Lets Be "For" One Another

Ephesians 6:12 For we are not struggling against human beings, but against the rulers, authorities and cosmic powers governing this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realm.

Flipping the channels around from news program to news program could easily drive a person nuts. I strongly dislike being sick in bed. I guess most people do. As a wife and mom I can look around and see the piles of this and the stacks of that all of which need attending to. It is quite frustrating to me. I am really trying to learn how to rest when I need to, but I really don't care for being unproductive or the helplessness that is the result being sick. I had just cared for my two younger children who were ill for a few days and now their cooties had transferred to me. Not my idea of a good time. In an effort to let my body rest I lay in bed channel surfing. I am not into soap operas and Fox News, MS NBC, CBS and CNN and the like are about the only things current on the TV in the middle of the day. There is only so much House on the Prairie, Full House and Seinfeld repeats a human being can handle, so the news it was.

Now there are some news programs and commentators that I strongly agree with most of what they have to say. Then there are some that might be reporting on the happenings on some distant planet but are pretty disconnected with what is happening here, in our country.....yes and on earth. OK, I am not going to go there, I gave up the political writing thing. One thing I have noticed, and that seems to be a common theme in regards to all of them.....they sure don't like each other much. Honestly, after a while, all the bickering and back biting began to increase the painful pressure in my already congested head. Pretty much everything I needed to be informed of was scrolling at the bottom of the screen while the talking heads expressed their disdane for this person or that person. It all was a pretty big turn off to be honest and I found myself getting disgusted, discouraged, tuning out and eventually just turning the TV off altogether. Don't get me wrong, it is a good thing to be informed and understand what is happening in the world, but all the hatred and nastiness, sometimes it is all too much.

The next day I tuned into a program on a Christian channel out of Texas that I watch on the Internet from time to time. They have a lot of excellent teachers that I enjoy that go into the deeper matters of the Torah and the Word in it's entirety. Their guest that day was a man from an African country where Islam is the legal and accepted religion. Christians are hated and persecuted there. He told the story of all he had suffered in defense of his faith. Some of his family were killed and some disappeared and were never heard from again. He also told how some of his believing brothers and sisters were murdered in front of him for not denying our Savior. These were his spiritual babes, just kids that he had led to the Lord. He explained how he was imprisoned and tortured day after day. He told of his escape from the prison and how a Muslim man had helped him and how he had led him to faith in Messiah. Then he shared something that was one of the most discouraging things to him. It really bothered him. You could see it in his eyes. No it wasn't the torture he had endured at the hands of men with most evil intentions. It had nothing to do with the fact that he couldn't bathe for 6 months. It wasn't even the maggots that were living in his flesh while imprisoned that upset him so. It was that when he finally came to America, to share and inform people of what had happened to him and IS happening to these brave believers, so that they might pray and even be of help, that one of the churches he was to visit had split over the color of the carpet. The color of the carpet!

On one hand I witnessed the world and their unwavering dedication to cut one another down and tear at one another verbally. I really wasn't surprised at that behavior, after all these are not individuals necessarily led by anything or Anyone greater than themselves......in their minds. The Bible doesn't even come into consideration as they sling mud about with gleeful abandon. They are of the world, so they behave like the rest of the world. I used to know a pastor that coined a phrase, "ducks quack, why do you expect them to behave any differently?", when referring to the unbelieving world. This phrase, applied perfectly to to the behavior of the media that day. They were not being anything or anyone that they were not. They were behaving exactly as expected, albeit an incredible irritation to me.

The shocking thing about this martyr's story was not all he had suffered. Although quite frankly his story brought me to tears. The most shocking thing to me was how incredibly divided we are and how very "UN-set apart" or "unholy" that truly is. Here in this country we do not have a concept of what it is to truly "suffer" for what we believe. I fear that one day, very soon, we might. Then how angry we might have been over the "color of the carpet" will be a shameful memory. What I wonder is do we have what it takes to go through all this man went through and still be unwavering in our faith when so many, dare I say "stupid" things divide us? If we are going to stand, when the "real" trials come, we had better grow up and behave in a way that differentiates us from the "world". I just don't see that enough in America. In the 18 years of my life as a believer I have seen, and I am really sorry to utter this, more of what looks like the world than looks like the Word. I am not leaving myself out of that equation so please understand that.

There are things we must stand up for. The truth is one of them. There is a way, however, to maintain peace as far as it is up to us and stand up clearly for what we believe. It is primarily through love and respect for our fellow believers and even unbelievers that this is accomplished even some of the time. Why must others agree with us for us to love them? Why do we feel we have that right to have that as a condition? Why do we think we even have the right to be offended? Was the cost of our Savior impaled on a tree too little that we are afforded such an option? My guess is that the martyr on the TV would have the correct answers to such very basic questions.

There are some things on the horizon for America. Believers here are going to have to come together in a way we never have. We need to understand that the battles we fight are primarily not against flesh and blood. We have an adversary that understands that division among us will most certainly defeat us. We had better learn to be "for" one another even if we can't agree on some things. None of us know how to do this perfectly. I mess up daily. Only by consuming His Word and His presence can we accomplish His will and truly understand what it means to love one another. If we don't we will be no different than the talking heads or the "world".

So lets be "for" one another and not against each other. Lets love those who persecute us and pray for those who set themselves against us, without the condition of them agreeing with us or understanding us. Lets seek to be "ministers of reconciliation" first with G-d and then with one another. It is only then that we truly have a chance of winning them to the faith and walking in the example of Yahshua our Messiah.

Have a blessed day and pray for the martyrs!

http://www.persecution.com/

More than a conqueror

Fun Song from Matisyahu

Observations from the Window

Observations from the Window

I spend a lot of time at my kitchen window. I don’t have a very big kitchen. It is adequate, and pretty much everything centers around or near the window. I wash dishes there. I chop, slice and dice from there. I make coffee for my husband there. My cookbooks set on the counter there. My children’s tokens of “love for mommy” art set in the windowsill so I can look upon them. Most importantly I have had many conversations with my Abba there. The kitchen window is a pretty special and very busy place.

Behind our home we have a good amount of wooded property. On any given day you can see all kinds of critters great and small living in and sometimes coming out of the woods behind our home. Feral cats, squirrels, chipmunks, aardvarks, raccoons, fox and of course many, many deer. We have a big population of them as the area our subdivision is built on used to be a gaming range. The deer, for the most part, do not wonder out of the woods unless it is dark or they hear no human activity around them. The forest provides good cover and protection for them. My neighbor puts out corn for them and sometimes that will draw them into her yard. However, most of the time they are deep in the cover of the woods and can’t be seen.

Last week I was working hard to conquer another huge pile of dishes from a meal we had just had and I was gazing out the window into the woods. It is about winter now and most of the trees have dropped their leaves. The trees rather than thick, green and lush are now bare, dry and gray. I noticed white tails and graceful, slow movements far into the distance and realized that I could see the deer quite deeply in the woods. There is no place for them to hide anymore. With the lack of foliage they are almost completely exposed and vulnerable. It is hunting season right now. I had never thought about it much, because I am not a hunter, but it makes sense that it is this time of year. They are very easy to spot.

There are “winters” in our lives. No one is completely immune to those moments. There are times when things seem bare, dry and gray. Like the deer we can be very vulnerable during those times. We can be vulnerable to attack, suggestion and lies from the adversary. The enemy infrequently takes aim when we are covered and protected by abiding in Him and His Word, but has a very sure shot during the times that we have wondered into the barren woods apart from Him and are alone and exposed. Unlike the deer, however, we have a choice to be vulnerable and exposed or to remain in the cover of His Word and in Him. We also have a choice to be alone or not because He is available to us. Sometimes it does not feel as if the choice is ours. Life can hand us circumstances that can convince us that He is a million miles away, but again that is a lie, planted by the evil one at a time that we are exposed and vulnerable. His Word is clear that if we remain in Him, He will remain in us! This is great news.

John 15:4-5 reads as follows:
4 Stay united with me, as I will with you -- for just as the branch can't put forth fruit by itself apart from the vine, so you can't bear fruit apart from me. 5 "I am the vine and you are the branches. Those who stay united with me, and I with them, are the ones who bear much fruit; because apart from me you can't do a thing. (CJB)

It is encouraging to me and I hope to you too, that the Word gives us great examples of men and women that faced the same human emotion and struggles that we do in our own lives and were able to overcome through His strength. One such example is that of the Prophet Elijah.

1Kings 19:1 Ach'av told Izevel everything Eliyahu had done and how he had put all the prophets to the sword. 2 Then Izevel sent a messenger to say to Eliyahu, "May the gods do terrible things to me and worse ones besides if by this time tomorrow I haven't taken your life, just as you took theirs!" 3 On seeing that, he got up and fled for his life. When he arrived in Be'er-Sheva, in Y'hudah, he left his servant there; 4 but he himself went a day farther into the desert, until he came to a broom tree. He sat down under it and prayed for his own death. "Enough!" he said. "Now, ADONAI, take my life. I'm no better than my ancestors."


Here was a man that was a mighty man of G-d, yet even he stumbled into a dry, barren place. Elijah was pretty down and beat from dealing with the murderous Jezebel and her husband Ahab. She had set her sights on killing him! We see later on in the text that the Father meets him and lifts him out of that state and that he overcomes in the power of the Lord! Like I said, no one is immune to those moments……not even superstars of the Word like the Prophet Elijah. We all have a tendency to try to do it on our own and go it alone.

So, if you have found yourself in a place where you are vulnerable and exposed don’t lose heart and do not grow weary. He is right there and He will not leave you. Remain in Him and in His Word. Or if you have wondered away a bit, go back. Go to the shelter that he provides for you and remain in Him.


Much love and shalom,
More than a Conqueror