"We Few...We Happy Few"

Do not fear, for the Lord your God will personally fight for you.

Deuteronomy 3:22

 

These last several weeks have been one of those periods of life when words cannot adequately describe the exhaustion I have felt.  I have officiated three funerals of people I have gotten to know.  When each of them passed, it felt as punch to my spirit.  Putting together each eulogy was agonizing and left me feeling as though I had been the punching bag for a prize fighter.  I just wanted to go to bed and not wake up until next week.

This morning, during my quiet time, one of my favorite movies came to mind.  The movie is "Henry V" starring Kenneth Branagh.  The pivotal moment in the movie was the Battle of Agincourt where the outnumbered English soundedly defeated the French.  But the part that stood out for me what after the battle scene when King Henry V of England stood visibly exhausted on a cart to address his soldiers.  He was bruised, filthy, and bloody.  And I could understand how he felt.

You see, the object of that battle is to force the opponent to give up.  And I have felt that I had been fighting an seemingly endless battle.  Then God reminded me that when I fight in my own strength, it's a losing battle because my strength is limited.  But when I step back, be still, and let God fight the battle for me, His strength is limitless...not to mention He has already won the war!

Am I still tired?  Yes.  But knowing that the battle is God's to fight gives me strength.  God has let me fight until all my strength was gone, but He is always faithful to remind me that His mission for my life is not completed and until it is, it's HIS job to make sure I get there.  So I have learned this lesson once again...God is God and I am not. It is not my place to try to do God's job because I can't.  It IS my place to get out of God's way so HE can show His strength and mercy.

 

 

 

 

Discouraged

Why am I discouraged?
    Why is my heart so sad?
I will put my hope in God!
    I will praise him again—
    my Savior and my God!

Psalm 43:5 

 

In listening to the conversations over the weekend, I gathered that people seem to be getting discouraged because they feel helpless.  Feeling helpless is extremely discouraging, but are we truly helpless?  Remember, God has given us a spirit of POWER, and of LOVE, and of SELF-DISCIPLINE!

 

1.   In this world we WILL have troubles!  Jesus said that in John 16:33, and since we already know that we will have troubles we can prepare ourselves for them.  How?  Jesus went on to remind us that HE overcame the world (and ALL its troubles).

 

2.  We are also reminded that the fight is not ours: "This is what the Lord says: Do not be afraid! Don’t be discouraged by this mighty army, for the battle is not yours, but God’s." 2 Chronicles 20:15.  The events we face may appear overwhelming and quite daunting, but God is the one who fights for us.  Ever know God to be defeated?  EVER?  

3.  It's easy to become fearful when we are faced with so much tragedy, but remember that God is WITH us! "Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand."  Isaiah 41:10.

 

4.  Remember Peter's little stroll upon the water?  What happened when he took his focus off of Christ and became fearful of the turmoil around him?  That's right....he began to sink.  His solution?  He cried out to Christ to save him!  And Jesus did just that.  Perhaps it's time for us to stop focusing on all the turmoil and return to Christ!

 

Each morning, my prayer for all of our officers is that they are kept safe, that Christ will go with them and fight for them, and love them.

Is Your Life Being Stolen?

The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. 

My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.

John 10:10

A thief steals.  That what thieves do.  Only thing they care about is that you have something they want, so they take it regardless what it takes to get it from you.  Your happiness is not even in their scope of thinking.  Your comfort is among the last things they would bother to consider.  Your peace of mind is not even on their radar.  If you have something they want, they will destroy you to get it.

 

Guess what?  I'm talking about identity theft.  Well, not the one where a million dollars will be put up to restore your identity.  I'm talking about an identity that we tend to forget about when struggles hit us and the storms of life seem to just keep coming.  

 

We feel defeated!  We feel as if we have let everyone down!  We feel ready to just give up because we don't think we have anything left within us to continue.  So we crumple and we wonder what happened to us.

 

Welcome to the tactics of our enemy!  If he can steal our identity, he can make us feel defeated.  If he can make us feel defeated, then he knows others will see us in turmoil.  If others see us in turmoil, they will see us either struggle back to our feet or they will see us give up.  What's our identity that the enemy tries so hard to steal?  Our identity as Children of the King of Kings!  

 

I will openly confess that there are times that I struggle and feel defeated.  There are times that I have failed because I have allowed the enemy to steal my joy from me. There have been times that I have neglected my armor and it has gotten rusty.  There are times that I have been so exhausted from trying to fight the barrage missiles from the enemy that I have forgotten WHOSE I am! I have been so distracted by the battle that I took my eyes off the one who fights IN MY PLACE!  I forgot my place as God's Child!

 

If you don't remember anything else, write this down so you will remember it:  My body may ache, my memory may fail, but no one can steal my identity as God's Child!

 

Romans 8:31-39 states it very clearly: 

 

³¹ What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? ³² Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? ³³ Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. ³⁴ Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.

³⁵ Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? ³⁶ (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”) ³⁷ No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.

³⁸ And I am convinced that NOTHING can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. ³⁹ No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.
 
 

Where Is God?

 “I am a God who is near,” says the Lord.
    “I am also a God who is far away.

No one can hide
    where I cannot see him,” says the Lord.
    “I fill all of heaven and earth,” says the Lord.

Jeremiah 23:23-24 

 

Have you ever felt like maybe God just wasn't there?  Or have you ever felt as if God was someplace far far away looking down on you with detached detachment?  Have you ever wondered if God was anywhere at all?

 

I know such questions make some people uncomfortable, and that's part of the reason I ask them.  If we don't wonder, then we tend to take things for granted.  How many times has a storm knocked out the power, but you still flip the light switch when you enter a room?  How many times have you turned on the faucet and wondered if this will be the time you get coffee instead of water?

 

God gives us a mind, so that we can think and wonder and contemplate and dream and KNOW!  God tells us that He is near!  God also tells us that He is far away!  God tells us that NO ONE can hide from Him!  God tells us that He fills every nook and cranny of the universe and the earth!  Not only that, but Jesus reminded us that God knows everything to know about us (even the stuff we don't know, the stuff we wished He didn't know, and the stuff we don't even think should be known).

 

You see, this is the indication that God's GPS is so much better than mine every time.  My GPS system tends to be that electronic voice that will tick me off and I will argue with (ask my bride).  My GPS tends to be shaky, at best, and completely wrong more times than not.  But God's GPS (God's Provision Services) are always, Always, ALWAYS right on time and just what we need. 

 

There's nothing we can hide from God.  Absolutely nothing.  We may try and we may even believe that, since God didn't send lightning to zap us, God didn't notice.  Nothing escapes His notice.  Everything has a purpose.  Every event is part of God's plan for our good and His glory. 

 

Also know that, since God is everywhere and knows everything, He also feels everything we feel and knows our hurts and holds us as we mourn and cry; He knows our joys and victories and celebrates them with us.  He knows when we do something completely idiotic (and probably chuckles).  If we try to limit God and say He doesn't know how we feel or what we are going through....we don't truly know God and might be time to start talking with Him. 

 

Feeling Victorious?

The Lord your God is in your midst;
he is a warrior who can deliver.
He takes great delight in you;
he renews you by his love;
he shouts for joy over you.

Zephaniah 3:17

When will we stop feeling defeated?  With all that is going on in the world today we act as if somehow God has been beaten.  But that simply is not true!  

God is a warrior!  Not only that, but God is OUR warrior!  NOT ONLY THAT, but God is our warrior who cannot be defeated.  And when I say "cannot be defeated" I am not using the "Oh My Goodness that just cannot happen to someone so nice", I am stating that there is NO WAY that God can ever be anything other than victorious!

Read on!  Not only is God THE warrior who can never be defeated, but He takes GREAT DELIGHT IN YOU!  God likes you!  Warts, farts, flaws and all!  God likes you so much that He renews you with His love and SHOUTS FOR JOY over you!  

So when you are feeling defeated or just banged up a bit, remember that God is filling you with His love because He loves you AND He is shouting to all of creation "LOOK!  This is MY child that I love!"  Think about it, if our parents had done that when we were children, we would have been so embarrassed...but when God does that we are strengthened!  

The enemy will whisper that no one can love us because of our pasts and because we aren't perfect.  But GOD, who has the final word, loudly calls that a lie because of Jesus' sacrifice for us!  So remember WHO is proclaiming His love and joy over you to ALL creation and know YOU are a child of the most loving King!