Tag: promises

Seek Out the Gold

In the vault of the Holy Spirit
“He returned to Nazareth, his hometown. When he taught there in the synagogue, everyone was amazed and said, “Where does he get this wisdom and the power to do miracles?”
Matthew 13:54, NLT

 

Chapter 13 of Matthew is your very own gold mine.  There are veins of precious ore throughout these parables.  They will give their riches to anyone humble enough to seek them.  They each are concentrated truth–these parables are gold!

Parables are a fascinating way to impart teaching that requires a quiet and gentle heart.  Not everyone will gain access to them.  The truth in them will only touch the hungry heart, the real seeker.  It’s like they are locked up, and the Holy Spirit has the combination, but He will gladly share it with the sincere heart.

At this point in Jesus’ ministry, He arrives in His hometown.  He goes to the synagogue and begins to teach. (What an awesome time to be in the congregation.)  Their teacher Jesus is absolutely astounding!  They stand and watch Him; they are astonished and amazed.  The text tells us that Jesus not only taught them, but He performed supernatural healings.

The people in Nazareth who were witnesses in such a direct way, begin to draw false conclusions about Jesus.  They can’t deal with His youth and can’t believe what He has come from God–as their Messiah. 

However the general consensus was profound;  “everyone” was in agreement with what they had just witnessed.  For a few, they would never be the same.  When we encounter Jesus, and hear His wisdom, and see His wonders–it has the power to change us.  And that is no mean feat.

Upgrading to Joy

by Julie Anne Fidler, BB Weekly Contributor

I don’t know about you, but when I’m feeling ill – particularly with depression – I don’t want to do anything. Getting out of bed is a chore, tackling business or housework is excruciating, and when it’s all over we are twice as exhausted as we were when we started. Church seems out of the question. Reading the Bible seems impossible. Joy is a far-away star hurtling through the cosmos that you can’t grasp and reign in. Your world shuts down and you have no desire to grant access to anyone or anything. Sadness is a great isolator.

One of my favorite websites is www.dictionary.com (a writer’s best friend!) It defines joy as “the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying.” The primary words here are “caused by.”  We don’t always feel joy. Heck, nobody does. But if you battle mental illness, that statement is especially true. Satan comes to steal, kill, and destroy and he uses our brain chemistry to do so. He’s so, so good at stealing our joy. But knowing that joy is caused by something should give us a lot of hope!

Maybe the Enemy can snatch our joy, but we can snatch it back. How do we do that? We decide to go against our feelings of despair and exhaustion and pursue it. Job’s suffering makes ours seem almost laughable by comparison and yet even he was able to find the cause of joy and run to it.

“let their flesh be renewed like a child’s;
   let them be restored as in the days of their youth’—
26 then that person can pray to God and find favor with him,
   they will see God’s face and shout for joy;
   he will restore them to full well-being.
27 And they will go to others and say,
   ‘I have sinned, I have perverted what is right,
   but I did not get what I deserved.”

-Job 33:25-27

Job, a man who lost everything and was abandoned by everyone he ever cared for, understood what unlocks joy, and that was God himself.  Jesus, of course, understood the same concept.

“Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.” –John 16:24

 

During a very dark period in my life, I started visiting my current church with friends who were already members there. My church is a rather Pentecostal church (no snake-handling or anything crazy like that, I promise) and at the time I was visiting, I was a member of a much more subdued church. I was in so much emotional pain that I opted out of worship altogether. I sat in my seat and cried as others raised their hands and shouted praise and I wondered how they could be so happy when we live in a world that is so cold.

But a funny thing happened as I sat there in tears – the little layer of ice around my heart began to melt. I wasn’t on my feet dancing, but I felt warm peace seep into the frigid hopelessness. I had found a tiny bit of joy, CAUSED by getting out of bed, getting dressed, and sitting in that church pew.

Say the word “joy” and two different pictures come to mind. In the first image, I see someone jumping up and down, pumping their fist in the air, shouting praise to God. In the second image, I see someone quiet and reserved, eyes closed, a tiny, peaceful smile on their lips. I believe that both of these images apply to us. Sometimes joy is all-consuming and we can’t help but shout. Other times, joy is a quiet whisper of hope in our ear, a flicker of happiness that says “take heart, God loves you.”

And I am learning that if we have no joy, whether it’s because we’re suffering a rough bout with our disease or because life is just hard in general, it’s because we’re not close enough to the cause of joy. Often, our minds say there is no hope or joy in this world, so we have to make a decision – are we going to listen to our messed-up emotions, or live by fact, which translates into walking by faith? If we want joy, we have find it.

One of the associate pastors at my church once said something that stuck with me. He said, “I want to be under the spout where the stuff of Heaven comes out.” It may be a little bit cheesy but it’s true. Corporate worship, quiet time alone with God, reading the Word, private worship and surrounding ourselves with people who compliment and encourage our faith are all “the stuff of Heaven” that cause joy. We have to get to the spout.

If you feel the walls closing in around you today, deny your pain, get up, and go find joy.  The joy of the Lord is so powerful that a tiny drop is more than enough, I challenge you today to believe for an outpouring of it. Get up and get under that spout.

 *** 

Julie Anne Fidler is a contributing writer for Brokenbelievers.com.  She comes with a humble and understanding heart for those with a mental illness.  Her writing gift is valued greatly.  Look for her post weekly, on this blog.
She keeps a personal ministry blog at www.mymentalhealthday.blogspot.com.  Read more there.

Close Encounters of the God Kind

by Julie Anne Fidler, Contributor to BB

As odd as it may sound, being diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder was one of the highlights of my life. I got good and excited about it in the same way one might get good and excited about discovering they were pregnant. But at 24 years old, I had lost jobs, lost friends, my young marriage was on the brink of divorce, and my faith was in tatters. I sought help when there was nothing left to lose. A diagnosis meant that all the craziness in my life had a real name and that craziness could be treated.

With three suicide attempts and a history of poor decision-making under my belt, I believed that my main problem was a basic lack of faith. I spent a huge chunk of my life seeking spiritual guidance and counseling and always felt like if I could just “make a go” of my walk with God, all of my problems would subside. Except that I couldn’t make a go of it. My faith followed the same pattern as the rest of my life – for a few days or weeks I was on fire for the Lord, followed by a period of deep despair and doubt, eventually leading to apathy. I tried to be a good Christian girl but over and over again, the same pattern emerged.

Hoping and believing that treatment for my BP would help me get this part of my life on track, I eagerly told my friends, family, and other church members of the recent development. I was not surprised when my parents didn’t share my elation. They are from a different era. You simply didn’t discuss things like that. I was, however, hurt and angered to get the same reaction from other believers.

Yes, everyone meant well. They asked me if I was spending time in prayer, reading the Word faithfully, and fellowshipping and much as possible. Those are not at all bad or wrong questions to ask. They are the questions we are supposed to be asking our brothers and sisters in Christ on a regular basis, under the most normal circumstances. But with many of these people, their tone and incessant questioning made it clear that they didn’t believe in mental illness, only spiritual deficit. A few even came right out and said so.

While my quality time with Jesus improved and deepened, I began to find myself consistently held back by one thing: anger. I was angry at the church. I was angry that people accepted that I needed insulin for my diabetes, but they didn’t want to accept that I needed medication for BP. I found myself backing away from these people and for a time I even stopped attending church. I even shut out the people who had been understanding and supportive, fearing they were only telling me what I wanted to hear. When people offered to pray that God would release me from the grip of my illness, I became offended. I wanted these people to understand that I had not erected some sort of spiritual wall that kept me locked into depression or mania.

Months went by before I returned to church. I only went because my niece was with me and I wanted to be a pseudo-role model to her. The sermon that morning was about healing, and though I can’t recall all the details of what Pastor Barry said, I can tell you the message I heard loud and clear: I HAD, indeed, erected a spiritual wall between God and I.

In my anger and defensiveness, I’d pushed aside the omnipotence of God. I had forgotten that He is still holy, that He is still in control, that He is still the great physician. I had placed all of my faith in the medications I took every day, and in the human physicians who prescribed them to me. If God had healed a blind man right in front of me, I would have missed it because I was too angry to stop and watch Him work. I also began to realize that if God can reach out and heal it, then it must be a spiritual issue. Isn’t everything? I wanted acceptance and understanding for my condition, but I became a Pharisee in the process, dismissing the faith of others who believed that by merely touching the hem of Jesus’ robe, healing was possible.

There is no doubt that the church needs to be educated on mental illness. There is no doubt that mental illness (I believe “brain illness” is a more accurate term) exists and is a true, medical condition. There is also no doubt that the Enemy is using mental illness to divide and conquer, and shred the hopes of people like me, who just want to be as normal a person as possible. Once the fog of my anger cleared, God showed me that I was to be a part of the solution to this… but it could never happen until I was willing to be sympathetic towards those who don’t understand, instead of bitter.

If you’re reading this, you’re a part of the grand plan, too. It’s a tough road, but you should feel honored. There is nothing more satisfying or powerful than turning one of Satan’s own weapons against him.

Julie Anne Fidler is now a contributing writer for Brokenbelievers.com.  She comes with a humble and understanding heart for those with a mental illness.  Her writing gift is valued greatly.  Look for her post weekly, on this blog.

She keeps a personal ministry blog at mymentalhealthday.blogspot.com.  Read more there.

How You Make it Work

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves

Philippians 2:1-3

 

Being connected to Jesus sets us up for a way so much more then we thought.  Encouragement comes from being comforted.  It makes us stand back in amazement.  We are brought to this wonderful place, and personal growth begins to show exceptional results. 

There are a lot of ‘anys’ that are imbedded in these verses.  They take us to a point of extracting something of eternal value and worth, and then seeing it translated into our lives.  I certainly couldn’t come up with this on my own.

We grab this basic fact, we are just devoid of anything of real value.  We simply do not have the roots that will sink down into these wonderful things.  Our connection into Him however, puts us into a completely different place.  We discover we have this incredible ability from drawing out life into our beings.  He sets us up so we extract ‘life’ from our silly, feeble efforts.

We draw so much from the presence of Jesus.  When it’s hooked in, our ‘abundance meter’ kicks us up several notches.  Paul is asking us to draw out significant things from our contact with these things of wonder.  Verse 2 develops for us a sense of unity with our brothers and sisters.  Truth had better deal with us in this way. 

My newfound faith means I must connect with others in a new and a powerfully exceptional basis.  The Gospel had better effect me in this capacity, because, whether we know it or not, faith just doesn’t connect me with God– it connects me to His people.

‘One love, and one spirit and one mind’.  The unity that is to be developed springs from a knowledge of who we really are spiritually.  There is an idea of ‘commonness’, that suggests that we all have a direct unity with each other.  We all are drawing from the same source.  Just the very idea of this should, and could break down barriers and walls that exist.  It seems to be a new awareness of having all our extension cords using all the same electricity.  There is never any shortage, but we do need to consent to being hooked up to the same root.

This realization of the dramatic unity of Christ’s work should bring us to a deepness of the Spirit that has eluded us for generations.  Quite simply, He is the well spring that we all draw from.  Deep down, He is who we connect to, our roots extend to Him.  Baptist, Assembly of God, Anglican, Lutheran, Pentecostal, and Roman Catholic and more.  The big bunch of us have plunged our roots into Jesus.  We all draw from Him, and He imparts to us life that lasts forever.

Humility has become the virtual currency of the Kingdom.  We are issued as much as we need.  But we must act with what we take.  Our brokenness over our self (and our arrogance) must drive us to a gentleness with each other.  We simply don’t have the resources and the intellect to make the decisions that we have been making.  Humility is the wonderful key that will open the doors to the King’s castle.  If you have it, you get in.  But without it, you will go nowhere.