Tuesday, November 8, 2022

Healing Allowed...Coasting...is Not.

Healing Allowed...Coasting...Is Not.
by David Brenneman

Our days aren't to be wasted.  Our days indeed are sometimes spent healing from the bumps and bruises of this world. Sometimes even from the Spiritual surgeries that happen in the course of our lives as directed by the Holy Spirit.  Anyone spending any time in a hospital is told to rest.  To build up their strength. Likewise if you've been in one long enough, without mincing words...they would prefer to kick you out because you're strong enough to be back in the world.

We have a purpose in this life in Christ Jesus, for those who have already come to Him for salvation.  First is our walk with Jesus.  We're to grow in our relationship with Jesus as we go about our day.  Second is our placement in the body of Christ.  Doing that which the Spirit of God has in mind for us to be doing.  Our calling as it were and as it is.  Third is to make the most of our days because the days are evil. 

Spend any time in the New testament from Acts to the last letters that Paul wrote and you certainly do not find a man who wasted his time in life. He certainly was dedicated to the cause of Christ in every way that his obedience took him.  This isn't just his personality. This just wasn't who he was.  His dedication came from the knowledge of the truth of God in his life.  He could see no other future than that of full obedience.  He certainly lived out taking up his own cross to follow Christ.  In no way is it ever seen or could ever be said that he ever took the time to coast.  To go off and do what the world enticed him to go after.

He taught Timothy to follow his life and conduct, we read that. We read that what he wrote, which became the inspired word of God, was to be repeated.  The Spirit wouldn't have included it in the Word of God if it wasn't to be a daily practice.  Paul ran the race.  He didn't look for benches to sit on during the race.  Think on that one for a moment.  

There's a plethora of video's out there of 'come from behind' wins in the world of track.  People who stumbled at the start who somehow found their groove and just took off like nobody's business.  In the NASCAR world, years after he would become a commentator, Daryl Waltrip used to teach younger driver's one key thing: Find YOUR groove.  Run YOUR race.  It's not always good to just follow where others go.  He saw it in action with Carl Edward's in one of Carl's earliest big wins.  Carl did something that probably shouldn't have been done but since nobody had told him it wouldn't work, he tried it and won.   It was so good of a move in the last lap to win the race, the likes of Jimmy Johnson copied it and used it against Carl the following year.  Carl's move had made it to the training tapes of even those who already were considered winners.

One of the fruits of the spirit is perserverance.  We are to persevere in our walk with Jesus.  It means not sitting on our laurels.  It means not going from bench to bench or seat to seat or bare spot on the ground to bare spot on the ground.  It also means not wasting our time.  Which the world preaches and teaches us that we've earned the right to do!  This world encourages us to spend money we don't have to impress people we really don't like and we end up in debt that we don't want and cannot repay...and wants us to enjoy it along the way!

We who are in Christ have had our identity changed.   Our life has been given meaning.  Our life has a worth-while purpose.  Our life isn't going to be same-ole same-ole in living it.  Scripture says that He came to give us life, but not just life, life more abundant.  It will have higher highs and lower lows than we think are even possible but that's part of being His workmanship.  That's part of those times when healing from the work of the Spirit in us is necessary.  

Giving our testimony.  As I was answering that question yesterday it really was clear.  We give our testimony in front of Believer's to encourcage them.  Both to bolster those firm in the faith but to also draw back those who have drifted from their first love, which is Christ in us.  We give our testimony to those who have not yet come to Christ to show them a still better way to live life.  To show them that the love that Jesus showed us is available for them as well.  

It's about life-change.  Not life-same.

We are taught these days think of self, even in the midst of the world of being married.  The truth is, look at those who've been married decades, look at those who've been through the throws of life for 40-50-60 years together and you see the truth of God's Word.  Preferring one another above ourselves is why Christian marriages do last as long as they do.  Marriages atypically end because of some form of selfishness.  Marriages last because forgiveness of wrongs happens as well.  Jesus forgives our sins and remembers them no more.  Doesn't mean that we won't have real-world reprocussions from our sins.  Asking Jesus to forgive us for a traffic ticket isn't going to get the ticket waved.  We'll still have to pay it.

We aren't to waste our time that we've been given.  We have no guarantee that we have a rest of today.  Think about that seriously right now.
You do not have any guarantee that you will stand up where you are right now and not fall over dead.  The very breath everyone breathes is a gift from God.
The very fact that everyone's heart continues to beat is because of a gift from God to show the world a still better way to live life. Every heartbeat has a divine purpose.  We have a purpose in Christ and it's not to sit idle.   We have a reason to live each day and it ought to begin with "Ok, Jesus, what have you got for me today?  What is it you need me to be doing for you?"  That is setting aside of self in order to bring about what God wants in us.

Healing.  Oh the Spiritual surgeries are often quite painful.  In the day that the accident happened to me in 2003 I couldn't think of there being heavy recovery times.  Didn't seem possible.  They had to convince me with an x-ray that 2 inches or so of one of my right arm bones was broken away from the bone itself.  That if it wasn't set exactly right, they would need to cut open my wrist to smooth the bone and make things right.  That was a slap to the face, and a blow below the belt to me.  I was facing my first ever major recovery of something.  Decades earlier I had an incident where my hand went through a glass window but that reovery was nothing like this would turn out to be.  In this instance of needing to be in a cast for 6-8 WEEKS, this was to be something, at least to me, other worldly.  Oh the prep and putting on of the cast wasn't difficult.  Oh the going home with it on wasn't bad.  It was the trying to go to sleep that became the problem.  We quickly found that I couldn't sleep in the same bed as my Wife.  It was dangerous. I was either hitting myself with it or hitting her with it during the night.  Then the discomfort of the position of it came to bear.   Sleep was very very elusive in the first weeks of it.  Crying out to God became an hourly thing not just daily.  Crying tears that flowed.  This wasn't just a physical healing but God was using it to do something in me.  He needed to change something in me that wasn't going to be changed any other way.  He needed me to quit holding back part of me.  He needed me to trust Him when the time would come to get out of my shell.  Not too much longer after my recovery of the physical part.  Which indeed was a miracle.  I can remember distinctly the relief at the new x-ray showing that the bone had EXACTLY gone back to where it needed to be with no requirement of surgery to correct.  That valley of that shadow of death to me was rough but Jesus brought me through it...with a new purpose.  I ended up doing things new to me afterwards.  I actually preached a few sermons from the very pulpit that was in place in the church I grew up in where I had come to Christ years earlier.  Normally I would not get in front of people for anything.  Yet it happened.
A decade later almost yet another thing happened and it wasn't instigated by a physical thing.  It was just the Spirit of God saying the right thing at the right time that caused my walls to come down.  It was at a Sunday Night service and I'm not even sure what was said but I remember staying at the altar crying.  It repeated the following Sunday as the second part of the sermon was preached.  I knew I had to do more to set aside or stop things in my life that weren't approved to grow me in Christ Jesus.  To stop wasting the time given to me.  Jesus had a purpose for me and I wasn't doing it.

I'm not sure of the day when this blog began but I'm sure of receiving the message from God to begin it.  I'm sure I can go back far enough in the blog history to find the date.  People wonder if God speaks to people these days.  I can assure you that there are precise times in my life when Jesus indeed spoke to me. Verbally.  Yes it's a very real thing it's not voices in my head saying what I wanted to hear.  Obedience to the World of God gets rid of the noises of this world so that we can hear the voice of God.  The Bible is repleat with examples of people who hardened their hearts to the will of God, of people who covered their ears and didn't want to hear the truth of God conscerning them or their nation.  Warnings preceded those times of judgement from God.

In my life I know full well that 23 years ago Jesus spoke to me in my Jeep and told me "There she is, take care of her and don't mess it up" before I ever spoke to my future Wife face-to-face.  She had gotten home from work and after I had turned into her driveway to see her turn around and look at me, those are the words that I heard.
In the accident of 2003, right before impact, I heard as a hand went over my face to close my eyes "I don't want you to see this".  This was in a vehicle with no air-bag.  Yes I had a broken arm from it, but God kept the seatbelt from pulling out of the floorboard.  It pulled the bolt 4 inches upward from the floorboard but it held.
In the beginning of this blog: "I have things that I want you to write and it's on you to write them."  Without fail every day I've been given something to write. The whole website name: www.ascribeonthewall.com comes from the Old Testament.  A scribe was a writer.  A watchman on the wall was the one charged by God to warn the people of pending dangers.  If they warned the people and they heeded the warning then all was good.  If he didn't warn them and disaster happened their blood was on his head.  If he warned them and they didn't listen...he was safe and it was on their own head.  Combining the two is what this is.  It's on me to write what I'm told when I'm told.  There's been a more than a few days when the Spirit has provoked things in me to write and it's been written.

You, my Dear Reader, have a purpose in your life in Christ.  If you haven't come to Christ yet, your purpose awaits you.  There's more to this life than what we see. We have more to do than we know about.  Jesus taught the importance of setting aside of self to live His life for the Father's good pleasure.  Paul taught the very same in the example of his life.  Setting aside what would encumber him to run the race set before him. 

We indeed might get called to step out of our shell.  Has happened multiple times in my years since 2003.  Indeed people will be hard on you or not even understand you for doing so.  Being steadfast regardless of what life tries to throw at you isn't common.  Too many when life stays persistantly hard give up rather than clinging to God's truths.  When people persist they quit.  I still go back to that passage in Romans. The gifts and calling of God are irrevokable.

Your choice begins with obedience regardless of what you see.  Our eyes will deceive us in what may or may not happen.  When we do what God's put before us that's when the hand of God can and will be seen.  We need to be willing to do what it is that is part of His plan until our time on Earth is up.  He who seeks to find his life must lose it.


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