Purity 312 01/13/2021
Good morning!
Today’s photo was taken by yours truly yesterday as I was working in the
Hoosick Falls area of Rensselaer county on my first day after being permanently
transferred to the Albany garage to be closer to home. The photo doesn’t really do the scene
justice as I was captured by the tranquility of these snow-covered hay bales
and the forest in the distance and the joyful expectation of new sights to
see.
It’s Wednesday, so I thought it was an appropriate “hump day” photo. Interesting fact: I wasn’t sure what you
called these large “Hay rolls” as I always thought of hay bales to be those
rectangular blocks of hay. Apparently
these large “hay roles” were born by advances in technology in the 1970’s and
are called bales too. Rectangular bales
of hay typically weigh up to 100 pounds, but these large “roll” bales can weigh
up to 1000 pounds! So, now we both know
more about hay.
Today I continue to
share Dr. Neil Anderson’s “Twenty “Cans” of Success”, to encourage my friends
that are fasting as well as those who aren’t.
9. Why should I be depressed when I can recall to
mind God’s lovingkindness, compassion and faithfulness, and have hope (Lament.
3:21-23)?
Our success lies in not being depressed
about the things of this world and the things we have lost but lies in the fact
that God loves us and provides for us for the things here on earth and gives us
a hope for an eternal future free from suffering.
Depression is a common mental condition that
result from the traumas of loss or just as a result of an existential crisis as
the years pass and we question life’s meaning and purpose.
As we go through life, we are guaranteed to
continually experience loss. Our friends and family pass away. Relationships
end because of displacement, disagreements, or discord. Our physical abilities and attributes are affected
by aging, which are constant reminders of the inevitability of our own deaths. We also are not only affected by the loss
and traumas in our own lives, we also are impacted by the losses in our friends
lives and by the chaotic happenings in society that are presented on the nightly
news.
With that great news, one may wonder what
there is to hope for. After my own share of loses and an existential crisis, I
wondered the same thing: what’s the point?
Without God, I couldn’t see one and when we
focus on the problems of this world or our own personal losses, we can easily become
depressed. Worldly remedies of medication, alcohol, euphoric drugs, food, sex, shopping,
and travel provide comfort but ultimately won’t solve the that big problem of
meaning and purpose that causes us to despair.
We have to make peace with God in order to
know the meaning of life and our purpose. The good news is that God sent Jesus to
earth to make a way for all who are looking for rest and peace to find it. When we place our faith in Jesus Christ, we
become spiritually alive and we are not only given the guarantee of heaven, but
we are also given a new life in the here and now. We become God’s children and
are given the power to overcome all our worldly woes.
If we accept our identity in Christ, we can
repent of our past sinful and selfish ways and experience the peace that only comes
from being in harmony with God. As we walk
through this world that is falling apart around us, we can keep our eyes on the
God that will never leave us or forsake us and receive from Him the wisdom,
strength, and guidance that can make us experience the joy of the Lord regardless
of the circumstances. He will comfort
you in times of loss and He will lead you out of the darkness into His
marvelous light.
We are accepted, significant, and secure in
Christ alone. If the circumstances
around you are making you depressed, call out to Jesus and He will see you
through but don’t take your eyes off Him because if you do you will sink right
back into the world’s woes, just like the Apostle Peter fell into the sea when
he became fearful and took his eyes off of Jesus.
Our relationship with Christ doesn’t end. So
don’t neglect it. Instead lean on Him and use the power He has given you to
overcome.
(There is More at
the restricted blog). Follow me on Twitter, MeWe, or Parler for easy
access. Blog M T 4 Christ dot org – This
is where the Facebook post ends.)
This morning’s meditation
verse was:
1 John 4:8 (NKJV)
8 He who does not love does not
know God, for God is love.
God is love. The love that we have experienced in life is
a reflection of God.
However, this world
is hard. People don’t like us and sometimes hurt us or betray our trust.
Sometimes groups or organizations of people seem to have an opposite view of
what we think is right and it is easy to begin to categorize people, label them,
and dislike them. To protect ourselves we can become coldhearted toward the
world around us and keep people at a distance.
God knows this about
us and sent Jesus Christ to reconcile us with Him so we could know God’s love
personally and be transformed by it.
Like Dr. Seuss’s The
Grinch, He wants our hearts to grow 3 sizes! He wants to replace our hearts of
stone with hearts of flesh.
When we come to
faith in Christ, we are made spiritually alive, but we still have to renew our
minds to renounce the world’s lies and accept God’s truth that tells us to love
our enemies.
How do we do that? It starts with remembering what Christ did
for you: He forgave you of all the wrong you have ever done and will ever
do.
Knowing we have
received this gift from God, He commands us to forgive others and that includes
our enemies.
So if your attitudes
are not reflecting God’s love, ask Him for forgiveness and ask Him to help you to
show His love to others by forgiving them.
Christ forgave those who crucified Him from the cross. We can forgive
the lesser offenses that others have done to us.
Today we continue chapter 9 of Anderson & Baumchen’s Finding Hope
Again.
As always, I share this information for educational purposes and
encourage all to purchase Anderson’s books for your own private study and to
support his work:
Morning
Comes
I can honestly say that I never once
questioned God, nor felt bitter about my circumstances. For some time, the Lord
had been preparing my heart and leading me into a ministry that sets captives
free. Somehow I knew that the nature of my ministry was related to what my
family was going through, but I didn’t know what to do about it. Should I
abandon what I was doing to help others in order to spare my family? God was
blessing my ministry in unprecedented ways, but my family wasn’t being blessed.
He had stripped us of everything we owned. All we had left was each other and
our relationship to God. When there was nowhere else to turn, morning came!
If God has ever spoken to my heart,
He did in that communion service. There were no voices or visions. It was just
the quiet and gentle way He has in renewing our minds. It didn’t come by way of
the pastor’s message, or the testimonies of the students; but it did come in
the context of taking communion.
The essence of my thought process
went like this:
Neil, there’s a price to pay for
freedom. It cost My Son His life. Are you willing to pay the price?
Dear God, I answered inwardly, if that’s
the reason, I’m willing, but if it’s some stupid thing I’m doing, then I don’t
want to be a part of it anymore.
I left with the inward assurance
that it was over. The circumstances hadn’t changed, but in my heart I knew that
morning had come.
Within a week, Joanne woke up one
morning and said, “Neil, I slept last night.” From that point on, she
knew she was on the road to recovery. She never looked back, but continued on
to full and complete recovery. At the same time, our ministry took a quantum
leap forward.
Brokenness:
The Key to Ministry
What was the point of all this? Why did we have to go
through such a trial?
Seeing
in the Dark
First, you learn a lot about yourself in times of
darkness. Whatever was left of my old nature that gave simplistic advice such
as “Why don’t you read your Bible?” or “Just work harder”
or “Pray more” was mercifully stripped away.
Most people going through dark times
want to do the right thing, but many can’t or at least don’t believe they can,
and don’t know why. Brokenness can give us a kind of “night vision,”
helping us to realize our limitations and deepen our roots in the eternal
streams of life while severing ties with temporal things that don’t last.
Weeping
Instead of Instructing
Second, we learn compassion in God’s ministry of
darkness. We learn to wait patiently with people, and weep with those
who weep, not instruct those who weep. We learn to respond to the
emotional needs of people who have lost hope. Instruction will come later. I
think I was a caring person before, but nothing like I am now, because of God’s
gracious way of ministering to me.
We had some “friends” like
those who tried to help Job, who tried to advise us in our time of darkness,
and I can tell you it hurts. What Job needed in his hour of darkness was a few
good friends who would just sit with him. They did for one week, but then their
patience ran out.
The meaningful help we received was
from the church, people who just stood by us and prayed. If God took away every
external blessing, and reduced our assets to nothing more than meaningful
relationships, would that be enough for us?
Most people of the world have learned
to be content with food and clothing because they have no other choice. Paul
said, “I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to
live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of
being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering
need” (Phil.
4:12). That is an important lesson to learn.
Again, as was the case with Job, our
final lot was far better than it was at the beginning. Within two years God
replaced everything we lost, only this time it was far better in terms of home,
family and ministry. Be encouraged that God makes everything right in the end.
Finding Hope Again: Overcoming Depression.
——————————more
tomorrow————————–
God bless
you all!
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