empty handed but alive in Your hands...
one time James preached a corrective sermon and at the end he said, "if you walk out discouraged by this message, you are listening to the devil."
and i have to remind myself of that from time to time. the point of a corrective message is to encourage (transitive verb meaning "to inspire with courage, spirit, or hope; to spur on") us to repent. it should be a good thing. just like the point of correcting your children is to warn them, and ultimately to improve their lives.
my dad preached on love last night. and it wasn't a corrective sermon. it was straightforward and encouraging. but it was so hard for me not to fall into the trap of condemning myself.
as he spoke, my accuser sat next to me and reminded me how little my love is. how easily annoyed i am by most people and how selfish my love for the rest. he did the classic (read the temptation of Jesus) trick where he uses God's own words against you. he even went so far as to bring my love life into the picture, reminding me that i have already been unfaithful to (let's just call it what it is ... cheated on) my husband and i haven't even met him yet. that i can never offer him what he deserves. ever. and it breaks my heart.
but here's where the blood of Jesus comes into play. HE [Jesus] did not condemn me. He wants me to be free. and if He, the only perfect person ever and the son of God, does not condemn me, who do i think i am to go around condemning myself like i have the moral high ground on Jesus?
there's a place in Zechariah ... i couldn't believe it when i read this.
"then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the Angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to oppose him. (Joshua representing Israel, God's chosen people). And the LORD said to satan, "The LORD rebuke you satan! the LORD who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?" Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments and was standing before the Angel. Then He answered and spoke to those who stood before Him, saying "take away the filthy garments from him." and to him He said, "See, I have removed your iniquity from you, and I will clothe you with rich robes."
this is amazing. because God didn't defend Joshua or say that he had not done the things he'd done. if you read the Bible at all you know that Israel has screwed up and been unfaithful to (cheated on) God a thousand times. and God didn't deny it.
but He rebuked the accuser anyway. just like He did for me.
He said of me, "yes, she DID do these things. yes, she IS a sinner - a liar, a thief, an adulteress. but I pulled her out of the fire. I chose her. who are you?" and then he threw away the filthy clothes i came to Him in and gave me new ones.
posted by Kate Robinson @ 9:27 AM
11 comments
11 Comments:
I was very much blessed by this post. I was watching an episode of Star Trek once where the federation starships were engaged in a showdown with romulan spacecrafts (sorry, I was kind of a treky once upon a time. I've been in recovery for over a decade now.), both sides had there shields up, but there was something about that part of the galaxy that caused their shields to magnify some effect that was tearing their vessels apart. Of course, when they first realized something was amiss they assumed it was something the enemy was doing so they ordered more power to the shields, but that only made everything worse. Finally somebody figured out that it was the shields, and when they lowered their shields everything went back to normal. The lesson on the show was something about how true peace and brotherhood can only come if the nations of the world "drop our shields" and are open and vulnerable with one another or some other piece of new age sophistry. It is a true analogy, however, of how we as Christians sometimes conduct ourselves though. We are scared to drop our shields and expose our soft underbelly of shame and sin for fear that another believer will blast a photon torpedo into our hull (or worse still our warp power coil). So we go about pretending as best we can that we have no sin habits in our lives, or other things that we deeply regret. Have no illusions we are all sinners saved by grace here. Thanks for the outstanding post. I'll be thinking about this throughout the rest of the day.
[or worse still, or warp power coil.]
hahaha
And why is that Geordie and Data are the only two officers whose diapers Captain Picard doesn't have to change?
I think that when we recognize our own sin and that we only desire God because He put that desire in us, it helps to love others. They are only being what we have been. Any difference between is that God has begun bringing us in and now He wants to bring them in too.
is it okay that my blog has become a forum for star trek in jokes?
no. no, i don't think it is.
Deal with it!
i like lowercase letters. and after five years of stringent rules as an journalist/editor, i think i'm entitled to a little rebellion now that i'm back on the civilian workforce. thank you.
also i do use capital letters, both when i'm SHOUTING and when i'm referring to my LORD in any capacity.
i heard about him on a bookshelf at borders. sarah read aloud to me a chapter from another of his books, "searching for God knows what." we flipped a coin. i bought blue like jazz (Which i'm not finished with) and sarah bought the other one. we will trade when we're done.
i like him. and sometimes i get offended by him. which is probably good. but sometimes i think if God brought a man to our church with half the passion for Christ and spiritual discernment he's got, we might not have so stinkin' many single girls.
Hey Fnord (if that is your real name), the wonderful thing about anonymous is that its anonymous. This anonymous person here is not the same person as the anonymous up above. No one knows which post is from who. That is why I use it.
If I were to get an actual account, then I might feel this pressure to use it. I would be tempted to start saying things I think out loud. And no one wants that.
- Just another anonymous person...
So you're saying that anonymous is like the "borg" and that resistance is futile?
Ah yes, I see now.
Ahhh... but I have seen many a time where some nice anonymous person has written something here, and it was attributed to this anonymous person.
As to wearing sunglasses, think of me as that next generation engineering dude. He wore that sunglasses visor thing all the time. Even at night...
I just look at the world through rose colored glasses... =D
- The anonymous dude who is me
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