Will God Do What I Ask?

If I believe I will receive, right?

Yet belief does not create reality, it recognizes reality.  And that reality includes God and all He chooses to do.

If I have enough faith God will give me what I ask for, right?

Not necessarily.

Faith is trust.  If I trust God I will ask Him for, and receive from Him, what He wants for me.

This can be what I need in order to carry out the mission He has given me.

This can also be a new red sports car.  Can I ask Him for a new red sports car?

God is amazingly generous and many, many times He has given me even more than what I have asked for; but He has only promised to give me what I need: food, clothing and shelter.

And I can learn to be content with that; because Jesus said that even in abundance my life does not consist of what I have.

It consists of Him.

Did Jesus hate the Pharisees?

There are many lies about Jesus.  One of those lies is that "Jesus hated the Pharisees."  They were the religious leaders of the Jews and Jesus called them snakes, and hypocrites and fools and told them they were headed for hell unless they believed He was the long-awaited Messiah or Chosen One of God.

For some reason they didn't like being called that.  And I believe that was one of the reasons they killed him.  But Jesus did something incredible because He loves them.  He not only prayed for their forgiveness in front of them; He preached to them from the cross: that He is who He claimed to be, in a way they would understand.

In Jesus' day the Bible did not yet exist and the Scriptures were not referenced by chapter and verse numbers.  Many times, the first few words of a book or chapter identified the passage.  If you look at the first line of Psalm 22 it reads:

My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?

and the verse continues,

⁶   But I am a worm, and no man;

    A reproach of men, and despised by the people.

⁷    All those who see Me ridicule Me;

    They shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,

⁸    “He ^£trusted in the Lord, let Him rescue Him;

    Let Him deliver Him, since He delights in Him!”

16b   ...they^£ pierced My hands and My feet;

¹⁷    I can count all My bones.

    They look and stare at Me.

¹⁸    They divide My garments among them,

    And for My clothing they cast lots. (NKJV)  

Jesus, hanging and dying on the cross, cared about the Pharisees receiving eternal life with Him so much, that he cried out to them the reference of the Passage of their beloved Scriptures that talked about what was happening before their eyes.  The Pharisees prided themselves on knowing the Scriptures and would have certainly known this Psalm and what it said.

They experienced what Jesus had told many earlier:

"When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He..." (John 8:28, NKJV)

Jesus met the Pharisees where they were at and gave them what they needed.  Jesus had told them earlier that the only sign they would get would be the sign of Jonah, meaning, Jesus would be dead and buried and rise on the third day.  Sunday, as astonishing news traveled around the community, they knew that He done this as well.

If Jesus loved those who hated Him enough to do all that so they could spend eternity in Heaven with Him is there anything that you need that He would not do for you?

God's Gift of Mental Illness, part 2

I understand "faith in Jesus" or "saving faith in Jesus" to mean that I trust him.  He doesn't promise me wealth; just food, clothing and shelter (see Matthew 6:33).  He doesn't always heal me of every disease if I trust him (see Paul's thorn).  And misery is not and indication of sin (see Job).

God gave me mental illness because I wanted to be a Christian like those in the Bible.  And, as the first step I needed to be humbled.  I have asked him to remove this disease.  He has not done that yet.  Andy Stanley's In the Meantime: A purpose and a promise http://yourmove.is/episode/ep2-a-purpose-and-a-promise/ revealed to me that I do not have to feel inferior to others because of my weakness. Jesus told Paul that the affliction Jesus gave him was intentional.  In order that, Jesus could pour his strength through Paul. My mental illness is my weakness so that Jesus can pour his strength through me.  Everyone has weakness.  And Jesus can pour his strength through all.

Those who deal with mental Illness, and those in the Church who deal with mental illness, especially, can receive rejection from others, including others in the Church.  Like racism and sexism, this rejection comes from ignorance and fear.

Let's talk. And then walk the talk.

Together.

What do you have to say?

God's Gift of Mental Illness

For years I've struggled with the position a "TV" Pastor (who I greatly admire and has taught me most of the theology I have) has taken about not using meds to remedy mental illness.  The implication I've always drawn was that "God will take away the mental illness" and therefore meds are not needed.

I have just watched an episode of "Your Move with Andy Stanley" that I believe challenges the above implication.

Please consider watching In the Meantime: A Purpose and a Promise http://yourmove.is/episode/ep2-a-purpose-and-a-promise/

Love someone who hates me? What's in it for me?

Filled with joy are those who are attacked because they follow Jesus.

Filled with joy are those who are mocked and scorned and lied about because they obey Me.

Let your joy be known and overflow because in heaven there is a great reward for you, because you are following in the footsteps of great followers of Jesus.  (Matthew 5:10-12, my imperfect paraphrase).

Why would I be filled with joy?  What reward?

The reward is that I will experience a love for my attacker that transcends human logic, transcends human wisdom, and transcends "earthly" love.  And my attacker will "see" the Jesus they say does not exist and have a chance to choose to know Him for themselves.

How do I know what is Reality?

Vital Smarts has some great resources.  Crucial Conversations is one of them.  One of the ideas I reaped from them was that: facts are neutral, I tell myself stories about the facts, I believe my own stories, I project those stories on the facts as true.  I then act on that "truth."

And, when I find that my stories are wrong I can change my stories.

This got me thinking about a couple of passages of the Bible.

We do not battle against people, we battle against satan and his lies. We examine the stories we tell ourselves and check to see if they are true. We compare them to the message of Jesus, found in God's Word, the Bible. If they are true we accept them. If they are not true we expose their error and change them so they are true using that same Word of God. (my own imperfect translation of parts of Ephesians 6, and 2 Corinthians 10)
Satan is constantly bombarding my mind with distortions and outright lies.  I detect some as the lies they are.  Some of the lies I believe.  And I always regret believing them.

If I can examine my thoughts as they enter my mind I can compare them to the truth of God's Word, correcting the lies and so be able to live in reality and live how Jesus wants me to live.  To detect lies I have to know the truth.  That comes from reading the Bible and doing it.  Reading the Bible is like putting gas in your car, it gives you the potential to go somewhere but you haven't fulfilled the purpose of the gas and car.  Doing the Bible is like driving the car.  Now you're going somewhere. And, it is in the going that Jesus teaches you Truth.  (He will not teach you Truth in a parked car, no matter how full the tank is).

So, truth and lies enter my mind.  I determine if they are truth or lies by comparing them to the Truth.  I know Truth when I read the Bible and actually do what is says to do.

Only you decide...

Helen Keller was asked what was worse than having no sight?  She replied, "Having no vision."  Helen Keller, with no sight nor hearing was considered by most of those with both to be "handicapped."  Yet she could "see" the invisible handicaps of those who considered her "less than normal" and themselves "normal."

When I was locked up for seven months in Kalamazoo Regional Psychiatric Hospital (after four earlier one-month stays at two other mental hospitals), I began to see some things differently for the first time in my life.  In the past I had wanted to care deeply about people, but I didn't know how to do that somehow.  I had asked God to make me a Christian like those in the Bible.  When I refused to admit to Him that I was a sinner, He gave me mental illness and I immediately forgot my original request to become a true Christian.  Now I was driven, like the king of Babylon in Daniel, like a mad-man.  My mental illness was non-stop, 24/7 emotional pain.  It was that pain that God used to reshape me.  I became suddenly aware of the many microscopic and gigantic injustices in the world.  I became aware that "supposedly sane" people were lying, cheating, harming each other, and harming our earth. Though they know better, they do wrong because they only care about themselves and they don't care about others; others who many times have done them no wrong.  It became an obvious irony to me, that though I was harming no one, I was locked up.  Others were disrespecting people, hurting people, destroying the environment, and they were running free.  To add insult to injury, these "sane" people were many times making huge profits by their evil actions.

I eventually got out, got the right medications and started thinking clearly again.  But the pain I had endured from the mental illness and the responses of people to me and my mental illness, left me with a huge empathy for the hurting.  And when Jesus found me, I was hurting, and when I accepted His love, I realized that I wanted everyone in the whole world to have the opportunity to choose (if they wanted) to love this loving man/God back.  First, the world, or rather individuals, needed to know the truth about Him.

He condemns no one (that is what satan does and blames it on God).  He loves everyone (even those who hate Him).  Because He loves everyone He hates what hurts us.  Sin is anything that hurts us or Him.  God hates sin, not people.  Jesus individually and collectively calls all of us to turn away from what hurts us and Him.  And to accept the healing love He offers.  He gives us the freedom and the ability to choose to truly love; with the love with which He freely chooses to love us.  He did not create you to reject you.  He created you so that you could know His love and the joy of loving others with the love He gives you.

In order to do that He created you with the ability to freely choose to love Him or reject Him; because love cannot be forced.  Those who love Him He calls to love all others like He loves all others.  Those who reject Him, reject love and do evil, because there is pleasure in sin for a short time and satan deceives them into thinking that they are "right" and will not be held accountable for their actions.

God loves you with all that He is.  Jesus died a bloody, torturous death because He loves God and wants you to be with them throughout eternity.  Now the choice, the choice Jesus died to give you, is yours.  You can accept Jesus' love and truly love Him and others back; and discover the life He planned for you before He created the world.  Or, you can choose to dismiss this post and continue to believe that you aren't happy because of others' choices (not your own) and that you might as well sin because you haven't found anything better to do.

Jesus and I humble ourselves and beg you to choose Life with God.

What this country needs is...

I used to think the problems that this country is currently facing was caused by others.  I blamed groups of people that were not like me, groups of people whose behaviors I thought I would never do, and groups of people I thought were far from God.

But the Bible, God's revelation of His self-sacrificing love for each of us, tells me a different story.

If My people, who are called by My Name, will humble themselves and talk to me intimately, and turn from doing evil, and follow me, doing what I do, I will listen and respond by righting the wrongs they have done and blessing what they do and where they live.  (My own imperfect version of 2 Chronicles 7:14).

In that verse I don't see other people being the problem.

I see me as the problem.

I, who am called by Jesus Name, must humble myself.  I must search for Him until I have developed an intimate relationship with Him.  I must recognize and admit and turn away from my sin.  I must ask Jesus what to do in every situation and do it.  Then Jesus will heal our whole country and He will be able to use us to heal the world.

If I want change in this country I have to change.

Then God can use me to love this country back to Him.

Can't miss

I can take careful, careful aim.  I can shoot to my heart's content.  But if I haven't spent quality time with my Heavenly "daddy" first, I will never, ever hit the target.  That's because I'm shooting blanks.

But, if I spend time with my Heavenly "daddy" first, he will select the targets, take me to them, and give me bullets that cannot miss.

Jesus made the universe and all of history, past, present and future, for Himself.  And He invites me to share in his greatest joy which is to love people back from the fear, isolation, shame, and pride that sin causes the human heart; to the knowledge that Jesus loves them just as they are, with all His heart, and that He wants a personal, intimate relationship with them.  He wants them to know that he will satisfy their every need:  Financial, relational, emotional and spiritual.  And he wants them to know that though He loves us just as we are, He does not leave us as we are.  He works in our hearts and lives, loving us with tough and tender love until we have the very character of God Himself: loving all and being loved by all.  And that is hitting the target.

If Jesus already accepts me, why do I have to trust, turn around, and follow him?

Jesus accepts me just the way I am.  He did not say he would accept me if I cleaned up my act first.  He did not force me to change before he loved me.  The Bible did say I needed to "trust him", "repent of my sins (turn around)" and "follow him."  Is that a contradiction?

If Jesus accepts me as I am, why do I need to trust, turn around and follow?  When Jesus found me the second time, I was entangled in self-centeredness but I was almost totally unaware of it.  I knew I was in pain - emotional pain, spiritual pain, relational pain - but I didn't know what was causing it.  I was trying to get my God-given needs met the only way I knew how, and that wasn't God's way.  And I didn't feel that that was wrong.  I honestly didn't trust any other way.  But let's go back to the first time Jesus found me.

Ten years earlier, in my late teens, I thought I was a Christian because I liked Jesus' philosophy and I believed I was a good person.  I told Jesus that I didn't want to be like the Christians I knew, I wanted to be like the Christians in the Bible.  Then Jesus invaded my world.  He told me I was "a sinner."  I knew I had some minor faults but Jesus was saying I was totally, totally evil.  You've got to be kidding, I thought.  I never killed anyone and I followed the rules.  I told him, "No, I'm not."  He said I was "a sinner" again.  I recoiled in horror again at the thought that he was telling me that I was the complete opposite of what I thought I was.  I told him again, "No, I'm not."  Then he said he would humble me (what I interpreted at the time was that he meant he was going to drag my "good name" through the mud) for 5 years.  I said, "What?!!! Five years?!!!"  He said, "Ok, ten."  At that point I became very, very paranoid.  And mental illness drove me for the next ten years.

Jesus stripped away some of the lies I told myself about how good I was.  I found myself doing things I thought I would never do, because I didn't trust God to do it and I didn't know any other way to get my God-given needs met.  For the next ten years I found out that I was indeed totally, totally evil; just as Jesus said I was.  I searched for God and tried to "get saved" several times, but I could not. About ten years later, having learned little, I was openly disrespectful and sarcastically said to God, "Well, it's been almost ten years, you better hurry up and save me if your prophecy is going to come true."

And Jesus graciously came to me again.  I was still totally depraved, but Jesus still loved me.  He still humbly sacrificed himself in my best interest and offered me forever with him.  I would like to say that I got on my knees and gratefully accepted his offer.  I did not.  I grudgingly accepted his offer because I thought I had nothing left to lose.  I told Him I was sorry for the wrongs I had done and asked Him to accept me.  And with that little bit of trust I showed Him, He adopted me into His family.

I did not change overnight.  I repeatedly struggled between doing what God said and doing what satan said.  But sometimes when Jesus pointed out a sin in my life (sometimes for the hundredth time) I trusted Him enough to obey him.  And the more I obeyed Him and the more I still continue to obey Him, the more I experience His mercy and favor, and the more grateful I am to Him for the loving kindness He shows me and the more I want to follow him.

Following Jesus is hard.  The world, your friends, your spouse may not applaud you.  In fact, they may leave you.  But the intimate love that Jesus and you share is so satisfying, and the love He gives you to give your spouse, your friends and the world works so powerfully for their good, that you are compelled to sacrifice all for them... and Him.  Because that is what He did for you.