There's A Blessing on the Other Side of Your Pain

Scripture Reference Matthew 27:46 “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

We often look at this verse and I have even heard it explained in light that even Jesus had a moment of weakness.  However that is simply not the case.  To get to the real issue and true meaning of the text and therefore His words, we must take a further more in-depth understanding of who He was and is and what He came to do.

First He was and is The Messiah, The Creator of the universe, The Alpha and The Omega.  As John records it, “All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made.” John 1:3 He calmed the storms, He expressed the power of God on earth, He walked on water, became eyes to the blind, ears to the deaf, health to the sick, feet to the lame and mouth to the dumb.  He was not a coward for He stood against the money changers and the Pharisees and Sadducees.  He called them hypocrites that left the morally crippled, still crippled.  Yet with all the miraculous splendor of a “Man from Galilee, He died a non-miraculous death. 

As we know Jesus is our perfect example.  Perfect and true, pure in all His ways, there was non-else like Him.  Since we know we were created in His image and likeness, we begin to understand that there is normality on one side of us, but there is a miracle on the other side.  And we must let the normal die in order to take hold of the supernatural.

Jesus and God’s relationship was unparalleled.  He was one with the Father and the Father with Him. He also knew all things and was all things.  You see Jesus’ question was not one of breakdown but one of breakthrough.  He prayed to the Father, in essence, “Father, show me why I am going through this right now?”  By placing His faith in the Father, The LORD showed Him three days into the future.  At that point, He knew He had the victory, even though He had not yet received it.  He then claimed the victory by faith, saying as recorded by John 19:30, “It is finished” and He gave up the ghost.  Three days He spent gathering the three keys that were lost by the first man Adam’s fall: the key to the grave, the key to hell and the key to death.  Jesus next ascended into Glory, with all power in His hands.

Jesus experienced the most pain and affliction any one person has ever endured, while He hung upon the cross.  But yet instead of doubting or showing weakness of faith, He asked the Father to show Him the plan for His life and the reason why He had to suffer.  And God, being ever faithful showed Him three days down the road.

There is a reason you are going through what you are going through.  There is a reason you are experiencing the pain you are experiencing.  Sometimes our hardest decision is to decide to let the natural die, so the supernatural can take hold.  There must be a cross before there is a resurrection.  So you might as well ask the Father, believing faithfully in Him, and He will show you why you are going through the pain you are experiencing right now.  Then by faith will you be comforted into letting that thing in the natural die, so you can take hold of what God has in-store for you next!

Today, LORD, I submit fully to Your will.

"Baby, You yet holdin' On?"

Scripture Reference James 1:2-4 “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing”

Upon further examination of this text in conjunction with different life events I have both seen and personally experienced, I have begun to understand that through the various trials and difficulties that we face, the LORD is trying to grow me up and take me from a state of immaturity to a state of walking perfect (mature) and upright before Him. (Gen 17:1).  Now you may be wondering how that would work?  Well let’s look once again to out perfect example: Christ.  He went through the most difficult of difficulties any one person could experience.  There was not a single weapon afforded the gates of hell, that was not launched upon our Savior’s head.  It became such a trial for Him that He cried out to the Father, “if it be thy will; take this cup from me” Mark 14:36. But Oh thank you LORD He then said, “Nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.”

You see He became obedient unto the cross, or to what God wanted, and laid down His own wants and desires.  I truly believe this gave Him the added power He needed to go not only to, but through the cross.  The cross represents your place of pain, agony, torment, abuse, chastisement, and crucifixion of our flesh.  The biggest trial you will ever deal with is the killing of your flesh.  The trial brings us in-line with not our will, but Thine will!

Our text goes on to tell us that through the trying of our faith will come patience and that patience will make us perfect.  How does that work and relate to us?  Again look at Christ.  He exhibited faith when he declared, “nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.”  He then had His patience worked, for they beat Him all night long.  Most of us are ready to give up if our situation beats us for five minutes.  Then after they beat Him all night long, they marched Him out of the city in a condition that the Bible declares” there is no beauty that we should desire him.” He was so beaten and bloody that He should have died on the whipping post. One scholar even tells us His entrails were hanging out! For some of us we quit there in our trial, and our entrails are not hanging out.  If that were not enough, the stretched Him wide and hung Him high, they pierced Him in His side and you know the rest of the story, He stayed upon the cross awaiting the time and hour that when it was finally finished, then and only then did He allow death to come, so that His resurrection would come to pass.  He had to wait until our sins were fully rested upon Him and in the Spirit for Him to remove them far from us, as far as the east is from the west.  He being fully God and fully human, yet it still took Him three hours to take them that far away from us.  This is the time the sun even hid its face for it could not even stand to look upon so much evil.

And He stayed to the glorious end.  And we know that He was then resurrected and made perfect in God, standing at His right hand, and there He sits interceding for me and for you to only receive the faith that He is with u,s as God was with Him in through His trial and proving once again to us that we shall be more than conquerors if we only have the faith, and the patience during our trials, that we shall be made perfect in Him, wanting nothing.

As the old folk use to say, “Baby, you yet holding on?” Or have you given up in the midst of the trial that has been brought by God to bring you into perfection with Him?

A Tough Kind of Trusting

Scripture References 1 Samuel 17, 19, 24

Did you ever notice how David treated Saul, his father-in-law?  Saul, who loved David for saving him from having to go and fight his Goliath, (never let anyone else kill your giant) and then also made several attempts on David’s life (would you return again and again to someone who shot live ammo at you and serve them as God directed you to do?) and he willingly and obediently did what the one who GOD had placed over him, asked him to do: Trusting FULLY in God, not in man.  My, my, my, sometimes following God can be a challenge to our natural mind.

David was so committed to following God that he would not even touch Saul when he could have killed him a number of times and even had a man killed for saying he touched the LORD’s anointed one.  You see we may not like what our appointed leaders do, or how they treat us, but the fact remains that GOD put them there for a reason and a season.  This is to accomplish HIS will in our lives and not OUR will! (Sorry been stepping on toes all morning long)

IF we are going to trust in the LORD and say He is our Jehovah- Jireh, then when are we going to stop confessing it with our mouths but not believing it and walking it out in our actions?  Now FAITH is the substance of things HOPED FOR, the evidence of things NOT SEEN!

The Heartbeat of Our Sheperd

Can You Feel it?

Psalm 23 starts off, “The LORD is my Shepard, I shall not want.” It was one of the first Bible verses I was made to memorize as a child.  I often wondered why Jesus always referred to Himself as a Shepard. Over the years I have learned more and more about what a Shepard did and there have been some amazing revelations Jesus has given me.

Psalm 23 also says, “Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” The rod part I get, it was used to ward or beat off wild beast that came to steal the lambs and carrying them off to certain death.  But how was the staff a comfort?  It’s that one you usually see pictured that has a hook on it.  The staff was used to bring way-ward sheep back.  So if the sheep wandered too far off, the Shepard used the hook on the staff to bring the sheep back closer the Himself, where there was safety.

But sometimes, the Shepard would have a sheep that would stray too far, too often.  At this point other measures had to be taken to insure the sheep’s safety.  The Shepard would actually take the sheep and break on of it legs: Yes on purpose.  This would render the sheep unable to move about, and as you know, a Shepard was constantly on the move for pastures that would feed the flock.

Now you may think it was cruel what the Shepard did to the sheep.  After all, he hadn’t gotten into that much trouble, he simply wandered off a few too many times, but always the sheep thought he would be alright and could come back.  However that is not where the Shepard wanted the sheep.  He wanted him near Him.  So after the Shepard broke the sheep’s leg, He would then take the sheep and place him over His shoulder so that the sheep’s body was startled and the sheep’s heart was right over the Shepard’s.

As the Shepard walked on the hilly countryside, the constant movement would cause the sheep pain; after all his leg was broken.  So the sheep, not being able to stop the movement, would learn to sync up with the Shepard’s movement, even down to His heartbeat.  The sheep would become so in sync with the Shepard that the pain soon disappeared and the sheep could clearly hear the Shepard talking with him and giving him the life-saving instructions about how to never stray too far away from the Shepard again.

My life was like that, I was that wayward sheep that just kept getting a little too far away.  Then one day my Shepard, Jesus, came along and broke my leg.  He carried me upon His shoulder, and it was just me and Him.  I learned to sync up with His heartbeat, and while I don’t have everything down perfect yet, I know how not to stray too far from the safety that My Shepard provides me.

Today I thank Jesus for breaking my leg, and making me to sync up with His heartbeat.  And in me, the beat goes on!