Category: Jesus Christ

Trial and Error (and Maybe Some Fire?)

I’m personally convinced that living life is all about “trial and error.” We seem to be working out some holy experiment. More orthodox people call it discipleship, but that really isn’t the whole truth. It seems we are working it out in a spiritual lab keeping the good (like humility) and tossing the bad (like selfishness.)

We also experience blisters from “near-brushes” with God’s flames. About 30 years ago, I set myself on fire. I was in my little cabin in Alaska, and woke up on a January morning. It was cold, beyond cold. I set up the coffee pot and opened the oven door to get warm.

I turned my backside to get warm from the oven heat. It was then the fire set my sweater on fire. I went up like a candle. I couldn’t get the flames off my back. I tried to drop and roll, and all that happened was that I pressed the burning sweater into my back. (I also caught the carpet on fire.)

The pain was intense. I was panicking. We had an inside bathroom, and the shower was one of those massage kind with a long hose. By this time the flames were shooting up my back, over my shoulder and into my hair. I couldn’t pull of the tight sweater (which was acrylic and was melting on my skin.)

It took a little bit of time to get the water to flow through the hose– and I was burning to death! The water finally made its inexorable way to the shower head, and at last I found relief.

“He makes his angels winds,
    and his ministers a flame of fire.”

Hebrews 1:7, ESV

The night before I read that particular verse, and spent some time thinking about it. I’m certain I read if before, but somehow it seemed I was reading it for the very first time. “A flame of fire, how very odd,” I thought.

This was of those strategic points for me as I was wondering about any kind of “full-time” ministry. The irony certainly wasn’t lost on me that next morning when I flared up like a torch.

I ended up in the hospital with a lot of 2nd and 3rd degree burns down most of my back. It took a long time to heal, and I have some serious scars. It took many years before I could expose these burned areas to the sun.

Most of what I learned, was that I was a “marked man.” That our Heavenly Father was not adverse to using anything in my life, as long as it didn’t kill me. (I’m thinking of the Book of Job here.) There was such a slow healing, and it hurt so bad, that I must believe it was quite significant. So its trial and error–and sometimes fire.

“The agony of man’s affliction is often necessary to put him into the right mood to face the fundamental things of life. The Psalmist says, ‘Before I was afflicted I went astray; but now I have kept Thy Word.'”   Oswald Chambers

“The Lord afflicts us at times; but it is always a thousand times less than we deserve, and much less than many of our fellow-creatures are suffering around us. Let us therefore pray for grace to be humble, thankful, and patient.”   John Newton

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ybic, Bryan

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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.

^

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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