A FORBEARING SPIRIT

 “Let all men know and perceive and recognize your unselfishness (your considerateness, your forbearing spirit).  The Lord is near (He is coming soon).”  (Philippians 4:5 AMP)

When I as at Mission School I struggled with giving up control of the things happening around me.  Before I entered Mission School I was active in various leadership positions and the leader of worship in my church.  In preparation to go to Mission School the Lord impressed upon me that I would have no leadership positions and that I would be learning how to follow.  This was a very hard thing for me as those of you who know me personally understand I tend to be forthright, seeing things in black and white with no gray areas, and like to have “all my ducks in a row”.  Well, let me tell you:  your row of ducks can fly off at any time and mine did!

I often became frustrated when I saw others struggling with leadership positions, stumbling and falling and affecting those around them – including me.  I wanted to step in and fix the problems.  That was part of my nature, to logically look something over and fix it.  That was part of my “old nature”, the unredeemed part of me.  The Lord used Mission School to teach me what a forbearing spirit was.  He allowed me to go through those struggles so that I could become more like Him – unselfish, considerate, and forbearing.

Unselfish – not being concerned excessively or exclusively with one’s self, not seeking or concentrating on one’s advantage or well-being without regard for others.

Considerate – marked by or given to careful consideration, thoughtful of rights and feelings of others

Forbear - to choose not to do (something that you could do): to avoid doing or saying (something)

God graciously moved upon another student to point out my faults in this area.  She left me a note in my locker quoting “Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time.  Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man” (Col. 4:5-6 KJV).

The Holy Spirit convicted me of how I tried to fix others defects as I saw them.  He instructed me that this was HIS job, not mine.  I repented of trying to fix others.  I repented of trying to control the things around me.  I acquiesced to His will for my life and when I did He filled me with His joy and peace.  When faced with other people’s failings I found myself not trying to figure things out but rather I prayed quickly for them to find God’s way to do things.  I found peace in the turmoil.  That is a great place to be.  In my yielded heart God started to change me and stir in me the compelling desire to go hard after Him (Ps. 63:8).

Have I, as they say, “arrived” at my destination in this area of my life?  No, my “old man” tends to want to exert itself as I see a problem or issue I think I can or should control but I submit to the Lord and release this “old man’s” desire to Him thus working out with Him the salvation of my soul:  “be keener than ever to work out the salvation that God has given you with a proper sense of awe and responsibility. For it is God who is at work within you, giving you the will and the power to achieve his purpose” (Phil. 2:13b PHILLIPS).

Brothers and Sisters, it is time to put our differences aside.  These differences, these annoyances, these frustrations only serve to separate us and distract us from God’s calling on our lives, which is to reach the unsaved around us and be God’s conduits to draw them into His Kingdom.  How can we do that when the unsaved see us squabbling among ourselves?  It is time to quit trying to exert our own ways.  It is time for forbearance because the days are short and the Lord will return soon.  It is time to go hard after God!

HE KNOWS ME, PERSONALLY!

The other day I was watching a documentary regarding mankind and how we have transformed life on earth from being “hunters and gatherers” to the modern age we now live in.  One of the points in this documentary struck me with how vast the population on earth has become so I then spoke out loud to the Lord, “…and You know each one of us PERSONALLY!”  Just thinking about that baffles the brain.  With over seven billion people on the earth, God KNOWS and LOVES each one of us PERSONALLY!  He knows me personally.  Now that is humbling!

“For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. They are plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” – Jeremiah 29:11 TLB

(Other references:  Deut. 31:21; 1 Sam. 16:7; 2 Sam. 7:20; 1 Kings 8:39)

ROAD RAGE

OK, be honest with yourself; have you ever experienced Road Rage?  No?  I think you are not being honest with yourself.  Simply put, Road Rage is where an individual or individuals experience anger at something another individual does while driving.  Can you tell me that you have never been angry at something someone did while you were out driving?  I know I have.  In fact, just last Friday, while traveling down California Highway 99 on my way to an awards ceremony, someone had the audacity to pull on to the highway from a side road almost right in front of me causing me to stomp on the breaks a bit.  My first thought was, “Is that guy crazy?!”  My first thought was the beginning of Road Rage.  So now, be honest with yourself.  Have you ever experienced Road Rage?

Well, maybe your Road Rage was not as strong or severe as the rage that caused former New Orleans Saint’s defensive end, Will Smith, to lose his life and end with his wife also being wounded this week, but rage is anger and it is easy to sin when angry.  The apostle Paul knew how destructive anger could be.  Before he gave his life over to the Lord, as the man named Saul he vented what he believed to be righteous anger at a sect of Hebrews who were following a man (Jesus) who had died as a heretic of the Jewish faith.  He let his anger fuel his hatred to propel him to persecute the believers of Jesus.  Yet, when he had an encounter with Jesus he did an abrupt turnaround and his anger turned into belief of just Who Jesus is and he ended up evangelizing throughout much of the Roman Empire.  If anyone could speak about anger, it is Paul and here is what he had to say,

“Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:  neither give place to the devil…let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:  and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you” (Eph. 4:26-27, 31-32 KJV).  Paul knew what the answer for anger was.

Most people I know when quizzed as to what the opposite of anger is say “love”.  The Bible never said this. We know the opposite of love is fear (1 John 4:18).  I like how Eph. 4:32b puts it, “forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you”.  I submit to you that the opposite of anger is forgiveness.  We know that when someone offends us we are to forgive him (Luke 17:3-4; Eph 4:32; Mark 11:25; Matthew 18:20-22).  Anger seems to have no room to grow or fester when forgiveness fills our hearts.  Maybe also, not so ironically, love also grows where forgiveness prevails and forgiveness grows out of a love-motivated heart.  So, it seems that forgiveness and love go hand in hand helping one another to motivate us to the work God calls us to (Eph. 4:2; Rom. 14:8; Gal 5:13; 1 John 4:7).

So what should we do the next time someone cuts us off in traffic or hits our vehicle in a fender-bender?  My hope and prayer is that we are already practicing forgiveness and love, and then it will be our automatic response!  Do you want forgiveness and love to be your “second nature”?  Start practicing it now.

DOUBT

Have you ever doubted that God existed?  I have.  Even after I had been a believing “born-again” Christian I came to the point where I thought I was deluding myself.  Maybe I made it all up just to feel like I “belonged” somewhere.  This time of turmoil in my life came when I was on a short-term mission trip to Jamaica.  I went with our outreach group to a local hospital in the mountains and as we visited a children’s ward my heart started grieving over the lives of the children I saw.  Overcrowded beds and cribs were filled with two to three children in each bed/crib.  I saw an eight year old girl dying, gasping for her final breaths, and no one touching her or holding her hand.  How could there be a God in the world tolerating such injustice?!

After visiting this hospital I got off by myself and decided I was going to determine this issue about God once-and-for-all.  I prayed cried and prayed some more.  I called out to God, “Are You really there?  Do You really exist?”  I felt angry and betrayed.  “If You are really there, God, answer me!”

After I had cried so much I could not work up another tear and after I has spent myself emotionally I just quietly sat there.  I heard this very quiet voice ask me, “If I fail you, will you still trust Me?”

Does God fail us?  No.  But God was seeking a yielding in my heart and life.  You see, I had a worldly concept of God and what His justice is.  Like the world I hated to see suffering and considered it unjust…AND BLAMED IT ON GOD!  God wanted me to yield this “stinking thinking” to Him.  He knew the only way was for me to actually make the commitment to trust Him even if He failed me.  I made this commitment that day and grew ever so much closer to Him.  I discovered the fact that although belief can be supported by what we see, it is ESTABLISHED by total yielding to God whether we see the desired results or not.

I think the song “If Heaven Never Was Promised To Me”, written by Andre Crouch and recorded by Christian recording artist Evie Tornquist, says it best:

You may ask me, why do you serve the Lord?

Is it just for heaven’s gain?

Or to walk those mighty streets of gold,

And to hear the angels sing?

Is it just to drink from the fountain?

That never shall run dry,

Or to live forever, ever and ever,

In that sweet, sweet by and by?

Well, if heaven never was promised to me,

Neither God’s promise to live eternally,

It’s been worth just having the Lord in my life,

Living in a world of darkness, but He brought me the Light

If there were never any streets of gold,

Even a land where we will never grow old,

It’s been worth just having the Lord in my life,

Living in a world of darkness, but He brought me the Light

Well, He’s been my closest Friend down through the years,

And every time I’ve cried, you know He’s dried all my tears,

It’s been worth just having the Lord in my life,

Living in a world of darkness, but He brought me the Light

Is God calling you to yield something in your life to Him today?  Yield it to Him now.  He is ready to bring you the Light!