Are We Showing Our Backs Or Opening Our Arms?

Dionna Sanchez — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 21:44:14 +0000

I think we sometimes think we shouldn’t make any mistakes. We tilt our noses in the air and lift our heads up high when we see or hear of someone that should’ve known better – fall flat on their face in a public way. We act as if OUR child would never have done that. WE certainly wouldn’t have caved in to that temptation.

We show our backs instead of opening our arms.

It seems to me that making mistakes is oftentimes a very necessary part of growing in Christ.

Yes, my goal as a Christian woman, wife, and mother is to raise my children in the ways of the Lord. I hope with everything in me that they see through a few minor mistakes and learn that God’s way is the easier way instead of having to make the big, tough mistakes and learning that any other way is the hard way. The painful way.

I hope that I, too, don’t mess up. That I don’t give in to temptation and that I can live an exemplary life for the Lord. Saying that, I know that life happens. I’ve seen humanness in its raw and natural state. I’ve lived it.

Nobody ever plans to have their child get pregnant out of wedlock. We don’t intend for our children to get into drugs or abuse alcohol. We don’t wish for an affair in our marriage or pornography to dismantle everything we have. We don’t want controversy in our homes and we don’t want it as part of our image or reputation. Yet it comes – like a thief in the darkness. For Satan is out to “steal, kill, and destroy.” (John 10:10) If he can steal away our child’s purity whether by their own choice or the choice of someone who intends to take it away from them…he most certainly will. If he wants to lure our families with wealth, greed, and power – he will. If he wants to isolate us, tell us lies, feed us falsehoods – he will! He is out to steal our very souls. He is out to kill our very bodies, and he most certainly wants to destroy everything we are and everything we believe in.

We forget that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Ephesians 6:12). We forget this when we hear the controversial news that someone we know was caught breaking and entering or someone we once esteemed had a hidden life that is now unveiled for all to see. We forget. We whisper and we accuse.

Yet none of our thoughts or actions will ever help those who stumble. It will never draw them back to the Lord or to His people. Instead, we chase them off as someone who is unclean, unwanted. We act better than them.

Mistakes are mistakes. Some are more noticeable than others. You can’t hide a pregnancy for very long, yet pornography can be hidden for years. Who says one is more wrong than the other?

I don’t think we should blindly ignore the fact that sin is sin. We can’t ignore what damage is often done to relationships or a person’s life when they make mistakes and are sinful. But we can still love them. We can pray for them.

I don’t live under any illusion that Christian people are imperfect. We mess up all of the time. The problem is when we act as if we don’t. We shun those who fall.
I think we forget that God died to give us the very grace and mercy that we deserve. That we will need. If we were a perfect people, there would be no need for that great sacrifice.

I want to be the kind of person who loves as God loves. I don’t want to pretend that something that is wrong is really right…but I do want to continue to love and accept someone the best I can in their broken state.

In Genesis 50:20, God says, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many souls.”

The world is full of messed-up, fallen, broken people. How will they ever come to believe that our God died for them in their full-on sinful state if we can’t first forgive those we call our “brethren?”

All I know is that God didn’t die for the perfect. For that person doesn’t exist.

Where Do You Look When Surrounded by Spiritual Dangers?

Jody Sneed — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:25:51 +0000

2nd Lt. George Rice: Looks like you guys are going to be surrounded.

Richard Winters: We’re paratroopers, Lieutenant. We’re supposed to be surrounded.
from “Band of Brothers”

For the greatest generation, it was D-Day and so many hopeless situations. For today, it may be keeping a job, a home, or a relationship, all while trying to keep some hope alive…how can we hold onto our faith when everyone and everything else is against us? Because we will not come up empty, we cannot with the Spirit of God supplying the words.

Like paratroopers descending behind enemy lines to eventually win the day, it’s the same for us…

“Stay alert. This is hazardous work I’m assigning you. You’re going to be like sheep running through a wolf pack, so don’t call attention to yourselves. Be as cunning as a snake, inoffensive as a dove. Don’t be naive. Some people will impugn your motives, others will smear your reputation – just because you believe in me.

Don’t be upset when they haul you before the civil authorities. Without knowing it, they’ve done you – and me – a favor, given you a platform for preaching the kingdom news! And don’t worry about what you’ll say or how you’ll say it. The right words will be there; the Spirit of your Father will supply the words. When people realize it is the living God you are presenting and not some idol that makes them feel good, they are going to turn on you, even people in your own family. There is a great irony here: proclaiming so much love, experiencing so much hate!

But don’t quit. Don’t cave in. It is all well worth it in the end. It is not success you are after in such times but survival. Be survivors! Before you’ve run out of options, the Son of Man will have arrived.” Jesus from Matthew 10:16-23, The Message

Devotional Christian » living in a fallen world

Are We Showing Our Backs Or Opening Our Arms?

Where Do You Look When Surrounded by Spiritual Dangers?