Bad Times

Everyone has bad times in life. No one is immune from adversity. For some people, the adversity may come late in life and these people are devastated. For other people, bad times surround them at birth and adversity follows them for life. It is critical we all understand bad times fall on a person's life regardless of their race, creed, economic status, age, or origins. We must never expect the good times to roll on forever. We must never expect good times to come to us and stay forever. For if we expect the good times to roll on forever, we will be in shock when disaster strikes or bad times fall upon us. Our willingness to admit bad times do happen enables us to prepare our heart, mind, and soul in advance for what may come. Indeed, the person who prepares in advance today for the bad times in the future has a decided advantage when bad times fall. In addition, the person who prepares in advance for bad times has a greater sense of well-being and security during good times because necessary preparations have been made. We must not delude ourselves into thinking everything will be comfy and cozy in the future. A construction manager in parts of the world where bad weather strikes should prepare in advance for bad weather conditions. A person who needs to fight traffic jams every day should prepare for their adverse traffic by leaving at an appropriate time. Knowing bad times may fall does not need to make us unhappy. Knowing and preparing in advance for adversity can give us peace, happiness, and security no matter what happens to us in the future.

The Love Of Jesus

●The love of Jesus heals the wounds left when we have been abused and mistreated. Nothing hurts as bad as seeing or experiencing abuse at the hands of others. For many people, nothing makes people angrier than seeing abuse. For many people, nothing makes people want to forget they are a Christian more than seeing abuse. However, striking out at abusers do not heal anyone. In circumstances of abuse, healing is needed, not more violence in the face of abuse. The love of Jesus can even heal the wounds left by abuse.

●The love of Jesus heals the wounds and pain we feel when we make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. Sometimes we make big mistakes. Sometimes others get hurt by our mistakes. Sometimes we have to live with our mistakes our entire life. However, the love of Jesus minimizes the pain from our mistakes

●The love of Jesus turns our heart to His way while turning our heart away from going our way. The love of Jesus calls us to surrender and open ourselves to Him. The love of Jesus helps us get through the day without fighting.

●The frustrations of life can make us angry. However, the love of Jesus heals us and keeps us from lashing out at others.

A Fix For All The World's Problems

Our lives are plagued by problems, adversities, and challenges which often seem never to end. In many cases, we can adjust to and work around our adversities. We can even get a cure for what ails us in our life. We could even get a cure for what ails everyone in the world. However, what would be changed if all the problems and ails of the world would suddenly be made to go away? Would there be no more war or could war come again? Would there be no more poverty or would poverty reappear? Would there be no more pain or would pain come again? Would there be no more darkness or would darkness come again? Tragically, even if we solved all of the world's problems today, tomorrow the old reasons for the present problems would begin eating away at us and all the problems would return. The old problems would return because what the world does not need is a quick fix to problems. What the world needs is a permanent fix for our hearts and souls from the hand of God…the hand of God delivering His healing Light…the hand of God seeking to touch us with His Love. This hand of God, this hand full of so much love, did come to us, but we nailed this hand to the cross in the most tragic crime we have ever committed.

Look For Small Positives

Looking for small positives is not a matter of thinking positively in negative circumstances. Looking for small positives is an attitude that helps us seek out the best opportunities and the best resources in every setting. If all we ever see is the negatives, we end up reacting only to the negatives. If we look for small positives, we have an opportunity to use the small positives to our advantage and use the small positives as a resource upon which we can build. Our life is filled with small positives but when we are in a negative frame of mind, we too often do not even look for the small positives, let alone see them. You cannot build upon a negative circumstance as easy as you can a positive circumstance. Most often, a negative circumstance requires time and resources to turn the negative into a positive. Negative circumstances like mistakes require fixing if fixing is possible. Positive circumstances not only require no fixing, but positive circumstances can be used to overcome those matters, issues, and events that are negative. In your life, you can do great things with your positive attributes, your positive talents, your positive traits, and your positive abilities. Your positives are your assets. Your negatives are your liabilities.

Speeding

Speeding

Have you ever been driving and not paying attention to your speed until you noticed the Officers lights flashing in your rearview mirror? Here are a few excuses that have been given by motorist who was speeding.

•My gas pedal got stuck.

•Don't I get a couple miles per hour over when I'm taking my grandchildren to the airport?

•I didn't know I was speeding because my lights were off.

•My speedometer is broken.

•I had a bee in my car.

•I've been drinking and I wanted to get off the road quickly.

•I am driving my friend to the hospital. He has alcohol poisoning. (The driver was also found to be intoxicated.)

•(After crashing) I put high test gas in my car and it caused me to lose control. (He was also found to be intoxicated.)

•I'm trying to catch that UFO. Will you try to catch it for me?

•I get 10 extra miles per hour in the fast lane.

•I'm wearing shoes that are really heavy and they make the gas pedal go down more.

•My doctor gave me the wrong medication.

•I'm headed to a divorce proceeding and if you met her, sir, you would understand why I'm in a hurry.

•I just got my license back after having it suspended and I'm not used to driving.

Many are speeding spiritually also and never take the time to slow down and enjoy their Christian life. Even Jesus slowed down from time to time notice what the Scripture says about that. Mark 1:35---And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed. If the Lord needed to do it don’t you think that you do too?

Changing The World

We do not always understand why God does what He does or how He does what He does. When we look at the world and see what the birth of Jesus in humble beginnings did for the world, we begin to get just an inkling of how God’s wisdom and love work in our life. In a worldly sense, you would think Mary and Joseph would have deserved better than a stinking cave where livestock was kept. In a worldly sense, you would think the king of the world should have been born in the world’s largest castle with hundreds of thousands of people standing by for the news. In a worldly sense, you would think the birth of Jesus should have set off some kind of beautiful revolution that changed the world in an instant with no pain and no suffering. However, in the worldliest way of looking at how things make sense, the world does not make sense. In the worldliest way of looking at the world, the world has gone insane. In our insanity, God is always trying to change the world from its insanity to sanity by the love brought to the world by a baby being born to simple people, in a stinking cave where livestock was kept.

A Breaking

Not Getting What We Want

Every person is born with a sinful nature. In addition, Satan has the power to make you want or even crave material things.

We too often confuse the power of evil or the ways of Satan with our not getting what we want in material things. If you are suffering because you did not get a new material thing, it is not Satan who is making you suffer, it is your greed, avarice, and love for things causing the suffering. If you are suffering because you did not get a new material thing, you are suffering because of your sinful nature. Your sinful nature causing your suffering can be eliminated when you surrender all you are to Christ. Satan does not always have to work to get you down by not giving you material things. You can get yourself down when you do not get what you want. In addition, you cannot come against Satan and use God to get your material thing. However, you can break the deadly grip of wanting material things by giving up all you are and giving up all you have to Christ Jesus. When you live totally for Christ, the deadly grip of wanting material things is gone. You are then free. You are then living a life of victory and dominance.

Our Mission

When we fully believe the love of Christ heals all wounds, then our life and our church become an instrument for God and of God. When our life and church becomes an instrument for God and of God we have a mission for God. Each of us has a part to play in helping people lead better, fuller, more holy, and more devout lives. When we fully believe the gospel, great things start happening. Tragically, we don't have more people in the Christian faith. Even more tragic, we don't each have an individual mission we have accepted from God. In the Southwestern United States, during the region's formative years in the 1800s, a mission was both a building and also a group of missionaries. Can you imagine the impact and excitement a little group of people could have in your city or neighborhood if everyone in the group had the zeal of a missionary? Another definition of the word "mission" is the meaning associated with a course of sermons and services designed to quicken the faith and zeal of Christians or to convert unbelievers. Who gets quickened today? Religious fire and fervor sometimes come out in a church service with a lot of vocalizing of Amen's and hallelujahs. But the fire and fervor of the Christian faith must also come out in what the church does in the world. The evangelical fire that only stays in the church sanctuary does not help the work of God as much as letting the Light of Christ's love burn brightly in the world outside the church walls. Love must be taken to others who are not in church. Our mission should be to let Christ's love burn within us outside the church walls.

QUESTIONS

I asked God to take away my pain. God said, no. It is not for me to take away, but for you to give it up.

I asked God to make my handicapped child whole. God said, no. Her spirit was whole, her body was only temporary.

I asked God to grant me patience. God said, no. Patience is a by-product of tribulations. It isn't granted, it is earned.

I asked God to give me happiness. God said, no. I give you blessings. Happiness is up to you.

I asked God to spare me pain. God said, no. Suffering draws you apart from worldly cares and brings you closer to me.

I asked God to make my spirit grow. God said, no. You must grow on your own, but I will prune you to make you fruitful.

I asked for all things that I might enjoy life. God said, no. I will give you life so that you may enjoy all things.

I ask God to help me LOVE others, as much as he loves me. God said... Ahhhh, finally you have the idea.

A Handle On Life

Life for many people is like riding a raft down a river without any poles or oars. For many people, life runs to extremes. The circumstances of life can be like riding on raging rapids or like being stuck in a stagnant pool with no movement. An essential truth of life is that either you control life or life will control you. There is, for many people, no choice over their circumstances and they have no voice to express their pain. An eighty-five-year-old person in a nursing home, it would seem, has few choices about life. However, there are a few choices a person confined to a nursing home can make. A nursing home resident can love God, love others, and pray. The reality for every person is that if you don't have a handle on life, life will handle you. There is always a choice about how you will be. You may not have a choice about what you do in a circumstance, but you do have a choice about the kind of person you are. You may be caught on a raft on a raging river with no control over where you are but you can control how you respond to that circumstance. The great tests of life are the tests that require humility, courage, love, compassion, mercy, and forgiveness. You control the result of your test. You pass or fail based upon what you desire. You have a choice about being a child of God. You have a choice about loving God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your might. You have a choice about accepting Christ into your heart and life.

Controlling How You Live

Although we do not control where or when we die, we can control how we live and what adversity in life does to us in the meantime. The idea of taking charge, of taking on life rather than letting life take on us, is not so revolutionary an idea on the surface. However, the idea IS revolutionary underneath. The idea of controlling our life is revolutionary when we take charge of our heart, our mind, and our soul. For many of us, our life seems to be controlled by powers and forces beyond our control. We do not control our aging. We do not control some of the issues we face in our health, in our relationships, in our finances, or in many of the other aspects of our life. However, if we want to do so, we can control how we respond to what we face in life. We can control whether we respond with despair or with hope. We can control whether we respond with weakness or with power. We may not control many of the exterior circumstances of our life. We can control our interior circumstances. We always have a choice in controlling our life. We always have a choice every minute over how we will and can respond to every circumstance.

Finding Hope and Security Now

In the adversity of life, we can and do ask… "How can I be secure where I am? How can I feel like good things will happen when everything has always gone bad? How can I find hope and security when life has devastated me so?"

In response to these kinds of questions, we must remember things change and times change. As Christians, we can look over the horizon knowing the paradise of God waits to receive us. All human beings and all living creatures come to an end. In addition, with us coming to an end, so will our pain, hurt, disappointment, and sorrow as we sail upward to our new home in heaven. Moreover, when things are at their worst, we can always take charge enough to go to God. In God, we find rest from the turmoil and strife we must endure. God is a shelter from the storms of life if we will only go to Him and trust in Him. Trusting in God may not change your circumstances on your outside. However, trusting and having a hope in God changes everything on your inside. There are many things on the outside we cannot change, but the inside is God's territory or kingdom. He will rule there if we give Him a chance and learn to keep out of His way as we go His way.

Psalm 9:18---For the needy shall not always be forgotten: the expectation of the poor shall not perish forever.

From Possibilities to Events

Psalm 139:16-17--- Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!

When we see possibilities in the tough times of life we can act upon these possibilities.

Possibilities can become probabilities when we act on the possibilities.

Then, when we act on the probabilities these probabilities can become certainties.

We can make things happen when we see this chain of events going from possibilities to probabilities, to certainties, and then we act upon the possibilities.

When we see the chain of events and the connections, our level of expectation can reach its highest point.

Possibilities can become certainties in our life because we have an intangible substance within our heart and soul called faith.

Real faith in the Light of God and the Light's tender care for us is a positive expectation grounded in the certainty of our human experience.

Real faith in the Light of God's tender care results in a positive expectation so strong even impossible circumstances become actual events.

Being The Light

Matt. 5:14---You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden.

It only takes a tiny light to illuminate the darkness. In scientific terms, darkness is nothing, light is something. Darkness is the absence of energy. Light is the presence of energy. In your life, no matter who you are or where you are, you carry the energy or spirit of Christ to all those around you. That spirit is passed on from person to person, illuminating the darkness of their lives. If we could track it, your transmission of Christ’ spiritual light could be traced as traveling all over the world. When we face reality, each of us is critically important to God. We are important because we are His way of getting His love into the world. God’s love is best delivered by you, in all the ways you can think up, in all the ways you can create, in all the ways He leads you. You carry the torch of the Love that sustains all that is. Too many of us do not want to believe we could ever be this important, but we are. If those of us who love the Lord deeply were to disappear from the earth, what would be the effect? You know the answer. If those of us who deeply love the Lord were to disappear, what would be the effect upon our friends, co-workers, contacts, and family members who remain? You know the answer. You are indeed "the light of the world." Let it shine.