Category: Faith

Lesson From a Rescue – #2

Posted on by Dorci

 

“The LORD is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”
Psalm 34:18

 

It’s been almost two years since we rescued our furry, four-legged friend, and it continues to be apparent that he rescued us right back.  The last time I talked about how the Lord used Rocky to remind me that no matter what, God never tires of loving us or taking caring of us.  That He will continue to rescue us until that day He rescues us for the last time and takes us home to be with Him forever.  And recently He reminded me of that once again.

 

As much as I hate it, there are still times when the pain I’m feeling is so deep, so encompassing, so overshadowing, that I wonder where God is.  Is He still there?  Does He see me?  Does He know what’s going on and how much pain I’m in?

Recently I’d been suddenly faced with some new health issues, on top of an already far-too-full plate of them, and I was overwhelmed with it all.  They were bigger than my brain could handle and I didn’t know what to do.  I’d been running to try to stay ahead of them, but they caught up to me one day and I broke down in tears.

My bedroom door was closed and Rocky was at the other end of the house.

When I was finished, I knew when I opened the door Rocky would be right there. He always is.

And sure enough he was right there, waiting for me to open the door.  His rescued heart knows what pain is and somehow he understands when someone needs a comforting friend.

I immediately thought that if a dog with a brain the size of a walnut and a heart not much bigger is right there whenever I need comforting, how much more is my Abba Father who sent His only Son to die for my sins and filled me with His Holy Spirit near to me when my heart is broken?  And how much more will He rescue me when my spirit is humbled?

Sometimes I just need to open the door of my heart, to look up from the cloud of confusion and pain, to see that He is there.  And even in those times I don’t see or hear or feel Him, I can know He’s there, just on the other side of the door, because I am called to walk by faith and not by sight.  Sometimes pain is designed to be overwhelming, bigger than we can handle, so our faith will grow bigger than our need for sight.

The Friend we have in Christ knows what it’s like to suffer, to be in pain, and even to cry out to His Father, asking where He is.  He understands our pain and is compassionate toward us.  I’m convinced that when we’re prostrate on the ground in grief, He’s down there with us, holding us, and crying out to the Father on our behalf.

Rocky is my furry little illustration of that.

But the Friend we have in Christ knows our heart and our pain, inside and out, and His love and compassion bring Him near and rescue us, now and forever.

The Worst Kind of Fake News

Posted on by Dorci

“You foolish Galatians!  Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?” Gal 3:1-3

 

Paul spends much of his time writing, pleading with the new believers to not get sidetracked, but to continue to keep their eyes on their Savior, walking in the Spirit, and receiving from Him the grace and strength they need to live out their faith.

But some of them were being lured into believing that salvation was Jesus and…

That and can be anything.  For the Galatians it was Jesus and the law.

People were telling the believers in Galatia they needed to follow the law to be justified. They needed to rely on themselves and their works, in effect, luring them away from the grace they received by faith in Christ.  And Paul knew that as they moved toward reliance on the law, on themselves, faith in Christ would be left behind.

Paul said they’d been bewitched – to malign, that is, to speak harmful untruths about, speak evil of, slander, defame, injurious, to fascinate by false representations.

The enemy’s ways haven’t changed in 2000 years. They haven’t changed since the garden. he is the originator of fake news.

Sometimes his ways are as blatant as they were in Galatia, but oftentimes the method is more inconspicuous and gradual.

New believers can be easy prey for the enemy. The wolf enters the pen and the lambs are still naive and easily coerced. They can be convinced to do anything other than the simplicity of putting their faith in Jesus and following Him daily.  Surely it can’t be that easy, he tells them. 

Older believers can be led away, too, if they get lazy in their walk, let their relationship with Christ grow cold, or fall into sin, and instead of repenting, they gradually move away from their faith in Christ to reliance on their works to earn favor, forgiveness, grace, and love.

And no matter how long a person has been in Christ, anyone who lets the reading and studying of God’s Word slide and along with it discernment and sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, any “inspirational” meme or thought going around social media that sounds good, but is deeply theologically flawed, can be used to alter our course of thinking and begin to lead us away from a pure and truthful faith in Christ.

And as individuals, and whole churches (made up of individuals), it’s easy to get past those early days, weeks, and years after salvation (or after church planting) and begin to go on autopilot.  Instead of relying on the Holy Spirit we gradually start just doing because we’ve done it for so long, forgetting that we’re living a life of faith, a life that requires the Holy Spirit to daily move in and through us.

It is Christ’s life we live now, not our own.  We cannot live it in our own strength or with our own human wisdom.  We can never presuppose we know what direction He wants us to go, what He wants us to do, and when He wants us to do it.

Paul exhorted the Christians in Galatia to not go back to trying to earn salvation or God’s love and grace by works of the law.  By trying to be perfect.  If that could ever be the case then Christ died in vain. Trying to earn our way to God through works says we don’t need the Holy Spirit any longer and we quench Him from moving in our lives.

If we try to finish in our flesh, we forfeit the strength and courage He desires to give us to live out our lives for Him, and the love and grace and peace He wants to fill us with.

There are moments in our faith, whether at 6 months in or 30 years, where we can press in to Christ harder, or we can take a step back, and begin to rely on ourselves.

All of us will have those moments, and most of us will choose at some point, to one degree or another, to rely on ourselves for a time.

The good news is God’s grace toward His children doesn’t run out.

Anytime we’ve been relying on ourselves and looking around we realize we’re not following Jesus anymore, all we need to do is call Him.

Do the thing we did at first: return to our first love. Believe in Christ and repent. Turn our minds back to Him and His Word. Put our faith and trust in our Savior, and ask Him to fill us afresh with His Holy Spirit that He might lead us and give us wisdom to serve Him all the rest of our days.

Lesson From a Rescue

Posted on by Dorci

“Even to your old age and gray hairs I am He, I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.” Isaiah 46:4 (NIV)

We had been scouring rescue facilities for months looking for just the right dog to adopt into our family. We finally found a little black Lhasa Apso mix who had a past only God knew. He had been a stray picked up by the county, full of ticks and matted hair. He seemed unfazed by whatever adventures he’d had while living on the street, and his big, brown eyes begged us to take him home. We instantly loved him.

We soon discovered he was not completely unaffected by his time lost and alone. Not only did his body need to be healed of an infection left by all those ticks, but his little heart did, too.

For months I never saw him close his eyes. He’d lie on the floor with his big brown eyes wide open, as if he were afraid to let down his guard. He loved walks to the park, but when that trip was taken too late one night, we discovered how afraid of the dark he was. And every once in a while while lying inside the house, with nothing going on around him, he’d jerk his head around looking for something that wasn’t there.

We treated his physical ailments and spoiled him with as much love as we could. I’d stroke his wavy black hair and remind him over and over “You’re safe now. We’re going to take care of you.”

Months later he was lying on my lap and I reached over and held his prematurely graying paw, and for the first time I saw him close his eyes.

It suddenly occurred to me how much I was like him. I may not have lived on the street (although I came close), but for many years I was lost and alone.

Then one fine day God saw me and rescued me. He adopted me as His own. He removed the enemy that had so viciously attached itself to me, cleansed me from the inside out, and began binding up my wounds. 

Even though it’s been many years, that anxiety and fear can creep back in when I face a new hardship, or even the possibility of one. Will God still take care of me? Has He forgotten me? Is He tired of providing for me?

I turn and see Rocky at my feet and know it’s not too much to take care of everything he needs. He is my furry little reminder that if I can love and take care of a little dog like that, how much more will God love and take care of me? 

No, everything isn’t perfect. God hasn’t given us a dog’s life. But He has given us something infinitely better – a lifetime of walking with the Lord as He uses the imperfection of our lives to draw us closer to Him, to mold us into the image of His Son, and prepare us for a life when everything will be perfect.

He is our Provider, and not only will He provide for us in this life, He’s also preparing a home for us with Him in the next.

That word “sustain” in Isaiah 46 is the Hebrew word sabal.  It means to be gravid, meaning to be pregnant, to carry one’s young.  What a tender thought, that the Lord will carry us, as a mother carries her children, from pregnancy, and the Lord says, even to our old age will He carry us.  He will provide for our every need.

As our perfect provider, He is all things to us – our rescuer, our strength, our fortress, and countless other things, from birth to death, and beyond. We can live with confidence knowing that as we trust and follow Him, laying our needs at His feet, and knowing He’s well aware of them even before we do, He will provide for every one, both present and future, as He loves us and has compassion on us. We are His children, and He forever delights to show us His mercy.

 

 

It Is Finished

Posted on by Dorci

“Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; but because Jesus lives forever, He has a permanent priesthood. 

Therefore He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them.

Such a high priest truly meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. 

Unlike the other high priests, He does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for His own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when He offered Himself.” Hebrews 7:23-27

 

In the world people believe that if they do enough good, if they’re better than the other guy, if they’re more good than bad, if they just tip the scales, they will earn a place in heaven.

Those with no religion believe it, and those with religion alone believe it. My friends, this is a lie from the pit of hell, designed to keep people believing they’re saved without actually receiving salvation.

Sometimes even believers can slip into a subconscious belief that we must add good works to the grace of God given through the sacrifice of His Son, maybe not for salvation, but for acceptance and love. 

The sacrifices of old were given as a forerunner, a sign of the full and complete Sacrifice to come. Jesus Christ, and He alone, was the sacrifice to end all sacrifices. Any attempt to add onto that perfect sacrifice is sin. It is an offense to Christ and His work done on the cross, and to the Father who gave His Son to do it.

It was given once. No other sacrifice, by Him or any one else, is needed for salvation ever again.

It was given for all. Anyone and everyone – no matter who you are, where you’ve been, or what you’ve done – is invited to partake of the Sacrifice, to receive it by faith, for full payment of one’s own sins, now and forever.

If you recognize that you’ve been trusting in your own good works alone, or as an “add on” to Christ’s sacrifice, or trusting in another person to be the one who sits between you and God, offering up prayers for your forgiveness, or giving you ways to atone for your sin, telling you that through them you will be forgiven, I urge you to hear what Christ Himself said on the cross:

“It is finished.”

That phrase means to end, complete, execute, conclude, to discharge a debt, to pay. It’s done. There is nothing left for us to do, and no other human being needed to remove the guilt of our sins. He is the LORD, and the High Priest who lives forever, and no other can take His place.

All we need to do is believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Savior sent to die as the perfect and last sacrifice that paid for our sins, and pray, asking God for forgiveness, receiving Christ and His sacrifice, by faith, as a free gift in payment for every sin we’ve ever committed, and ever will commit. And then follow Him. If you want to read more, click on How You Can Know God at the top of this page.

And to my brothers and sisters in Christ who, for whatever reason, struggle with feeling like you need to earn God’s love, to you, and to myself, I say this: rest. Take a deep breath and rest in His abiding love; rest in His grace; rest in His mercy; rest in the finished work of the cross; rest in the resurrection.

You may have had to earn someone else’s love, or try and try and still never receive it, but that’s the world’s way, not God’s. That’s not who He is.

God is love, and the source of all true love. He cannot deny Himself. The Father sent His Son out of love, and the Son came out of love, and died out of love. He is preparing a place for us in heaven out of love. He is maturing and readying us out of love, and will come back again out of love.

It was His love that drew us, and it’s His love that will keep us, and welcome us home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saturday Song – Our God’s Alive

Posted on by Dorci