Cause and Effect, God's Moral Law in action

There are so many ways in which we get hurt. All to often, we are the cause of that hurt, a self inflicted hurt, a hurt within. God has placed within all of us a Moral Law. When we are young that law is often seen through the teachings of our parents. We seem to think that it is not a law of love, but someone else rules that keep us bound and restricted. So when we venture out on our own we try to prove those rules wrong. We think we can make our own rules and live free. But what we do not realize is that the Moral Law is like gravity, and we are not trying to just prove our parents wrong, but we are trying to defeat the laws of gravity. We are changing our clothes, putting on a cape and climbing to the top of a large building, looking out upon the world and believing that we can fly. We stretch out our arms and jump. What we discover is that really we proved gravity right and only broke ourselves in the process. This is the Moral Law we see before us. There are certain rules within life and when we venture outside those rules we are broken in the process. All too often we also break others during our fall. For really, we do not just hurt ourselves, but others feel our effects as well

I see this over and over. I have done this myself. Our society has been training us to believe that all truth is relative and that what happened to that person has nothing to do with us. So we venture out and try to fly, each one of us, but all that we are really doing is proving that Truth and breaking ourselves. But we do not stop there. We discover "that" pain, which inevitably has to come after a fall. We feel the pain. The problem is that we do not see the source of the pain, but only feels its effect. We continue to believe that we can still dance in the dark without a great fall.

One example in my own life was sexual sin. I was molested as a child, then date raped as a teen. Those people responsible for my hurt were themselves discovering God's Moral Law. They were breaking that law that was meant to protect the innocent. Throughout my life I kept thinking that I could stop the pain by turning to my boyfriend and letting him rescue me. I kept thinking that, "this time it will be different. This time I will not get hurt, but will fill that void within me." Every time I proved that Moral Law while I was breaking myself in the process. We do this. We turn to the one delivering the painful blows in order to find comfort.

Stalin, he was a man known for his torture and murder of millions of people. What is little known about him is this story: One day someone asked him, "How do you expect your people to follow you if you are hurting them all of the time."
Stalin looked at the man and said, "Bring me a chicken." He took the chicken and proceeded to pull out each feather until the chicken was completely nude. The agony inflicted was horrific, but after the chicken had no more feathers to pluck, he put it on the ground walked away and grabbed some food in his hands. He bent down and called for the chicken. The chicken, shivering and stumbling, went over to him and began eating. After it finished the little grain Stalin had in his hands, the chicken cold and hurting snuggled up next to Stalin for warmth and comfort. Stalin looked up at his questioner and said, "People are like this chicken. You inflict them with enough pain they will follow you for the rest of their life."

We are like that chicken. We set out to disprove God's Moral Law, we get stripped and tortured, but instead of running to God and away from that which is causing the pain, we keep turning to the source of that pain for comfort. The alcoholic keeps turning to alcohol. They know that they should not have been drunk, but they do not realize that it was the alcohol that brought them the pain. They think they can control it. The woman who feels the sting and emptiness of sex before marriage, she does not stop having sex. She somehow thinks that she should have just done it a little different and this time she can defeat the laws of nature. The man who is fired from his job because of time spent looking at pornography on his computer, still turns to porn today. Over and over, we all do it. We feel the effects of the pain, but we do not dive down deep enough to really see the cause. We still see Jesus as a rule maker who is only trying to keep us bound and controlled.

Luke 13:34, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God’s messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn’t let me. And now, look, your house is abandoned. And you will never see me again until you say, ‘Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the Lord!’”

Oh how He wants to protect us, not to control us. May we pray this prayer, “Our Mother Hen, who art brooding over us, hallowed be thy sheltering wings … Forgive our unwillingness to come into your embrace.”


Jesus-- Leaning near, listening, watching, thinking about me; covering, protecting, providing for and guiding me, even when I am reluctant to accept these forms of love, unable to believe a Love like this is wrapped all around me, all the time. May we stop running to our assailant and turn instead to the One who wants us to learn to fly under His sheltering wing. He wants us to learn to sing and dance. He wants us to learn the true joy in living free with Him...

Joy of the Lord

Nehemiah 8:9-12, "'This day is sacred to the LORD your God. Do not mourn or weep.' For all the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law. Nehemiah said, 'Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is sacred to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.' ...because they now understood the words that had been made known to them."

There was a time when someone laid their hands on me and spoke these words over me, "for the joy of the LORD is your strength." I did not really understand it, but now I do. Once we have been set free and we understand the true love of our God, His law and love is our joy. But, in order to have His joy we must first understand His love. So often we have done so wrong in our own life that we cannot see past our own sin in order to hear His voice of hope. There is a time for tears, but what is its role?

Nehemiah 9:1-3, "...the Israelites gathered together, fasting and wearing sackcloth and having dust on their heads. Those of Israelite descent had separated themselves from all foreigners. They stood in their places and confessed their sins and the wickedness of their fathers. They stood where they were and read from the Book of the Law of the LORD their God for a quarter of the day, and spent another quarter in confession and in worshiping the LORD their God."

There is a time of mourning for what we have done. There is this time and there must be, for in our time of sin, something very valuable has died. When we look at God's law there is no way that we can get away from the truth of our sin and this is a very daunting awareness. But, we cannot live in the sadness of our sin. There is hope that has been given and we are once again not living in God's will if we continue to mourn. There is a very needed time of mourning, but there is also a promise that God has given us. We need to learn to take hold of His promises.

God's promises, His hope, His reality, our strength:
Psalm 43:5, "Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God." 2 Thessalonians 2:16, "May our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who loved us and by His grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope..." John 11:25-26, "Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?" Psalm 146:5, "Happy is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God..." Romans 15:13, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."

Have we faced our past and had our time of mourning? Have we learned to read and understand His law so that we can find true joy? Oswald Chambers, "'Come to Me... and I will give you rest' ( Matthew 11:28 ). It is only after we have begun to experience what salvation really means that we surrender our will to Jesus for rest. Whatever is causing us a sense of uncertainty is actually a call to our will— “Come to Me.” And it is a voluntary coming. ...And after you surrender— then what? Your entire life should be characterized by an eagerness to maintain unbroken fellowship and oneness with God." Do you know what the joy of the Lord is? After you have received the love of Christ, do you still weep with bitter tears before Him, or have your tears turned to tears of joy? "...for the joy of the LORD is your strength.' ...because they now understood the words that had been made known to them."

It Feels GOOD!

My journey with God has truly been amazing to me. Most everything that He has revealed to me, has first come from me taking the first step in obedience. I believe that He has something great for me, but He wants me to believe in Him first. That belief is revealed by my stepping out of my comfort zone, and trusting that He will do what He has promised. Oswald Chambers, "How will I know? Matthew 11:25, Jesus answered and said, ’I thank You, Father . . . that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes’ ..."But if we walk in the light," we are cleansed "from all sin" (1 Jn 1:7). It is a matter of obedience, and once we obey, the relationship is instantly perfected...All of God’s revealed truths are sealed until they are opened to us through obedience. You will never open them through philosophy or thinking. But once you obey, a flash of light comes immediately. Let God’s truth work into you by immersing yourself in it, not by worrying into it. The only way you can get to know the truth of God is to stop trying to find out and by being born again. If you obey God in the first thing He shows you, then He instantly opens up the next truth to you..." I love to see how God has always been with me and kept me safe, even when I have been a fool's fool. But, my relationship with Him only grew and developed into life, when I started to obey Him. I had to set aside my fleshly desires, even though I thought I would suffocate from boredom, so that His life could be revealed to me. "Jesus did not come to make bad people good, but to make dead people live." (RZ)

Just the other day I was blessed to be in worship with my Lord, on the back of a horse! A friend, that God has blessed me with, took me on a four hour horse ride. What an awesome day we had, being blessed by God's creation and connecting with one another. I could not imagine a better way to spend the afternoon. What she did not know was that I have been asking God, for some time, to give me a wiser, older woman. I have needed that relationship, for all of a sudden I am surrounded by younger women, looking to me. I needed someone older to help guide my steps, for I have found myself in that age of being the older and younger woman. I am right in the middle, and not knowing all of the answers, I needed God to give me that one special older woman to help me. As we were riding, our conversations took us many times to God. In one of those moments, the verses in the Old Testament that say, "If you.... I will..." were brought up. Over and over, God has told His children, "If you will obey me... I will...." In this, it all boils down to trust. Do I trust Him? Do I really believe Him when He says that His ways are better?

I have turned my back on God so many times, just because I did not trust His moral law. I thought that He was just trying to keep me from enjoying this life. But, what I did not realize was that He was just trying to show me what living really felt like. He wanted me to obey Him, so that I could feel the true joy that He has offered me. This true joy comes from the Cross. It is through the Cross that all of my sins have been forgiven, and the freedom of living is found. My debt has been paid and my past has been erased. It is through the Cross, that my wheezing has stopped and my freedom to breath has begun. I once thought I would die from boredom, but what I have found is the freedom to truly live. He has given me the opportunity to live, I just have to trust Him enough to obey. Through my obedience, in turning from my own sinful desires, I have found what true living feels like. It feels, GOOD!

http://www.rbc.org/devotionals/my-utmost-for-his-highest/10/10/devotion.aspx?year=2009