Skip to main content

 WAKING UP

It usually comes at some degree of shock when the Lord Jesus wakes us up and by the Holt Spirit reveals to us...shows us what is no surprise to Him. He provides a personal epiphany, causing us to see the wounds and pain we have been carrying around for years. The sorrow and brokenness that various forms of injustice have marked us by. 

A very natural response to seeing what has been beneath the surface of life for longer than we ever knew, wounds that have been influencing attitudes and action unbeknownst to us, is anger. There may even be rage at what has caused damage to our hearts, our minds, our will and emotions. God is not offended at the immediacy of our response. It is not by accident that we now see what was for so long hidden. God has been working His salvation in us, transforming us by the life the Holy Spirit lives in us. God makes us ready to be healed and liberated at a level deeper than we have known. Having begun a good work in us, He has promised to bring that work to completion by the day of Christ,

We must take care to remember that we have never been, nor will we ever be able to affect any degree of salvation in our lives. Salvation is of the Lord alone. All that we have and all that we are must be surrendered to Him for His work of grace and mercy to us. We must take care not to give such rein to our initial anger and sorrow that it finds a "resting place" and become embedded in our souls.

Newly seeing your great need and finding that there is no human way to effect relief or reconciliation from those who were the scar-givers in your past, do not despair. Remember that the One who saved you, Who united you by the holy Spirit to both His death and His resurrection has not abandoned you, but will, here and now, still be your Life-Changer.

Take all the grievances, all the shock and sorrow, all the anger and frustration to the Lord, asking for His grace to release it all and believe Him. This revelation is not some cruel accident, but the intervention of His grace. The Lord Jesus will never leave you wallowing in this present stuff. He has opened your eyes and heart to it so that you might surrender it to Him. You mustn't deny it, but put it in His hands, giving it all up to His healing power. Forgiveness is crucial here, forgiving those "scar-givers" even as you have been forgiven.

He has brought it to the surface not to mock you in your need. Only your ancient foe would do that. He is asking you to lay it all at His feet so He can peel it away, heal and restore you. The great liberation for us is to remember that God never demands that we have a part in our own salvation. The Lord never asks us to effect change in ourselves, He asks us to trust Him as He changes us. We will never save, redeem, transform or make new any aspect of who we are. All we can offer is our, "Yes!" and "Thank You!" to Him and He gives repentance as His gift empowering us to believe and receive.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

 HE IS RISEN! IT IS FINISHED! After the Israelites had passed through the Red Sea by God opening the way for them to be saved, the whole of Pharoah's army, his horsemen and chariots pursued God's people into the opened way. Once they were all in, the waters flowed back into their place with suddenness and fury. Not one of the enemies survived. All perished in those waters. When Jesus Christ hung on the cross, all that sin contained, the full measure of the rebellion of mankind for all time, all the wickedness that was ever in human hearts were absorbed into the Lamb of God as He died our death, received our just judgement from God for all time, taking all that sin and death contained. In Him, sin and death died once and for all. They were overwhelmed, covered and drowned in the sea of His precious blood, poured out for the sin of the whole world. Not one enemy remained alive, all were stripped of their power to hold us in slavery to sin any longer. All their weapons were confis...
WHAT DO YOU BLESS? It would be an act of utter folly and disaster were I to choose to "bless" what God will not bless. God's wrath is set against anything and anyone that would try and hinder you becoming all He created you to be and to grow in by being united to Him through the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ. There is nothing arbitrary about the Word of God. He is very specific on what will make for life and what will not. Human life only becomes human life when the Holy Spirit becomes Life withing a believer. Being united to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the follower of Jesus becomes a new creation and begins to live Life as God intended. God begins the good work, and He is the One who will bring it to competition. Somethings will NEVER make for life. What God calls sin, missing the mark of what will make for life, is always sin regardless of what culture anywhere and anytime say to the contrary. Sin cannot save, heal, redeem, restore or remake...
 CONVICTION When the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, He doesn't ask us to make it right. We can never add to what Jesus Christ has already done on the cross to deal with the totality of our sin. The Holy Spirit asks us to accept the truth, turn from sin and turn to the Lord. Then He will make it right. Remember Who our faith depends on from start to finish, that salvation is of the Lord alone. Laying aside every hindering weight and the sin that so easily trips us up (different for everyone), we are to run the race He has given us to run with perseverance, fixing our eyes on Jesus. He is the One upon Whom our faith depends on from start to finish. He will never run out of eyesight any more that a good shepherd would go ahead of the sheep he was leading where they couldn't see to follow. Hebrews 12:1-2 "Surrounded then as we are by a great cloud of witness to the life of faith, let us strip off everything that hinders us, as well as the sin which dogs our feet, and let us r...