Have you noticed?

The things in your life you try or need to control the most are the very things that are the most screwed up and the harder you try to manage them, the more out of control they spin. If you’re honest with yourself you’ll recognize that the issue is trust, you don’t trust God or the people He’s put around you to love and care for you. So you do everything you can to protect yourself by manipulating your circumstances and isolating which results in feeling unloved and rejected proving once again…

The only way to counter this is by trusting that you are loved, that you are cared for and that you are not alone. This is not to discount your pain or present the solution in a cliché like “Let go, Let God”. For things to change it only happens with, with God and with others that know His unique love for them and for you.

God Hates

People who send death threats to a 5 year old. No He doesn’t! God doesn’t hate anyone in fact quite the opposite is true; He loves us all more than we can possibly imagine. It’s because of this immense love that He hates the things that harm us or keep us apart from Him. This is where some get confused thinking hating is okay. Hating a person or people is never right. Hating something hurtful for them can be if and only if it’s deeply rooted in love. This hate, Godly hate for lack of a better way to put it, should never become further evidence one is unloved or unlovable.

And

The theology of blessings diminishes God. It puts man in charge. If I do this, think that or adhere to this set of rules and behaviors God will be obligated to bless me. Intimacy with God and those He’s placed around us suffers immensely when we allow this principle in our lives. Keeping up the facade of God’s special blessing will wear you out. We are not in control!

Because

The theology of blessings alienates people that are struggling. Whether it is health, financial, emotional, relational or any other difficulty beyond our control, this belief excludes us when times are tough. The wake of damage this idea leaves behind is staggering.

The Problem with the Theology of Blessings

Is that it couldn’t be more wrong.

Imitation

There are two ways to look at the word imitation; one is the act of copying someone or something and the other is a counterfeit.

Why then is so much of Christianity based on imitation and isn’t it interesting that simulation is a synonym of imitation.

God’s love for you is absolutely unique! He’s never loved anyone in the same way He loves and cares for you. His ideas and desires for you are matchless.

So why do we spend so much time, money and effort trying to duplicate what He’s done in another’s life? We read books about the 5, 7 or 10 steps to this or that, we put together elaborate programs, curriculum and seminars designed to make others like us, all the while forsaking our individuality and cheapening the exceptional relationship God wants to have with us.

Don’t be discouraged if trying to follow the crowd has left you saying “surely there’s more”. There is, it’s more Jesus! He is the only one capable of truly loving you with no strings attached and no baggage. The only one that can satisfy your very soul and the only one that can heal the pain this world has thrust upon you. Cry out to Him, He’s right there.

I read the news today…

-and sobbed over the state of the world. Young people with seemingly everything going their way committing suicide, a jogger randomly shot because some young men were bored, a man freakishly dying while on vacation with his family and an 88 year old veteran beaten to death. And that’s not even a drop in the bucket. There is so much tragedy and so much pain, it’s overwhelming.

What can we possibly do? Is there an answer? I know there is and I know it isn’t christianity. The answer is Jesus pure and simple. Not the jesus you believe in, not the jesus you control by doing this or that according to the rules. The answer is the Jesus that you know for real, personally, intimately, the Jesus that lives in you, The Jesus that the hurting world is desperate to know, The One that truly is the only answer for their/our pain.

How do you Respond?

You’re sitting with some friends and one of them tells you that his neck really hurts; do you:

Tell him how much your leg has been bothering you?

Sympathize and ask how he hurt his neck?

Tell him that you’ll pray for him?

Get up and give him a neck rub and quietly pray?

How often do we make the conversation about us?

How often do we offer a hollow “I’ll pray for you” when we’re right there with the ability to be the answered prayer?

Offense / Defense

I hope you don’t mind if I get a bit sporty. There’s an adage that says, sometimes the best defense is a strong offense. This can be true in well defined games.

Regrettably this saying is frequently how we conduct our interactions with each other. We’re far too often quick to pick up an offense which causes us to get defensive and many times even offensive. To stave off getting wounded we wound, to avoid a no, we manipulate and to keep people from getting to close, we pretend.

What if we could love our offenders so much they couldn’t hurt us? What if we knew for certain how special we are to God that we never had to be on the defensive? What if we were so honest about our flaws to people that their love for us grew deep? I know this is possible for us, it sounds very much like Jesus. It also sounds a whole lot like the people I know that spend a bunch of time with Him.

Persevere

: to persist in a state, enterprise, or undertaking in spite of counterinfluences, opposition, or discouragement. I like knuckle down.

This is worth the fight, if it wasn’t it wouldn’t hurt so much.