Tag: rest

Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People? – Since You Asked Q.8

On By ForChristsSakeFellowshipIn Sermons, Since You AskedLeave a comment

It’s hard for our human mind to understand the depth of God’s love. The kind of love that will allow some people of His own creation to be swept into everlasting punishment. The kind of love that allows bad things to happen to good people.

Those things don’t make sense to our worldly selves. They seem like a direct contradiction to each other. How can good love equal bad things happening?

To make sense of that statement, you first must be open to the fact that we do not see the end from the beginning like God does. If you are a parent, you know that there are some secrets that you have to keep from your children because they lack the capacity to fully understand and appreciate the plan that you have made for them.

The Bible says that we see things as if through a dirty window, but one day we shall see clearly (1 Corinthians 13:12). That day may not happen in our lifetime here on earth, but it will definitely happen.

To be God’s children means to be under His loving care. The Bible says that God will work all things for the benefit of those who love him and who are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28). Because there is sin and death in this world, sometimes what looks to be like horrible circumstances result in somesomething far greater than what you and I can understand at the time.

A family member of mine suffers from PTSD from his years in emergency medicine. I can even say from my own experience that it’s hard to get some of those images and memories out of your mind. There’s a hundred memories I’d rather not have from my own time as a police officer and a medic. The thoughts come to mind of “Why was I not enough to help this person?” or “If I had only been there two minutes earlier, I could’ve saved them.”

Those kind of thoughts plague first responders and military personnel. “Why was I not enough?” or “Why am I alive and they aren’t?”

The short answer for that is: I don’t know. The long answer is that God is in control and has measured the days of our lives, as the Bible says in Job 14:5. You and I can’t see the end from the beginning like God can. I would need the mind of God to understand all of God’s plans. The Bible says that God’s ways are not our ways. They are as far above our ways as the heavens are above the earth (Isaiah 55:8-9).

I don’t mean that as some kind of Christian cop-out. Just saying “Oh, that’s God’s will…” doesn’t help anybody to understand or get through horrible circumstances. Just hearing someone flippantly say “God has a plan…” doesn’t answer anything and it doesn’t keep the pain or nightmares away.

It’s true, God does have a plan and He does work it out perfectly, but it’s so hard for us to truly get that. You must come to a place of child-like dependency on our Father in Heaven. What does a child do? They trust, they believe, they love.

How can you “be enough”? Try taking the following actions:

1. Be humble. Understand that humility is a spiritual nuclear weapon that can break the heaviest of chains.

2. Seek first the kingdom of God. You can’t do this without first having that humility from step one. Either you are on the throne or God is. If He is on the throne, the. get into a relationship with Him so that you are better in tune with God’s desires for your life.

3. Strive to be the best version of yourself; not as the world sees you, but as Christ sees you. Knowing that you are not perfect (and won’t be this side of Heaven), take steps to be at least “on the way” to being perfected by God’s grace.

4. Get rid of indwelling sin. Kind of along the lines of the last point of being your best self, make sure to acknowledge those “secret sins” and turn away from them. Change your mind; choose the better path.

5. Rest in Jesus. This doesn’t mean just sitting in a cave and doing nothing the rest of your life. Run with the ball, so to speak, as far as you can knowing that you can’t make it on your own. Then, hand it off to Jesus who will take it the rest of the way. Truly “let go and let God.” *Note that when you hand that ball off to Jesus, He may take it into a direction you didn’t plan. Remember, it’s not your plan, it’s His.

If you think that maybe you aren’t enough, let me just dispel that thought for you right now. YOU AREN’T ENOUGH! You and I are weak and sinful and frail, but God says that His strength is made perfect in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). Trust in His strength, not your own. Rely upon Him who holds the universe in His hand.

It took a long time, but I have trust in my Heavenly Father. I trust that He truly knows what’s best for me, even if it doesn’t look like it at the time. It took a while to get there, and what’s worse is that it took a lot of bad times to show me all the good that God has waiting on the other side of those problems.

I can tell you that there’s no magic formula to trusting in your Heavenly Father. It’s about spending time with Him in prayer and in His word. The closer you are to someone, the more you understand and trust them, no matter what the situation looks like.

One of my brothers passed away abruptly pretty young in life, right after my mom did in fact. That didn’t make sense to me at the time. But then at the visitation, the Holy Spirit was moving through in a big way. People who I love accepted Christ or recommitted themselves to Jesus and even were baptized that day. That was all because of the opportunity to share the gospel with them at my brothers funeral. Love was there. God was there.

It is a tough statement to say, that if it takes my brother’s death to help other people come to eternal life, then his death was worth it. I can tell you though, my brother, a faithful servant of the Lord’s, would have agreed with all of it.

Dare I say that if we truly knew what the full plan was the way God knows it, some of our bad times we would not only agree with, but we would have done it that way too.

That statement may not be popular, but it’s real.

The one thing I do know is that God will never allow something bad to happen without a greater good coming from it. If you want proof of this, I point to the cross of Jesus Christ. The greatest evil there could ever be, the creature torturing and killing the creator. But the greatest good came from it, our eternal salvation!

Once again, God’s ways are not our ways. Some things just don’t make sense to us right now. You can give the best you have, and it will never be enough. But you are to give your best anyway because in the end, in the final analysis of life, you are offering everything that you have to God. That is our sacrifice to Him. You are not enough, but you plus God can accomplish great and wonderful things.

Win or lose, you are exactly who God wanted in that situation at that time. That’s why you were there. Trust that it was the right thing. Don’t feel guilty or condemned for something that goes poorly, even though you tried so hard to do all the right things. Romans 8:1 says there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. If you are fully committed to Him and His will, all things will work out for the best, even if it doesn’t look like it at the time with our worldly eyes.

It is not your fault.

It is His plan and His purpose that we have to come to grips with. We may not understand at all, but like Job in the Bible, understand that we are to accept the good and the bad from our heavenly father. We must come to the place like Job that we can say, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 15:13). God knows what we need better than we do.

Even if the circumstances look bad at the time, God truly has our best interest in mind. He has our eternal lives in mind, I guarantee, much more than we do. Be encouraged when things go right. Be more encouraged when things go poorly, because there is a greater good in store than what we can realize.

Trust in God, trust in his uncompromising love, and trust in the things that He can see that you and I can’t. A greater good is on the way!

God’s blessings to you

DH

If you or a loved one is suffering with PTSD or any number of mental health issues, please reach out to a reputable, professional Christian counselor in your area.

As always, our prayer team here at FCSF Church is always ready to help storm Heaven with our prayers for you. Contact us!

When God Forgives But You Can’t Forgive Yourself

On By ForChristsSakeFellowshipIn Sermons

What sin can’t God forgive? In truth, He can do anything. He’s God. If you come to Him in repentance, He loves you and will take those sins away. Just as the prophet Isaiah says, the Lord will forgive and blot out your sins and he will remember the no more. You must give Him the chance to do it though.

The problem is that we often don’t forgive ourselves. We keep harboring those memories of sin and pain and the wrong that we have done even after God has blotted them out. Not to add more guilt to you, but you are in essence fighting against God at that point. He has forgotten your sin but you keep bringing them up.

Much like a nail in a board, the nail gets removed but the hole still remains. That’s the way our sin is. The sin is forgiven but there’s always some consequence of it even if that consequence is strictly your own guilt. With time, the Holy Spirit helps to fill in that hole.

So what if family or friends or others don’t let you forget about that sin? What if they don’t forgive you?

If they are Christians, they are commanded to forgive. Otherwise, they had better never pray the Lord‘s prayer again. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Matthew 6:12.

Have you forgiven others? Have you held your forgiveness from anyone?

The Bible says that the devil is the accuser. If you have anyone, maybe in your own family or even fellow Christians, that accuse you and do not forgive you of your past sins, then that is by definition the work of the devil.

The point is that if you have repented and truly tried to change you mind and direction, then they must show forgiveness. They must show love. Just as the gospels say, how often should I forgive my brother? Perhaps seven times?

Jesus said don’t forgive just seven times, but 70 times 7. That doesn’t mean just 490 times, that is actually to stand for a number perfectly perfect, eternal.

We have been forgiven for so much more than what we could ever think of. We’ve been forgiven of the sins that we’ve asked forgiveness for, sins we’ve forgotten about, and even sins we didn’t know were sins.

Jesus paid it all on the cross. If we love Him and accept His sacrifice, we are forgiven. The Bible says peace comes from the Lord. Now you must allow yourself to experience that peace.

Know that Christ has forgiven you and let other know that too. We all need to hear it more often.

Start living for Him the best you can. Know that you are made righteous by God through Jesus Christ. You are forgiven, now forgive yourself. Go and do better knowing that you are fully loved and fully accepted by God.

God’s blessings to you.

DH

All Sins Start With I

On By ForChristsSakeFellowshipIn Sermons

“Love thy neighbor as thyself.” – Mark 12:31

Love is the greatest of God’s creations. Out of love, God made Heaven, the earth, and you. He loves you and wants you to love Him in return. However, when we sin and do evil in our hearts, it takes some of our love and our heart away from God. We no longer have the ability to focus on the Lord and the things that He holds forever dear. We are instead focused on ourselves and our sins which only can make us happy for a short time. We are left longing and being more unsatisfied than before.

Imagine that your heart is a box. You can pack that box with good things or bad things, but either way, there is only so much room in that box. The more of the wrong things you put into your heart, the less room you leave for Jesus. Your heart is made for love, but love for the right things rather than loving sin. Saint Augustine said that our hearts are restless until they rest in the Lord. How true that is!  Our hearts have a need for love that only God can fill. Anything else just isn’t enough. You can’t eat enough food or buy enough things to satisfy yourself. I promise you that it doesn’t work. It isn’t what God had in mind for you when you were created. The Bible says not to focus on the passing things in life, but to keep your eyes fixed on things which are above. One day, the fast cars will rust and the money will be all spent, but what does remain are those things which are done in service of others. God’s love comes from many places, but it is the most apparent when it comes though His servants.

I met a former business man that said no matter how far up the ladder he went, the emptier he felt. While he was working on how much money he could make, his family, his friends, and his home life eventually passed him by. It was the love of the wrong things that led to his pain. This person’s problem was that he focused his love on his own greatness rather than God’s greatness. He let his desire for status get in the way of him caring for his family. He has now turned his eyes to the Lord and has found what he terms as a new lease on life. He’s reconciled with his family and is making up for lost time. He also says that he derives more fulfillment from helping out at a local children’s hospital than he ever did being a boss at a big company. We all have love, but where we put that love can mean the difference between happiness and hurt.

There’s a sign up in our home that reads, “Whatever you do today had better be important, because you are trading a day of your life for it.” You can either positively or negatively affect generations by what you focus on today. If sin rules your life, don’t expect anything positive to come from it. It may be fun for a little while, but it never lasts and you aren’t helping anyone by committing evil. Pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth; these are the so-called seven deadly sins. Notice how all of them come back to ourselves. We become ego-centric and think about our own needs rather than the needs of others, but that’s not why we were made. Ego means Edging God Out. The more your heart seeks after your own comfort and your own pleasure, the less your heart will seek out God. To truly love my wife, I have to want the highest and best thing for her, and that is Jesus Christ.  I want my wife to go to Heaven. I want my kids to go to Heaven. Therefore, I must make some sacrifices to help get them there. My comfort level must be a distant second when compared to the health, safety, and eternal security of my family. Anything less is unacceptable.

All sins start with “I.” It’s a good thing to love yourself, but there is a big problem when that self-love comes between you and God’s love for us all. The devil wants you to be self-focused. If you are experiencing God’s love and showing it to other people, you are taking your soul and the souls of others away from him and handing them back to God. To get right with God and to help serve humanity, pay attention to the needs of others. Put God first, everybody else second, and yourself last. The alphabet is the only place where “I” should come before “U”. Remember that Jesus Christ wasn’t thinking of His own comfort when He died on the cross. He was only concerned with our eternal salvation. Don’t let your anxiety or comfort level get in the way of feeding a homeless person or sharing the Gospel with someone you just met. You are here for a purpose and that purpose is love. Sin is selfish, but true love means caring for others.

The love of God reaches far and wide, but the love of sin dies with that sin. True love can only be given away, not kept for yourself and the more you give, the more you shall receive.

God’s blessings to you.

DH