God – Page 30 – Broken Believers

Grace: Be All You Can Be

“Grace is given to heal the spiritually sick, not to decorate spiritual heroes”

There exists a mentality among Christian believers where our faith will somehow grant us a pile of ‘nice things.’ This concept tells us that material possessions are a sign of His blessing. If we just have enough faith, we will truly live in a land of wonder, grace and material blessings.

Doing missions work in a very poor town in Mexico, I was horrified to find this twist. (I had thought that it wouldn’t really work among the desperate.) But an especially virulent type was working in the hearts of some of my brothers and sisters. They latched on to this idea that since they followed God that soon they could count on special favors from Him. (Like a car, electricity, running water.) Some ‘converted’ just to get these things from God! I refuse to judge them, since I see a variation of this in my own life.

From their cardboard shacks, they could somehow generate a special favor from the Lord. It came as a relief to me that there were some believers, who over time, began to see that grace was really an undeserved gift; material blessings could never come in this way. God’s grace alone would make them wealthy!

Somehow, we can get confused and believe that if we jump through the right hoops God is obligated to give us what we want. But the true Kingdom doesn’t work like this, you can’t use Him in this way. Grace was never meant to ‘decorate’ a believer (least not primarily) but to mend us, to prepare the fallen for eternity. God is not your cosmic bellhop.

Listen! God’s grace is given to heal us. It is a gift, and it will always be a gift. We don’t deserve it, we don’t earn it for having enough faith. Grace isn’t supposed to be like this, rather it’s more like an I.V. to a dying man. It is dialysis to the woman with kidney failure. It is ‘radiation’ to the cancer patient.

“The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?”

(Jeremiah 17:9, ESV)

Grace comes to us because we are so very sick. We are deeply affected by a spiritual disease. We should think (rather than see it as a reward) that it is the treatment for that which has deeply sickened us. His love is seen, especially seen, in the worst of us. That’s the way grace works.

God is not against us because of our sin; He is with us because of our sin.

Just thinking out loud here. I hope I haven’t offended.

Your desperately “sick” brother,

Bryan

commentsbb@yahoo.com

A Prayer for Bryan

We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us.
C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, chap. 4, para. 15, p. 22.

If you’ve been a visitor to Broken Believers blog for very long, you may have notice a drop off in the number of posts over the past year. You may have attributed it to COVID-19. I mean, really, can’t we blame a lot of things on the uncertainty of this pandemic? But that’s not the reason posting has dropped off.

The main reason is that Bryan Lowe, the trusted servant of God who started this blog and has kept it going for so long, has experienced some serious health issues. He is currently in Colorado, where for the past five months he has been undergoing much testing and treatment, but no answers yet. He has lost far more weight than he should and is having trouble gaining it back.

Bryan longs to return to Alaska, his favorite place to be, with the exception of being in the presence of the Lord. I think Alaska is the closest place to heaven on this earth for him.

And so I am helping out around here to keep Broken Believers Blog going. I’ll be posting more than I have in the past. I hope what I post will be a blessing. But the first order of business is a prayer for Bryan. I know he appreciates all the prayer he can get, because he knows God honors our prayers when we lay before Him what is in us.

My Prayer

Heavenly Father,

I lift up to You Bryan, Your dear son and loyal servant. You know exactly what is going on in his body and in his mind. I pray for Your healing touch, for Your comfort and peace, and for Your wisdom for the doctors treating him. Lord, help him to gain weight and to feel well again. Return Bryan to his home in Alaska with a refreshed spirit and strength to continue to serve You in whatever way You are calling him to do.

In the meantime, Lord, give Bryan rest for his body and rest for his soul. Help him to draw closer to You, Jesus, and feel Your very real presence. Lead him in paths of righteousness for Your name’s sake. Make him to lie down in peaceful pastures and restore his soul. Let him truly know that this time of illness has not been wasted but is being and will be used by You for Your glory and his good.

I ask all these things in the precious name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, amen.

Your Prayers

I hope that you will join me in praying for Bryan. I know over the years he has faithfully prayed for many of you and continues to do so. He has a heart to serve, but serving is difficult when illness strikes. Please pray that he has peace. If you would like to post your prayer in the comments, I know he would be blessed.

Running the Good Race, [Endurance]

^{23 “}The Lord directs the steps of the godly.
He delights in every detail of their lives.
²⁴Though they stumble, they will never fall,
for the Lord holds them by the hand.”

Psalm 37:23-24, NLT

We are each on a journey, and when we start to get serious about our following, we feel His pleasure. In the movie, “Chariots of Fire,” a line is spoken by Eric Liddell: “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.” The film resonated deep inside the bones of many who saw it.

Part of it I suppose was this runner had something called passion– it is something we hardly hear about these days. (Perhaps we need some of that “fervor.”) There is also a point to made that we can really make God happy. And many of us don’t completely understand this. Or don’t believe it! What they end up living is a substandard life, and that is tragic.

“And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.”

Hebrews 12:1

The pleasure we bring God is our profound purpose in life.

When we start moving out into that heart-intensity, we will discover that it is what we crave. All the pleasures of sin will never satisfy us. You might as well sort that out as soon as you can. You will only find satisfaction in running the spiritual race. Oh to grab hold of life with two hands and make it your own!

V. 24, paints a picture of a stumbling runner. Perhaps your feet slipped, or you tripped over a root or rock. Nobody goes out to race with the idea of falling on their hinder parts. The key idea though isn’t my falling, but by His proximity. He is holding your hand! To suggest otherwise is foolish and bad theology. He finds us— follows us—and holds us steady.

^“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, and I have remained faithful.”

2 Timothy 4:7

As a mentally ill believer, my race is different than many.

I run with constant pain and clinical depression. I remember in boot camp a recruit had to carry around a thirty pound rock in his ruck sack for 48 hours. He ran with it, ate with it, showered with it. He even had to sleep with it. Perhaps that rock made that recruit a future Command Sargeant Major?!

I still must run, and I’m not disqualified by my ‘rock.’. I still am a disciple and still must run my own particular race. I think deep-down you know this; you see, everyone you meet today is running a challenging race, a profoundly hard race– so be kinder than you have to be. Grit your teeth and be kind.

What were you born to do? (ilifejourney.wordpress.com)
Chariots of Fire to be re-released for 2012 Olympics (mirror.co.uk)
Eric Liddell (lights4god.wordpress.com)

Being Lured Back, [Apostasy]

Recently I read a news story about pastors who have been led into atheism. These are all evangelical men, some with more than 20 years of experience in the pulpit. They’ve turned to a belief that God does not exist. Here is part of the article:

There is among us a prevalent manipulation that is relentlessly reaching out for us in order to destroy our faith. This force has an ally; and this ally is resident in us. My flesh becomes the connection that Satan needs to link with– to make it work. The Bible calls this residing connection, ‘the old man’.

Some of the ‘brothers’ who now walk in apostasy to the Faith still remain in ministry. Even though they don’t believe anymore, they continue to preach and counsel their congregations. Many will only speak out under the condition of anonymity.

One in particular said it was somewhat difficult to continue to work in the ministry. “But I just look at it as a job and do what I’m supposed to do,” he said. “I’ve done it for years.”

This pastor said, that when speaking to parishioners, he tried to stick to the sections of the Bible that he still believed in — the parts about being a good person. Many pastors say that they would like to leave their jobs but they can’t afford to.

Please someone, and correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t the Bible speak of shepherds and hired men? Some who are called by God, and others who do it for money? Does this disturb anyone but me?

^“He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.”

John 10:13

These ‘pastors’ and their issues of faith are all on the heart of God. He loves these men. His Son died for them. They are precious. But they make an effort to conceal themselves, in order that they will continue to receive the wages/benefits they’ve become accustomed to.

When I was ordained into the ministry, it came with the provision that if I could not remain faithful that I was obligated to ‘step down’. If I ever become conflicted, I would voluntarily remove myself from the ministry. It was part of the ‘package’ and it came with that understanding. Ordination for me was as much a decision to be faithful as it was for empowerment from above.

There is so much confusion, but that is characteristic of the times in which we live. Our shepherds are an increasingly influential part of our lives in these last days. They guide and preach the Word to us. We owe much to our pastors.

Perhaps we have not prayed for them like we should? (!)

As a result they’ve become casualties. (Pray for your pastor).

There is a desperate need for us to take the darkness seriously. It has a pulling power to reach out and latch upon us. It opens its mouth to swallow us into a never-ending night. Everything that strays ends up in its claws. The thing that saves us is the presence of Jesus. His hand on our lives removes us out of Satan’s claim.

But the darkness has an incredibly sweet allure. It’s a power that is beyond our comprehension. It seems at first to want to enhance us. Satan causes us to think that we are immune or superior to all that God has commanded. Darkness is at work in our minds and we will begin to walk into even more foolishness. Our deception only deepens as we start to diminish the very tenets of discipleship.

Truth does not come to those who are trading their salvation for even more darkness.

Duplicity is just another form of hypocrisy and deception, you can’t sugarcoat poop and make it good to eat. A lie is still a lie no matter who is speaking it.

^”But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.”

Galatians 1:8

P.S. The story that ‘got me going’ is found here.

http://abcnews.go.com/WN/atheist-ministers-leading-faithful/story?id=12004359

Tag: God