Fool for Love – Things Hoped For
Purity 505 08/24/2021 Purity 505 Podcast
Good morning
Today’s photo of a field of sunflowers stretching out as far as the eye
can see comes to us from a friend who visited the Sand Flat Orchard in Fonda New
York on Sunday. I love how my friend
also captured the brilliance of the sun that, although obscured by the clouds, cannot
be denied, and comes shining through. Also if you notice, the vast majority of
these sunflowers are in full bloom, but there is this one, just left of center,
that wasn’t there yet but whose inverted petals are thick with the promise of
bursting forth into glory. We can hope that it will bloom!
Hebrews 11:1 says that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the
evidence of things not seen. A group of
friends have recently decided to exercise their faith and have joined one
another to go to the Lord in prayer with each other’s hopes and petitions. They recognize that the Lord is sovereign and
gives good things to those who love Him and are called according to His
purpose. So it is my prayer that all my
friends, this particular prayer group and other friends that are hoping for
things not seen, receive what the Lord has for them.
If you notice, I
didn’t say “what my friends want”. As
someone who has cried out to the Lord in prayer for all kinds of things since
making Jesus my Lord and Savior, I have been through the ringer in my journey
of faith, a path of Christian Discipleship that one could describe as a “trail
of tears” as I have literally wept and “hoped and prayed with all my might.” over
things I have wanted.
I have prayed for
healing, finances, favor, opportunities, love, and death at various times in my
walk with the Lord. I have seen my
prayers answered just like I wanted, and I have been bitterly disappointed when
they weren’t. I have also been greatly
relieved in hindsight that the Lord didn’t answer some of my prayers.
One of things that I
have prayed for in the past that I would caution my friends to consider thinking
about before praying for, is love. Believe me, I understand loneliness,
obsession, and the desire to restore relationships and its not just because I
studied these subjects in school. In the
past few years I have prayed for the restoration of my marriage and , after it
became clear to me that my marriage covenant was dissolved by the conditions
put forth in the Word of God and the laws of the state, I prayed for new love
and a new wife.
In my pain of my
divorce, I really wanted comfort and thought that a Christian wife would be
just the thing to make all things new and to heal my broken heart. I even had dreams and hopes about a
particular Christian woman who I thought the Lord was drawing me to.
So I prayed for
love. Before I ever approached the person with my any indication of my
feelings, believe me I prayed, repeatedly.
I was really hoping my prayers would just bring them to me. I didn’t
want to have to approach them. I wanted God just to have them show up on my doorstep
one day!
Ain’t no fool like
an old fool, right? And there probably
isn’t any bigger fool that an “old fool” for love.
Part of me was
content to just sit back and pray for my dream lover to come to me, but after a
while I realized that I wasn’t living the way God wanted me to. I was obsessed
over some future outcome, some unseen hope that I had real mixed feelings
about. So instead of torturing myself, I
decided I had to know the truth no matter where it would take me.
So I expressed my interest
in a romantic relationship, without confessing my undying love or anything like
that, and discovered that while they were flattered, they were not interested. Unfortunately
that person wasn’t getting the same calls from God to be my spouse.
While I could have hoped
against hope and decided to just keep praying and wait for God to move, and to endure
until the time is right, and this person “sees the light.”, I decided that if I
really trusted the Lord I was going to have to accept what He had for me, or in
this case, didn’t have for me.
I was reading James
5 this morning and there are very encouraging verses about prayer and perseverance
in that chapter but there is also a verse that tells us to not swear oaths and
to let your “Yes” be “Yes” and your “No” be “No”, lest you fall into judgment.
So, although I didn’t
realize it at the time, I sort of used this Biblical principle to decide to let this person’s “No” be “No”
and have gone on to use it to let others lack interest in me to also be a “No.”
without having to suffer the embarrassment of asking for one.
In my fumbling on this
faith walk, I have come to realize that in matters of the heart God allows us
free will. He doesn’t make us love and
follow Him. So I think He isn’t going to make the object of our desires to love
and follow us, either.
Also when we pray
for love, I think that we are really blinded by the fact that God is love and
that we may be failing to fully accept and experience the love He has for
us.
There are several
verses in the Bible that indicate that a marriage relationship is not the thing
that completes us. The idea of a “soul
mate” that completes isn’t really found in scripture. Colossians 2:10 says that
Christ completes us. So my question to
the lovelorn would be: “Have you experienced the love of the Lord? Or “Do you
feel complete in Christ?”
If the answer to
those questions is “No.”, I would suggest that we might want to pray for that
too.
But don’t get me wrong,
I’m a fool for love after all. So prayer
for the things you want, what ever they may be, but remember that just because
the word indicates that we will receive the desires of our hearts doesn’t mean
that our hearts are necessarily in the right place.
In our ignorance and
penchant for instant gratification, we may be blind to the fact that the things
that we “want” are not what are best and could cause a great deal of
suffering.
So keep walking and
talking with God. Seek His presence, wisdom, and ways. As you walk, ask Him
what He wants for you instead of demanding what you want for Him.
If you listen, you
may learn that He’s got a better plan and that His desires for you are better
than your own. Pray, be faithful, and
follow where He leads. Allow Him to change your heart and to open your eyes to the
new life He has for you.
This morning’s meditation
verse is:
1 Thessalonians 5:2 (NKJV)
2 For you yourselves know
perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night.
Today’s verse calls us to remain faithful every day for
things can change suddenly.
In terms of the end times, there are no necessary signs that
need to come for Christ to return. He could return today.
Also in this world we are never promised tomorrow.
I just saw a story about the sudden loss of life that came
in the wake of the latest tropical storm. Apparently a mother and son in
Tennessee sought to escape flood waters by climbing to a roof of a building only
to have the structure collapse. The son
was rescued but the mother died. Last
week before the storm came, there was no hint that this woman’s life would be
taken.
The eminent return of Christ and the possibility of death
makes it clear that we need to have a full assurance of our salvation and right
standing before God. It also should
drive us to share the gospel with those around us.
Our faith in Christ should be at the forefront of our minds
and the message on our hearts. Our faith empowers us to live with joy and peace
through all the troubles of this life and gives us a hope that we can stand on
for all of eternity.
So seek the Lord and seek to make Him known.
As
always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I always share insights from
prominent Christian counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with
their walk.
Today we continue with Dr. Neil Anderson’s Victory
Over the Darkness, continuing Chapter 12.
As always, I share this information for educational purposes
and encourage all to purchase Dr. Anderson’s books for your own private study
and to support his work. If you need this title you can find it online at several
sites for less than $15.00:
When You Are Tempted to Criticize or Reject Others
Discipline
Yes, Judgment No
Are there any occasions when Christians should confront
each other on matters of behavior? Yes. We are required by God to confront and
restore those who have clearly violated the boundaries of Scripture. Jesus
instructed: “And if your brother sins, go and reprove him in private; if
he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you,
take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses
every fact may be confirmed” (Matthew 18:15, 16).
Let me alert you to an important
distinction: discipline is an issue of confronting observed behavior—that which
you have personally witnessed (see Galatians 6:1);
judgment is an issue of attacking character. We are instructed to confront
others concerning sins we have observed, but we are not supposed to judge their
character (see Matthew
7:1; Romans
14:13). Disciplining others is a part of our ministry; judging character is
God’s responsibility.
For example, imagine you just caught
your child telling a lie. “You’re a liar,” you say to him. That is
judgment, an attack on his character. However, if you say, “Son, you just
told a lie,” that is discipline. You are holding him accountable for an
observed behavior.
Let’s say a Christian friend admits to
you that he cheated on his income tax return. If you call him a thief, you are
judging his character. You can only confront him on the basis of what you see:
“By cheating on your taxes you are stealing from the government, and
that’s wrong.”
When you discipline others, it must be
based on something you have seen or heard personally, not on something you
suspect or have heard through the grapevine. If you confront their behavior and
they do not respond to you, next time you are to bring two or three
witnesses—other eyewitnesses of their sin. If you are the only eyewitness, you
confront them alone and leave it at that. It is their word against your word,
and that won’t stand up in a court of law. If they won’t own up to their sin
and repent, do we just let them get away with it? Yes, but God isn’t finished
with them. Imagine the conviction every time they see you.
Much of what we call discipline is
nothing less than character assassination. We say to our disobedient children:
“You dumb kid”; “You’re a bad boy”; “You’re
worthless.” We say to falling Christian brothers and sisters: “You’re
not a good Christian”; “You’re a thief”; “You’re a lustful
dirtbag.” Such judgmental statements don’t correct or edify. Your children
are not liars; they are children of God who have told a lie. Your Christian
friends are not thieves; they are children of God who have taken something that
doesn’t belong to them. Believers caught in moral failures are not perverts;
they are children of God who compromised their purity. We must hold people
accountable for their sinful behavior, but we are never allowed to denigrate
their character.
Victory Over the Darkness: Realizing the Power of Your Identity in Christ.
—————————more
tomorrow————————
God bless
you all!
Join our “Victory
over the Darkness” or “The Bondage Breaker” series of Discipleship Classes via
the mt4christ247 podcast!
at https://mt4christ247.podbean.com, You can also find it on Apple podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mt4christ247s-podcast/id1551615154). The mt4christ247 podcast is also available on Google Podcasts,
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Email me
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Encouragement for the Path of Christian
Discipleship
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