Comfort vs. Peace There is False Peace in the Comfort of our Sin

I can remember the exact moment as if it was just last night.  The uncomfortable silence and the heaviness on my chest.  The feeling of anxiety and dread and all of the feelings so overwhelming as I was thinking about Jesus.  I am laying there thinking about Jesus and my mind and flesh are going crazy.  After feeling that way for hours, which really was only a few fleeting moments, I get up and decide I need to numb this NOW!  Then as if all my problems and feelings were lifted, this is while I am sinning, I felt comfort.  Those scary feelings disappeared, no more dread, no more anxiety and I actually felt good in that darkness.  We seek pleasure because we cannot wait on God’s timing, but more so we seek those feeling to numb the other feeling that don’t feel good.  Now as God has been dissecting me and doing surgery on my soul I am recognizing how much trust and faith I have put in the comfort of my sin.  I never thought the darkness could feel so good and give me this false sense of peace.  It is true if we have never experienced authentic peace in Christ then we wouldn’t know the difference.  I know that was something that put a lot of fear in me that I had never really had peace in Christ.  Always in a losing battle because I would never trust Jesus and the Holy Spirit to fight the fight for me and help me at my weakest moments.  What an amazing con man I have been to myself and I have believed the lies for over 20 years, like selling ice to an Eskimo, oh yeah I am the Eskimo!  I have always allowed the comfort of my sin to be enough for me and all the while my heart and emotions were DEAD!

The comfort, however, never lasted it was always followed and I mean always by pure unadulterated, disabling and defiling shame.  The cycle of sin and addiction would just turn and turn and I would be there running full speed on the Sinner’s Wheel of Death. I wanted to say hamster but sinner’s sounded more powerful, just so you know.  WHY CAN’T I STOP, LORD? I’M SO SORRY, LORD! PLEASE HELP! I MEAN IT THIS TIME! And on and on the pleas of forgiveness, but never of repentance.  I would say forgive me and stop for a while and then I would see the damage I had done and you guessed it, right back into the cycle and the comfort of the darkness.  I had the belief that this was my thorn in my side and that was the excuse I was going to use until my last breath.  You see it’s easy to accept the promise of comfort because we know over time it will run out and you will have to renew it.  I am sure we all have that favorite couch or recliner and over time the comfort ran out!  I always chose to renew my comfort because the pain and thoughts that came with them were so overwhelming and SO LOUD!

True peace is found in Christ but not in the way many of think.  Peace in Christ comes through war with ourself.  We must allow Jesus and the Holy Spirit the freedom to help us in this war.  It is not much of a fight for the devil when we do this alone, WE GET WHOOPED!  The cool part of this is the devil and all his minions GET WHOOPED when we surrender to Christ.  It’s hard to explain in words, but peace in Christ is like when you have escaped death.  There is such a relief and exhale of joy as your life is flashed before your eyes.  You can stand still and know He is God, you stand in reverence.  The beauty of peace with Christ is the Holy Spirit opens the eyes of your heart and you can take captive and examine each thought and see where exactly it is originating from.  It’s comedic in a sense of how sin try’s to hide and it makes me think of “Peter Griffin” (Fat Guy from Family Guy) hiding behind a broomstick as if we couldn’t see him.  Seriously, God lets us see it not to remind of us of how we have fallen, instead to remind us of what He has freed us from.  This life needs to be lived day by day and moment by moment.  I challenge you to live with Christ first and truly see how easy life is.  I want you to tell me how being weak and believing in Jesus is a crutch for us to not truly experience life.  The battle for peace is not one for us to fight.  It is for us to turn over that fight to the true warrior in Christ Jesus, who will demand peace with failed resistance from the enemy.  Every Knee Will Bow! EVERY LAST ONE ON EARTH AND IN THE SPIRITUAL REALM.  We have Jesus, the Holy Spirit and Angels ready to protect us at all times and they will always answer to our plea of weakness and surrender! Amen

One Love, One King, All Christ

What do you see when you see me?

I have always wondered what it is about me that draws people near.  I have always been someone’s close friend for as long as I can remember.  There was always someone in my life starting as young as age 3.  What is it that they see? why me? was I safe? Did they really like/love me?  I have long wondered what people saw but more importantly what my close friends have seen in me through my lifetime.  I have been blessed to have several old friends and a few new ones that trust me and truly care about me.  It never fails and for all the years I wondered the answer was right in front of my face.  They see the Jesus in me.  I believe strongly our souls connect and there is a feeling of peace and a whisper of “It is OK, My Beloved!”  I know when I gave up protecting myself by not fully trusting people in my life, I started to feel and hear that whisper.

We cannot truly love someone if we are not willing to let them hurt us.  That was so hard for me to accept, I was amazing at faking that I allowed people into my trust.  Now that I am willing to be hurt, it has created some amazing relationships for me in my life. There are people that know me, the real me with no mask!  My prayer now as I spend time with my Papa is that the one relationship I desire to happen and hopefully soon, in God’s time of course, will Explode this feeling and truth for both me and my future wife.  What I have come to realize instead of longing for the day that I will meet her I should be meticulous in becoming the type of Godly husband she needs me to be for her.  If I allow God to work on me and I focus on him then when she does come it will be such a special and awesome blessing!

I wrote a few weeks back about when we look at our reflection in the mirror we should see Christ and now my wonder of what that will look like and feel like has become truth.  He has blessed me with a kind, loving, funny and honest heart.  Then as I give it to him my soul surrounds and heals the brokenness and the Holy Spirit guides like a floating feather.  There are some areas I need to let go and let God, but thankfully He has provided teachers, mentors and friends to guide me.  I, my friends, am so humbled to answer the question “What do you see when you see me?” I hope you see Jesus! Amen

One Love, One King, All Christ!

Chase vs. Pursuit

God put this question on my mind and heart about a month ago.  I decided to ask my friend who is a police officer what was the difference between the two, Chase vs. Pursuit.  He said in a chase you typically weigh the dangers and hazards ahead and the margin for error for safety to life.  If there is a high chance of danger the chase will usually be ceased and live to chase another day.  That made sense because I have many students over the years talk about “getting away” from the police chasing them on their dirt bikes.  Now he said in a pursuit, they are going to do whatever it takes to apprehend the suspect. He gave the example of when a police officer is killed in the line of duty, Law enforcement goes to DEFCON 5 and are relentless in their pursuit of the suspect and there is no stopping until the suspect is caught or killed!  The margin of error and the risk of hazards and safety to life are put to the side in a pursuit.

After chatting with my friend I realized what God was trying to teach me.  You see Jesus pursues us, he goes to the ultimate way of pursuing us by sacrificing his life so we would never have to lose ours.  We do have to carry our cross but never will we be nailed to it.  That is catching our soul by any means necessary.  He pursued us to the point of death.  He finds us in the moment of accepting him, which is him actually choosing us.  It is from that moment that no matter what we choose to do he continually pursues us.  He always makes a way to let us know that he loves us.  His pursuit of our heart, mind and soul is relentless is his God nature.  He desires us so deeply that he will pursue us in the deepest darkest and scariest places where he will grab us, embrace us and lift us to safety.   C.S. Lewis calls Jesus the ” Hound of Heaven” and there is such beauty behind that.  Blood hounds are chosen because they pursue the smell they are given not chase after it.  No matter what gets in their way they will find that scent!  This is what the pursuit of God coming after us looks like.

Then my friends, there is me.  I have known Jesus for over 21 years of my life and truly known his love for me and desire for me the last 10 years.  The problem was I have been ok in all that time with being saved.  Salvation was enough for me.  I believed that salvation was enough and the struggles I have will always be there and I will just have to deal with them for the rest of my Earthly life.  This is what life is about and ” call that George” ( A Trini expression).  The truth is for me and most of us is we are chasing after God and definitely not pursuing him.  I would serve him and glorify him but then when the hazards would seem to dangerous or honestly I would just get tired of chasing after him, I would turn to what was easy.  I heard someone say that people that choose the easy way have a hard life, but those that choose the hard way have an easy one.  We have to work and grind and pursue after our passions and Christ should be our number one passion.  When I got tired of chasing I would fall right back into the darkness and when you are there you are fed by your flesh and the demons around you.  They occupy your mind and fill it with heaviness and numbness and pain until you want to Chase after God again.  Then we are in that cycle and because there is no urgency in a chase, we repeat it over and over again.  This is what the Holy Spirit has revealed to me about myself.  He is telling me I need to Pursue Jesus by allowing the Holy Spirit to lead me.  We can’t do this life alone and usually when you are in a chase it’s one on one, however when you are in a pursuit there are typically several pursuing one.  We have that as children of the one true God.  We have Jesus, the Holy Spirit and angels to help us in our pursuit of God.  He also places people in our paths to help us realize we are not alone.  You don’t stop pursuing when you get tired, but if you do, you have all of these spiritual friends and human ones to help you continue your pursuit through the pain.  There is nothing in the Bible that tells us we will be pain or burden free in this life, but we are told in our pursuit of Christ that his yoke is easy and his burden is light.  He knows if we are pursuing him we are going to get fatigued, beat up and weak and this is where he can and will make us strong.  This will be aging me but I think of Jesus and the Holy Spirit a lot like the cartoon Voltron.  Each character would have a tough time alone.  That is me and all of you, my friends, alone we have a tough time.   However, when the characters would Voltron up and become the Ultimate Defender, they were UNSTOPPABLE!  Jesus tells us the same thing in that when we Voltron up with Jesus and the Holy Spirit, that all things that are impossible become possible.  Scripture tells us that what is impossible for man is possible for God.  I lived my life chasing after God and losing and listening to the lies of “I Don’t Matter.”  Looking for acceptance and validation in every part of my life.  I strived to be the best because I was terrified people would find out deep down I was a poser.  I would quit on myself, even in success, because I would get tired of chasing.  Now, that Jesus has overwhelmed me with his presence and the Holy Spirit has taken over I have made the decision to NEVER stop pursing after Jesus.  We are told to Never say Never, but I can because in my pursuit of Christ he makes all things possible, therefore it is possible for me to say Never in my pursuit because He is with me.

Jesus is worth pursuing.  I am reminded daily by the weight of my cross that I am and you are created in His image.  When we repent and turn away from our sin you are pure and clean in His eyes.  Once we are clean in Christ( and capture, examine and take every thought captive) there is a mental exercise I want to challenge you to do.  I personally have done this a few times and though I am bald headed, the hair on the back of my neck stands and goose bumps cover me and tears have filled my eyes.  The challenge is the next time you look in the mirror, remember this.  We are created in the image of Jesus Christ therefore our reflection in the mirror that we see is no longer me but Jesus! AMEN and AMEN

One Love, One King, All Christ!