Belated Easter Thoughts

I know I'm a little late on this blog post, but I just want to share with you these thoughts.  They came to me late on Saturday night as I was excited about Easter Sunday. 

In my mind I keep calling Easter Sunday "Thanksgiving".  You know how you do, Tomorrow my kids are coming over for "Thanksgiving" after church, when in fact what I meant was Easter Sunday. So I begin thinking about that, for me it did feel more like a Thanksgiving.  What God gave us, what Jesus did for us, it is overwhelming to think about loving so much.  We all say things like I would die for : fill in the blank, but would you really?  Could you willingly give your child to save others?  I am positive I could not in free will give my child, I do believe with all my heart I would give my life for my children. 
 We were already chosen to be God’s own children by Christ. This was done just like the plan He had.  We who were the first to put our trust in Christ should thank Him for His greatness.
Ephesians 1:11-12
And what does God ask from us in return?  Praise Him, thank Him.  It's that simple.  I don't just mean in church, though we are told to worship with others at church and sing songs of praise.
 Tell of your joy to each other by singing the Songs of David and church songs. Sing in your heart to the Lord. Ephesians 5:19
There is so much more to praising God.  It's our daily actions, how we love & treat others that allows Gods love to shine through us.  What would our lives be like if we really took to heart what praising God was meant to look like? 

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these. Mark 12:30-32

Seems like such a small insufficient thing to do compared to a life. 

Prayer: Thank you God for loving me so much as to give your son for my sins and the sins of this world.  Thank you for paying a debt I know I could never repay.   I love you Lord and will sing your praises and do my very best to let your love show through me everyday, for as long as I am here on this earth and look forward to singing your praises in heaven one day. Amen....

Depression and this Christian Woman: This Means War

I believe in spiritual warfare.  We are warned numerous times in the Bible by many different authors that as Christians, we should be poised for attack.  In 1 Peter, Peter writes to remind Christians to:

“Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.” 1 Peter 5:8 NLT

Paul talks about the Armor God has supplied us with

11 “Put on God’s whole armor [the armor of a heavy-armed soldier which God supplies], that you may be able successfully to stand up against [all] the strategies and the deceits of the devil. 12 For we are not wrestling with flesh and blood [contending only with physical opponents], but against the despotisms, against the powers, against [the master spirits who are] the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spirit forces of wickedness in the heavenly (supernatural) sphere.” Ephesians 6:11-12 AMP

Yes we should be aware of spiritual attacks, and yes, God provides “Armor” for our battles.   In the battle we should know:       

To speak truth against Satan’s lies 

     God claims us righteous, 

     We need to fight to not fail in our faith

     Know we have salvation

And offensively  we: 

     Use the word of God. 

But the question I ask is -  Is every problem, mental or physical, we have a demonic attack?  
We can go from one extreme to the other on this subject. For me the words demonic attack conjure up images of the movie from my teen years- The Exorcist;  scared the bee-gee-bees out of me. There are people that think every bad thing that happens, every sin you commit  is from the devil or demons and that they need to be cast out.  
The other side is to totally ignore that it even exists despite the bible clearly tells us that it is real. I fall in the middle trying to achieve a balance .  Things I consider are- Jesus healed some, and cast demons out of some.  That tells me that not every issues had a demon attached to it. So Paul’s writings in Ephesians is to help us not only with the spiritual world, but to help us fight in the flesh our desire to sin in freewill.

I believe to fight spiritual warfare :

  We are to rely on God’s power not our own.  

  Protect ourselves with the armor God has provided.  

  Cast out what needs to be cast out and pray for strength to get through the things that don’t   need rebuking.  

  Grow your relationship with God 

  Remain humble in your relationship with God so that if you do need to rebuke   something, you can do so in Jesus’ name and not try to do it in your own.

To be continued....

Note:

Today I will be seeing a Doctor and will gladly pass on to you what I learn from him.  Until then, our Pastor is preaching a series called “Overwhelmed”. He shared this link on Face Book last week from New Spring Church’s blog. Pastor Perry Noble is the author of the book Overwhelmed and lead Pastor of the church.  This blog is written by Devin Stowers, and provides good information to keep in mind when dealing with someone you love that is depressed.  

http://newspring.cc/blog/articles/how-to-love-someone-whos-depressed

Guilty Yet Forgiven

Imagine being acquitted of a crime and then told you are being retried for the same crime, years later.  This is happening to Amanda Knox.  Accused of murdering her room mate 6 years ago and spending 4 years of that time in an Italian prison, the Italian courts had decided she was innocent, yet now a new trial will begin, once again they decide her fate. 

How would you feel? Frightened, depressed, would you want to give up on life?

Amanda being retried for the same crime hardly seems fair, does it?  Yet so many of us do the same thing to ourselves everyday.  We ask God for forgiveness of our sins, then we replay them over & over again like an old movie in our heads; we relive the pain and anguish very time, it’s gut wrenching torture. Why?  Well, I believe most just cannot believe they have been forgiven therefore cannot forgive themselves.

"It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah." Ephesians 2:1-6 The Message

I love that it says God didn’t lose His temper, but with so much love & mercy for us He forgave us.  Now we have to do our part. Take these words deep in our soul; really feel God’s forgiveness. Let it replace that gut wrenching guilt and stop the torture. Forgive yourself and stop replaying the movie in your head. The Message bible, in Psalms 103, says

"And as far as sunrise is from sunset, He has separated us from our sins."

If God can forgive & forget your sin to this great extent, so should you.  It may take some work, perhaps even on a daily basis, but you’ll get it! 

Lysa Terkeurst has a great way to phrase this- 

“Imperfect progress is still progress” 

I am sure Amanda is frightened and maybe a little depressed, but she is not giving up, she is fighting. Let that inspire you to turn off that movie, take a deep breath and fight to forgive yourself of everything.