Serving Rascals, Clumsy Disciples, and Physically and Mentally Ill Believers with the Unconditional Love of Jesus Christ
Happy New Years’ to each and every Brokenbeliever follower! I ask for God’s best blessings and that you would know His love, and then walk in His light.
“What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”
Romans 8:31-32, NIV
I finally broke through and realized that I am a consummate scorner. I have cultivated this for many years, and especially the last five. I will tell now, I am to scorning as Tiger Woods is to golf. I have been diagnosed with Hepatitis C, a durmoid brain tumor, lung issues with a chemical accident, manic-depression requiring extensive hospitalization, and a low thyroid requiring meds. And, on top of this, the death of a newborn daughter.
My faith has been extremely challenged through all of this. I have pastored a church and taught classes at a local Bible college, all with a lot of enthusiasm and purpose. My students and my congregation were being blessed. But all of this pretty much disintegrated around me and I found myself with a whole lot of nothing.
Scorn has never been anything I gravitated to. But it has ‘seeped’ into my thinking, through a slow and steady presence. It works like mercury poisoning. It has touched me as a gradual toxin, slowly sickening me with its constant contact. I haven’t been connected with the light as I should have. But over an extensive amount of time, a venomous and noxious filth has been introduced into my heart and my thinking. It must be like watching someone die from ‘radiation sickness’.
To scorn means to become ” ‘competous’, disdainful, scornful, to mock.” I never, ever dreamed I would be brought to this point. But life has continuously rolled over me, and I find I just can’t make it work anymore. I definitely do understand the promises of God. But I definitely do not understand God’s grace on me. But you might as well try to explain the color ‘blue’ to a blind man.
I am Bryan, the scorner. I am also ‘a spiritual beggar’, with a significant mental illness. I should be on the streets pushing a shopping cart and drinking cheap vodka. When I start to scorn, I get mean and cynical. I’m contemptuous and I sneer at whatever crosses my path that day. I hear voices and ‘tune in’ radio stations. All I lack is a ‘tin-foil’ hat, which I have seriously considered.
My depression molds my thinking, and my despair rules the rest. The promises of God are not for me, and they seem to always be out of my reach. In many ways, I am an ‘unbelieving’ believer (there are many people like us). My own frosty coldness and hardness never seems to amaze me. I don’t want to be this way. God, help me please.
A defining word, for people like me is this: “self-forgiveness“. I consider myself above average when it comes to forgiving others. I look forward to forgiving others. But, I just cannot forgive myself. I simply can’t let myself ‘get off the hook’. At times I do sense a comfort and a peace over these sins, but very soon they begin to rub me raw. Like blisters, or ‘a stone in my shoe’, I begin to limp again. They are incredibly persistant.
This is not self-pity. I am not looking for any manner of attention or warm hugs. I do though want to open up my darkness so the light gets in. I must learn to forgive myself, if I will ever walk clean. This is imperative. The adulteress who fell at Jesus’ feet and wept managed to forgive herself of a great deal of sin. Those of us with mental illness/addictions have to come to this same point. Is Jesus’ love enough to cover me?
Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our(F) common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you(G) to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.
Jude 1:3, ESV
The Book of Jude is jammed with warnings and words of direction. As we read though it, we are directed to understand that people who live sinfully are in mortal danger. We check ourselves, and monitor our hearts to discern them. Jude seems to reflect to us that the darkness out there is pervasive and a mite dangerous.
As we read this book, we should be lifted up in our confidence and boldness. We should find ourselves in a reasonable assurance. However, Jude speaks out about a flood of darkness that is rolling right up to the very foundations of the Church. Much of this small letter seems pessimistic. But Jude in certain spots definitely gives us hope and encouragement.
There is a lot of personal reasons that I like this book . Jude is one of the few books we can read in one sitting. It also contains verses that are incredibly edifying. We reach out for these promises and we find a good, strong rope to help us advance.
Jude tells his readers to be aware, and also to contend. He really doesn’t want us to be argumentative. But he does want us to ‘lock down’ and hold our positions. Our faith has been handled and held by the generations before us. Grandmas, and Aunties, and their parents, and parents of parents. They all held our faith and stood boldly for the faith in Christ.
It is now in our feeble hands, and its our turn. We are called to ‘contend’ for our faith. We stand in one spot against the darkness, and we establish ourselves and refuse to compromise. We stand against so much evil, but our faith should not erode.
The saints from generations past had a have an aggressive brand of faith. And the life we have experienced so far has been the life they also lived. Day by day, their lives opened up for them, and they decided to live for God. But their days could be very tedious, and they knew of them just as we know. Believe it or not, tedium can be a difficult mindset to live in.
It is vitally important that we become ‘contenders’ of our faith. That we stand in place while the flood water surge around us. When the flood slams against us, will we stand at that moment? Will we stay in our spot, when things get crazy and unrecognizable? I have experienced first-hand a real flood, and it comes with a powerful force, knocking down trees and buildings with no effort at all.
The Believer of today, has a tremendous amount of thinking to do. Will we go against evil and ‘contend’ that our faith is real and that it is significant? Will we stay rooted in the flood, and lift up the torch of faith? He stands to see what you will do. He despatches power and grace for our comfort and strength.
1Some time later, I felt the LORD’s power take control of me, and his Spirit carried me to a valley full of bones. 2The LORD showed me all around, and everywhere I looked I saw bones that were dried out. 3He said, “Ezekiel, son of man, can these bones come back to life?”
I replied, “LORD God, only you can answer that.”
4He then told me to say:
Dry bones, listen to what the LORD is saying to you, 5“I, the LORD God, will put breath in you, and once again you will live. 6I will wrap you with muscles and skin and breathe life into you. Then you will know that I am the LORD.”
7I did what the LORD said, but before I finished speaking, I heard a rattling noise. The bones were coming together! 8I saw muscles and skin cover the bones, but they had no life in them.
9The LORD said:
Ezekiel, now say to the wind, [a] “The LORD God commands you to blow from every direction and to breathe life into these dead bodies, so they can live again.” 10As soon as I said this, the wind blew among the bodies, and they came back to life! They all stood up, and there were enough to make a large army.
11The LORD said:
Ezekiel, the people of Israel are like dead bones. They complain that they are dried up and that they have no hope for the future. 12So tell them, “I, the LORD God, promise to open your graves and set you free. I will bring you back to Israel, 13and when that happens, you will realize that I am the LORD. 14My Spirit will give you breath, and you will live again. I will bring you home, and you will know that I have kept my promise. I, the LORD, have spoken.”
Ezekiel is transported to a place where things like this happen and are not considered overly exotic or strange. He is not freaked out with this, or the transformation of bones to people. (Although I’m sure his blood-pressure went high for a bit.) Ezekiel looks over this valley of human bones that are beyond the point of decay. In a moment of time there is a reanimation, bones get connected with other bones, and scattered remains become complete corpses.
Ezekiel is obviously astonished. He extrapolates off of what he sees, and it is indeed a complete army, and it is ready to step out to do God’s Will. It is critical to see that there is no apparent effort, no real perspiring by God to energize these bones. God wills it, and its done. No fuss, no muss. It just— happens.
As we consider our own transformation (and it really is that) we can be confident that it presents no great issue to our Lord to bring you life. We view His promises from our personal perspective. But that is all wrong. Often we nullify many good things because of our issues of personal doubt.
Resurrection life is offered to us, if we will just reach out and take it. It’s not rocket science, ‘presto-chango.’ But it is sufficient to put the resurrection into these hard, dry hearts. The track record of the Kingdom of God has a phenomenal growth pattern. (You could grow hair on billiard ball if God enabled it!)
“Your body will always be dead because of sin. But if Christ is in you, then the Spirit gives you life, because Christ made you right with God. 11 God raised Jesus from the dead, and if God’s Spirit is living in you, he will also give life to your bodies that die. God is the One who raised Christ from the dead, and he will give life through[a] his Spirit that lives in you.”
Romans 8:10-11, NCV
Confidence in His ability is desperately needed in the Church right now. Life in a resurrection sense has to be returned back into our fellowships. People are waiting, in skeletal piles, for God to do something amazing again. So many wait, and we are the Ezekiels. We do not have the power to resurrect anyone. But we do have the power to pray. And we know Jesus’ has the power to raise the dead.
Broken Believers 