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The Road to the Power of God

Posted on by Dorci

Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”  (2 Corinthians 12:7b-10) ~Paul the apostle  

There are days, weeks, lifetimes that I feel overwhelmed by my weaknesses. My sins. Regrets.

And I think how in the world could I ever expect God to use someone like me?  

I have nothing. I am wholly inadequate. I live with daily constraints of fatigue and pain. I am constantly thinking and saying and doing things I don’t want to. Things that are contrary to the nature of a loving and forgiving and gracious God.  I look at who I am and I’m disappointed.  How could God not be?

If I were Him I’d run in the other direction in search of someone better.

But here’s the thing: I’m not God – praise the Lord.

And here’s the other thing – I may be inadequate, I may be sinful, but I love my Jesus.

It’s those very weaknesses that had me running to Him in the first place, and keep me running back because I know how much I need Him.

Spending time with my gracious Lord brings into focus even more how great He is and it is humbling. I compare myself to Him and I see how short I come up in the godliness department. My weaknesses and sins are more evident when I’m in His presence.

And I see again just how very much I need my Father.

When I need Him I call on Him to do in and through me what I never could. I leave room for Him to do the miraculous, because I need a miracle, every single day.  

There are those who would have Christians believe God doesn’t want any of His children to be sick. I would refer them to Paul. And there are those who believe their sickness must mean they are being punished by God. I would again refer them to Paul, and Job, and the many others who found themselves weak in some way, yet we clearly see God’s hand was on them.

Yes, God heals. Yes, God still does miracles. When it suits His purposes.  

But don’t limit God.  God uses all kinds of people in all kinds of circumstances for all kinds of things.

Our weaknesses, whatever they may be, don’t disqualify us from being used by God. In fact they can be the road leading right to it. 

We are all weak in some way, most of us in many ways. 

The world tells us Be strong!  Be powerful.  In doing that we refuse the power of God in our lives, and we remain in our weakness.

But acknowledging our weaknesses, taking them to the throne room of God and putting our life in His hands out of sheer desperation, knowing we have nothing good in and of ourselves, is the very thing that will make us useful.  He’s then able to fill us with His strength and do great things through us, not because of who we are, but in spite of it.

And all the glory is His.

The prayers prayed out of desperation tend to be stripped of all pretense.  The mask comes off, the formality is laid aside, and we get real with God. That kind of realness leads to an authentic, personal relationship with our Heavenly Father.  Our Abba.  And that unleashes His power in us.  

It’s not the strength of our bodies, or the intelligence of our minds, or the skill of our hands.  

It’s the willingness of our hearts. 

For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him. 2 Chronicles 16:9

Be Strong and Courageous, Part 3

Posted on by Dorci

Therefore we do not lose heart.  Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.
2 Corinthians 4:16

You might have read about the trial I plunged into 13 years ago. I’ve written about it many times, as it’s given me plenty to write about. In case you haven’t, or you’ve forgotten, I’ll give you a little recap.

I sat in church one Sunday all those Sundays ago, and heard the words straight out of the book of Joshua, “Be strong and courageous.”  Those are the words God gave Joshua as he was about to take over Moses’s job leading the Israelites through the desert and into the Promised Land.

Now, I don’t know if you’ve had the experience of hearing or reading certain words in the Bible, and you were sure they had leapt off the page, stared you straight in the face daring you to adopt them as your own.  

If you’ve known Christ for very long, you probably have.  If you’re relatively new to following Him, I’m telling you right now, the day will come when that will happen. Don’t second guess it. The Holy Spirit, our Counselor in Chief, is speaking to you.

I knew He was speaking to me the first time.  But apparently once wasn’t enough.  Either I was slow or the journey would be long and rough. Both, it turns out. I don’t remember the exact situation each time, but over the course of the next month I heard those words three more times, and each subsequent time they came at me faster and louder.

A friend was there every time, too, and we talked about the fact that it was odd that those words kept coming up. The fourth time I heard them, my friend, who was sitting a few rows in front of me, turned and looked into my eyes. She confirmed it wasn’t just my imagination.  She knew something was up, too.

Of course neither of us had any idea what it meant.  But I was soon to find out. Sort of.

I had been having some bad headaches, and an even more difficult time sleeping. One Sunday, about a month after my four personal exhortations, I just so happened to be at another church our church had planted, and I just so happened to run into a friend of mine in the bathroom, and she just so happened to ask how I was doing, and I told her.  She told me I should have my blood pressure checked.

My blood pressure had never been anything over a perfectly respectable normal, even prior to surgery, and I didn’t have any of the usual risk factors, so I knew it wasn’t high, but just to cross that off my list, I put my arm in one of those blood pressure cuffs while I was at the store shopping after church, and pushed the button.

I looked at the reading, and stared at it for a minute.  Surely it couldn’t be that high. 

Maybe it was just high because I was trying to corral my son as I sat there while that cuff tightened around my arm like the grim reaper was trying to pull me away.  So I took a couple of deep breaths, tried to calm down, and pushed the button again.  This time it was even higher. Before I knew it I found myself in a fire station where they could take it and tell me that the machine just wasn’t working and my blood pressure was just fine.

Only it wasn’t.  Suddenly they were asking me if I could see, was my vision blurry, how did I feel…  I felt fine, except that now tears were rolling down my face. Something was terribly, drastically wrong. They wanted to call an ambulance, but my husband promised to take me directly to the emergency room.

And that started my journey through my own dry, confusing, anxiety-filled desert. My journey into learning to believe God even when things seemed out of control. Even when it seemed like He wasn’t listening to my cries for healing, or even for a diagnosis for that sky-high blood pressure and the many health issues that would follow.

I wanted my old life back so bad.  I wanted to serve and do and be and go…

But God refused to let me go back to Egypt. He had better things for me. Not things you can see, mind you. While I had prayed many times for deliverance from this surely evil thing that had taken ahold of my body, God was delivering me from other things far more important.

The third time God spoke these words to Joshua, He finished His admonition with this: “Be strong and courageous.  Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”  Joshua 1:9

And whether I could see Him or feel Him, my God has been with me, too, delivering me from those dark places of unbelief, from lack of discipline, from self-centeredness, from a shallow, self-reliant, self-righteous, works-based “faith.”  He’s been delivering me from myself.

In the heat of the desert He is infusing my heart with His, my character and mind, soul and spirit, with His.

My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. John 17:20-23

One day when I stand before Jesus, I’ll see all He’s done for me, the godly character He worked into me that I never could have learned with a healthy body.

He may choose to deliver you a different way.  He knows what each of us needs. He is as much a personal God as He is loving and forgiving and compassionate.

If you’re in a desert now, be strong and courageous.  He’s with you.  And He will deliver you safely, whole and completed, to the Promised Land.

The 7-Year Itch

Posted on by Dorci

“The kingdom of Heaven is like a certain king who made a marriage for his son.”
Matthew 22:2

“Let us be glad and rejoice and we will give glory to Him. For the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has prepared herself.”
Rev 19:7

“And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of Heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her Husband.”
Rev 21:2

God gave marriage as a model of our relationship with Christ, and countless comparisons can be made.

One of those comparisons is the 7-Year itch.  Or 4-Year, or 10-Year, or 20-Year. 

The 7-Year Itch is a term coined to describe one or both spouses’ decline in love for the other after 7 years, or any period of time in marriage. Otherwise known by the phrase “familiarity breeds contempt.”  

The husband or wife begins to tire of the relationship, believing that fireworks should spark every day for the rest of their lives, and if they don’t something must be drastically wrong. Kindnesses are left behind, thoughtlessness ensues, forgiveness seems hard to come by, and resentment settles in.

Sometimes, though, it’s not that drastic.  Sometimes things are just…blah.

Sometimes there’s just indifference.  Life seems mundane. Passion has waned.

Suddenly the grass seems to look a whole lot greener anywhere else. Eyes begin to look outward into the world for something else. And there is always something, or someone, more than willing to be the object of our affection.

Not only does that happen at an alarming rate in earthly marriages, it happens within the Bride of Christ.

I had been searching for something, for God in some way, since I was very young. As a kid I looked everywhere from philosophical books to church to the quiet dignity and wisdom of a shaolin monk on the television show Kung Fu. My life had been painful and I desperately looked for answers, for wisdom, for love in some form.

So at the age of 26 when I walked into a building on a Sunday morning with a gathering of Christ-believing people, where the presence of the Holy Spirit had gathered with them, I felt His love and grace and mercy wash over me, and I knew I had found the One I had looked for all my life. I found the Answer, the Wisdom, the Love, and so much more.

I was dead and now I was alive!

I was filled with an excitement and a passion I could barely contain. That first week I found a Christian bookstore and ran right out to buy myself a Bible and a cross necklace. I was at church whenever the doors were open, soaking up His Word, watching, listening, learning, serving.  The honeymoon lasted for years.

Then slowly but surely, the reality of life, of relationships, even within the church, began to slap me in the face and wake me from my dream. Even in Christ, life wasn’t perfect. In fact it got very hard.  Confusing.  Unsettling. Discouraging.  

The reality settled in that even in the church people were still, well, people. Even in Christ sickness can take hold. Prayers can go unanswered. I thought I had left the pain behind in the world, but it was obvious I hadn’t. Not that I thought everything was going to be perfect, but my expectations were dashed. Fourteen years into my faith I became disillusioned. And I felt alone. 

The way it had been was the way I thought it would always be. Serve God, be good, and everything would be fine. Fireworks.

But God was not healing me, relationships were broken, and I felt as unwanted and rejected as I had in the world.

I prayed and I prayed hard. Where was Jesus? Who was He? Did He still love me? After years of thinking I knew Him, I suddenly wondered if I did.

“Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the first works…”  Rev 2:4-5a

It didn’t happen overnight. It never does. It happens slowly, methodically. I never walked completely away, but I felt unloved so I let other things come and steal away my attention.  

The world does that effortlessly now. We give it away in smartphones and endless social media and television and video games and news and current events and we fill our lives with noise, noise, noise….

Within it all, we cannot hear the still, small voice of the Lord. And when communication breaks down, the relationship with Him, just like it would with our spouse, suffers.

The love I had at first – the excitement and passion – had waned.  I had let other things come in and crowd out the voice of my Jesus, the One who had loved me so much He died for me, called me, and changed me. The One who had come after me, plucked me out of the world and made me new.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want a relationship with Him.  I still loved Him.  I just got distracted. 

But Jesus tells us it doesn’t happen to us. We leave our first love. We walk away. We make choices, day by day, choices that are not just between good and bad, but choices that either take us closer to Christ or further away, and suddenly we look back and what once was, just isn’t.

They say the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference. It’s that middle of the road…blah.

We may think that’s not all that bad, but in Revelation Jesus gave this warning to His church, “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot.  I could wish you were cold or hot.  So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.”  Rev. 3:15-16

An on-fire faith is best, and even a cold heart is preferable to lukewarm because we would recognize it and know we needed to turn back to the Lord.

But a lukewarm faith deceives us into thinking we’re okay.

It’s so-so, yeah. *Yawn* My faith doesn’t really inspire me to do anything, but it’s there, right? 

But that indifference lets in the world. It lets in sin, other beliefs, other avenues of decision-making, and lots of self. Self-works, self-righteousness, self, self, self.  

A lukewarm faith hurts our relationship with God, that affects the relationships with our brothers and sisters in Christ, and then we begin to lose the witness we might have had to the people God has given us.

The good news is at any moment we can repent – change our minds – and do the things we did at first.  We can leave behind the things of the world, turn down the noise, re-establish communication with the Lord, receive His grace and mercy, (maybe run out and buy a Bible and a cross necklace) and love Him with the passion and excitement and fervor we once had.

I’ve taken steps toward that and eliminated a lot of the incoming noise of the world, and it’s made a huge difference in my ability to hear the Lord speaking to my heart.  

He wants to speak to all of us who are called by His name, and He has much to say. More than ever, we need to hear His voice for wisdom and discernment. We need His passion, and the world needs His love.

I am now almost 28 years into my journey with Christ. I’ve learned that God doesn’t answer every prayer, and He has good reason. He is pruning, disciplining, growing, and preparing the Bride for her Husband.  

I’ve learned I was never was alone; He was always with me and always will be. I’ve learned that if we let Him, He can use those crises of faith periods to cause us to dig deeper into His Word, into prayer, and bring us out the other side with a deeper, more substantial faith and closer relationship than ever before.

 

Heavenly Father, we want to be close to you, closer than ever before. Please take away our desire for those things that would come between us, things that would lead us away from you. Please give us hearts that are passionate for you, for our faith, for our desire to serve you, and make us useful to you. Thank you for what you’re going to do in our hearts and lives. In the mighty name of Jesus we pray, amen.

 

 

 

Victory

Posted on by Dorci

“When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

‘Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?’

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”
1 Corinthians 15:54-58

The apostle Paul wrote these passionate words in a letter to a church he founded in Corinth, Greece.  I can imagine the pleading of his heart as he wrote to encourage them to not be lured back into the materialistic and immoral world that churned around them.

He reminded them, and us, that this life is not all there is.  There is a resurrection, Christ being the first, and because of Him, we will follow.

We no longer belong to this world, and our victory is not here.  Our victory has already been won through Christ – the gift of our immortal souls and our resurrection to the next life with Jesus Christ, our Great Reward.

There is no shortage of attention-grabbers whether it’s social media, or the news, or just the busyness of our own lives.  They can suck us in, altering our perspectives from spiritual matters to earthly ones, and rob us of doing the work for which we’ve now been called.

Not much has changed in the 2000 years since Paul wrote to our brothers and sisters in Christ.

All of us who have put our faith in Christ know how difficult it can be to keep our hearts and minds focused on the Lord, especially when the world revels in sin all around us.

After all, sin looks fun, and we can feel like we’re missing out on something.  Well, we are, but nothing good.  We miss out on the consequences of those sins; we miss out on feeding our flesh but not our spirits; we miss out on a life of fruitlessness.  We miss out on leaving our faith behind.

But Paul reminds us there is so much more given to us in its place.

We have a real Christ-given hope that when our bodies die, our immortal souls will live on for eternity in the joy and peace of the presence of God.

While, tragically, those who lived for the temporary thrills of this short life will abandon all joy and peace when their mortal bodies die, and their souls will be given over to judgment and eternal death.

While we who have put our faith in Christ may have to give up a few things here, we already have the ultimate victory through the Lord Jesus Christ.

So, what do we do?  We get back to work.  We let go of the distractions of this world and stand firm in the faith, being about our Father’s business and fulfilling the calling given to each of us just as our brothers and sisters in Corinth did almost 2000 years ago.

“Let nothing move you.”

Nothing.  Don’t look to the left or to the right at what others are doing.  Don’t worry what others may say about your faith in God.  Don’t worry about what can be done to you, even if it means your earthly life, because we already have the victory.

Look to Christ and “give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord.”

The text in the Greek puts it like this: “always abounding in the work of the Lord.”  

Abounding is the Greek word perisseuō which means “to superabound, be in excess, be superfluous; to excel, abundance, be the better, enough and to spare, exceed, excel, increase, be left, redound, remain (over and above).”

If there’s anything we should strive to do with excellence, it’s our work in the Lord.

He’s not only given us life, but He’s give us an abundant afterlife.  He sees our labor in His name, and He will reward us with eternal treasures worth far more than the trinkets of this life.

 

Heavenly Father, please help us keep our minds focused on you and not get sidetracked by the world or even by fear. Help us serve you with all our hearts, with the excellence that you deserve, that through our lives the world may see your love and grace and you may be glorified in the salvation of many. Thank you for the victory you’ve given us by clothing us with immortality and preparing a home for us in heaven with you. We praise your glorious Name, Jesus, and pray it all in your Name, amen.

Cast It All!

Posted on by Dorci

Why is it so hard for some of us to go to God when we’re hurting?

I know for me at least, when I’m feeling down or anxious I naturally want to retreat from everyone and everything.  I don’t want to have to put on happy face and pretend everything’s okay.  I want to find my corner of the world and hide, and that can mean from God, too.

But instead God says to be “…casting all your care upon Him for He cares for you.”  1 Peter 5:7

The word “casting” is the same word that’s used in Luke 19:35 when the disciples cast or threw their garments onto the colt that Jesus would ride into Jerusalem.

We are to take our garments of anxiety and worry and grief and discouragement – all that we care about, big or small – and lay them upon our Savior.

Why?

Why can’t I huddle in my dank little corner of the world until I feel like coming out again?

Because Jesus tells us in Mark 4:18-19 that if we hold onto the cares of this world, we will be consumed with them instead, and the Word will be choked out and rendered unfruitful in our lives.

So I have to decide to walk in the Spirit, doing what is supernatural instead of what is natural, come out of the darkness and into God’s light, giving Him those things and people and circumstances that I care so much about knowing and trusting that He cares for me.

I hope you know that He cares for you, too.  Everything that concerns you, concerns Him.  Nothing is too big or too small or too old or too anything.

And the thing with God is, we don’t have to put on a happy face.  He knows our heart’s pain anyway, and He hates hypocrisy.  We can be real with Him.  He wants us to be real with Him. We can trust Him with our deepest desires and emotions and conflicts.  And then, in place of our garments of anxiety, He’ll give us a garment of praise. 

 

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
Psalm 139:7-12