The Depth of Despair

What do we do with the deep sense of despair we deal with.  You know those deep rooted hurts and wounds that sit inside of us?  The questions about whether we are alone, maybe it is just me, no one else has these issues.  How do we move forward, when we question our ability to get it right, because we have messed it all up too many times.  Can true healing and restoration happen?  Can we overcome?  Can these hurts, the feeling of despair go away?

In second Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 10 the Apostle Paul reminds us that when they were full of sorrow they also were rejoicing.  I have pondered this and other such ideas in the Scriptures.  What can it mean to be rejoicing while I have such deep sorrow and despair in me.  Then I was reminded of what I heard Pastor Mark Driscoll say in a sermon "Sing until you feel like worshiping".  This statement was made to challenge our thinking that our heart and emotion decides whether or not we enter true worship.  Driscoll was making the point that we are called to worship and sing unto our Lord, so start and keep going until you do feel like it.  Do what you know is right and eventually your emotions and heart will catch up.

So what am I saying?  Well I think that we need to worship and rejoice in our God.  In what He has done for us and continues to do in us.  No matter how badly I fail, no matter how much hurt is placed on me by others, He has endured so much more for me.  I need to rejoice and celebrate because even at my lowest, Jesus cared enough to die for me.  Even when I seem to have lost all hope, He is my only Hope that I can cling to.

Most of us do not need therapy or long term counselling to deal with this stuff.  What we need is to have an encounter with Jesus.  That is the beginning.  Then we are to live as worshipers regardless of circumstance.  Our lives need to be transformed by Christ and as He lives in us, we need to humble ourselves and worship even in the hardest times.

I think of the words to the old Hymn "It is well with my soul".  We need that attitude and action.  Life is going to hand us a bunch of garbage over and over again.  This is the reality of the mess humanity has made for itself.  I believe that we need to worship and celebrate our Lord in the midst of it all.  There is no other way, there is no magic pill or course to take.  When we focus on our sorrow and despair we have tried to re-take control of our lives and instantly become self-centered.  Re-surrender to Jesus and allow His Holy Spirit to run the show, celebrate that He can and will carry you through it all.

Let us press on together.

Preacherman

John 10 - Jesus the Christ

John 10 is so loaded with good verses, it can be overwhelming.  I love the beauty of God's Word.  In verse 18 Jesus proclaims His authority over His own life.  Jesus foretells here that He has the authority to lay His life down, Jesus will give up His life for us by dying on the cross.  Then this same Jesus will on the authority given to Him, rise again.  Jesus death and resurrection happened through Jesus willingness to sacrifice for us.  This was not something done to Him outside of His control, rather it was done under His authority as willing service.

In Verses 24 and 25, Jesus is asked if He is the Christ.  His answer is that He already told them and they did not believe Him.  The did not believe because they are not part of His flock.  Jesus then continues on to proclaim eternal life to His flock and security for them in verses 28 and 29.  So if you believe in Jesus it is because you are in His flock.  He has given His flock eternal life and no one can snatch us away from Him.

Then Jesus proclaims His deity.  This is a great passage to confirm that Jesus Himself claimed to be God.  This is not just something that people decided later.  It is His claim.  No one can convince people with grand logic of this Truth, only His flock will come to believe this Truth.  We Proclaim Jesus as Christ and part of the Trinity, not to convince those who are not of His flock, but rather we do so first out of obedience, because we are told by our Lord to do this.  Our secondary motivation is to find the rest of His flock.  Their response to His calling will show them to us.

Let us go out and proclaim Jesus to the world today, in hopes that we can find the rest of the flock.

John 9 - Jesus brings Sight on the Sabbath

Here in John chapter 9 we have Jesus healing a blind man on the Sabbath.  Once again I am reminded that Jesus heals people in order to reveal His glory.  I believe that Jesus also reminds us that He is Lord of the Sabbath not subordinate to it.

I ponder today that this same Jesus lives in me.  This same Jesus that heals the blind.  This same Jesus that has the authority to do mighty works on the Sabbath, this Jesus lives in me.  Jesus is the one who created the Sabbath and so He is not bound by it.  In a similar way we are not to be bound by a day, but we are to be bound to the one who created the days.  As a Christian I need to learn from the "sabbath principle" of rest and reliance on God to provide for us.  But our true rest and provision come in our rest in Jesus Christ.  So whether you can take a "sabbath day" on a Sunday or Saturday or Monday or whatever day, the focus and source of our rest is Jesus the one who can work to heal and restore us everyday.

My Jesus, My Lord, My God, Lord of healing, Lord of Rest, thank you for sustaining me today!