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Finding Our Authentic Self

“The entirety of Your Word is truth.”  Psalm 119:160

There is a lot of talk these days about authenticity and being our authentic selves.  Our society is becoming convinced that authenticity produces happiness . . . and who doesn’t want to be happy?  Who wouldn’t do anything to be happy all the time?  Carley Hauck, a life coach, writes:

“Did you know that authenticity is inextricably linked to happiness? To be authentic is to feel at home in your body, accepted into a particular group, and to feel true to our sense of values. It is a kind of confidence that doesn’t come from attaining something outside of ourselves, but knowing deeply we are enough whatever our particular feelings, needs, or skills are and that we add to the greater whole of life and matter. We can be true to our own personality, spirit, or character despite external pressures.”  (https://www.mindful.org/4-questions-foster-authentic-self/)

Believing that knowing who you are will bring happiness or fulfillment isn’t a new thing.  In the 1960s and 70s (when I was growing up), the stock phrase was “finding yourself.”  This was actually part of the original hippie movement; the desire to find happiness through the unfettered ability to do whatever your feelings dictated.  Even Shakespeare (in Hamlet) wrote: “This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man” (Act 1, scene 3, 78-80).  So as you can see, “be your authentic self” is simply a rehash of an old, very old concept.

What is the core meaning within “authentic self?”  What actually does Hauck (or anyone else) mean when they say “knowing deeply we are enough?” Is it even possible to achieve what Hauck outlined above?

Hauck states three characteristics of authenticity: (1) feel at home in your body; (2) be accepted into a particular group, and (3) feel true to our sense of values.  All three of these deal with feelings.  “Knowing deeply we are enough” is a feeling, because even if someone else told us that we are enough, we likely wouldn’t believe them because we wouldn’t feel enough.

We didn’t always rely on feelings to determine the truth of our existence.  Prior to the Baby Boomer generation, America, for the most part, embraced values outside of one’s own experience.  External values established on biblical principles.  (One could debate for days the rightness or wrongness of actually doing this, trying to live by biblical principles if one isn’t actually a believer, but that’s a discussion for another time.)  The societal changes in the 1960s turned America to look in another direction for a value system and we chose to look within ourselves, to use our feelings to judge whether or not something was good or profitable.  Out of this paradigm shift came the belief in “authentic self.”

Scripture doesn’t talk about the need to find one’s self.  In fact, the word “authentic” as we might define it here, isn’t found in scripture.  Rather, the Bible simply defines us!  God knew that we would live in deception, would allow our feelings to lead us into deception.  And so He, in His love, provided the definition of who we are so that we would know why we were created and what our purpose in this creation is. \We don’t need to seek out our “authentic self.”  Our Creator, Who knows us better than we know ourselves, has already taken care of that in His Word.

Every good thing in creation has its beginning and its foundation in one thing: the character of God.  When we talk about righteousness and sin, we are actually comparing what is God and what isn’t God.  So when we look at truth (or authenticity), it isn’t a feeling nor is it an abstract idea.  Truth is actually God, His nature, His character.  When the psalmist wrote “The entirety of Your Word is truth,” what he was writing is that as God reveals Himself through His Word, He is revealing truth: truth about Himself, truth about creation, and truth about us.

Because there are so many definitions of “truth,” we need to understand the Biblical definition.  Often we see truth as that which is correct.  But the Bible is more concerned about that which is genuine (as compared to that which is false).  It’s a correlation between righteousness and sin.  Righteousness is God’s character, who and what God is.  Sin is everything He’s not.  It’s the same with genuineness and falsehood.  God is genuine; everything else is false. 

Because we were created in God’s image, it is possible for people to actually be genuine, to be authentic.  But because sin affected who we were (and we are all sinners), we can now only become genuine in submission to God’s Holy Spirit through the process of salvation.  We find our authentic self when we surrender to God’s will and trust Him to mold us into the person He created us to be.  We don’t have to spend time trying to “find ourselves;” we need only look to God to see what His plan is for our life.  Our feelings are irrelevant; they will follow along if we determine in our hearts to submit to God’s will. 

We have no need to seek after authenticity in our lives.  We already have the means to live authentically when we trust the Lord Jesus to guide us into His truth.

©2017 Robin L. O’Hare.  All Rights Reserved.  Permission is given to Christian ministries to use this study free of charge with the following provisions: (1) used in its entirety including this notice; and (2) used unchanged, unedited, untruncated.  For all other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com

I Will Dwell (Psalm 23)

“I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”  (Psalm 23:6b)

I’ve been living in my Kentucky house since June.  Initially, because Ken and I had bought this house to be a “second” home (and ultimately our retirement home), we bought some make-shift furniture, just enough to be able to exist.  There were the two folding recliners from our 5th wheel (very uncomfortable), a used bed, some used appliances and TV trays.  Then, when we realized that this move would be more permanent, we bought a kitchen table and chairs and a couple of couches.  I brought out my desk from California and set up my home office in a back bedroom.  But the house still didn’t really feel like “ours.”  Of course, it was ours; it just didn’t feel that way because while we lived, ate, and slept here, the majority of our belongings were in California.  So in late October, we made the trip to California to retrieve our boxes and furniture.  When we got back from our California trip, we began to unpack.  Finally a week or so ago, we hung “the mirror.”

Now “the mirror” in our family has quite a history.  When I was young, my thrifty and amazing mom bought this mirror from a “seconds” shop.  The mirror itself was broken, but the frame was glorious: gold-gilded, large, and artistic in its swerves.  My dad had the mirror replaced and it was hung over my parents’ couch.  In fact, it hung over every couch my parents had until my mom died.  Then Dad gave me the mirror and Ken and I have hung it over every couch we’ve had.  Until this summer.

When I came back from California, I didn’t bring the mirror with me.  No point actually.  Ken was packing up everything from our home in the West, so I knew the mirror would eventually arrive.  I actually didn’t even think about it too much.  But the other day, in beginning to unpack, we decided to hang the really big pieces and get them out of our way.  And so, the mirror got hung up over our couch.  I was astonished at how I felt once the mirror was up.  Because it was at that moment that this house began to feel like it was finally our home.

I began to “dwell” here.

The psalmist ends the pastoral psalm with these words “and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”  The Hebrew word translated “dwell” is yashab and it has very specific meanings.  It means “to dwell, to remain, to settle, to marry” (Strong’s H3427).  There are some connotations in this word that are very important.

To settle: 

I didn’t realize prior to hanging the mirror, but I hadn’t really settled in this house.  I could have just as easily moved to another without the slightest thought.  This still wasn’t really “my” house.  But now, with the mirror hung (and as we get other rooms settled in), the house is feeling like home, like the place that I will choose to return to each day.  

To remain

Ken and I have moved more than 35 times in our marriage.  That averages to just about once a year.  It’s actually crazy to think how many times we’ve moved.  But there have been houses we lived in where I actually began to “dwell,” to remain.  I settled in with the aim of remaining in that house, redecorating, sometimes even remodeling to make it my own.  There is a commitment in the idea of remaining.  You individualize the house to make it comfortable for you, for your lifestyle, for your family culture.  

To marry

This is an interesting idea, of connecting marriage with “remaining” because the idea of marriage in the Bible involves the ultimate in intimacy.  Marriage in the Bible is always about becoming one flesh, joining together to create a family and perhaps even new lives, of submitting to each other to demonstrate the kind of relationship that we are called to have with the Lord Jesus.

Through the words of this psalm, I believe the Spirit is telling us four things in this:  

• We are to make the commitment to settle into the Lord.  The things of the Lord are to become those things that make us feel at home.  He is to become our center, our safe haven, our place of peace.

• We are to remain with the Lord.  We are to make a conscious commitment to stay, not wondering off to here or there, looking to see if life has something better to offer us.  Our commitment is to stay with the Lord, to learn from Him, to learn about Him, and to love Him with all our minds, hearts, souls and strength.

• We are to develop an intimate relationship with the Lord.  Did you know that marriage is an example of the kind of intimacy that God desires to have with us?  We are to work at developing that kind of intimacy and commitment in our relationship with Him.

• And finally, there is a “forever” component.  David says, “I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”  There is an absolute connection between dwelling and forever.  Dwelling has a sense of putting down permanent roots.  We can’t do that with the Lord unless our commitment to Him is forever.  This isn’t a relationship that we can turn away from, looking for something that might feel “better” tomorrow.  This is a forever thing that we devote ourselves to without looking back.

When we dwell in the house of the Lord forever, we stop looking for something or someone else.  We throw our complete trust in Him, knowing that He is trustworthy.  We give all our love and devotion to Him, knowing that He deserves all we have to give . . . and more.  We cling to Him, knowing that there is no other way to live except to follow Him always.  Let us dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

©2017 Robin L. O’Hare.  All Rights Reserved.  Permission is given to Christian ministries to use this study free of charge with the following provisions: (1) used in its entirety including this notice; and (2) used unchanged, unedited, untruncated.  For all other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com

I'm a Good Person

In recent days, several university athletes returned from a visit to a foreign country.  During their stay, they had been arrested for shoplifting.  In released public statements, one athlete said, “What I did was stupid, there’s just no other way to put it, and I’m not that type of person”.1

“I’m not that type of person.”  Ultimately, my guess is that this basketball player believes fundamentally that he is a “good” person.  Most people, if you asked them, would admit that they are (or at least hope they are) good people.  And why not believe that?  Psychologists have been telling us for decades that we are born good.  

Dr. Bobbi Wegner, a clinical psychologist and teaching fellow at Harvard University, 

        agrees. She says, “There are no such things as bad babies.”2

We are good.  We have been told it all our lives.  But fundamentally, the question becomes how we actually define “good.”  You see, in one sense, none of us is good, but in another sense, we are all good. 

If we define “good” as being without fault, without sin, then we would see being “good” as being righteous.  But Scripture clearly tells us that no one is without sin (Romans 3:10); all of us have sinned (Romans 3:23).  It is this sense, however, that the world usually uses.  “I’m a good person” meaning that I’m a person who doesn’t choose to do bad things (even though I did something quite awful).  We use this to excuse the things we’ve done that we know are wrong, that we know are sinful. 

To the athlete who said, “I’m not that type of person,” I would respond, “But, yes, you are because you did do this.  Regardless of why you did it, you stole something.  You are, then, a thief.”

However, there is another definition of good that actually is true of all of us and that is this: “good” as being of value.  Are we of value?  Absolutely!  We are valued because God loves us.  It’s not a value that we can earn by doing anything, but it’s a value that was given to us because of His inherent mercy and grace.  “For God so loved the world, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).  We are each the “whosoever” and God has given us value because He loves us!    

We can each stand up and say that we are “good” people, people of value, because God has chosen to love us, has chosen to interact with us, has chosen to save us.  We will never, in this life, be---through our own power—people who are good/righteous because we will do stupid things and sin.  But we are, because of His love and grace, people who are good/of value because He loves us!  And that, simply put, changes everything!  

1 “UCLA basketball players suspended indefinitely after China arrests,” FoxNews.com, November 16, 2017.
2 Kim, Jen, ”How to Know if You are a Good Person,” PsychologyToday.com, https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/valley-girl-brain/201609/how-know-if-you-are-good-person

(c) 2017 Robin L. O'Hare.  All Rights Reserved.

Men Have No Protection Except Marriage

“A man who commits adultery has no sense; whoever does so destroys himself.  Blows and disgrace are his lot and his shame will never be wiped away.”  (Proverbs 6:32-33 NIV).

Our country has lived with the idea of “free” sex for at least 60 years.  A number of social concepts came out of the free sex movement of the 1960's including reproductive rights, no fault divorce, and a woman’s right to her body (abortion).  Now, in the last couple of weeks, it seems like things have gone crazy with both women and men lodging accusations of sexual harassment and assault.

You need to understand, I personally don’t take those accusations lightly.  I myself am a victim of sexual assault (twice) and sexual harassment (twice) over my lifetime.  I understand why victims don’t report, why they live in silent shame blaming themselves, and why such assaults can haunt you for a long time.  I stand with those who believe that people should have the ability to dress how they want, go where they please, and do what they choose without the fear of being harmed by someone else.

That being said, our culture of “free” sex has demanded, for many years, that women pay the price for this freedom.  “How is that?” you might ask.  Women are often abandoned to deal with unwanted pregnancies.  Single moms have become the new poor in America through no fault divorces which often leave women significantly poorer than their ex-husbands (who frequently benefit from divorce).  Bodies have become more sexualized.  And now our country faces an addiction problem where it is likely that more than half of our population, including our teens, are sex addicts.

The price of “free” sex.

But with this latest round of sexual accusations, suddenly it is the men of power who are beginning to pay the price and I think that we are seeing only the tip of the iceberg.  These men are being accused not only of touching, but of saying sexual things.  It is very likely that even where these men are admitting to what they did, in the moment, they had no clue that their actions were being taken in any other way except acceptance. 

Think about it.  How often have you, with a partner, engaged in “over the top” flirting and sexual talk and play?  Did either of you ask permission of the other along the way?  Of course not!  So it was assumed that each of you were consensual in participating.  Yet, in a number of the reported scenarios, the victims are stating that while they “went along with it,” they felt uncomfortable but didn’t know how to extricate themselves.  They felt pressured due to the situation or the power of their partner.  And I would in no way belittle that scenario because it was also true in my case.  I didn’t fight or scream or try to get away because truly I thought no one would believe me.  (And in the one case where I did report, I was told that I had to confront my predator myself, something I simply couldn’t emotionally or professionally do.) 

Men are now in a no-win situation with “free” sex and I hope that they begin to see that.  The days of sexualizing another human being outside of a committed relationship are over.  We are now beginning pay the price for having believed that sex could exist outside of a committed relationship.

In Proverbs it states: “A man who commits adultery has no sense; whoever does so destroys himself.”  It is very likely that several of the men who are now admitting to sexual harassment and assault are feeling that they had no sense.  Certainly their actions have destroyed their lives and careers. 

As early as several months ago, if someone had begun a public discussion about “free sex,” they would have been ridiculed for being so closed-minded.  And yet now, how can men protect themselves?  The custom has become to have sex on the first or second date, but how can a person know that their partner won’t come back to accuse them of sexual assault, even if that partner appeared to be consensual? 

There’s no way out of this.  We cannot continue to think that sex is a game where there are no consequences.  And since we aren’t mind readers, the only way we can trust our partners is through long-term committed relationships where we can trust our partner (marriage). 

God’s creation . . . God’s plan . . . God’s Word.  From the beginning, God intended that marriage would be the framework for sexual relationships: “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they come one flesh” (Genesis 2:24 NIV).  The only protection that men will have is within marriage.  The only protection that women will have is within marriage.  If you choose to have sex more casually, be prepared, in some future time, for it to come back to bite you.

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare.  All Rights Reserved.  Permission is given for Christian ministries to copy and use this in its entirety including the copyright permission statement.  For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com. 

God Will Gather Me Up

"Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me." Psalm 27:10 NIV

Living this life is about rejection. It just is. People around us may make the best decisions they possibly can in their relationships with us and we will still receive and feel rejection. In fact, our society has moved, rather quickly, into a narcissistic view of life. It’s all about how I feel, how I perceive what happened. Rather than taking the high road and thinking the best of others, we automatically become offended and angry about how we were treated. We look for acceptance and civility from others, but often find that they are so caught up in their own narcissism that they didn’t even notice that they hurt us.

"Though my father and mother forsake me . . ."

This is a very strong phrase. Parental responsibility and relationship with children is at the core of growing up as a human being. Humans weren’t created to be birthed and then go out on their own. Regardless of when a society deems that a child becomes an adult, there is a period of at least more than one decade where children are supposed to be physically, financially, and emotionally dependent upon their parents. It’s very likely that one of the reasons that so many young adults feel emotionally unstable is because their parents, in some way or another, abandoned them as young children. Oh the parents may have provided a roof over their heads and technology to amuse them, but without meaningful adult interaction and relationship, children can grow up feeling lost and alone. These children often don’t even realize that the reason they are always depressed or angry is because they lacked a meaningful relationship with their parents during those crucial growing up years.

"Though my father and mother forsake me . . ."

Forsake is such a strong word, both in the Hebrew and in English. It means to renounce and leave utterly, to cause to remain behind (not temporarily, but permanently). The psalmist was describing a situation where he felt completely devoid of important and meaningful relationships, those relationships upon which we build our self worth. All of that was gone.

But one thing remained.

Even though . . . the Lord! ". . . the Lord will receive me."

Asaph (receive) actually means to gather up (Strong’s H622). The sense is that "even if others completely throw me away and abandon me forever, the Lord Himself will gather me up to Himself." For those of us who struggle with these kind of abandonment issues, this is such a strong promise. Though others reject us, deny us, refuse to embrace us, the Lord Himself---the King of Glory---will reach down and gather us into His arms, into relationship with Him. And because He is everywhere, in every time, in every place, we will never be alone, never be without Him there.

How blessed to be a child of God. Where earthly parents and human relationships are guaranteed to fail us, God never will. He will gather us up into relationship with Him and . . . eventually into Heaven with Him.

"Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord" (v. 14). He’s worth waiting for.

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Living a Blameless Life

"I lead a blameless life; deliver me and be merciful to me." (Psalm 26:11 NIV)

There’s a distinct dichotomy in this verse and, I believe, a two-fold meaning.

The first is that how God sees us and how we see ourselves are two totally different perspectives. There’s the perspective from God’s view, the "who He sees us as," and then there’s the perspective of "who we really want to be (but know that we aren’t)." We see those two perspectives in verses 1-3 and 4-7.

How God sees us: "Vindicate me, Lord, for I have led a blameless life; I have trusted in the Lord and have not faltered. Test me, Lord, and try me, examine my heart and my mind; for I have always been mindful of Your unfailing love and have lived in reliance on Your faithfulness." (v. 1-3) For those of us who are believers, because the Lord has wiped away our sin, He sees us as blameless. He sees us as faithful. He sees us as always trusting Him. He sees us as righteous, holy, and complete. Isn’t that amazing . . . and wonderful? And it isn’t because of anything we’ve done, but because of everything He’s done!

How we would really like to be (but aren’t): "I do not sit with the deceitful, nor do I associate with hypocrites. I abhor the assembly of evildoers and refuse to sit with the wicked. I wash my hands in innocence, and go about Your altar, Lord, proclaiming aloud Your praise and telling of all Your wonderful deeds." (v. 4-7) These descriptions are who we should aspire to be as believers. We should refuse to be deceitful, hypocritical, evil or wicked. We should spend our days praising Him and telling everyone of His wonderful deeds. It is a lifestyle to aspire to and something we should work at being everyday.

The second dichotomy in v. 11 is this: No one is perfect; we all need salvation even if we live "blameless" lives. The verse says "I am blameless" (meaning without sin) and then pleads with God to deliver and be merciful (meaning I need a Savior). Even at our best we need a Savior. Even when we think we aren’t sinning, we need a Savior. We want to be blameless, but only are because of the blood of Jesus Christ.

This psalm ends with "My feet stand on level ground." The perfect life. I know that everyone of us has experienced those times when we’ve had to walk gingerly along because the surface on which we walked was uneven. We were unsteady because the ground wasn’t level. When we stand on level ground, when we trust the Lord to guide our paths, we don’t need to be hesitant in our lives. We can walk firmly and boldly ahead, knowing that God has prepared the way for us. We needn’t fear anything because He is with us and will guide us in all our decisions.

We can become that which we want to be through His power and because of His love and mercy.

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Dealing with Emotional Pain (Psalm 25:17-18)

"Relieve the troubles of my heart and free me from my anguish. Look on my affliction and my distress and take away all my sins." (NIV)

We don’t realize how it is almost always our own sins that create the anguish and distress in our lives. We want to make our circumstances and even other people the cause of our problems. But the blunt truth is, our sins cause most, if not all, of the emotional pain that we feel.

How much do we focus on our sins and asking God to forgive us?

If we were honest, the vast majority of us really like the Lord’s Prayer and want to simply say, "Lord, forgive me of my sins" and be done with it. The fact is, sins need to be dealt with immediately, specifically, and ruthlessly.

Immediately; If we are truly wanting to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit, we need to understand that His power cannot function in the presence of a sinful life. The Lord Jesus Himself talked about those people who thought they were saved and weren’t:

"Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophecy in Your name and in Your name drive our demons and in Your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’" (Matthew 7:21-23 NIV).

"Evidence" of spiritual activity isn’t the evidence of a holy and righteous life. It isn’t the evidence of the forgiveness of sins. The evidence that someone is actually following the Lord, is actually living as a Christian, is a life that is striving above all else to be holy, acceptable, and pleasing to God. It is someone who is do conscious of their sinfulness that they must deal with their sin immediately upon realizing that they have sinned. They see their sin (Psalm 51:3) and live with a broken and contrite heart (Psalm 51:17). They desire to atone and to be redeemed (the definition of "contrite").

Specifically: It is so easy to close over sins if we simply categorize them as "sins" and refuse to see that a specific behavior is the problem. A sin, done over and over again, becomes habit and habits are what condemn us.

"Do not be deceived; God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." (Galatians 6:7-9 NIV)

We deceive ourselves when we refuse to deal specifically with sins that happen over and over again. If we find pleasure in what we do, it is very likely either a sinful or leaning toward being sinful. Pleasure and joy are two very different things. We are told to have the joy of the Lord, but we are told that pleasure in the flesh leads to death. We need to understand specifically what we are doing that pleasures us so that we can stop doing it and ask forgiveness.

Ruthlessly: To be ruthless is to be merciless (refuse to give any leeway), to be relentless (refuse to stop), and to be unyielding (refuse to compromise). We need to recognize the sin in our lives as sin, plain and simple. We need to refuse to give any leeway or any compromise when it comes to recognizing that something is a sin. We need to call a sin a sin and deal with it accordingly. We need to refuse to stop rooting out the sin in our lives, but to do it as relentlessly as possible. We need to ignore the pain in our flesh that will come from refusing to give into its constant pleading and pummel our flesh into submission to the will of God. It will be a battle, but we are empowered to win through the Holy Spirit once we start! But we need to start.

The psalmist cried out to the Lord about the troubles of his heart, about his anguish, afflictions, and distress. All things that we ordinarily would chalk up to horrible circumstances and experiences in our lives. But what does the psalmist attribute them to? To all of his sins! If we want to find victory over the troubles in our lives, we need to stop looking outward and begin immediately to look inward and to deal with the sins that we have embraced on a daily basis. Only then can we be assured of finding peace and joy . . . for peace and joy come only when we stand in full communion before the Throne of our Savior.

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

It's All His (Psalm 24:1)

"The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it." (NIV)

The other day I read a blog from a mom who is raising a toddler. She had taken her young son to the park along with some of his toys. Some other boys wanted to play with the toys and the mom was teaching her son that it was okay not to share with others; the toys were his and he had the right to decide what was going to happen to them. I thought of that this morning as I read this psalm, not because I agree or disagree with this mom’s view, but because of what verse 1 says.

This world, this creation, is God’s. He created it, all of it. And because He is Creator, He owns it. He owns all of it. He owns the planet, the dirt, the sky, the oceans, the plants and animals and . . . us! He even created time, all the laws that govern how this creation works, and the accompanying universes that surround us. He made it; He owns it. It’s all His and by every law and right imaginable, He gets to decide what happens in it.

How did things get so terribly turned around? How did it come to be that we believe somehow that we can own anything (including ourselves)? To understand this dreadful turn of events, we have to go back to the beginning, to the time just after God created human beings. In Genesis 1, beginning with verse 28, God gave authority of this earth to human beings. He gave them rulership over all animals (v. 28) and rulership over all plants (v. 29).

It was at that point that Adam and Eve were given this world as theirs, to do with as they wanted. They had free and complete rulership of this part of creation. And unfortunately, because they were given complete rulership, they also had the right to give that rulership to anyone else. When they chose to disdain God’s one law ("Don’t eat the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil") and did what Satan told them to do, they voluntarily subjected themselves under Satan’s control and he became the ruler of this earth.

But rulership and ownership are two different things. If I buy a house and then rent it to someone, the renters are legally given certain rights under the contract. They can live in the house full time. They can live there with their family, entertain their friends, bring into the house their possessions. They are legally allowed to make my house their home. But the house still belongs to me. I have the ultimate right to decide what belongs to that house.

It’s even more so with creation. God not only owns this earth and everything in it by right of creation, He bought back rulership when the Lord Jesus was murdered at Calvary. When the Roman government, in collusion with Satan, sentenced an innocent Jesus to death, Satan legally became a murderer. And as a murderer, he forfeited any and all rights to rule here. God took back what was His all along and He took it back, not forcefully (as He could have), but legally. He bought back what humans had willingly given away. This is why the apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20: "You are not your own; you were bought at a price."

God owns everything. He delegated rulership to humans who gave it willingly to Satan. The Lord Jesus bought it all back with His precious blood. We belong to God twice over, once because of creation and again because of redemption.

His playground. His stuff. His rules.

Do we act like God owns us? Do we act like God owns that next minute, that next decision, that next situation? Do we trust Him to do what is best with what He already owns?

It’s kind of hilarious, how we act all big and stuff, like we can control anything! It reminds me of one of (the very few) jokes I know:

One day a group of scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. They picked one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with Him. The scientist walked up to God and said, "God, we've decided that we no longer need you. We're to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don't you just go on and get lost."

God listened patiently and kindly to the man and, after the scientist was done talking, God said, "Very well! How about this? Let's have a man-making contest."

To which the man replied, "OK, great!"

But God added, "Now we're going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam."

The scientist said, "Sure, no problem" and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt.

God just looked at him and said, "No, no, no. You go get your own dirt!"
"The earth is the Lord, and everything in it!" It belongs to Him because He made it. It belongs to Him again because He redeemed it. It all belongs to Him. When will we start asking like it’s His and He gets to do what He wants with it?

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

I. Lack. Nothing. (Psalm 29:1)

"The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing." (NIV)

I. Lack. Nothing.

I’m sure, if I asked you, there would be 100 things you could list that you don’t have (that you’d like to have). Most of them are things you would insist you really need. Same with me. In order to make my life "perfect," if someone gave me the opportunity, I know I could come up with that kind of list.

Or could I?

As a Christian I need to remember that God’s Word is a Truth beyond the truth of this reality. I need to remember that if God has said it, then I need to embrace it. And so, if I truly believe that God is my shepherd, then perhaps I really don’t need anything He hasn’t already provided. So what can I learn from this sentence?

This sentence from Psalm 23 is both a promise and a statement of faith. The promise: If the Lord is my shepherd, then I will lack nothing. God has promised to make all things work together for my good. He has promised to take care of my daily needs. He has promised to take me home to Heaven. If the Lord is indeed my shepherd----if I have embraced Him as my Lord and Savior and submitted my life to His care----then He will indeed give me everything that I need and I will live a life that lacks nothing. Whatever I "think" I need, I can petition Him in prayer and He will take care of it perfectly and completely by either providing it or teaching me how I didn’t really need it in the first place.

The statement of faith: Because the Lord is my shepherd, I know that I lack nothing. I truly believe scripture and utterly trust the Lord in His provisions, His mercy, and His generosity. He knows me better than I know myself. Thus, if He doesn’t provide, I never needed it. I only "thought" I did. His provision is perfect and He provides whatever I need on a daily basis.

What does the Lord provide?

* Green pastures: He places me in situations and circumstances where I have the opportunity to grow spiritually and to mature as He directs.

* Quiet waters: Even the very basic needs of my soul and body He provides including the living water of life that satisfies every need.

* Right paths: Ever wonder what you’re supposed to do, particularly at those big junctions of life? I constantly second-guess myself, but I can trust that if I pray and am willing to follow any direction where He leads, He will lead me into the right path for He can see long ahead.

* No fear: I don’t even have to fear evil, for He is with me. This is huge for me because I’ve suffered from anxiety disorder my entire life. I often feel that the "monsters" are lurking under the bed or around the corner. But I can trust Him, in prayer and faith, to be with me and to disperse any evil that tries to beset me.

* Comfort: His very Holy Spirit that lives within me is a constant comfort, even during the times I feel so out of control, even during the nighttime when my dreams take over.

The psalm continues with this: "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies" (v. 5). You know how I see this? It’s like going to a business meeting and the president of the company sits down right next to me and says, "Hi. I’m your new BFF. Anything you want? I’ll do that for you." (Of course, in my case, it would be the school superintendent, but you get my drift.) Can you imagine what that would be like? But in reality that is our daily lives because the Lord of creation Himself prepares a table for us in the presence of our enemies. He does this to say that we belong to Him and everybody else needs to back off! He’s our defender, our advocate, our protector.

It doesn’t get any better than that.

The psalmist concludes with this: "Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life" (this life) and "I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever" (there is a happily ever after). Yup! Pretty good stuff . . . if . . . we trust God and embrace Him as our Shepherd. We get to have His goodness and love for all the days of this life and we get to live in His house after this life! Really good stuff!

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

The Theme of My Praise (Psalm 22:25a)

"From You comes the theme of my praise . . ." (NIV)

There is a very real war raging both within us and without. When we forget about this war, we are in danger of losing for victory only comes to those of us who keep our eyes on the Truth.

What am I talking about? I’m talking about the difference between truth (little t) and Truth (big T).

There is a lot of talk these days about authenticity. (Back in the 60's and 70's, we talked about honesty. I think in many ways it’s the same thing.) People want to be true to who they are. They want those around them to be truly who they are. Somehow the idea of "truth" gives us a foothold upon which we think we can stand. The problem is, there is "truth" and then there is "Truth." There is the "truth" that appears to exist within this creation and then there is the Truth which is the Truth that exists because of God’s character.

The truth of this life is actually many truths because what seems true to one person may not seem true to another. It is the idea of existentialism, the idea that each of us has a perception of life that is true to us but may not be true to others. My perceptions are colored by my experiences, my beliefs, my emotions. Even the colors I see with my eyes may be slightly different than the colors you see because the number of rods and cones in our eyes may be different. Our brains may process the information differently. But all of this individuality, all of this unique perception becomes what society is now calling authenticity or being our authentic selves. Being one’s authentic self means becoming what we perceive or feel we should be.
The idea of "authentic self" has been around a while. You may have heard it in relationship with the transgender community, but it’s a psychological term that has much broader ramifications. Typically, it’s described as a contrast to the "fictional" self, "your ‘authentic’ self (who you were created to be) or your ‘fictional’ self (who the world has told you to be) (From https://www.drphil.com/advice/defining-your-authentic-self/).

The problem is we were all created to be worshipers of God. Period. That is the Truth (big T). The truth (little t) may be about how we perceive ourselves, but the Truth is what God has written in His word. And within Psalm 22 we see this battle, back and forth, between the authentic self and the True self, between the person we feel we are and the person God has created us to be.

The battle is almost always between our feelings and God’s Truth.

Feelings which feel very real are also very unreliable. They are malleable. They often change with circumstances, on a note, with a whim. They can linger when they shouldn’t and appear when least expected. Have you ever had a bad night, filled with uncomfortable dreams or perhaps even nightmares, only to wake up and feel miserable and not know why? There’s a lingering sense of impending doom simply because our hormones, which control emotions, were overreacting during the night. Rather than shake it off, put a smile on our face and go take a brisk walk to clear out the cobwebs, we often sink into a morose and coddle those feelings. We work ourselves into a depression that has no cause or focus except . . . . simply . . . our hormones. And in such a place we often stay for long periods of time. We are, in a word, defeated by drops of chemicals which live in our brains.

To which, I want to say, really?

I lived with out of control hormones for years and still, at times, struggle with them. So did, I believe, King David. When you read his psalms, you can see the war within him, the struggle that he had with feeling one way and knowing that God’s truth was actually another way. Such is Psalm 22.

David begins with this:

"My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer; by night, but I find no rest." (v. 1-2 NIV).

For those of us who have struggled with depression, anxiety and other forms of emotional distress, those words feel so true. God feels so far off. It feels like He has totally abandoned us and that the darkness has settled in around us, never to leave. The anguish of depression, of anxiety, of fear seems overwhelming, seems eternal.

But for David (and thankfully for us), the psalm doesn’t end there. There is light at the end of the tunnel. And as David goes back and forth between describing his seemingly unconquerable emotional pain and the Truth of God, we can see that clinging to God’s Truth rather than the "authentic-ness" of how we feel brings, in the end, victory.

Here is a short pattern of this psalm:

v. 1-2: Emotional outpouring
v. 3 Yet . . .
v. 3-5: The truth about God and His ability to rescue and care for us
v. 6-8: Emotional outpouring
v. 9 Yet . . .
v. 9-10 The truth about God and His love for us
v. 11-18: Emotional outpouring
v. 19 But . . .
v. 19-31: The truth about God and His absolute victory in everything

David legitimizes his feelings. He acknowledges that he hurts, that he feels alone, that he feels totally conquered and overwhelmed by his circumstances.

Yet. But.
It is the "yet’s" and the "but" that make the difference. The emotions are there. The feelings are there. They feel real, authentic, true. But they are true with a little t! They are not true with a big T. The Truth (big T) is that God is victorious, that He loves us, that He will always care for us. Here are some of the Truths in this psalm:

v. 4: He has delivered before; He will deliver again.
v. 5: Others trusted and were not put to shame for their trust.
v. 10: He has always been God to us.
v. 19: He is our strength
v. 24: He has listened to our cry for help.
v. 27: Eventually everyone and everything will bow down before Him.
v. 28: He rules over everything.

At the end of the psalm, David proclaims: "He has done it!" What has He done? Everything that we need . . . and more. God isn’t stingy with his love. He is generous, waiting for us to trust Him, waiting for us to cast off our "authentic self" in order to become our "True self," the person who trusts Him and worships Him completely. From Him comes the them of our praise and that is that God is Truth. God is the only Authentic and it is from Him that we receive who we are and what we should become.

I want to be authentic, but I only want to be the "authentic" that God wants. I want the theme of my praise to come from Him and Him alone. In order to do that, there are going to be many times when I need to ignore my emotions. I already know that my emotions aren’t reliable and often lie to me. I need to cling to the Truth of God’s Word and of His character. I need to learn that "authentic" comes from the Creator and not from drops of hormones. I need to trust God in the darkness knowing that He is the True Light and that only from Him comes true authenticity. And whether or not my emotions confirm what I know to be true, I don’t have to listen to them. I can listen to God’s Word, trust God’s Word, live God’s word and find the theme for my praise from Him.

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

The Joy of the Lord (Psalm 21:6)

"Surely you have granted him unending blessings

and made him glad with the joy of Your presence." (NIV)

We were having a discussion at Bible study the other night about having joy in our lives. I kept wondering: "Are we looking for joy in our circumstances or are we looking for joy in God’s presence?" For most of us we look for joy in our circumstances.

America---perhaps the entire Western world---is consumed with the idea of happiness. While our history hints at this idea ("the pursuit of happiness"), I’m not sure that our founders wanted us to be absorbed with being happy as much as they wanted the right to pursue happiness where it might be found, including pursuing it worship of the Lord. I’ve become convinced that the Lord cares much less about our happiness in the moment and is much more concerned about our character which will result in happiness in eternity.

This world is a failing place. The Lord Jesus described it like this:

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal" (Matthew 6:19-20 NIV).

You know, imagine someone asking you to come visit a resort for your vacation and describing it like this:

Wonderful place for a vacation. There is mold and corroding rust everywhere. Bugs flit around, not only biting you, but eating your clothes and possessions. There are also thieves and all sorts of crime, so anything you bring . . . you won’t be going home with it.



You wouldn’t want to go there. Certainly this wouldn’t be a place that you would want to put down permanent roots. You’d want to do whatever it was you had to do and then leave as soon as possible.

Think about that.

That’s exactly how this world is. It’s exactly how the Lord Jesus describes this life, this earth. And yet we do our level best not only to stay here, but to grab onto the things of this world and try to convince ourselves that in this kind of environment, we can find happiness.

The psalmist was so much wiser than us, for he wrote: "You have . . . made him glad with the joy of Your presence." (v. 6b). The joy of His presence. Not the joy of our circumstances here in this corrupted creation that will soon be destroyed. Not the joy of the stuff around us that is, even now, deteriorating and which, at any moment, thieves might steal. But rather the joy of His presence. Read that slowly and let it sink into your heart: The. Joy. Of. His. Presence.

Do we even know what that is? Do we even know what it’s like to be in God’s wonderful and magnificent presence? And yet, we can experience that, even here, in this life. We can know the presence of the Almighty God.

The psalmist gives us three ways to learn how to be in God’s presence:

(1) We need to rejoice in God’s strength and in His victories (v. 1).

That seems so simple, but it’s not. Not really. You see, to rejoice in God’s strength and in His victories means that we admit that we can’t do anything and that we must rely on Him to do everything. It also means that we rely on Him to provide and . . . (here’s the crux of the matter) if He doesn’t provide it, we don’t need it.

Did you ever think about that? The Lord’s Prayer says, "Give us today our daily bread." Daily bread. Not bread for the future, for the month, not even for tomorrow, but only what we need for this day, for this moment. And bread. The basic necessity for today. Father, give me today what I need. Do you know why? Because we might not even be here tomorrow.

Why do we fret and worry about what might happen this afternoon or tomorrow or next week? Every victory belongs to the Lord and He is well able to accomplish it. We need to rejoice in His strength and in His victories.

(2) We need to trust in the Lord (v. 7a).

Trusting God means actually trusting Him. It means walking calmly through the mess of our lives and not trying to fix or change or alter or manipulate. It means walking into the fiery furnace even if He doesn’t save us! Do you know that story? The story of the three young men who were thrown into the furnace because they refused to worship an idol? Their response to the king, prior to being thrown in, was this:

"If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and He will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if He does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up." (Daniel 3:17-18 NIV).

Trusting God means actually trusting Him. It means walking through the darkness if that’s where He leads. It means learning what He wants and doing it, over everything else. It means doing His will, even if it’s the worst thing that could befall you in this life.

The Lord Jesus, in the garden, prayed: "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from Me. Yet not as I will, but as You will." (Matthew 26:39b NIV). The worst possible thing that could happen to the Lord Jesus was the torture and death He was facing at Calvary. And the best thing that could happen to us was the torture and death that the Lord Jesus was facing at Calvary. He had to die so that we could live.

God’s will is complex, but it is always for our good. Our. Good. Not just my good, but for our good. For the good of us all. The writer to the Hebrews, after accounting all the wonderful things done by the Old Testament saints through faith, wrote this:

"These [saints] were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect." (Hebrews 11:39-40 NIV).

We need to trust God because His plan is larger and far better than anything we could ever dream of. His plan goes beyond the confines of this creation and are always for our good! We need to trust Him completely, and in that trust, learn what joy really is.

(3) Joy comes when we sing and praise about God’s might (v. 13b).

We delude ourselves that we are in control of anything! Do you realize that we can’t even hold the very atoms of our bodies together? Our cells are held together, not by any laws of science (those laws simply observe and report on how things appear to work), but rather by the very power and presence of our Father God! We aren’t in control of squat! And once we understand that simple fact, we can begin to experience the joy that comes in truly understanding God’s might. God’s love. God’s plan. God’s wisdom.

Happiness is a fleeting thing. Happiness is that weird combination of hormones that is produced by our brains as a result of some learned response. Our bodies produce those hormones because, at some point in our past, a similar experience "felt" pleasurable. But that kind of pleasure, that kind of happiness, doesn’t last. This world is on its way to being destroyed and our hormones along with it! Why do we search after happiness with almost a frenetic craziness? And why, as Christians, do we try to make ourselves believe that joy and happiness are the same thing?

Joy isn’t about a feeling; it’s about a truth. Joy isn’t about our circumstances; it’s about God’s character. Joy isn’t about what’s happening now, but is rather about how God’s plan is working out through eternity.

Joy is about God and being in His presence. Joy is about God’s strength, about our trust in that strength, and about rejoicing in His might! Joy is about our Father. All about Him and nothing else. If we want joy, we need to go into His presence: "You will fill me with joy in Your presence, with eternal pleasures at Your right hand." (Psalm 16:11 NIV).

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Honoring God with Our Bodies

 

"Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral." Hebrews 13:4 NIV

I grew up during the sexual revolution, so I can remember what social morality was prior and what it is now. I have lived through the evolution of morals in our country regarding sexual freedom and sexual rights. Sexual morals are very different now, with terms like "reproductive rights" and "sexual freedom" flaunted about, even within the Church.

Several things have changed our morals regarding sexual activity. One was the invention of birth control. Just even think about that phrase: birth control. Birth control, in all forms, was invented in order to circumvent the logical conclusion of having sexual relationships, i.e. the birth of another human being. Now, I’m not a proponent of families having an unbridled number of children, though that can certainly be their choice if they wish. But I think, as believers, we need to understand what guides our thinking and understanding about morality. And the purpose of creating birth control was to allow people to have sex without having to consider the consequences of their actions. That purpose is important for us to realize because that purpose has shaped how we think about sexual relationships.

The second thing that happened was Roe v. Wade. You see, it wasn’t enough to simply have medication or devices which would prevent pregnancy. The next step in birthing true sexual freedom was to allow people to stop experiencing the consequences of sexual activity at any cost, even at the cost of the life of another human being. Now, it would be dishonest not to acknowledge that abortion has existed for a very long time. But then again so has murder (since Cain and Abel). And existence doesn’t justify an action. In America, Roe v. Wade has resulted in over 50 million deaths of baby Americans with the vast majority of abortions because the mother (or family) simply didn’t want the child. There are a small percentage of cases where the medical safety of the mother was at risk, but those abortions were legal prior to Roe v. Wade. Legal abortion exists, on the whole, to allow people to have sex without having to deal with the very real fact that the purpose of sex is to create life.

The third thing that happened was media, starting with television. From the very beginning, the movers and shakers behind television, movies, and other media realized that "sex sells." More than anything else! (You only have to watch about three minutes of most commercials to realize that.) And with that, we began to become what we are today . . . a hypersexualized society. Of course, we aren’t the first society to be hypersexualized (and if the Lord tarries, we won’t be the last). During the time Hebrews was written, the secular society in which the new Church lived was hypersexualized, including legal prostitution as part of their temple. The fact is, people have been looking for ways to legitimize their desire to have unbridled sexual activities since probably the beginning of time.

In Hebrews, the Holy Spirit is adamant that sex remain solely within heterosexual marriage. If not, the spiritual (and eternal) consequences are severe: God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. The word "judge" is krino and means to separate or put asunder. In this judgement, God will separate out the adulterers and the sexually immoral for eternal punishment. It is a consequence we don’t want to experience. 1 Corinthians 6:18-20 NIV: "Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies." When we sin sexually, we defile the Temple of the Holy Spirit (ourselves). God wants us to honor Him (and ourselves) by keeping ourselves sexually pure and honoring marriage as He created it.

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Compassion As a Christian Thing

 

1 Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. ² Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. ³ Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering. Hebrews 13:1-3

Christianity was never meant to be a kind of middle-class club where God promised a "chicken in every pot." That is an American thing, but not a Christian thing. Scripture, over and over again, admonishes believers to "remember" those who are suffering, those who are grieving, those who suffer lack. To love our neighbors as ourselves! If we are blessed in any way, God has blessed us in order that we might bless others, not to make us "happy," to satisfy the lusts of our own flesh.

"Remember those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering." I keep thinking about what’s going on in our country, with advocacy groups rising up, sometimes even aggressively, saying, "Hey, listen to us! Hey, what about us? We are here! We are people just like you!" It shames me that there are churches in every single community who could do something about the poverty, who could do something about the loneliness, who could do something about the injustice, and yet we very often do nothing! We are too concerned about ourselves to reach out even to those within our congregations who are suffering! We are too busy to visit, to cook a meal, to make a phone call. We are too debt-strapped to give a dollar, to pay a gas bill, to give a ride.

We have forgotten what it means to actually be Christians.

The two great commandments: Love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. There are all kinds of things within our churches and within our own lives that we could stop so that, instead, we could minister to the hurting world around us. There are ministries rising up everyday—rescue missions, recovery groups, foster children organizations, food banks. We could at least choose one and begin to invest our families into it. Will that demand a change in our lives? Of course. It may mean actually giving up something. Turning off the cable. Downsizing our phone service. Limiting a vacation. But we will be investing into lives! Into people for whom Christ died! We will begin to live lives of compassion and ministry, lives that reach out in love to our neighbors!

The Church was always meant to live compassionately, to live out Christ’s love in our local communities and around the world. If we actually began to live as we should, can you imagine the difference we would make?

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Don't Apologize. Celebrate!

 

"You have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel." Hebrews 12:22-24 NIV

It seems lately that the enemy is using a new tactic and that is one of enforced silence. Many of us in America are being told that we shouldn’t speak, that we cannot speak, that we need to listen and learn rather than say what is in our hearts. Now I’m not condemning listening. We do often talk too much and we are admonished to listen more and talk less. James 1:19 NIV: "My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry." We should listen to those around us. We should listen and be slow to form opinions. We should listen, really listen, rather than simply using a dialogue as an excuse to promote our own position or opinion.

That being said, there is something that we should say, that we should shout from the rooftops, that we should repeat over and over again: We have come to Zion! We have come to the city of the living God. We are among the thousands of joyful angels! Our names are written in heaven. Jesus has saved us!

Christianity has become something where either its outward form is being forced on others or we are, in a sense, apologizing for being Christians. Think about it. How many memes do you see that promote the fact that as Christians we are somehow less? "I’m a Jesus believer. I’m not perfect. I’m just human trying not to let the devil win." "I am an imperfect person loved by a perfect God." "Yes, I’m a Christian. Yes, I can be the biggest hypocrite ever. I backslide. I stumble. I fall. I stray onto the wrong path. But God is working in me." All of these things are true. But unfortunately, these things have become our mantra rather than our shame, our banner rather than our cross. We wear our sinfulness like it’s some kind of badge and we celebrate it in a feeble attempt to become accepted by sinful society.

Of course, we need to admit that we’re sinful. We need to daily—and more often—confess our sins to the Lord, knowing that He is faithful and just to forgive us those sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). But we need to stop apologizing that somehow the Church of God is less than perfect. We need to stop focusing on our humanity and focus on His glory! If I invited someone to my home, apologizing at every step on how dusty the corners were, how many spider webs clung to the ceilings, how discolored the tiles were, no one would want to come visit me! But if I invited someone to my home, focusing on a wonderful Guest that would also be there, the dirt wouldn’t matter nearly so much. Who would even see it in the light of the Guest?

We have a joyful message for the world. It is aptly named the "good news." We are heading for a place that is wonderful beyond description. We need to begin celebrating how wonderful, how precious, how exciting our saved lives really are. We are the children of the King! It doesn’t get any better than that. And we should shout it from the rooftops!

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

We Need Healing

 

"Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. Make level paths for your feet, so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed." Hebrews 12:12 NIV

The Father knows that we can be weakened emotionally from the battles we face, from the hardships we endure, from the discipline we embrace. He knows that the bodies we live in are frail and easily prone to pain, disease, and infirmity. "We have this treasure (the glory of God) in jars of clay." (2 Corinthians 4:7 NIV). A clay jar is very fragile and easily broken as are our bodies. The Father, having created us, knows this and strengthens us with His very Spirit. He also gave us, in Hebrews, several ways that we can "strengthen" ourselves and make level paths on which to walk.

• "Make every effort to live in peace with everyone; and to be holy" (v. 14). It’s interesting that the scripture doesn’t say to make sure that our society or nation is holy or that we should tell everyone else what to do or how to live. It says "make every effort to live in peace with everyone." I think about the craziness in our country right now and how silence might be the most effective weapon we have to lead to peace. It’s so easy to get baited on social media and try to argue one’s position for or against the many issues that are being batted about. But, in the end, all that matters is that people are saved. They will be more likely to turn to the Lord if His Church is making every effort to be peaceable and to live holy lives.

• "See to it that . . . no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many" (v. 15). The best weapon against bitterness is forgiveness. When we live in a state of constant forgiveness, we refuse to allow ourselves to become bitter. We know that the people around us will let us down, will offend us, may even seek to harm us. That’s the nature of the human condition. By forgiving—as our Lord did—we take power over bitterness, not allowing it to grow and defile us.

• "See that no one is sexually immoral or godless" (v. 16). This admonition isn’t for us to police those who are unbelievers. They may or may not choose to be sexually immoral, but that’s not our concern. Our concern for the lost only and always is salvation. But the admonition for sexual purity is for those within the Church. Sex for believers is restricted to a husband and wife within marriage because the marriage bed is the example, on earth, of God’s love for us. 1 Corinthians 6:18-20 NIV says: "Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. Do you not know that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies."

By doing these three things, we create an environment where we can heal emotionally and spiritually. Everyone needs healing. When we live at peace, when we live holy, when we constantly forgive, and when we stay sexually pure, we will heal. It’s time to lay our sins, our bitterness, our anger, and our lusts at the foot of the Cross and trust our Savior to heal and strengthen us.

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Endure Hardship as Training

"Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as His children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? . . . God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in His holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it." Hebrews 12:7, 10b-11 NIV

The Christian life is all about training. No one embraces salvation and becomes instantly the "perfect" Christian. There is a process of training, of discipline, that is required for us to learn how to change our desires from those of seeking pleasure to those of wanting to please God and live righteously.

Earlier in Hebrews, it stated that the solid food of God’s word "is for the mature, who by constant use, have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil" (5:14). It’s more than simply being able to tell the difference between good and evil; it’s about being willing to choose what is good at any point of decision. It’s about understanding what repentance really means and then actively living out repentance on a moment-by-moment basis in our lives.

That kind of discernment and focus requires discipline and training. We weren’t born wanting God’s will instead of our own. We were born egocentric. Our naturally tendency will always be to want what pleases us. But God, because He loves us so much, wants us to become like Christ who was willing to give up even His own life so that we might live. Our new life in Christ needs to be such that we are willing to love others sacrificially as Christ loves us. It means that we have only two focuses, only two goals: to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength and to love others as we love ourselves. There can be no other definition of being a Christian.

Father God tells us to consider all hardship as discipline. Why? Because He has already promised that everything that happens to us, He will work for our good (Romans 8:28). Thus, all hardship, when treated as discipline, is transformed into something that draws us closer and closer to His heart. He wants for us to share in His holiness and righteousness, not only positionally through salvation, but functionally through behavior and choices that glorify Him. He wants our lives to produce "a harvest of righteousness" (right living) and the kind of peace that comes when we know that it doesn’t matter what we’re going through. He is working it for our good. When we treat hardship and pain as training, we can be confident that it will produce the kind of harvest that only God can promise.

© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.