.

Jesus reaches ‘the sick’.  That is who He wants.  He makes the choice and that choice is us, full of infection and pain.  His Kingdom consists of those who understand their illness.  He bypasses the strong and the healthy.  He spends little time with them.  His heart is set on us who are broken and twisted.  Our cancerous bodies have absolutely nothing to give Him.

His Kingdom is full of sick people.  It, in a sense, is full with the ‘terminally ill’.  It is we who have ‘attracted’ Him.  Yet He has intensely sought us out.  We gather like little chicks to his protective wings.  We honestly do not have the ability even to protect ourselves.

Jesus declares that He has come for us.  Sin is very near to us.  We have the infection and we are completely vulnerable.  We are not strong spiritually.  There are many who excel before us.  We can make no claim to anything of significance.  But He has chosen us.  Sovereignly and specifically.  Strongly and decisively.  He has collected us and brought us to His heart.

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ybic, Bryan

 

 

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Comparing Our Differences

“Do not insult the deaf or cause the blind to stumble. You must fear your God; I am the Lord.”

Leviticus 19:14, NLT

“I served as eyes for the blind and feet for the lame.”

Job 29:15, NLT

Our disabilities can give us a rough time of it. Being mentally ill– whether with depression, schizophrenia, bipolar, autism spectrum, etc can create many challenges. In some sense, those of us with physical or mental issues are all in the same boat. Many of us are physically, mentally, or developmentally disabled.

Or are we? I suspect that there are a million permutations (or more) of disability. One is in a wheelchair and suffers from migraines and depression. Another has severe anxiety. Others have little or no self-control and is becoming a drunkard, and yet another is just a child but diagnosed as autistic.

The fact of  labeling people often diminishes them into categories. A young child with Downs Syndrome is often labeled, and they seldom have the opportunities that ‘normal’ children receive. This is usually an unconscious reaction to their handicap.

In Nazi Germany, those with a mental or physical illness were rounded up and sterilized or euthanized (murdered) to achieve an ‘Aryan superiority.’ Systematically, untold thousands of disabled people were executed. We call this “eugenics” and it still is alive and well in the 21st century. It is rampant in a world that embraces “social darwinism” as its ideology.

We must remember these things. We also need to understand that we shouldn’t compare people with people. And we dare not pass judgement on anyone who is different. Disabled people should not wear labels, especially when ‘normal’ people slap it on us. A person’s perceived value should never, ever be part of a Christian believer’s agenda.

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ybic, Bryan

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