Rejoice in The New Life and Years Ahead!

"...and put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness." 

~ Ephesians 4:24

"The God of Israel will be your reward." 

~ Isaiah 52:12

"Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!

Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand.

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." 

~ Philippians 4:4-7

"He who covers a transgression seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates friends." 

~ Proverbs 17:9

"And now abide faith, hope, and love, these three; but the greatest of these is love." 

~ 1 Corinthians 13:13

     This is a great piggyback from the previous post and a cosmic reminder for the year and subsequent lifetime ahead. I love to think about, and yes sometimes fanaticize, how the early church did 'it.' I mean, how were the prophets and believers able to get through life back then? Truth be told things were about as chaotic, messy, joyful, political and everything in between. But there is no other thing like the Word of God to remind and recalibrate the mind, body, and soul (Isaiah 40:7; 2 Timothy 3:16-17). Speaking for myself, His word is the only shoreline I'm needing to refocus on navigating my life toward without ceasing. Compared with what I know now and have been through in just the last 365 days, what I knew then and who I was then is anemic compared to today.

     The Lord will grant growth and the process will involve a little "pressure." Let's be honest, it will require quite a bit of pain, but with just the right amount of rest and comfort. As those who partake in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, our Lord never patches up our natural virtues, He remakes the whole man on the inside. Paul's clarion reminder to put on the new man is a reality where the natural human life puts on the garb that is in keeping with the new life. The life which God plants at salvation develops its own virtues, not the virtues of Adam, but of Jesus Christ. Watch how God will wither your confidence in the natural virtues of this world after sanctification, and in any power you have. The Lord does so because He wants me to learn to draw life from the reservoir of the resurrection life of Jesus Christ. "Thank God if you ae going through a drying-up season and experience." God does not build up our corrupted natural vibes, virtues, and values and transfigure them, because our natural self can never come anywhere near what Christ Jesus wants. We have to be transfigured into wanting what Christ Jesus wants.

     So, about the past, present, and future. God requires that which is past. At the end of the year we learn to turn with eagerness to all that God has in store for His future. Even though anxiety is apt to arise from what happened yesterday, it is usually tied to yesterday's sins and blunders. Equally, our present enjoyment of God's grace is also apt to be checked by the memory of His faithfulness despite our weaknesses and some idiocies in between. God's cosmic love and protection held and guided my yesterdays, and He allows the memories of them sometimes in order to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual culture for the future. God reminds us of the past lest we get into a shallow security in the present. This era of political upheaval is only one such reminder. Let me not forget, Lord. There is a lot of repenting and recalibrating to do.

     About tomorrow. Let us learn to slow down and not go out in haste. We do need to slow down. I need to slow down like for real for real. As I go forth in the coming year let it no longer be in haste and impetuous, unremembering my delight in my Father and Lord, nor with the kind of rushing of impulsive thoughtlessness, but with the patient power of knowing the God of Israel and the Universe will go before us and make a way (Zechariah 4:6; Luke 14:28). Our yesterdays present irreparable things to us; as a matter of fact we have lost opportunities which will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future.

Let the past sleep, but let it sleep this time in the bosom of Christ. 

Leave the Irreparable Past in His hands, and step into the Irresistible Future with Him.

(This article is adapted from "My Utmost For His Highest" by Oswald Chambers, 30 & 31 December)

     

Does the World See Your Love?

This interesting quick read came to me by email this morning from Breakpoint. It is about Ana Marie Cox (pretty much the creator of blogging) and her fear of publically confessing her Christian faith and commitment. Before reading further, I tried to figure out and predict why a newly converted believer would fear publically professing their faith in Christ. I couldn't have been more wrong...

(After reading this, which Scriptures come to mind? Thanks to Biblegateway.com, I count 19)

Why Ana Marie Cox Feared Coming Out as a Christian by Breakpoint

In 2004, a new player in what might be called Washington’s Political-Entertainment Complex was born, the blog known as “Wonkette.” A combination of satire, gossip, and sarcasm, “Wonkette” was the creation of Ana Marie Cox, who helped define the form of writing that would come to be known as “blogging.”

Cox left “Wonkette” and eventually Washington, but she never stopped being a symbol for a kind of liberal and snarky sensibility, which is why what she recently wrote about herself at the Daily Beast caused such a stir. Actually, it knocked my socks off, metaphorically speaking, of course.

She wrote that “Since leaving Washington, I have made my life over and I am happier, freer, and healthier in body and spirit and apparently it shows.” People ask her “what changed?” and “how did you do it?”

“The honest answer,” Cox writes, is “I try, every day, to give my will and my life over to God. I try to be like Christ. I get down on my knees and pray.”

This isn’t an answer she felt free to give in conversations with her colleagues in the media. She recalled telling people at Fox News about her faith and, to put it in less colorful language than she used, it didn’t go over very well.

To those who might see her previously “closeted Christianity as evidence of a liberal media aversion to God,” she replied that it had “nothing to do with fear of judgment by non-believers.” Instead, she was “nervous to come out as a Christian because [she worried that she was] not good enough of one.” Her fear wasn’t that “non-believers [would make her] feel an outcast.” She worried that Christians would.

Why would she worry about that? She saw the exchanges about whether the president is a Christian and wondered if, because of her liberal politics, they would ask the same questions about her. She admits that “the Word is still a second language I speak less than fluently” and wonders if she, too, is not a Christian in any “meaningful sense,” as was said of the president.

It’s an especially poignant question. Especially coming from someone who wrote that the fact she is “completely whole and loved by God without doing anything” is a “painful and reoccurring” stumbling block in her journey of faith.

The good news is that Cox’s willingness to share and be vulnerable touched a chord with many of the same Christians whose reaction she worried about. In a follow-up piece, she wrote that she “was proven wrong in the most wonderful way: I found amazing warmth and generosity that far outweighed criticism and negativity.”

She continues, “Many wrote to say that it was my brief discussion of my own insecurities that resonated the most strongly.” Others acknowledged that they have treated liberal Christians judgmentally.

In the end, instead of being the occasion of rejection, the public confession of faith prompted the “best response” she had ever received in her professional life.

Praise the Lord that Cox’s fears were proven wrong. This doesn’t mean that we can’t have real discussion about what it means to be a Christian and whether that should affect our political beliefs, because that’s something that I often do and think we all should do. But the question is, how do we do it? Now if we’re honest, we have to admit that sometimes we don’t love our fellow Christians as we should. Especially those with whom we may have disagreements. But if the world doesn’t see us love one other, will they know we are Christians at all?

BreakPoint is a Christian worldview ministry that seeks to build and resource a movement of Christians committed to living and defending Christian worldview in all areas of life. Begun by Chuck Colson in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today’s news and trends via radio, interactive media, and print. Today BreakPoint commentaries, co-hosted by Eric Metaxas and John Stonestreet, air daily on more than 1,200 outlets with an estimated weekly listening audience of eight million people. Feel free to contact us at BreakPoint.org where you can read and search answers to common questions.
Eric Metaxas is a co-host of BreakPoint Radio and a best-selling author whose biographies, children's books, and popular apologetics have been translated into more than a dozen languages.
Publication date: March 12, 2015