I have met many who have lost their appreciation for life. They’ve traded their ability to live freely, to love, and to laugh, for reactions, repressions, and denials. Some folks, hurt by love, have discarded love forever; it bears too much pain. Others, worn down by oppressive relationships, jobs or circumstances, have given themselves over to drugs, alcohol, or other means of artificial comfort. I have discovered that a person’s ability to resist stress is only temporary. Eventually that stress envelops that individual and wears him down. Now, he readily yields to those stressors because it’s human to get “stress relief” at all costs. Evil takes advantage of these “human” qualities and attempts to wear out the saints — they try to make life become “too hard — too long.” Their evil government looks for eventual capitulation –then they offer freedom and release — but the new-found freedom equals slavery.…
Healing at the Cross Posts
“…we must also accept the reality of our incompleteness.” Gerald G. May M.D. From his book “Addiction and Grace.” He starts in, “We can and should do our very best to move in that direction, (to achieve the state of perfection.) struggling with every resource we have. but…”we need to recognize that the incompleteness in us, our personal insufficiency, does not make us unacceptable in God’s eyes.” “Far from it, our incompleteness is the empty side of our longing for God and for love. It is what draws us toward love and one another.” “if we do not fill our minds with guilt and self-recriminations, we will recognize our incompleteness as a kind of spaciousness into which we can welcome the flow of grace.” “We can think of our inadequacies as terrible defects, if we want, and hate ourselves. But we can also think of them affirmatively, as doorways…
Ephesians 2:7 “so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” Kindness? Luke 7:37-50 explains this “kindness.” “And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.” And Jesus answering said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” And…
. ” Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life.” Isaiah 43:4 That which enables us to carry weight in this world stems from our being precious in His eyes. It speaks of extreme love, a favor surpassing that of men. Indeed, it refers to a choosing, as God did with Israel when He brought them forth from Egypt. This “preciousness” gives us weight in our words, in our countenance, in our judgments — It coincides with our being liberated from our personal bondage. Un-redeemed mankind seeks honor among its fellows, a formula which may require denigrating ‘dishonor for acceptance’ In dishonoring it’s bodies. These surrender to uncleanness, immerse themselves in heart-lust, become passionate for disgraceful dishonoring, and finally relinquish all discriminatory ability — they find their way back to “shame” as a…
I’ve Dedicated 15 years of my adult life trying to discover “what makes us tick,” So what have I learned? God may remove a beautiful face to fix the ugly “inner” face of a man or woman. A person is wholly who they are on the inside — a person with inward beauty far exceeds one with merely a veneer. The outer face remains important — Largely to break ice with those mesmerized by the shine of cosmetic disguise. The goal of gaining audience (breaking ice), is to eventually get inside them and let God go to work. God knows how to do the surgery, since He knows the end from the beginning– It may take years. Afterward, the outer prettiness means so much less to them. That’s all? No, there’s more: God gives allowance to the loss of a child, to teach us how He felt about the…
“For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.” 2 Corinthians_8:9 ” For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” 2 Corinthians 5:21 Again and again, the Bible tells me and you about an exchange. Christ’s death for my life, Christ’s death for your life. “One died for all — we’re all dead.” 2 Corinthians 5:14 “Planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection.” Romans 6:5 We also, while applying these truths to our hearts, must perform our own exchange by faith. We exchange our past — our history for God’s history, and allow His obedience to become our own. We “bring every thought…
In every person there lies hidden, a cry for love. Why hidden? Love’s lacking has built a fortress of defense — a defense which protects the cry. It can be destroyed. It is not eternal, but a human cry — a cry which burros deeper at every resistance, at every abuse — at every un-loving. We don’t deserve love, nevertheless we cry for it; we have squandered it, still, we seek it more. We have accepted lesser forms of love: physical touch, social acceptance, a paycheck. True love beckons from somewhere beyond, somewhere below, the vague within. It’s unexplainable, imponderable, mystical, baffling. The goal of God re-invigorates our souls crying. His aim re-awakens the stifled need. He seeks to un-bury the raw beckoning because He can’t fill an already filled box. But how accomplish this? God withdraws the manifestation of His presence. And the Psalmist bellows out: “Do not hide your face…
“For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” Matthew_6:14 Literally, “falling to the side,” men have lapses or slips and with these times come offenses to others. They trespass other’s dignity, honor, or personal respect. These trespasses we must forgive, (send away), and dismiss when they come to us. In other words, we relinquish our rights and thus maintain the flow of unity with others. Matthew 5:39 teaches us “That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” It all relates to the cry of Jesus, while on the cross dying: “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Luke 23:34 “I am acquainted with a family which came to America from Germany. The English…
“And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.” Isaiah 35:8 ‘The way of life is above to the wise, that he may depart from hell beneath.” Proverbs 15:24 “God completely heals the wounded who have failed completely (Psalm 147:3). He comes and binds up the transgression—called the “breach,” in Isaiah 30:26— and He heals the stroke of the wound. The stroke refers to the paralysis brought in by the demon armies in the unconscious mind and in the body. The demonic influence exerted in this process is to control the responses of the central nervous system.” Dr. Carl H. Stevens “Take the example of a man who committed adultery … He was sobbing, overwhelmed with sorrow,…
The unconscious mind must never take the place of our conscious mind. In that unconscious mind Is my life history, weakness and strength, hurts and helps — but also Adam’s history, projected there from hell. I must forget what is past, but also cast down imaginations and high things that exalt themselves against the knowledge of Christ. “Remember, our imaginations determine our self-image.” “The human mind is extremely complicated. Little is understood about the three compartments of the mind: the conscious, subconscious, and unconscious. The unconscious is vast, making up 90 percent of the mind. Largely undefined, the unconscious is open to Satan’s entrapments. Often, Satan projects lies about the images in the unconscious mind to the subconscious, which represents 5 percent of the mind. The subconscious feeds the conscious mind— the remaining 5 percent.” Dr. Carl H. Stevens So we deduce: human weakness can reflect in us wrong…