- araratchurch
- Sep 9, 2024
- 3 min read
“Always be joyful. Never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.”
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 NLT
Because the Lord had bragged to Satan about righteous Job, with God‘s permission, Satan attacked Job, taking everything he held dear. Satan was determined to prove to God that Job only served Him because of the hedge of protection the Lord had placed around him.
When, even through all of this, Job continued to be righteous, Satan again accused Job, saying that it was only because his body has not yet been touched, that he hadn’t cursed God. So, again with God‘s permission, Satan now struck Job with loathsome sores all over his body.
Then, as Job was trying to find some relief by scraping his sores with a potsherd, Job‘s wife encouraged him to give up, curse God, and die.
“Then his wife said to him, “Do you still cling to your integrity [and your faith and trust in God, without blaming Him]? Curse God and die!” But he said to her, “You speak as one of the [spiritually] foolish women speaks [ignorant and oblivious to God’s will]. Shall we indeed accept [only] good from God and not [also] accept adversity and disaster?” In [spite of] all this Job did not sin with [words from] his lips.”
Job 2:9-10 AMP
Job, in spite of all that had happened to him, would not speak against the Lord. Job maintained that he would accept whatever the Lord allows to happen to him, both good and bad.
Wow, the steadfastness of Job challenges those of us who sometimes allow adversity to make us grumble and complain, while forgetting all the good things, all the blessings, the Lord has brought our way.
I have aches and pains from time to time, just as you probably have. Once, when I was dealing with a particularly nagging pain, the thought crossed my mind, “How did it feel when this wasn’t hurting?” It was as though I couldn’t imagine a pain free life. In the midst of that reflection, the Holy Spirit spoke to me, reminding me of all the things that were still right in my life. He then asked me, “Are you noticing how it feels [for all these things to be right]? Are you noticing what it’s like [for all these things to be right]?”
Wow! What an indictment! Indeed, it’s an indictment to all of us when we take for granted what is good but are quick to complain when something goes wrong.
The fact is, it seems to be part of our nature, and even makes sense, that what is hurting, what is wrong, what needs to be fixed, is what is noticed. Indeed, we probably don’t see ourselves as being ungrateful for all the things that are right. It’s just that our attention is being captured by the thing(s) that is wrong. However, this is not the way the Lord sees it. And it is certainly not the way He wants us to operate.
As Paul exhorts in our opening scripture, “Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.” Yes! The Lord wants us to operate with an attitude of gratitude—mindful of all our blessings—no matter what is currently wrong, or out of place, or missing, or broken, etc.
Child of God, let’s repent for taking for granted all that is right. Let’s—even in the midst of dealing with something that isn’t right (and that’s probably all the time)—remember to be mindful and thankful for all that IS right.
Ultimately, through Jesus Christ, it is always well with our souls!
Peace to you.
Jesus is coming! Get ready for Him!
- araratchurch
- Sep 8, 2024
- 2 min read
“Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.”
James 4:17 NLT
Have you ever noticed that sometimes we end up belaboring or bloviating about what we should do, instead of actually doing it? It’s as though we feel that talking about it will take the place of doing something about it. The fact is, just talking about something you know you need to do, without doing it, actually makes doing something about the needed change or behavior, less likely to happen.
When I was in high school, there was a day our teacher just didn’t show up, leaving us to our own devices. Some of my classmates decided to have a “lemon-squeezing” session. Now, what this basically offers is the opportunity (excuse) to say hurtful things you want to say, under the guise of “lemon-squeezing.”
On this fateful day, one of my friends, when it came time for me to taste the juice of a sour lemon said, “Mushegan (I was often referenced by my last name), you’re always talking about being on a diet, but you never lose weight.” Ouch! She was speaking something I already knew to be the truth. What I didn’t know was how my behavior was perceived.
The truth is, I WAS always on some form of a diet, but ended up “feasting and fasting” so that I never realized any significant (noticeable) weight loss.
That having been said, I realize now that I was talking about being on a diet because I thought it would somehow make my being fat more acceptable. I apparently thought that talking about dieting would make people see me as in a process of not being fat anymore.
If we are being honest, we all have things we know we need to do, yet haven’t acted on it in any meaningful way. Perhaps we’ve tried to deal with that conundrum by talking about what we need to do. Or, to the other extreme, by living in denial of our failing.
Some people in this situation even become highly critical of those who are doing worse than they are. (To that point, some of my meanest tormentors were, themselves, overweight.)
Some become highly critical of those who are doing what they should be doing, even assigning bad motivations for their doing what we should be doing.
As well, some, when facing a discrepancy between what they should be doing and what they are actually doing, find ways to either dismiss the failing as not being objectionable, or making themselves a special case, not needing to comply.
Child of God, you understand that my example here (not losing weight), probably doesn’t come with eternal consequences.
However, not doing what we should do in terms of our relationship with God, can have eternal consequences, as well as bringing devastating results in this life.
Rather than beating yourself over the head about what you are not doing in terms of God’s standard, repent and ask Him to help you to do what He requires.
Remember, the Lord has given us His Holy Spirit to guide us and strengthen us to do what we need to do.
Peace to you.
Jesus is coming! Get ready for Him!
- araratchurch
- Sep 6, 2024
- 3 min read
“Who are you to condemn someone else’s servants? Their own master will judge whether they stand or fall. And with the Lord’s help, they will stand and receive his approval.
So why do you condemn another believer? Why do you look down on another believer? Remember, we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.”
Romans 14:4, 10 NLT
Our ability to learn from our experience is a gift to us. Indeed, if when presented with a new situation, we had to start from a position of total ignorance as to how things work, we would get little accomplished.
Yes, the ability to apply knowledge gained in one circumstance, to another circumstance, gives us a running start. Otherwise we would be relegated to the hard slog of constantly reinventing the wheel, before even getting started on the task at hand. After all, even the most menial operations are informed and expedited by our accumulated knowledge base.
However, sometimes the conclusions we form, being tainted with conceptions that were either false to begin with, or not applicable to this situation, prove to be incorrect.
This is how we may easily jump to a wrong conclusion: We see a behavior in someone that has been associated with a certain motivation in the past in someone else, and now assume this person shares the same motivation as other people who exhibited that behavior. And how wrong we can be in doing so!
Let me tell you a little story.
There is a person who regularly checks us out at the grocery store. Now, I always try to reach out to a service person rather than treating them as a part of the fixtures. But I noticed that—repeatedly—this person seemed to be very grumpy, so I assumed that the person must not like me.
Recently, I tried one more time to reach out to this person, asking if they had to work much longer that day. They answered my question, then said, “These two jobs are killing me!” As the person shared further with me, I learned that they are basically working two full-time jobs, made even harder by having some physical challenges. They are just dog tired. Their behavior NEVER had ANYTHING to do with me.
You see, we generally do our grocery shopping late in the day. By that time, this person has already worked a full-time job and now has come to work this job. Now, I never treated this person badly. I never showed a bad attitude. But I felt ashamed for what I had felt in my heart.
Sadly, this wasn’t the first time I jumped to that sort of very wrong conclusion. You see, I have had some people who did intensely dislike me who showed the same behavior this person did. They weren’t just tired; they were tired of me, proving the same by further hostile actions. But this grumpy person was simply tired.
Friend, we must not allow prejudices formed from our life experiences, cause us to mislabel people, or their motivations.
Jumping to conclusions about other people is not pleasing to the Lord. And God forbid that we would allow our prejudgments to keep us from reaching out to others in the Name of the Lord.
Let’s ask the Lord to forgive us for having a hair trigger in terms of our estimations of other people and/or their motivations.
Additionally, let’s listen more closely to the Holy Spirit of God Who can reveal to us the things we need to know.
Peace to you.
Jesus is coming! Get ready for Him!