Child Like Believing
Psalms
{138:1} I will praise thee with my whole heart: before the gods will I sing praise unto thee.
{138:2} I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.
{138:3} In the day when I cried thou answeredst me, [and] strengthenedst me [with] strength in my soul.
{138:4} All the kings of the earth shall praise thee, O LORD, when they hear the words of thy mouth.
{138:5} Yea, they shall sing in the ways of the LORD: for great [is] the glory of the LORD.
{138:6} Though the LORD [be] high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly: but the proud he knoweth afar off.
{138:7} Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me: thou shalt stretch forth thine hand against the wrath of mine enemies, and thy right hand shall save me.
{138:8} The LORD will perfect [that which] concerneth me: thy mercy, O LORD, [endureth] for ever: forsake not the works of thine own hands.
**
Praise God's name for his lovingkindness, for his truth.
'In the day when I cried thou answeredst me, [and] strengthenedst me [with] strength in my soul.'
Strengthening with strength in the soul.
Strength in the soul.
Most times isn't that where we need strength, in our soul more so that any other way.
Hope gives us soul strength. Hope gives our will a chance to carry on when all seems lost. When there is so much heartache and pain in our lives we can find the will to carry on. Strength in our souls.
'Though the LORD [be] high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly: but the proud he knoweth afar off.'
Respect to the lowly.
The proud he knows far off.
God knows. He does. God loves us and He will guide us.
**
Yesterday as I was studying some it hit me once again how far from being 'Christ-like' I am. We're to strive to walk the walk in Christ, we can't say that once we accept Jesus that's it, we can be as bad as we like because we're not saved by works. That's not how it all goes.
For many, many, many years before Christ, God guided his chosen people and many times they broke the covenant they made with Him. They'd repent and He'd take them back and it would start all over again. God is a forgiving God. During that time there were many punishments for the breaking of the covenant as well.
Christ came and revealed the law more fully. The law pointing to Christ's saving grace was realized in Christ. Through Christ we are saved and no other. Out of that saving grace we are to follow Christ's ways. We are to love God and to love man, so often we love ourselves more than either of them. Selfishness being totally against all that is God.
I grew up with two older sisters and one older brother, I was the fourth child. I'm not making excuses for who I am, I'm sure there are many that grow up the same. Growing up with the expectation of wanting to be special.
Wanting and never seeming to attain anything special in a good way within myself. I could focus on the bad in my life, I could see how plainly I was 'bad' and it only made me want to be something, someone different.
I can honestly say that it's part of me still and it's that part that I look at and need to get rid of, or need to give to God and have Him get rid of, I'm not sure how it all works.
Yesterday as I studied I realized how alive and well that desire to be 'special' is in me and how contrary it is to being 'the least', to being 'lowly', to being a 'servant', to putting others 'first', to being 'last'.
In making the realization part of me started to feel that old despair that tells me I'll never be right with God. Clinging to Jesus I know my hope has to be in Him and Him only, not me. And I started to think about this verse--
Matthew {18:3} 'And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.'
The thing about children is their ability to trust. Little children, not big children, but little children had that innocence about them a sweet innocence that life beats at as they age and the distrusting begins. A little child doesn't know how to worry. Worry is another thing growing older gives to us.
We can watch little children at play and while they can be selfish in the sense they want 'that toy', they can also be very giving, very loving, very trusting, and they don't worry.
'Except ye be converted, and become as little children,'
Become as little children.
It's only with that complete trust in Jesus, that child-like trust, that inability to worry that we can get into heaven. Why is that?
Heaven isn't going to be a happy place for those who find happiness in worrying and distrust.
As a child trust its parents, we have to trust God.
We can't pick apart God, we can't be rebelling older children, we can't be obnoxious teenagers and we certainly can't be jaded, cynical adults and hope to be happy. The older we get the more we question authority, the more we form our 'own' opinions and take stances that please us and our senses of right/wrong, regardless of what others think. We become very opinionated, we take great pride in our beliefs. Pride in being the 'adults' we've become.
While we bask in that pride, or lament our inability to be able to take that pride in ourselves, we miss the whole point of being like children.
A child's trust. A child's inability to worry.
We have to tap into that child-like part of us.
Ha! I sound like a psychologist- tap into your inner child. But you know it's true. Christ said it Himself.
'Except ye be converted, and become as little children,'
How is that possible? Only through Christ. Only through really accepting the fact that He and He alone can save us. Believing in it with a child-like trust that doesn't question it, that doesn't worry over it, but believes.
I'm tempted to say as a child believes in fairy tales, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and you know I think that might be true.
A child doesn't question their reality why should they, they've seen what Santa and the Easter Bunny brings, they see a rainbow and a fairy tales tells them there is gold at the end, they believe, really believe and adults nod and smile at the happiness the deception brings to them in their innocence. We have to believe contrary to what our senses tell us about our unworthiness. We have to be child-like in our belief, our trust.
Jesus is the way, the truth, the life.
And we have to believe in Him beyond doubt.
Hebrews {11:6} 'But without faith [it is] impossible to please [him:] for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and [that] he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.'
Faith, trust, hope. Child like believing. Child like love. May God help us all as we each struggle in our own ways to find the child we need to become so we can enter the kingdom of heaven with Jesus when He returns to take us home with Him. In His name.
Amen.
9/28/08
9/28/10
Psa 69:15 Let not the waterflood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up, and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me.
Psa 69:16 Hear me, O LORD; for thy lovingkindness is good: turn unto me according to the multitude of thy tender mercies.
Psa 69:17 And hide not thy face from thy servant; for I am in trouble: hear me speedily.
Tragedies, big and small bring pain beyond imagination.
The waters of strife, the floods of emotional agony grip us. The deep, dark depths of pure despair threaten to overwhelm us. The pit would close us inside, the pit of anguish would devour us never to be seen again, to never lay hold of our eternal life in Christ.
Satan would have us drown in our pain, our very real pain.
Satan would have our losses rip any faith we have in God away.
Satan would have us lay all the blame on Christ's shoulders.
Satan laughs at our heartaches.
Jesus weeps with us.
There is no escaping that the pain in this world is endless. Whether you're a Christian or not, you will have pain, you will have heartaches. If you're not a Christian this life- filled with pain- will be all you'll ever know. This world is not our true home, we are NOT of this world. If we place all our hopes and dreams here on earth, in this world, our hopes will be crushed time and time again.
Today my niece miscarried her third child and as we were leaving the hospital in tears I hugged her and she said these heart breaking words to me… 'I just can't hope any more.' Those words broke my heart.
My sister had called me earlier in the morning to pray for her daughter, and with my sister's broken relationship with Christ, to have her reaching out for prayers is wonderful- just knowing she's turning to God for help is a miracle. I told her I was praying but I don't have my own personal direct line to God like she thinks I do (she even says I do). When I saw her at the hospital before the news, I told her I was praying for God's will to be done and she wagged her finger at me while furrowing her brow as if she didn’t want me to pray that way but some other way.
I did pray for my niece and her unborn baby, I did ask for a miracle, but ultimately in all things I want God who knows the end from the beginning to have HIS will done, not mine. Does this mean I believe it was God's will for my niece to lose her 3rd baby? That makes God seem like some cruel tyrant and Satan wants us to believe that He is just that- He wants us to believe God is hateful and hurtful, uncaring, vengeful, and spiteful. Satan glories in those thoughts, if Satan could get us to blame God for everything tragic that happens to us He will. God's will is for us to love Him, for us to have eternal life in Him through the sacrifice of His only Son. God's will is for us to have faith in Him. God's will for us is to place our treasures, our hopes IN HEAVEN. Does this mean we aren't to have hopes here on earth? That we aren't to hope for babies, or finding a marriage partner, that we shouldn't hope for a good job, and good health? No. We can hope for all those things, I know I have, and I do. We can hope but understand that first and foremost our hope needs to be in Christ, our Savior, our Redeemer.
1Ti 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope
2Co 1:2 Grace be to you and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
2Co 1:3 Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort;
2Co 1:4 Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.
2Co 1:5 For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.
2Co 1:6 And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation.
2Co 1:7 And our hope of you is stedfast, knowing, that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation.
The sufferings in Christ are many. Sufferings are many for all. In Christ we have consolation. In Christ alone we have hope.
1Co 15:19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
1Co 15:20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.
1Co 15:21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
We have hope in Christ for eternal life, not just for life here and now.
To constantly harp on laying our treasures up in heaven seems as if I'm a broken record. But when my niece's heart is broken before my very eyes, when I look into her face and see the deep anguish there and I have nothing to give her to ease her pain I am only reminded of how horrible this world is. I will not blame God, I refuse to blame God! Satan has RUINED this world! SATAN BE DAMNED! And Satan is damned! We can't choose to be damned with Him! We can choose to be saved in Christ! We can choose to live now for life everlasting. We can choose to realize that the agonies of this world will NEVER end. We can choose to understand that the pain, though raw and horrific, threatening to consume us, is too only temporary- even if it lasts our entire life here in this world- it is only temporary.
We have to live for Christ.
We have to have our hope in Him always.
It breaks my heart believing that my sister's tentative faith might be crushed and she's piled yet another brick upon God, placing the blame upon Him and not on Satan.
I can only hope and pray that it is God's will that my sister, my niece, her husband, my brother in law, and all those who are affected by this tragedy can find strength to endure through Christ, that somehow it draws them closer to Him and not further away. It's my prayer my niece places her hope in Christ and finds solace in Him knowing that He weeps with her in her pain, that He is touched by her heartaches and He longs for her to be with Him in life eternal where there will be no pain, no heartache.
Please… pray for my family.
In the love of Christ, by His grace, by His mercy now and forever!!!
Amen.
9/28/11