📖 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James 1:2-4
Ugly, unwanted, uncomfortable emotions; we all have them...but we must not let them overwhelm or overtake us!
FEEL it...the first thing is to understand that something is going on....we are acting out...behaving the way were are because of WHAT is going on inside. Take a few steps back..." What is it I am feeling to make me act this way? Hurt? Sad? Depressed? Neglected? Abandoned? Self centered? Jealous? and the list can go on....but figure out what you are feeling.
Jesus had emotions too!
When Lazarus died...
📖 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. “Where have you laid him?” he asked.
“Come and see, Lord,” they replied. Jesus wept. John 11:33-35
He got angry...
He got angry...
📖 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me." John 14:14-17
📖 Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
Matthew 26:36-38
"Feel" it so you can
FACE it....ok I am bitter because...? I am angry because,......? I feel neglected because...? you get the idea....you find a point in time when that "feeling" began, an event (or maybe several), that triggered the emotion. ....now Face it...so that you can step beyond it...past it....but in facing it you go through it! We don't side step or skirt. around it.....we face it so we can deal with it
When Jesus felt alone...abandoned...overwhelmed He Faced it and gave it to God, so he could move on and do the will of His Father.
📖 Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” Matthew 26:36-39
When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. John 19:30
With those words Jesus finished IT....finished the punishment for sin, finished eternal separation from God. Finished death for our sins once and for all!
The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. Romans 6:10
We need to finish it, the battle with what ever emotion we are feeling that is trying to strangle out the good God has for us!
Feel it! Face it! Finish it!!
And we can only make this formula work with the most important "F"....FAITH.
With faith in God and our Lord Jesus Christ we can face the emotions that threaten to do us in...we can work through them knowing He had gone through them before us! He has felt them, faced them and finished them! For us!📖 ..keeping our eyes on Jesus,the source and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that lay before Him endured a cross and despised the shame and has sat down at the right hand of God’s throne. For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, so that you won’t grow weary and lose heart. Hebrews 12:2-3 (HCSB)
📖 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Hebrews 4:5
So to finish it we must....
📖 Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Ephesians 4:31-32
God has shown us how....
📖 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8
And as overwhelming as it may seem we can do it because...
Have faith that He has overcome anything you may be facing right now!
📖 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33
You can do this...you can MOVE past it!
makes me think of a song ..of course!
Move. Mercy Me
No comments:
Post a Comment