JUDGING OTHERS HURTS US

WHEN THE SPIRIT CONVICTS

NOTICE WHEN your spiritual life is getting out of balance. The thing is quite painful when your spiritual life is out of whack and God reveals it to you. God gets your attention. Then He shows you where you are acting like a hypocrite. The sting of that knowledge awakens you to the inner damage it is causing to your spirit. The way you react to this knowledge shows you your heart.

It reveals what matters to you. 

Though it may take some time, once we know there is a problem, our inner person is motivated to face this error and deal with it. People and circumstances can easily get us off track enough to where we don't see the error of our ways. Something comes up and we begin to notice that we're off-kilter, which arrests our attention.

We start to pay attention.

The Holy Spirit reveals this to us, gently but firmly. Should we ignore the Spirit's prompting, further distancing from God will be the result. Darkness may come in. The joy in our hearts most likely will lessen. Frustration and discouragement builds as greater levels of bitterness and resentment increases. This deflates us as it hardens our spiritual awareness. 

We have stalled out. 

This can go on for quite some time, but it doesn't have to. You can blame God for your problems, for the spiritual distancing, lethargy, and dispiriting deadness. That's not the truth, and definitely not where the problem originated. It's not really God's problem.

This is our problem.

I recently had one of those situations. My self-righteous side passed judgment on an elderly woman who was out of line. She was using the force of her will to dominate another elderly person. She was behaving improperly, but so was I when I criticized her to someone else. The Spirit of God took me to task. That night, I knew in my heart that what I had said about her should not have been said.

I felt the pain of it in my heart. 

A deep sadness came over me. I acknowledged, apologized, and sorrowed. I sensed a great need to pray spiritual life for the woman I had criticized. She needs a relationship with Jesus. I now did what I should have done in the first place. She needs love and she needs tenderness. I had been offended by her words and actions. I felt justified in speaking about her "without mercy." That is not God's way, and it shouldn't be my way either. 

I took it up with my heavenly Father. 

After I confessed to God and asked Him to help me, the light came in. This activated compassion in me. God is love. God calls us to love the difficult people in our lives. His conviction of our wrong-mindedness about a person or thing causes a stop. We know we have to put a lid on it. We are compelled to extend grace to that person.

We follow God's leading. 

The "stop" effects a re-thinking of the thing in light of the Spirit of God. We are given the ability to make right, to turn in a new direction, and to seek His face. The darkness leaves and the light comes on. Pride leaves and a humble spirit is released. Joy returns, re-imagined and reawakened.

God is at work in us. He is bringing many sons and daughters to glory. We get to be a part of what He is doing.

Praises.

. . .

Photo by Ben White, Unsplash 

 

GOD'S GRACE FOR TODAY

 

God's Grace and You

GRACE PERSONIFIED

• The story of Jesus is a story of grace.  
• The theme of Jesus' life's purpose and His doings is fully-lived grace. 
• The spiritual already-lived past bespeaks of grace. 
• The spiritual future-joy promises abundant grace. 
• This spiritual present-moment infuses grace in the divinely awakened.

 ABOUT GRACE

I have spent much of the past fifteen years talking about love: Christ's love, God's love, our need for love, the need for loving others, and the importance of love in the world. Not enough have I devoted my thoughts to ponder the gift of grace given to us by God through Christ.

This week I've been reading a book by Charles Spurgeon about prayer, The Power of Prayer in a Believer's Life. He emphasizes how prayer is wrapped beautifully in grace. Another book I'm reading is by author Eugenia Price, The Burden Is Light: A Spiritual Autobiography. She shares her story of waywardness until the grace of God entered her life and changed her heart.

I was astounded the first time I read in My Utmost for His Highest that it is good for us to have difficult people in our lives. Who wants to be around difficult people? Not me. Yet grace is most apparent when it is applied as it is being lived out. Our lives are an example of this. God gave us undeserved grace. We were recipients of His grace. To live grace with difficult people means we approach the Source of all grace by allowing ourselves to be grace-filled through His divine mercy and grace. Then we will act accordingly to the ways of grace in the difficult situation. Our flesh roars to the surface more often than we care to admit, but it is soon overtaken by God's grace that lives in and through us.

Grace, besides love, is the great compelling and fulfilling of the spiritual reality in life and living. A true Christian is "living-grace" to the lost, unawakened world. Grace does not see division or hopelessness. Grace sees hope and life and resurrection in the small to big things.

It's all about grace. It's all about love. It's all about Christ. It's all about redemption. It's all about life and living through the new life that can be had in Christ Jesus. "Grace, grace, God's grace; Grace that will pardon and cleanse within."

 God’s grace is freely given, not duly earned.

APPLICATION

Every time we pray, the very act of praying, is in supplication of God's grace. Awareness of God's grace becomes a way of viewing life through the spiritual lens of grace. Your life alters when grace becomes your partner throughout the day. Conversations and actions are converted to spiritual happenings once this is realized fully in you. 

Annoyances become opportunities to extend grace, to live grace, to be grace to others. To do this well requires supernatural grace to flow freely in us, through God's enabling. Since God is grace, He can liberally give us grace, from out of which, we are, in turn, able to give forth His grace to others.

1. Do you have a difficult person in your life right now? (I do) 

2. Ask God's grace in your interactions with them; then watch what happens.

3. God will help us.

When Christianity Leaves a Void -- Intervention no. 7

 Why the Religious Thing Unravels

Finding God in the Daily

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, 

so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, 

work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 

for it is God who works in you, 

both to will and to work for his good pleasure. 

Philippians 2:12,13  ESV

God is in the life-changing business. What He does when we let Him minister to us is absolutely wonderful.

  
A SPIRITUAL RELATIONSHIP that is health-giving and health-receiving provides the impetus to live a genuine Christian life that has victory and power in its inner workings, its out workings, and in a satisfying, refreshing, and real way. However, this is not the case for many in the church.

The reasons for this phenomenon has to do with their spiritual life itself. If it isn't changing the person and isn't ministering to them in a life-giving way, then it is self-limiting and spiritual-limiting. This has consequences. Dullness, despair, and areas of unmet needs and unresolved issues begin to bog down weary Christians.

Those who do not function well within the church’s parameters may eventually abandon their faith or head in another direction. The church fails at times to address those troublesome gray areas. In particular, sometimes it fails to help those wounded by life or struggling with areas of bondage. They need something more than the church is offering. But sadly, the church is not equipped to help them. 

This is one of the flaws that trips up many a person and keeps them from returning to the "fold." The unfortunate side to this is when hurting people are convinced they may never measure up or be good enough to enter fully in the Christian community unless they attempt to pretend the part.

The equation of "being spiritual" with a list of specific spiritual behaviors is an end in itself--a performance-based Christian lifestyle. This can fall flat. As I have mentioned before, Christianity is not limited to salvation, obedience, service, prayer, bible reading and bible study, though, they are important spiritual disciplines and a Christian needs them and won't grow without them.

But there's more, and this is where all these other things sweeten the deal into a beautiful work of God. The Christian who desires to be alive and tender to the things of God seeks to grow and develop their relationship with Christ. This is where it's at and where the healing and promise of inner freeing begins.

This makes all the difference in
    how they live it,
           how they manage it, and
                how they are empowered to heal, grow, and thrive in it.

God is in the life changing business. He takes us, problems and all, and ministers to us. He holds up a mirror, with His illumination, He lets us see into our soul. We see the big picture--our scars, self-centeredness, lacks, strengths, and talents--and He helps us deal with them. God asks us to seek Him. When we do, it opens wide out. We begin to get real with God. We stop hiding and pretending. We take our salvation and spiritual life to a new level. It is wonderful! So very wonderful. I can't state how wonderful it becomes when our life with God becomes a warm and loving experience full of trust and joy.

Dear Father God, I want this sort of relationship for all my readers. May they know You, trust You, and abide in You. They will be blessed and enriched by Your loving Presence. Amen

To God be the Glory

A Message of Life.

Inspiration 45

Grace Giver -- Inspiration 10

Grace Gives Grace

Image from the recent Northern California Camp Fire 

-Beauty from Ashes-

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

2 Corinthians 12:19

O LOVING GRACE, beautiful grace, bountiful grace. What would the world do without grace? When grace is given it is received but not necessarily deserved. A prodigal son receives grace when he is welcomed home. Sinners are given grace when their sins are forgiven them. A recipient of an act of grace, do welcome it. Grace plays out in a myriad of ways. They could have gotten in trouble but they didn't, they've been given a second chance after a mess-up,  they are forgiven a wrong, or when they are loved just because. That's grace giving from out of its nature, extending grace because that is what grace does. Helping someone who is hard to help, like a person suffering with Alzheimer's Disease, is on the grace side of giving. God's grace is even greater. His grace chooses to redeem rather than punish, to set free rather than encage, to give to rather than to break down. Grace is greater than all our sin. We repent. God forgives. Grace pardons the offense. Grace covers with His feathers. Frequently grace carries an individual through a difficulty. They are given grace when they could have lost their job, a friendship, a relationship, or their reputation. Grace says they are worth it. They were worth a Son to Him. That's a hard understanding. Ultimate grace becomes human reality from its Giver of the divine Gift. Grace grows and blesses as God's grace multiplies in the interior self.

Dear Father in Heaven, spiritual life has many benefits and grace is one of them. You give grace to the humble, You give grace to us, You show us the ways of grace. Thank you for Your grace that welcomes us as part of Your family. Amen

To God be the Glory