There are sometimes misconceptions about the Christian life that need to be corrected. One in particular is that once you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior and you open your heart up to God you will have a problem free life. I will be the first to say that is certainly not the case. Because of sin in the world, no one has a problem free life. If it is not some problem we have caused for ourselves or one that someone else has caused, we will have problems in this life. In Where Is God!? Blessed Are The Pure In Heart For They Shall See God, Chapter 1 titled, Striping Away, hopefully the understanding is clear, there is no problem free life! On page 10, I state, “We all will suffer.” Remember, Christ came to experience EVERYTHING we will experience on the earth. Additionally, John 16:33 (KLV) reminds us, “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” So Jesus tells us about the tribulations we will have in this life. Jesus came to teach us how we should handle our tribulations and problems in life. He demonstrated his connection and relationship with God over and over again. Some refer to Jesus as our God-man. Because as Jesus said, “I and the father are one.” (John 10:30).
Oftentimes when we have problems, those HUGE problems that break us or we cannot understand what is going on, we wonder where God is in different ways. We may wonder if the problem came because we stepped out of God’s will. Sometimes we knowingly did step out of God’s will trying to make our own thing happen hoping God will bless it. Then other times when God wants to take us to the next level with Him we experience those growing pains. In those growing pains we should learn to lean and trust on God through the experience. And of course sometimes it is just the messes of living in the fallen world we live in that problems come our way. However, when the problems come, the first conversation and thought should be to God! He has allowed the problem for whatever reason. Remember, God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. We humble ourselves to Him. Our intimate relationship should be so close to Him that He is the first one we should run to. Why? Because He knows the purpose of why he allowed it and he knows how long the problem will last. COVID-19 is a world-wide pandemic. It is clear no one has the answers. Man is trying to figure out a vaccine and in time God will grace that answer to us, but this is truly a time to humble ourselves to Him. For some of us, humbling ourselves to God is easy. For others it is difficult. However, EVERYBODY goes through the process of striping away of self. Again, we have to put self on the shelf.
The subtitle of the book is, Blessed Are The Pure In Heart For They Shall See God, Mathew 5:8. What a beautiful realization! Jesus taught the crowds and us that truly if our hearts are pure, we can see God in everything! But first we have to be striped, ouch! Striping away is a process and it starts in our hearts. We have to have an open heart to God (page 9). It also speaks to the importance of having an intimate relationship with him. When your heart connects with God and you yield your life over to Him, your life is never the same! Once you experience the Fruit of the Spirit working in your life and you experience the presence of God in your life nothing compares. You may have witnessed other people’s passion about God and you know what they are talking about and you know where they are coming from. The love of God in you wants everyone else to have it and experience it too. We can relate to the disciples after they realized after Jesus rose from the grave, that it was everything Jesus told them and that He and God were one and the Holy Spirit was now upon them. However, in order to experience any of this, we have to be stripped away from SELF. SELF is a MESS and it has to be placed on the shelf. When we do not put self on the shelf we harden our hearts to God making it very difficult to see Him and being God’s hands, mouth, and feet in the world. In the book, page 9, says, ” We become confused, fearful, and full of anxiety, hateful, bitter, prideful, and arrogant.” We see much of this in our world today and it creates all kinds of problems for self and other people. Then people wonder why we have no peace. When we harden our hearts to God it is fertile ground for Satan to create havoc in our lives and in the world! When problems come the first thing we have to realize is that God is not the author of confusion. So if the situation is not right the first thing we do is pray and ask God for His help. We have to be tuned in and have that open heart to him to see him and hear what He is saying. Remember, our battle belongs to God and He does not need our help! However, it would be beneficial for us to cooperate with Him as He leads and guides us through. We will talk more next week about Striping Away. Stay safe from COVID-19… Love & Blessings.