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a common housewife in the fast lane
Archive for 200605 ( return to current blog )
Friday May 26, 2006
There is nothing I wish I could give you in this life that is more valuable than my faith.
I have many things.
I've lived long enough upon this earth that I have amassed a few trinkets. Barring an unforeseen disaster, the rest of my life looks to be as comfortable, financially speaking, as the beginning of it was.
Yet nothing I own, nothing I could hand down when I die, none of my grandmother's silver that sits in her mahogany corner cabinet in my living room, no amount of money, status, name recognition, or any other family heritage, can compete with the worth of the faith that hides in me.
If I could give it to you like someone gives someone else a live kidney, or part of their liver, I would do it. I would do it for any one of you. I would die and let you have my beating heart, if I thought that would give you my faith.
If I could, I would put my faith so far down inside you that no one, even the ones you love, could touch it. Not with their sarcasm, their rolling eyes, or their intellectual unbelief in a God Who is so much more intelligent and so much wiser than any feeble mortal mind, yet chooses to make His message so simple that a child can understand it.
I would put it in such a secret place that even when the winds came and blew at your life, you would rock steady, baby.
I would fix it so that even when the rain beat on the door of your life, you could close your eyes and know that you are not alone in the storm and that when your night of weeping is over, great joy will come in the morning.
I would hide it away so far inside of you somewhere that even you, in your moments of sin and unbelief, could not rip it out. It would sit there..... waiting......waiting......waiting..... for you to leave your own way and the stuff that holds you and come back to the One Who gave His life for you.
It would wait for you to get sick of your own meager, base and lowly thoughts and chase after the only One Who has the Words of eternal life.
It would wait for you to get sick of your lust and desires for the things of the world, and your hope that someday ..... someday.....a person....a man or a woman...will fill that empty place inside of you that only He can fill. It would wait for you to get sick of yourself.
If I could do that, I would. I promise, I would.
The faith I have didn't come by happenstance. It didn't come by luck, or chance or because I'm better than anyone else.
It came because I decided that I wanted God more than I wanted my life.
It came because I have made many choices, in the face of severe adversity, to hang onto the Rock of my salvation.
It came because I chose, even as I hugged my pillow and begged God to let me die, to tie a knot in the end of my rope called faith......my teensy little, wavering, flip-flopping rope of faith, and hang on. I hung on, baby, and I didn't let go.
Even when my hands burned as the rope rubbed against them. Even when my face was blotchy and my eyes swollen from crying. I hung on. Even when the fear overwhelmed me and I thought I would be swallowed up by it........I hung on.
I have a faith and a hope that no one can take from me. No one. Not even my dearest and best. If you wanted it, though, I would give it to you. Free. Because I got it for free. I've paid for it with my very life, but it was still free of charge from the One Who gave it to me.
If I could, I would make you a prisonerofhope.
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Wednesday May 24, 2006
"Is this not the chosen fast that I have chosen:
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the heavy burdens,
to let the oppressed go free,
and that you should break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out;
when you see the naked, that you cover him,
and not hide yourself from your own flesh?
Then your light shall break forth like the morning,
your healing shall spring forth speedily,
and your righteousness shall go before you;
the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
you shall cry and He will say, "Here I am".
If you take away the yoke from your midst,
the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness,
if you extend your soul to the hungry
and satisfy the afflicted soul,
then your light shall dawn in the darkness,
and your darkness shall be as the noonday,
the Lord will guide you continually,
and satisfy your soul in drought,
and strengthen your bones;
you shall be like a waterfed garden,
and like a spring of water, whose waters do not fall.
Those from among you shall build the old waste places;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
and you shall be called the Repairer of the Breach,
The Restorer of Streets to Dwell In." Isaiah 58:6-12
This is one of the most powerful scriptures I have ever come across. I believe in fasting. I believe that God wants us to restrain ourselves from our physical pleasures for periods of time and prostrate ourselves before Him as intercessors on the earth in conjunction with His Son Who sits at His right hand and ever intercedes for us. But I also believe that fasting, as we think of it, is not all we are supposed to do. Compared with some of the other stuff He has for us to do, that seems like the easy part. At least to me.
I do not believe that He wants us to just "que sera, sera" our life away. People do that all the time and then they wonder why God didn't heal them, bless them, or give them something that they really needed.
When bad things come, and they will, He wants us to rise up and take authority over it in the name of Jesus Christ. I'm not talking about a "God helps them who helps themself" attitude although I can't say I totally disagree with that. I'm talking about a holy indignation, the Christ IN YOU rising up and saying, "I'm not takin' dis anymore!" and rebuking the devourer off you, your family and your life.
It's a getting mad at the devil and refusing to accept what he is dishing out. Now if you don't believe in Christ......or the devil.....this not only means little to you but you probably think I'm off my rocker. I don't want to sound insensitive but I don't really care.
I mean, I care soooo much about people, but if I have to make a choice between what YOU think and what GOD thinks, ummmmm, it's no contest. You lose. Sorry if that sounds harsh. See, my face? I love you! I just love God more.
If you do what this verse says, if you are willing to step out from your mental box that you have put the God of the universe in, it means your very salvation. Here and now and hereafter. It means healing and health to your body, deliverance from your addictions and the generational curses handed down from your parents and grandparents.
It means God can use you to take back what the enemy of your soul has stolen from you. Your self-esteem, your enjoyment of life, and your child like faith. Once you've gotten that back for yourself you are in a position to help other people to get it back too.
THIS is His chosen fast. Not that we don't still find times and places to fast from food, TV, computers, even talking.......but that God's CHOSEN fast is for us to loose the things that bind us.
God has freed me. Not only from myself and my compulsions, but from the legalities of civil law and religious law. What???, you say? How can you be free from civil law? We all live with the law of the land that we live in.
With Christ in me, how can I not? I have no desire to steal, rape, abuse or murder. Christ lives in me and He is love, joy, peace, goodness and kindness. What law is there against THAT?
Wait a minute!!!! How can you be free from religious law? You believe in the BIBLE, don't you? Amen! I believe in the Christ of the Bible, Who by the very fact that He lives inside of me, FREES me from the Law of sin and death. I didn't say that. My Bible says that. Just as I am a prisoner of the hope that sits so far down inside of me that I can't give up, even when I feel like it, I have become a slave to the righteousness of Christ Who has taken up residence in my mortal body. He has given me His mind, His heart, and His Word. What else do I need?
Civil law can't hold me. It's too puny and small. At the risk of sounding arrogant, with Christ in me I sit ABOVE the law of man. Not that I should not be held accountable for my actions should I break the law. Hey, I paid my speeding tickets! I hung my head in shame before the judge and admitted I was doing 70 in a 55!
Yet, how can I respect a law that advocates legalized murder for a woman who finds herself in the unfortunate circumstance of breeding LIFE in her body? A law that allows us to kill our own species, even while we save the animals that have no eternal soul. I am above that law. I don't recognize it. God's law is higher than man's law and if that makes me sound like a religious fanatic, a Jesus Freak, I accept the indictment knowing that in front of the Judge of the Superior Court, I will be found innocent on all charges. Christ has taken the punishment for my sin and I will not hang my head in shame on THAT day, I will bow with great reverence and joy.
Religious law can't hold me. I have Christ. He is the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. He is the Alpha and Omega. The beginning and the end. The first and the last. What more do I need? He is my all in all. No church building can hold what He has given me! How ludicrous!
Who He is, is too big, too gigantic, to squeeze into a measly building built from stone and wood. Why? Why must we persist in trying to find Him in brick and mortar? He's not in the tomb! He arose! That was the last time He was even in a place made by human hands! Why must we continue thinking that our programs and services are ANYTHING compared to His presence? Why must we keep searching for Him out THERE somewhere? I don't want to continue studying church history and dead philosophers. IT'S OVER! Let's move into the light, as He is in the light. When we do that, we will have no need that any man teach us but the Holy Spirit will teach us!!
If we have allowed Him to regenerate us by His Spirit, He is IN us. INSIDE! I don't know why He chose to put His fullness in ME. Or you. I can't explain why He wants to use worthless, broken down, good for nothing sinners like us. There's some stuff I just have to accept by faith and move on. He does, and that's all I know. He wants to loose my chains so that I can help others loose theirs.
Rise up, my brethren, RISE UP! I see Him reaching His hand out and I hear Him saying, "Here I am! Here I am"!
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Wednesday May 17, 2006
This message has been removed by the author.
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