Tag: Sin

The Believer’s Speech

Posted on by Dorci

My son was at the store the other day standing in an aisle searching for what he needed when he overhead a couple of employees near him deep into a very colorful conversation deriding this group and that one. Their conversation disturbed him so much that he found another employee to let her know what was going on, and then he called me. 

Of course it was disheartening to hear that that kind of divisive and hateful talk was going on, let alone by two employees who are supposed to be working, and that some of the hateful comments were directed toward Israel. 

But it shouldn’t be surprising. 

1 John 3:13 tells us

“Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.” 

The world doesn’t only hate believers, though. It just hates. And the hate seems to be revving up. Or at least people seem to feel more free to speak their hatred out loud, joining in the chorus. 

Hate seems to be the speech of the day. 

But it should never be our speech. 

The speech of believers ought to be prayer. 

Jesus said

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”  Matthew 5:43-44

As I talked to my son, empathizing with him, that yes, this was a terrible thing that people were talking this way, and even worse that it was in their own place of business for any customer to hear, the Lord put on my heart to tell him that maybe God put him in that aisle, at that moment in time, so that he could hear their hateful words and pray for them. 

Is there anyone who needs prayer more that someone whose heart is filled with hatred? Is there anyone who needs the redeeming grace of God more? 

I told him God’s given him an opportunity to pray for these men. Maybe, just maybe, God wants to save them and give the world two more souls who love instead of hate.

Praying for them also protects our hearts from unforgiveness and bitterness.

I hear a lot of believers talking about the terrible sins going on in the world, but how we talk about it much of the time is no different than the world. I hear speech that is hateful, mocking, divisive. 

Friends, that is not God’s way. Yes, it’s our natural instinct and gut reaction to the sin we see, but being in Christ we should hate the sin because we know that the people caught in it are people loved by God and made in His image, and are being swallowed up by it. That should grieve us just as it grieves the Lord. 

But if we act like the world instead, how do we expect it to see the love of Christ and know there’s a better way? How do we expect to be walking, breathing testimonies of His love and grace? How can we hate in one breath and in the next talk about God’s love? 

As we let God’s love mature in our hearts, we’ll see with His eyes of mercy, our speech will always be gracious, seasoned with salt, and we’ll understand the privilege and responsibility we have to pray for the lost souls God puts in our way. After all, we were all lost once. 

The world has enough hate. It needs our love and it needs our prayers. 

 

Father, forgive me for the times my speech has not been glorifying to you or edifying to those around me. Set a guard over my tongue, and give me eyes that see with your grace, that I might pray and do your will.  In Jesus’ name I pray, amen. 

Saturday Song – Holy Water

Posted on by Dorci

I was driving down the road minding my own business when a song I’d never heard before came on the radio.  It grabbed my soul by the shoulders, shook it and said “get your eyes off the world, off yourself, and back onto the gracious, refreshing, life-giving, life-renewing Living Water of Jesus Christ.” Maybe it’ll do the same for you.  God bless you today and always.

 

 

Holy Water
by We The Kingdom

God, I’m on my knees again
God, I’m beginning please again
I need you
Oh, I need you


Walking down these desert roads
Water for my thirsty soul
I need you
Oh, I need you


Your forgiveness
Is like sweet, sweet honey
On my lips
Like the sound of a symphony
To my ears
Like Holy water on my skin


Dead man walking, slave to sin
I wanna know being born again
I need you
Oh, God, I need you


So, take me to the riverside
Take me under, baptize
I need you
Oh, God I need you


Your forgiveness
Is like sweet, sweet honey
On my lips
Like the sound of a symphony
To my ears
Like holy water on my skin
(On my skin, on my…)


I don’t wanna abuse your grace
God, I need it every day
It’s the only thing that ever really
Makes me wanna change


I don’t wanna abuse your grace
God, I need it every day
It’s the only thing that ever really
Makes me wanna change


I don’t wanna abuse your grace
God, I need it every day
It’s the only thing that ever really
Makes me wanna change


I don’t wanna abuse your grace
God, I need it every day
It’s the only thing that ever really
Makes me wanna change


Your forgiveness
Is like sweet, sweet honey
On my lips (Yes, it is)
Like the sound of a symphony
To my ears
It’s like holy water…


Your forgiveness
Is like sweet, sweet honey
On my lips
Like the sound of a symphony
To my ears
It’s like holy water on my skin
It’s like holy water on my skin
It’s like holy water.

How One Degree Equals a Million Miles

Posted on by Dorci

You get on a plane bound for Paris.  Your future spouse is waiting, along with your wedding party, your officiant, and all your guests.  You fly for what feels like forever and finally land, only to find out you’re in Belgium instead. 

Now, Belgium is nice, but it’s not Paris, and it’s not what you planned.  The pilot profusely apologizes when he realizes he’d set his course one degree off.  One degree?  How could one degree cause such a mess?

God told Adam “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”  Genesis 2:16-17

Enter the serpent. The master of “It’s only one degree…”

He says to Eve,“Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?'”  Genesis 3:1

Already he’s begun planting doubt and confusion in her mind. “Wait, did God say that…?” And she replies,“We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden(so far so good), and you must not touch it, or you will die.”

Uh oh.  One degree off.

The serpent retorts,“You will not certainly die. For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Funny how satan always makes it seem like we’re missing out on something when in reality he is enslaving us.

Of course we know the rest of the story.  Eve goes one degree off by adding something God did not say (“you must not touch it”) and she’s suddenly off course.  Then, as she’s off the path God plotted for her, her pride takes her another degree by doubting God’s motive, and then another by coveting, and she walks over to the tree, plucks the juicy fruit, and takes a bite.

She hands it to her husband, he shrugs his shoulders (conveniently forgetting what God had told him), and he takes a bite, too.

And suddenly sin enters the world.  And the story continues to this very day, and the world is a million miles off from what God desired.

Yes, we have Christ and the cross, and anyone who puts their faith in Him is forgiven of all their sin. Jesus Christ has defeated the enemy and through Him we have victory over sin and death.

Still, the battle is not over.  The war of degrees continues, and we are warned “Be alert and of sober mind.  Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” 1 Peter 5:8

Jesus may have won our souls, but satan’s looking to swallow our lives, our service to the Lord, and our witness to the world. And he does it one degree at a time.

“Did God really say…not to eat that, not to drink that, not to watch that, not to read that, not to smoke that, not to go there, not to do that? Everybody else is doing it. Your friend is doing it and see what a great person he is?  Your Christian friend posted it and it sounds inspirational. Yeah, that’s not what the Bible says, but it’s the 21st century. Your pastor is reading it. It’s a Christian book, right?  So what about the parts that aren’t exactly scriptural. It doesn’t matter.”  

One degree. And then another, and another.

Just a meme. Just a book. Just a movie. Just a piece of fruit.

Discernment gets walked out of the cabin and relegated to the backseat. We base beliefs on who is saying it, rather than on what is said. On its popularity, rather than God’s Word. On our political affiliation, rather than our position in Jesus Christ.

We adopt beliefs because they sound good, and though they may be part truth, they may also be part untruth – just one degree off – and we adopt the belief, mixing it with some truth, and then other untruths we are bombarded with from the world are built on that, decisions are made based on those unscriptural beliefs, and soon we look back and around, and we’re lost. We’re far from God, and the lion is crouching in the bushes, stealing God’s plans and replacing them with needless pain and suffering.

Maybe the question we all need to ask ourselves is – who is my pilot?  Me or God? My feelings or God? The world or God?

He will never lead us off course. Yet when we find ourselves off the path, with Him, through Christ, there is an abundance of mercy and forgiveness. We are always one prayer of repentance away from being whisked back to God’s side, walking with the Spirit again.

There may be consequences of our sin, though, which is why God lovingly warns us to always be alert and of sober mind. Let us “resist {the devil}, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.”  1 Peter 5:9

We’re all in the same boat, or plane, in keeping with my original analogy. We need each other’s prayers and encouragement and strength as we walk this walk, and we can only do that as long as we’re walking next to our Lord, and not off eating fruit that’s bad for us.

God’s given us an entire garden of life-giving fruit. Let us revel in His provision, stay on course, walk with Him and do His will, and remember that one day we will see “Paris” – the great place of the marriage of the Lamb and His Bride.

“Hallelujah!
For our Lord God Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and be glad
and give Him glory!
For the wedding of the Lamb has come,
and His bride has made herself ready.
Fine linen, bright and clean,
was given her to wear.
(Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God’s holy people.)”
Revelation 19:6-8

 

Yes, There Are Injustices in This Life, But…

Posted on by Dorci

I like court shows.  And Datelines and 20/20s and documentaries where the guilty person is finally proven guilty and pays for their crimes, or where an innocent person who was wrongly convicted finally goes free.

I love justice and truth.  But the more shows I watch the more I see that justice is not always served in this lifetime.

There is one court show I occasionally watch where there are three judges who hear each case.  So many times they don’t all agree.  Two will come to the same conclusion, but one will dissent from the others. How can that happen? They all heard the same case, they’re all sworn to deliver justice, but somehow, someway, they come to different conclusions.  Was justice actually served?  Was the verdict correct because the majority agreed, or did the one lone holdout have the correct verdict? Three judges, two conclusions.

Or, a whole jury hears the same trial, convicts, and then later the conviction is proven wrong and overturned.

Makes you wonder how many innocent people have been convicted, and how many guilty people have gone free.

Or, closer to home, there are doctors who misdiagnose, friends, family, spouses, or children who misjudge or mistreat us, basic human rights go unmet, and now, what is all too common, an entire internet of people who, virtually overnight, will rashly judge, convict, and verbally carry out their harsh sentences.

I have a dear friend who, years after we had gotten to know each other, confessed to me that when she first met me she thought I was “stuck-up.”  I’m not exactly sure what made her believe that, but oh boy was she wrong.

Parents may have warned us that life isn’t fair, and they were right.

And maybe, especially when we’re hurting very deeply, we wonder why God hasn’t answered our prayers, and if God hasn’t made the wrong decision, too.

It can seem as if we’re suffering unjustly, and the truth is, maybe we are.

Jesus did.  He didn’t deserve to be nailed to a cross, every nerve in his body searing with pain, heaving to fill his lungs with even the slightest bit of air, a mob of people standing before him who have rashly judged and convicted him and were verbally carrying out their harsh sentences.

It was wholly unjust, but here’s the thing: it was right. In God’s sight it was good because of what He was doing through it, and though no one knew it at the time, it would have an effect, a purpose more meaningful than any other act of injustice ever would.

God has the power to do that.

So if you’re suffering unjustly right now, remember the cross.  Remember that the glory Christ’s Heavenly Father brought about through His suffering, our Heavenly Father can and will do through ours.

He saw His Son suffering unjustly, and He sees everything that’s happened or is happening to us. Nothing escapes Him. He is compassionate and understanding toward us and always knows the right thing to do, because He is the Righteous Judge. He is right 100% of the time.

In fact, there are three Persons to the Godhead: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and they never disagree.  There are never instances where One dissents from the conclusion of the other Two. There is no miscarriage of justice that He doesn’t see and that will not be paid for, either through His Son’s work on the cross, or through judgment in the next life.

And there is no suffering, no injustice, no unfairness – whether He allows it to continue or stops it, whether He heals or doesn’t heal, whether He restores a relationship or doesn’t, whatever the case may be – that He cannot use for His glory and make something out of it more beautiful than we can ever imagine.

“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.  For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.” Romans 8:18-21

God is using those painful circumstances (if we let Him) as a holy fire in our hearts to burn off the sin that would separate us from Him, steal our peace, cause us pain, and probably injustice in another person’s life.

I’m glad my friend eventually changed her mind, and I’m glad my Father sees my heart, my life, and will use all my painful circumstances, those done to me and by me, when given to Him at the foot of the cross where all sin goes to die, to create in me and through me something beautiful.

 

And my pain is just one piece of the puzzle. When we stand before Him and all our puzzle pieces are put together, we’ll see the whole picture, and know that truth and love and righteousness has prevailed because we have the Perfect Judge who judges rightly every single time.

I’ve watched those stories where someone was wrongly convicted and spent 10, 20, 30 years in prison, and then those people are proven innocent and released.  Almost every time, when asked if they’re bitter because of the time spent in prison, with a huge smile on their face, they say no. They’re just happy it’s over and now they’re free.

It will be that way with us when we’re released from our time spent here, having suffered all kinds of trials, and we see our Savior face to face. All the pain will be gone, and we’ll just worship Him and rejoice that we’re finally free. And I’m convinced that somehow, someway, our Father will more than make it up to us.

Sometimes the state will pay restitution to someone who’s served time unjustly.  In some cases millions of dollars. If human beings do that, imagine what our Heavenly Father has planned for those who love Him, who trust Him through the injustices we face here, knowing our Righteous Judge will more than make everything whole and right and perfect in the end.

So take those injustices and give them to our Righteous Judge.  Give Him those circumstances, that pain, those people, and let Him judge rightly. Then hold onto Christ. Hold onto Hope. It may seem like a long time away, but it isn’t.  Justice is coming, and all things will be made right.

 

The Miracle of Snowflakes and Souls

Posted on by Dorci

The last couple of weeks or so here in the U.S., people have shoveled, scraped, and trudged their way through enough ice and snow to last the rest of the year.

But as we take a magnifying glass and look at a single snowflake, we’ll see that they really are fascinating little miracles, and so is Christ’s life in us.

Just like precious pearls begin as something ordinary–a grain of sand, snowflakes also begin as something just as unpretentious–a dust particle, a piece of volcanic ash, or sea salt.

As it falls through the atmosphere, each particle forms into a clear ice crystal, its individual shape and size determined by the various conditions each particle encounters as it falls to the ground, like the altitude, temperature, and humidity.

The one thing all snowflakes have in common is they each have six sides or branches.

Each of us is also born with an ingrained imperfection, that is, our sin nature. As we grow, the conditions we encounter, like the family we grew up in, the experiences we have in life, and our own personalities determine the one-of-a-kind person we become.

But our sin nature continues to act as an irritant, wreaking havoc in our souls.

“’Come now, and let us reason together,’ Says the LORD, ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”
Isaiah 1:18

God compares our sins to scarlet and crimson.

This word for scarlet – shaniy – refers to a maggot-like insect called a “coccus illcis” which feeds on the leaves of evergreen oak trees. The dried bodies of these insects are used to make a deep red, or crimson, dye.

Our sin acts like those parasitic creatures, eating away at our joy, our souls, and our lives.

(Another factoid I found while looking up the definition of shaniy: the urban dictionary says it’s “a psychopath with demon eyes, this little creature lacks the skill of being nice, she is a very demanding person who is hard to control sometimes, she has the capability to stab someone if she wanted to; her favourite word is **** off.” Does that sound like our sin nature or what?!)

The Lord tells us that though we have been stained with the blemish of sin, He will make them white as snow.

So what makes those former pieces of dust, ash, and sea salt, and our sin, white?

As the snow crystals, or snowflakes, fall to the ground and begin to gather together, the light shining into the snow gets scattered around inside and is reflected around all those unique six-sided snow prisms and the light that comes back out appears white, and the imperfections are no longer seen.

The Bible refers to the number six as the number of mankind, of incompleteness. Just as the one commonality among snowflakes is that they have six sides, we all have in common our imperfect humanity. Without Christ, we are incomplete and impure.

But as we receive Jesus Christ by faith, He becomes a part of us (the number 7 symbolizes completeness), and we become a part of His family, joining together like a snowdrift high on a hill. His light shines into us and is filtered back out through the prism of our character, purifying our hearts and making us white as snow.

It’s amazing to me that God made snowflakes as a microscopic allegory showing us our need for Him. It’s as if He calls to us in the whisper of a tiny, almost secret world and says, “I know all about your weaknesses, your frailties, your sins, but the power of my love can overcome all that!”

We have all come through different and unique backgrounds, circumstances, sufferings, and joys, and the shape our heart and mind have become through our own uniquely-designed life allows Christ to shine through us in the extraordinary ways He’s chosen just for us and the lives around us.

So the next time you have to shovel snow or scrape it off your car, remember God’s love for you through Christ, and how His crimson blood turned our souls white and pure as snow.  And remember, too, that the more we come together as one body and one heart with God’s family, the more His light shines in and through us.  And doesn’t the world need that right now?  

God bless,