Although The past two weeks have been absolutely incredible, witnessing and experiencing the true divine Peace God intended for me, He constantly continues working on my heart each day! Now I'm sure we all know that God can work and refine are hearts day by day, week by week. But many times in life, instead of believing this and living this out, we end up just agreeing with it and making it no more than a meaningless concept. So if your not experiencing His everlasting Joy, it's probably because you don't believe God can refine you right where your at! Know and Understand that He chose you before the foundation of this world. That His plan for you is Life, Peace, Joy and Love. That His Mercy and Goodness shall follow you each day, on this earth and in heaven. Know my friends that your worst day with Christ is far better than your best day without Him!
Now that are hearts understand we must strive for change, I want to move on to this lesson Christ has revealed to me and given me the privilege to share with you. This message is pretty deep so if you'd like to pray before you move into this post that'd be great!
So onto the question! Where is My Focus, is it in the Past, Present or Future? Your probably gonna say Present and some of you might truly be there! But I'm betting that a majority of us are not! This all came about Sunday morning at church when a dear friend of mine spoke to me about living in the present. I didn't think much of it until that message appeared three more times throughout the day. And as I thought more and more about this deep, heart bearing question, I had to admit I had been dwelling on my past and future events far to long. You see in the act of doing this each day I continued to build up a great big wall of fear and self pity. If you've ever gone on a Summer Project I'm sure you've felt the temptations of dwelling on the past in a negative unloving manner. Or possibly looking at your present situation and comparing it to the time when you had a great big community of Jesus Loving Friends around you 24/7 and you sit there murmuring and complaining about not having that anymore. Or maybe it's dwelling on an argument you had with a friend earlier, that you can't seem to let go and your continually reciting the things you wish you'd have said to their face when the arugment was taking place. There could be alot of other scenarios but the matter of the fact is that Christ does not want us going down that path at all! That's exactly what the enemy wants us to do. Because when we dwell on our current emotions for an extended period of time, we end up in a bowl of self pity and a heart full of envy and jealousy! Those feelings and emotions which started out as OK became unrighteous and we end up bowing down to our new Idol titled "EMOTIONS". No longer are we focused on serving Christ in the present moment, we are focused on ourselves and our pain. Love is pretty much out of the question at this point, it's all about us! We do the easy thing and dwell on our situation, instead of dwelling on God's Ultimate Ministry! Think about the story in the Gospel of Matthew 26:36-46 the night Jesus knelt down and prayed in The Garden of Gethsemane. Christ said " My Heart is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death" Although Christ is the perfect Son of God, He too feels sorrow and anguish! It's OK to feel that way, we learn most when we go through trials of suffering. But instead of dwelling in self pity Christ fell to the ground and said "My Father, may this cup be taken from me, Yet not as I will but as you Will." Although His heart hurt dearly and although He was overwhelmed with sorrow, Christ pressed on! He didn't let His emotions defeat His purpose to fulfill God's Will. This same message applies to you and me, whether we are living in the future or the past overwhelmed with the way life is going, we must carry on His Will even though we hurt! He will give us the strength to carry on, because He is our ROCK! The Father has equipped us with everything we need to live abundantly this day! Do not worry about the past and do not worry about the future, He has NOT guaranteed us tomorrow! So don't waste your time worrying about a day you may never see! Lets all dwell in the present and rejoice because we have so much to look forward to this beautiful day the Lord hath made! :)
Now that are hearts understand we must strive for change, I want to move on to this lesson Christ has revealed to me and given me the privilege to share with you. This message is pretty deep so if you'd like to pray before you move into this post that'd be great!
So onto the question! Where is My Focus, is it in the Past, Present or Future? Your probably gonna say Present and some of you might truly be there! But I'm betting that a majority of us are not! This all came about Sunday morning at church when a dear friend of mine spoke to me about living in the present. I didn't think much of it until that message appeared three more times throughout the day. And as I thought more and more about this deep, heart bearing question, I had to admit I had been dwelling on my past and future events far to long. You see in the act of doing this each day I continued to build up a great big wall of fear and self pity. If you've ever gone on a Summer Project I'm sure you've felt the temptations of dwelling on the past in a negative unloving manner. Or possibly looking at your present situation and comparing it to the time when you had a great big community of Jesus Loving Friends around you 24/7 and you sit there murmuring and complaining about not having that anymore. Or maybe it's dwelling on an argument you had with a friend earlier, that you can't seem to let go and your continually reciting the things you wish you'd have said to their face when the arugment was taking place. There could be alot of other scenarios but the matter of the fact is that Christ does not want us going down that path at all! That's exactly what the enemy wants us to do. Because when we dwell on our current emotions for an extended period of time, we end up in a bowl of self pity and a heart full of envy and jealousy! Those feelings and emotions which started out as OK became unrighteous and we end up bowing down to our new Idol titled "EMOTIONS". No longer are we focused on serving Christ in the present moment, we are focused on ourselves and our pain. Love is pretty much out of the question at this point, it's all about us! We do the easy thing and dwell on our situation, instead of dwelling on God's Ultimate Ministry! Think about the story in the Gospel of Matthew 26:36-46 the night Jesus knelt down and prayed in The Garden of Gethsemane. Christ said " My Heart is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death" Although Christ is the perfect Son of God, He too feels sorrow and anguish! It's OK to feel that way, we learn most when we go through trials of suffering. But instead of dwelling in self pity Christ fell to the ground and said "My Father, may this cup be taken from me, Yet not as I will but as you Will." Although His heart hurt dearly and although He was overwhelmed with sorrow, Christ pressed on! He didn't let His emotions defeat His purpose to fulfill God's Will. This same message applies to you and me, whether we are living in the future or the past overwhelmed with the way life is going, we must carry on His Will even though we hurt! He will give us the strength to carry on, because He is our ROCK! The Father has equipped us with everything we need to live abundantly this day! Do not worry about the past and do not worry about the future, He has NOT guaranteed us tomorrow! So don't waste your time worrying about a day you may never see! Lets all dwell in the present and rejoice because we have so much to look forward to this beautiful day the Lord hath made! :)
Wow This was truly incredible thank you so much friend! you have a beautiful heart!
ReplyDeleteOH MY GOODNESS THIS SPEAKS TRUTH IN REMARKABLE WAYS! Thank you so much for being a faithful man of God Ryan! Christ is using you in mighty ways and will continue to give you greater and greater blessings the more you follow His Will!
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