Tag: Regret

Good Enough?

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Good Enough?

If you are going through your life telling yourself you’re a good enough person and you think that’s what it takes to make it into heaven I have sad news for you, you won’t. John 14:6 “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” People seem to think that if they put enough money in the collection plate they are doing good enough for God. People think that volunteering or helping out the elderly is good enough for their golden ticket to wonderland. The truth is, harsh as it may seem, your good works are trash before God if you do not believe in the Son. God while he appreciates your good works, and your good nature, it means nothing if you do not accept the blood spilt upon Calvary’s cross that day 2000 years ago. Good works come with salvation because there is a fundamental change in your heart. Galatians 10:18 “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” We should want to help because when the Holy Spirit moves in us we have a desire to do good for others less fortunate then ourselves.

 

You think you are the center of the universe and you can make up your own rules about what’s okay and what isn’t. You think you can follow the law, and that you can compare one law to the next. So many times I’ve heard, ‘yea I have broken a few laws, but at least I’ve never stolen anything, or killed anyone.’ While that’s nice, sin before the Lord is just as bad as the next sin. There are 613 laws in the Old Testament. How many times have you broken OT laws? But you’ve never killed anyone right? Your works don’t mean anything because that’s not where your salvation lays. With most laws there are loopholes you can squeeze out of. I know someone who drove drunk, got stopped and blew in the field above the legal limit. It’s likely that person will manage out of trouble because they didn’t blow twice in the field which is the standard for anyone who blows above the legal limit. So, because of a technicality they may avoid serious trouble. With God there is no loophole. With salvation there is no loophole. If you do not believe in the sacrifice of the Son there is no chance to salvation for you. We would never be able to keep all the laws. The laws are there to act as a reminder how to act, not to provide you salvation. An evil person does not obey the laws and yes while they are breaking laws, the heart is the problem. A good person who does good works and is kind to others, but doesn’t know the Lord is on the same plane as the evil person. We cannot judge someone based on our standards because lets face it, peoples, or societies standards have drastically changed over time. If you want to know your going to be saved, you must accept the only way to heaven, and that’s Jesus Christ. Nothing else you do will matter until you find and accept Christ.

 

Without Christ nothing else matters. Every law, every action we are told to take points us to one thing, Christ. We cannot base our salvation on our own standards. We are meaningless without Christ. Without Christ our lives mean absolutely nothing. You seek truth, and you seek knowledge but you deny the words in a book you find antiquated. You believe science is the end all to all the questions. You believe theories to be truth, and yet in every theory is a new counter theory. While some theories sound good, it’s the beginning of understanding, not the end. We must understand that we are children and as children we aren’t told everything. We are guided, we are taught as time goes on, but we never stop learning, we never stop growing. There is to much evidence to deny the existence of Jesus Christ and to deny the works of his time would be folly. You have no idea the dangers that existed for those men who traveled with Christ. Their very lives were threatened every day, and they knew they could live long happy lives if they just denounced Christ and walked away. Every one of them chose to pursue the truth because the truth was stronger then anything they would face in this world. It wasn’t their works that secured their place in heaven, but their love and devotion for Christ. Their sacrifice gave us the eye witness accounts so we may know what happened in those 3 years of Jesus’s ministry. They died so we may live. They gave us the instructions inspired by God, and what they experienced first hand. 2 Corinthians 12:11 “I have been a fool! You forced me to it, for I ought to have been commended by you. For I was not at all inferior to these super-apostles, even though I am nothing.” At this time Paul was being attacked for his position. Instead of trying to defend himself and his own resume, he stood up saying he was nothing because the only thing that truly matters is Christ. “Who you are, in this moment in time, and who you want to be. You get one life, you decide how you’re going to spend it.” (Jumanji) We can either choose a life following Christ, or suffer the consequences. As for me, I’d rather not spend eternity in hell because I was too stubborn to follow the truth.

 

 

Love Unconditional

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Love Unconditional

I’ve been putting a lot of thought into the word love. What does it mean to love something? When we think of love we think of our parents, siblings, closest friends, but we also think of our favorite show, our favorite food, our favorite pass time activity. The truth is in our society today the word just gets tossed around flippantly. The truth is, I think love is something that when we loose the object of our affection it breaks us apart inside. When we are dating in school we often throw the word around love and sure I don’t want to downplay those emotions, but the proof is in the pudding, often times that’s just puppy love and something we get over pretty quick once it’s gone. True love however is something a little more difficult to come by. The Bible has a pretty air tight description of love, and when we look at our lives, and we compare it to this, the comparisons are often going to leave you realizing, maybe it’s not love after all. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 “4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, 5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; 6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; 7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. 8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.” Now I know what you’re thinking, yes I am talking about love, and yes so is 1 Corinthians. “Charity is the epitome of perfection in the Christian life. It is the “greatest” of the three abiding virtues” (http://www.learnthebible.org/charity-or-love.html) If we look at the definition of love, and compare it to what we say to others, are we actually in line with scripture, or just a word we use because we don’t know anything better to say?

Lets make it easier to understand a little. When you look at 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 “4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;[a] 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” How often in our own lives do we drudge up mistakes our partner made 2 years ago? How often do we hold a grudge, and for how long? How often do we love but only so long as we are worldly happy? There is so much in our lives today that draw us away from love. So much today that we don’t understand, but if we go to Scripture, if we study, we can finally unravel the strongest of lies, and the strongest of truths. John 15:13 “13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Jesus, Jesus laid down His perfect life as a perfect blemish less, sinless man that chose to be tortured, ridiculed, and murdered for us, for every single last one of us that in no way by our daily actions deserve such grace and mercy. The truth is, that’s LOVE. When we think about that kind of love, makes what we say about love look silly. How often do we see now in our world today divorce is a cancer on our society, and it runs unchecked destroying homes left and right. We see marriage as expendable, as an option that so long it benefits me, so long as I am getting something out of it, I’ll stay married. THE QUESTION I ASK TO EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU, WHAT ARE YOU GIVING IN YOUR MARRIAGE? If we look a little deeper we see what the definition of love is, we see what is says in John, but what about husbands and wives? Ephesians 5:25 “25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her,” Yes that means you are supposed to love your wives so much that you sacrifice unconditionally to her. You sacrifice yourself to give her everything she needs. Note I said need, not want. The difference between need and want is an entirely separate blog.

Husbands, need to sacrifice worldly things, worldly desires, worldly distractions for his wife. Ephesians 5:22-24 “22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.” Many people look at this section of scripture and scoff, and I really question why that is. I get the feminist movement, and women can do anything a man can do and all that stuff, and that’s great, but the truth is, women and men aren’t the same. We are wired differently in the brains, we have different strengths and weaknesses, and this isn’t talking about slavery this is talking about letting go of ones worldly self. Letting go of the fleshy desires, and allowing yourself to be completely taken in by your husband. As the husband loves the wife as he died for us, so shall the husband die for his wife. Think about this, when we get married, we often think of it as the old ball in chain, the tying of the knot, the end or death of an era. Well, in some parts yes, that’s exactly what it is. But if we look at death as a bad thing, a negative thing, sure we will be going into that marriage under negative premise and then that’s where the problems start to set in. Death is a glorious thing, a wonderful thing, because as a Christian we believe that death of us is the gateway to an eternal life of perfection and love. If we are to truly love our wives, love our husbands we must allow the old part of us to die off. Think of love and marriage like a butterfly. The caterpillar is you before you get married. The marriage is the cocoon. When you emerge married that fuzzy old caterpillar is gone, fundamentally changed into a beautiful creature no longer bound to crawl around, but to soar, to fly, to be a wonder of nature.

How wonderful it would be if we actually saw marriage that way. How wonderful it would be if we as a people were able to see ourselves and combining our selves into one body and actually selflessly giving up our selves and wanting only to please our partner. To those who are struggling in your marriages, I offer this, in all things God can heal, and with work, and saying it a hundred times, a thousand times, I forgive you, forgive the wrongs your partner has done. Remember the way you felt the day you got married and realize if both of you, if both the Husband and the Wife learn to forgive, learn to accept, learn to change because marriage is a fundamental change. You are no longer you, you become y’all. When we loose sight of the togetherness, the us in the marriage and we start to focus on the me, start to focus on the what does Arrow Preacher want, we loose sight of the (what) can I do for my spouse? What can I do to bring happiness to my beloved today? Human greed is one of the strongest sins to pull us back into the world, but two are stronger then one. Pouring of sand of two different colors into a jar that sand can never be completely separated. There’s reason sand if often used in marriage ceremonies. It’s a constant visual reminder that once together, you shall never break apart, bonded into one entity, one jar, and as rope is stronger when woven together, so shall you be stronger when you come to realize the true definition of love, the true understanding of what Scripture is talking about, and let go of your worldly sins, those desires that draw you away from your spouse. The Devil wants to break up marriage because he’s been doing it since the beginning. Marriage was the plan, for man to not be alone, and he knows that separated the divide and concur makes for an easier target. Don’t take the bait. Don’t allow Satan to ruin your union. Fight back, and fight for each other.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Regret

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Regret

In our lives we make decisions that in hindsight weren’t so good. We also make great decisions that can change our lives forever. It’s the one moment where life has fallen apart around you, the moment you can’t see the next breath you take, you can’t take a single step forward, life has stopped and the world looks like it’s moving around you at near light speed. The moment when all hope is lost, and the decision you make seems like the right one, but what if there was a way to move that step forward, what if I told you there was hope, and there is a next breath, would that change your mind for the next catastrophe in your life?

For many veterans and civilians who’ve gone through trauma getting stuck in that moment is all too common. When we get stuck we go through our days only a shell of who we used to be. We eat, we work, we sleep, we may even contribute to the life around us, but we aren’t really there. The sludge of the weight of what we carry builds as we trek through the mud farther and farther. There will come a point when you have the black tar from your shoes up to your neck. At some point you won’t be able to move forward anymore. No matter what our event is, whether it’s the death of a loved one, the loss of a spouse, sexual assault, horrific car accident, fire, or even just a series of events that you have entered that hurts those around you. We often push away people we love because we don’t want them to see us in pain, we don’t want them to see us suffering. We push away to defend ourselves, and them, from potential damage. We don’t want to drag anyone down with us, and sometimes it’s because we just can’t see beyond our own pain.

Being pushed away by someone who’s going through a lot of pain is hard. Knowing you want to help, and feeling powerless is perhaps the most difficult position to ever be in. Seeing someone you care about in pain, seeing them walk down a dark path, and when all you want to do is take their pain away and shower them in love, yet you’re held away, and pushed and kicked out of their life, is heart breaking.

For each of our mistakes we see the other side of other peoples. When we know they are making a mistake all we can do is pray for them. All we can do is hope that one day they will turn around from the path they’re on and hopefully do so before anything to bad happens they can’t come back from. For me I gravitated to the song One Step Away by Casting Crowns:

 What if you could go back and relive one day of your life all over again
And unmake the mistake that left you a million miles away
From the you, you once knew
Now yesterday’s shame keeps saying that you’ll never get back on track
But what if I told you

You’re one step away from surrender
One step away from coming home, coming home
One step from arms wide open
His love has never let you go
You’re not alone
You’re one step away

It doesn’t matter how far you’ve gone
Mercy says you don’t have to keep running down the road you’re on
Love’s never met a lost cause
Your shame, lay it down
Leave your ghosts in the past ‘cause you know that you can’t go back
But you can turn around
You’ve never been more than

 We aren’t ever alone. This message goes out to my veteran brothers and sisters, we aren’t ever alone. We sit at home, we have the open bottle of beer or booze, and we seclude ourselves in the dark, thoughts screaming in our head. We can’t seem to get out of the way. This, is, torture. When we trained for war we trained as a team. When we get home we see that no one is there for us, no one understands, how could anyone, they weren’t there. The thing is, that’s all an elaborate lie by the Devil to separate us from the world, and break us down. It’s not true. There are plenty of other veterans out there struggling with their own replay of war. Something else I’ve learned is trauma is trauma no matter what kind. Sexual assault, loss of loved ones, fire, car accidents, none of that is exclusive to military. Sure firefights may be a bit more segregated, but that doesn’t mean people aren’t there for you. We have support groups, veterans groups, outreach programs, and so much more to help get us all back to a good healthy place.

We all have our regrets in life but one of the biggest battles we will ever face is facing those mistakes. Allowing ourselves to heal from them on the inside by forgiving ourselves, asking others to forgive us and showing true repentance for those mistakes. Philippians 3:13 “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but [this] one thing [I do], forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,” We must go forth to God and ask for forgiveness, but we also need to make it right, we need to attempt to right our wrongs. 1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us [our] sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” One thing that I am reminded of is how easy it is to get off track. How often do we do a wrong based on how someone else wrongs us? We as Christians should hold ourselves to a higher standard, and not fall into the world expectations. We cannot allow the world to dictate how we react, or how we treat others. We mustn’t let the world tell us the lies we often feel when dealing with life’s tragedies. Isaiah 43:18-19 “18 Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. 19 Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, [and] rivers in the desert.” We cannot know what our tomorrow brings, and we cannot know what surprises will be waiting for us just around the next bend in the road.

In all things in our life we should move forward with kindness in our hearts, forgiveness isn’t something to be earned, it’s something to be given freely. We can’t hold our forgiveness hostage like some kind of ransom is required to give it. If we are to live like Christ we must learn that people are sinful, people hurt others, we hurt them, and forgiveness isn’t always rebuilding the relationship if it’s lost. Christ forgave humanity for our sins despite the awful things we as a collective whole did to Him. We were not only forgiven for past and current sins, but future sins we might face in the future. 2 Corinthians 7:10 “10 For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.” When Judas betrayed Christ he could not get past his own grief and he took his own life by hanging. This is worldly sorrow. There is not repentance to be had, and no chance of redemption. We all Sin, we have make mistakes big and small. Even David a man of God’s own heart was not free from them. David was well known to be a fair man as a King, but he was a horrible husband and father. Psalm 51:1- 3 “51 Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. 3 For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.”

 No matter how far we’ve fallen, there is always a way back. Even when it’s adulatory or other forms of betrayal. Proverbs 6:32-34 “He who commits adultery lacks sense; he who does it destroys himself. He will get wounds and dishonor, and his disgrace will not be wiped away. For jealousy makes a man furious, and he will not spare when he takes revenge.” A man shall not take revenge for himself, for revenge is not bringing harmony. Justice is for the Lord. Forgiveness is for man, asking for it, and giving it freely. Do not allow your life to come to the end and regret a multitude of things. Make right your wrongs, make right the harm you’ve cause, the pain you’ve inflicted. Seek forgiveness in others, beg for forgiveness of the Lord. Let go of your own pain, and do not carry that weight with you. If you continue to carry a weight like that around you cannot continue to God’s work when you have so much on your shoulders already. Allow God’s grace to fill you, let yourself see through God’s eyes, let yourself feel with God’s heart, and learn to let go of judgments, let go of your own sorrow. Do not allow yourself to be weighed down any longer.

We all have things in our life we wish we could take back, things we could change. We can’t ever retrieve something we’ve let slip from out mouths, undo an action, but we can attempt to make right what we’ve done. Don’t wait for tomorrow, start healing today. Let the weight of the world fall from your shoulders, and find a new way, a better way, a Godly way of dealing with life, and facing the trials ahead of you. Our way is never the way even if it’s easier sometimes the easy way isn’t the right way, sometimes the right way is the path less traveled. It’s our job as Christians to figure out the path God wants us to be on. When we don’t know the path to take we must turn to the scripture and pray about our path. Proverbs 18:13 “13 He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.” Don’t make a decision without knowing as much of the facts as possible so be sure to not make foolish decisions. Don’t allow yourself to be fooled by fake or false information. Proverbs 18:15 “15 The heart of the prudent getteth knowledge; and the ear of the wise seeketh knowledge.” When you think you know something, don’t be quick to pass judgement without gaining other perspectives and complete the story. Don’t take a story as true just on face value. Proverbs 18:15 “15 The heart of the prudent getteth knowledge; and the ear of the wise seeketh knowledge.”

Knowing what to expect when problems comes up is one thing. Knowing how to respond is the second side of that coin. We must know that in our lives we will face problems, we will face trials, and in all of those trials we know that we must accept and rejoice in those times. James 1:2-4 “2 My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; 3 Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. 4 But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” If anyone out there is like me the WHY ME question comes up sometimes. We know that patience is something we all need more of, and in our trials we are often tasked with growing in our faith, draw closer to God and growing in patience. IF we learn how to respond to issues, we could very well have fewer regrets in our life. John 16:33“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.” When standing on the beach of the ocean we do not stand with our backs to the waves (generally) because when the big one hits us we get knocked own. Instead we face the wave head on, and we brace for it. Knowing what Christ expects of us on how to handle our troubles, knowing how to handle heartbreak, and betrayals, we can minimize the damage and we can help prevent us from getting into as much trouble.

We won’t always make all the right choices all the time, we won’t always handle every situation the best we can, we are human, we are driven by sin nature, and thus we will undoubtedly make mistakes. It’s in those mistakes however we know how to seek forgiveness, and seek repentance when they do occur. It’s in those mistakes, those hardships that our true character is placed on display. We find out more about ourselves through our trials then when things are always a batch of roses. Just remember that even the prettiest of roses have thorns. Seek God for the answers to your troubles, and seek God to the direction of your path. You may not be able to get rid of regret, but you can minimize its impact.