Upward I look…

Why do I often choose to chew on my unwanted thoughts instead of let go and let God? I want Philippians 4:6-7 (boldness added) to be my knee-jerk reaction when anxieties hit:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

I want and need to more frequently take God up on this offer. I want His peace to replace anxieties. Perhaps this passage is or will end up being the most often consciously activated verses in my life.  I suppose the concept of an “easy struggle” is an oxy moron, but if God’s spirit is in me, what do I have to fear?

Dear God, thank you for your power and care. When anxieties hit, please fight them for me. Please replace them with Your peace. Thank you…

I suppose most any unhealthy, obsessive anxiety would be unhealthy. Would be convenient to sometimes/often change the topic of the anxieties…but even if that were possible, it wouldn’t be pleasant to dwell on those other things either.

We all have different struggles. No use in questioning why we can’t trade struggles. Maybe at times our struggles need to pierce deeply so that we’ll more often flee to Him and rely on His power.

1 Peter 1:6-7 (boldness added) says:

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

Dear God, please strengthen my faith through the trials. Make me frequently turn to you. Thank you.

One type of anxiety that I frequently face is a type of obsessive honesty, for example, worrying about what I said or may have said. Often what is said doesn’t need to be corrected because it is so insignificant and I should follow the law of love rather than my drive to ‘right the (potential) wrong’. Perhaps what I often do is worry about how to ‘work’ my way out of sin or potential sin.  I think it would be healthier to just more often treat it as sin and confess it and move on, even if it was accidental or not really a sin.  Rather than worry about what I may have said, perhaps one strategy I could employ would be to assume the worst and just turn to God to reflect upon His forgiveness, perhaps asking Him for help, and move on. Of course sometimes some things may need to be rectified, but often times the obsessions hit over minor things that need to be let go.

I need to look to God when guilt and false guilt strikes. Here are the first two stanzas of Before the Throne of God Above (boldness added)

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea.
A great high Priest whose Name is Love
Who ever lives and pleads for me.
My name is graven on His hands,
My name is written on His heart.
I know that while in Heaven He stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart.

When Satan tempts me to despair
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look and see Him there
Who made an end of all my sin.
Because the sinless Savior died
My sinful soul is counted free.
For God the just is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me.

My mom strongly believes in the power of looking to Christ.  Here is a snippet of an e-mail she sent me in June:

I really believe in “looking”, however you want to put it, that is when the Holy Spirit again works miracles, unseen, in the soul.  Forgiveness comes, and through that, for some reason we can’t “reason” with—somehow that is when major work is done.  Who can explain being “born again”, that at that moment, when we “look” to Christ, that is when we are PROMISED the Holy Spirit comes in and helps us. 

Perhaps I’ll forever associate her with the stories of the thief on the cross and Moses’ lifting of the bronze serpent in the desert and her firm belief in the importance of looking to Christ. Here is a selection from another one of her June e-mails to me:

I saw a short little verse, as I had talked with Adam the other night a little about Moses lifting up the serpentin the wilderness, looking to Christ, etc.  I have talked with you before about this, about looking with our “eyes” aimed at Christ.  With no other pre-conditions, no special knowledge, no super-spiritual thinking, no promises of producing good fruit, bringing nothing, with “snakes” biting at our feet, confusions galore;  just looking.  No special words, no special prayers, just looking, knowing He has eternal life in His hand.

 

Ps. 25:15—My eyes are ever toward the Lord,

                        for he will pluck my feet out of the net.

 

When our eyes are toward Him, THAT is when He plucks us out of this net that catches us and tangles us mercilessly.  It is HIM, not our wrangling around that disentangles us.

There seems to be something powerful about looking to Christ. I want to practice turning to God more often. I think a result of that would be a stronger faith, which may affect others indirectly or directly if I share the power of looking to Christ.

Here are more thoughts from my mom, regarding the woman at the well and the gospel (though I put a blank to substitute for someone’s name):

The woman at the well.  She was clueless, as we all are.  Jesus said to her, simply,

 

“If you knew the gift of God,….. and who is speaking to you, ——-you would ask, and He would give you…..”

 

It’s as simple as that.

 

You know the gift of God (salvation).

\You know who Christ is.

All you need to do is ask, and you will receive.  It’s a promise.

And you did so.

 

You would think everyone would do it.  Not so.  I told this to ___________, as simple as that.  She said, disgustedly, “As simple as that?”   She didn’t want to hear any more.

 

Sure, like me, when I became a Christian, you don’t know the personality of Christ, all the workings of salvation, etc.  But you had enough information to want, and to know.  Like the woman at the well.  Everyone has mix-ups, and I am still finding I have them.  There is something called growth, etc. that comes with (age) in your case, and maturity and knowing more of God’s Word.

 

We LIVE in a state of salvation, we are living IN eternal life.  We are constantly being cleansed.  We are not always aware of our specific sins, and even if we are, many times we don’t want to acknowledge it to ourselves, or admit it to God.  Or bring it to God.  That happens in all of our lives, all day long., every single day.  Selfishness, conceit, greed.

 

The good news is we are always being cleansed, that our sins are forgiven for what Christ has done.  We are living IN “eternal life”.  People were waiting for the kingdom of God, but Jesus said it is among you.  NOW.

 

He who is forgiven much, loves much, Jesus said.   I don’t think this means you have to have been a prostitute or murderer.  I think it means we need to realize each one of us the debt we have to God for our great sin, each one of us, and as we realize this, we love God even more for His great grace.

 

When we are aware of our need of forgiveness, not just of specific sins, but of our whole personality, how we are prone to wander, and then reflect on our forgiveness, it brings us to our gratefulness once again.  We love much, as we realize it yet again, the great forgiveness God gives through Christ.  If we thought our sins were minor and that we didn’t need repentance at all, throughout our lives, would we love as much?

 

Not just you, but each one of us has greatly hugely, offended God.  And we would continue to be a stench, if we were not living in a state of forgiveness, the hope for ALL of us, ANY one of us, us regular people, people that are every day people, each one of us now has the right to be called a child of God.  By what Christ has done. 

 

So to preach the gospel to yourself every day, at any moment, any time when you are feeling so lacking—remind yourself of HIS PROMISE.  Look at the PROMISE.  You don’t have to do above and beyond, or think there are other Scriptures that may require more of you. You don’t have to wonder about your conscience, or if you are trying enough to beat your sins, or seeming to lose your battle with sin.  There is a promise, no holds barred, there for each one of us.  No other requirements.  Just what the promise says.

 

Take a simple Scripture with a simple promise and make it yours.  The woman at the well.  Take it at face value, it says what it says, no hold-backs, and take that promise for yourself. 

 

I have said to myself, “I am the woman at the well!!!. Jesus says to me the same things!!    I take that as His promise for me, right now, and always, that I know the gift, and I ask, and He promised to give eternal life, living water.”  It doesn’t matter how you feel, what sins you think are lurking that you think you need to be on top of.  No.  Take the promise for exactly what it is. 

 

You don’t need to ask again and again, just remind yourself of that very same promise. And be relieved.  Over and over and over again.  I have thought about the woman at the well very often over the last few years, and have enjoyed that promise to her, and made it mine.  I remind myself of it.   You are no “worse” than the woman at the well– 

On another note, one day I may think more about the different ways of thinking about salvation (at the conversion level).  I once asked a pastor about salvation, I think because my feeling that salvation is presented in different ways. In his response, he alluded to the story of the jailer in Acts 16:

He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”

They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.”

That seems so simple. I wonder how much one needs to know at the time of conversion, or if this can differ depending on the person. The person can learn different things at different stages, perhaps. One thing I may look into one day is the idea of Easy-Believism,  a term I first encountered  when talking with a friend. And this blog has a 4 part series on “The Abomination of Easy-Believism”. Maybe one day I’ll look into the matter or actually dig into Scripture and find instances of conversion and verses explaining salvation. I wonder how repentance fits into the picture. Or maybe we can just believe first, and when God’s Spirit enters us He provides the means of living in repentance? Repentance kind of seems to me to be a work, but maybe it is part of a repentant faith & state of heart…

Anyway, I digress…