Letter to Self - regret, forgiveness and consequences

Dear Self,

Wish we knew then what we know now eh! - things would have been a lot easier to bear or to control but as it is, here we are you and me - just the two of us finally free of our dodgy past. We were never ever really good at owning our own mistakes. We were never one to admit we were wrong and ask for help. WHY were we like that? We will never know considering this amazing freedom that overwhelms us so much now.

It took me ages to compose this letter to myself which I should have written a long time ago but because of circumstances and pride I haven't and for that I am so sorry.

It was my prideful heart that ignored the fact that I really needed to sit down and compose this letter so here I go - please bear with me.

So where could I possibly start? Well I guess at the beginning may be a good place.

I hate living with regrets and I guess that is where we are at the moment - You and I have made a heap of mistakes over the years and along with the mistakes comes the consequences some of which can be lived with, others we find it difficult because of the huge residue they have left in our life.

You and I have lived with regrets most of our life and now, of all times, we have been convicted about all of them. We have come to a place where we can honestly say that we can hand our guilts, shame, memories and their accompanying consequences over to God and He has dealt with them.

Many people have denied God's very existence and we were one of them for such a long time, doing our own thing and living as we pleased. We played around with a lot of things and experimented with life and hurt so many people with our arrogance and pride.

We have hurt and been hurt by others. We have built resentment and carried a lot of baggage like a huge burden on our back for years and years. We have encouraged shameful memories of the past as well as carrying our vengeful acts against other people over some purported and warped sense of feeling that we are right and they are so so wrong.

You are I have committed some pretty dastardly deeds in our shallow past and try as we might we just couldn't rid them from our life. They stalked us mercilessly in their stubbornness of not letting us go.

It was in the stillness of night when our past deeds and shame used to love the best - remember how they came to us night after night flashing before like a never-ending slide show. We harboured them, listened to them and entertained their every thought and deed. Re-living every moment we seemed to absorb them into our very being until we began to live our life in a state of continual self-regret, unforgiveness and bearing the consequences.

We were certainly languishing in a life of malignancy for which there appeared no cure only more and more of the same - our very being seemed to crave more and more of the same hurts, regrets, vengeance, unforgiveness, pride and self-absorption.

Remember when we finally came to the point in our life where we felt we could no longer take this seemingly never-ending cycle of shame and regrets - there appeared like there was no possible answer. Our whole life was made up of 'steeling ourself for the battle" or 'looking after me".  We were number one, the first and the last and nothing or no-one would stop us achieving what we set out to do. You and I were ready for the battle, always prepared to confront anyone who we perceived stood in the way of our progress. Always ready with an argument to put us in a far better light that anyone who came across our path.

It was then that God spoke to us through an amazing set of circumstances and led us through a real time of baggage jettising that astounded us. We came to the realisation that God didn't want us to carry our heavy baggage throughout our life. He wanted us to be free. He wanted us to eradicate our guilt. He wanted us to come to Him to give Him our entire life.

Remember the feeling of the amazing relief that came to us that day when we fell to our knees in confession. That day when the Holy Spirit of the Living God came and took up residence in our life and made us a new creation in Him.

Sure we had consequences of our past that we still have to deal with. Remember how we had so many phone calls to people asking for their forgiveness for past wrongs? That was the very fist thing we had been convicted of. Making sure we were on a right-footing with others we had and have hurt. Part of the whole healing process was apologising and not seeking others to apologise to us.

Sure, there were some who wouldn't forgive even though we tried on numerous occasions and for them we are praying to our Heavenly Father, that they will come to see the amazing difference God can make on our earthly life.

The very Bible teaches us to confess our sins and have faith in the sacrifice of Jesus and His astounding resurrection. To trust Him completely in our life. Only then will we become children of God. If we do that we will be clean from our past no matter how dirty and dreadful it may be 1 John 1:12, Colossians 1: 15-22.

Sure there are still times in our life where we falter and even fall but the more closer we walk with God the less and less those times dictate to us how we should live our life.

So Self, thank you for listening to me and I praise God that you and I have become new Creations in Him and that the God's Holy Spirit has taken up residence in our life.

Philippians 3: 13-14 says "Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, we press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called us in Christ Jesus.

We don't have to live with regrets and unforgiveness. Let's put our hand in the hand of God and press on to the goal that He has before us

Three major questions about God - WHOA!! Abandonment, punishment & Killing

Had such an interesting and I'm afraid futile (as far as I was concerned anyway) conversation with a beautiful person on social media just recently.

This lovely Person had turned away from Christianity because they couldn't reconcile the God of the Old Testament to the God of the New.

We chatted and chatted for quite some time and we have left it to both consider the others viewpoints.

Afterwards I was left with this person's questions and actually they are quite good questions and deserve a thorough answer.

Question one evolved something like this

"If God is all-powerful and supposedly all-loving why does He condemn people to hell?"

Thinking about this question caused me to ponder some facts anew - I must admit I had come to that very question in my early life following Christ and it was surprisingly refreshing to think again on why does God send people to hell.

The thing to consider here in my opinion is the fact that God cannot and will never look on sin. He won't and in fact He can't. God is so holy that His very presence is righteousness itself - a bit hard for us even to contemplate because we are living in such a fallen and evil world.

We often try to put our minds into the minds of God and we often tend to think that God's mind runs along the same track as ours - so wrong - in fact we couldn't be more wrong. Isaiah 55:9 says

" As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways 

and my thoughts than your thoughts."

So God's ways are so so different than our ways - His thoughts are so so different from our thoughts.

God cannot and WILL NOT tolerate sin. God also gave us a free will - not a robotic will. He leaves us free to travel our own road - to deny Him or to accept Him. None of us NEED to be lost to Him NONE of us!

So would He allow a person to be lost?

Because of His great love God did everything He could so that we ALL could be saved. Sending Jesus to pay the price was that ultimate gift.

NO! He doesn't want us to be lost - any of us ever. But God does leave us free to pursue whichever way we choose.

the second question involved feeling "Abandoned by God" .

My social media friend had prayed and prayed about this and to them the heavens above were as steel. None of their prayers were answered in fact the opposite seemed to be more the truth. Instead of comfort there was stony silence and disaster.

OK so you are distressed, worried and have come to the end of your rope. Maybe a child is sick, your job is redundant - a myriad of things can go wrong in an instant - we have, most of us been there and done that.

We Pray - we feel God isn't listening - the silence is deafening - everything screams out to you that God is simply not there.

If it is any comfort here - We are not alone - many amazing Christians in the past have felt the same - C.S.Lewis and C.H.Surgeon are just two who have written copious amounts on this very subject. You just have turn to the Scriptures and read Psalms to realise that they are filled with cries of help to God.

Have you ever considered that you may be going through this trial for a REAL reason?
In 1 Peter1:6-7 we read this amazing bit of Scripture:-

 "In this rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been 

grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith 

more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire 

may be found to result in praise and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ."

So maybe you are going through this terrible trial period for a reason - the thing is, that we shouldn't fall away and shirk such trial periods but keep pressing on with Christ and relying on His promises and reassurances.

Please take heart knowing that sorrowful/sad/horrible times and even feelings of abandonment by God are all very important times of growing in your Christian walk. God has promised He will never abandon us - Keep walking the path by faith with Jesus the very author and finisher.

Question 3 was "Why did God allow such terrible violence in the Old testament?"

Great question and one I reckon such a lot of Christians have struggled with over the years.

My mind travels to the Canaanites - massacred by the Israelites - men, women and children. The Bible record is very clear that God commanded that they kill everyone.

For hundreds of years the Canaanites were disobedient to God - aware of His power but choosing to live immoral and disgusting lives - child sacrifice and incest etc.

We are all guilty of sin - each one of us - all born into sin but surely God doesn't condone infant killing? Just a thought on this - maybe God's very presence here in taking those little ones actually spared their lives to live with Him - maybe just maybe when grown they would have reverted to the culture of their day. Interesting thought.

At the end of the day, the issue of God actually commanding this violence in the Old testament is a truly difficult question for us to tackle.

My personal answer to this one is that it is entirely up to God, the giver and taker of life, to justify why these things are done and the consequences of that action.

The thing is that through his grace and mercy, those who are willing can repent and turn to Him and be saved.

The main thought to take away from the Canaanite experience here is, I feel, that God is a God who will NEVER tolerate sin. He is JUST yet HOLY and LOVING, GRACIOUS and MERCIFUL.

Turn to Him today - accept this amazing offer and start pressing on with Him.

God is with us through the tempting times

Ever been tempted - I mean really REALLY tempted?

It could be anything that floats your boat. Anything that takes control of your mind and/or body. Whatever your personal temptation is it can be pretty BIG and so so hard to control.

Be it finances and spending, gluttony and addiction to food, pornography and the heaps of traps and pitfalls that entails, drugs of choice; alcohol or the so-called 'hard' stuff, lying, cheating on your spouse, smoking; whatever is banging away at your hearts door at the moment and is so hard to push away.

Both believers and non-believers struggle with temptation and that being said it is absolutely no help at all when your back is to the wall and you feel like the very dogs of hell itself and baying for your blood.

Many many times we have just 'given in' because it is just too hard to fight. We feel like we are all alone and to some extent in lots of ways as the world sees us, we are, because temptations are such personal things, no-one really understands our own exclusive demons.

We ARE all alone in the world's eyes. "Get a grip" "get some help" "go to counselling" "push through it" are just some the worldly wise sayings when our temptations get the better of us and we finally seek help.

A friend of mine tried hypnotherapy to try to stop his temptations and lack of "willpower" to overcome them. The hypnotherapist gave him lots of advice, like "try listening to soothing music when you are tempted to stray" and "retire to bed early and focus your mind on a beautiful scene" and "try watching television before going to bed."

All that seemed to do was to bombard his mind with messages and images that promoted his temptation and lusts. The poor lad was overcome with guilt and self-condemnation.

So where do these temptation thingies come from?

Well the first thing to say is that they don't originate from God! - God cannot be swayed by evil and obviously that is what temptation is. It says in James 1:13 "For God cannot be tempted by evil, and He himself does not tempt anyone"

Throw yourself back to the gospel of Matthew, where Jesus Himself was tempted.

I would like to add here that I feel temptation is not a sin BUT it becomes sin when we allow our thoughts to become actions! Take for example greed or envy or lust - these are sins of the mind and are truly sinful - we can act on these types of sins in our minds. In Matthew 5:28, Jesus deals with these 'mind-type' sins and takes them to a whole new level.

No one knows what you are thinking in your own mind - no-one knows what is lurking there. But you do and so does God! Basically these 'mind sins' are still sin even though they may not have been acted upon.

When we give in and 'entertain' these mind type sins, they can lead to all sorts of 'actions' and eventually they will replace our relationship with God with a relationship with the world.

Back to Jesus in the wilderness. Tempted sorely by Satan. He was there forty days and nights. Makes me wonder how many other temptations Satan hit Him with other than the ones listed for us.

What was Jesus' reaction to temptation? Well, His amazing come-back to the evil one was "it is written". Satan can't do a thing about what God has decreed in His Word. Jesus knew the scriptures backwards and knew exactly what to say when temptation's evil came upon Him.

So what can we learn from this? If Jesus used the Word of God so effectively to ward off temptation then how much more do we need to immerse ourselves in the very same scriptures to do the same thing.

Satan's temptations can be so enticing - we allow ourselves to get carried away with our own thoughts and lusts - the Word says so in James chapter 1:14. we make decisions we shouldn't make - we go to places we know will lead us to more and more temptations. No wonder we fall so often.

So Okay - what do we do from here? Well, first of all we look to Jesus and His example as I have mentioned previously. We also need to be filled/powered with the Holy Spirit. All of our own efforts will be useless against the cunning and evil word of Satan.

Our minds need to be filled with Christ and His Spirit. Instead of filing our minds with stuff we know is only going to lead us to temptation, we need to arm ourselves with Christ and arm ourselves with the very power of God. How? by drawing close to Him daily, learning more and more of Him - asking His spirit to lead you away not towards your temptation.

On the night Jesus was betrayed, remember what He said to the disciples? "All of you must keep awake, give strict attention, be cautious and active and watch and pray, that you may not come into temptation. The spirit is indeed willing but the flesh is weak." (The Amplified Bible).

If we start living like this, our temptations will begin to weaken and completely go, if not we will continue to be vulnerable to all sorts of devious activities authored by Satan.

As Jesus Himself said - our flesh is indeed weak - if we leave ourselves wide open to lustful, greedy, envious and jealous thoughts, then because our spirit in Jesus is so weak, we fall into temptation time and time again.

We need to put some muscle of our fleshly lives and we can only do that by drawing close to the best muscle maker of all - Jesus.

We certainly need to avoid thinking and acting like the world thinks and acts - we can't keep playing the "Christian"and still hold onto our lusts and passions. We can't keep playing with the world and have Jesus dangling by a string - a sure recipe for disaster. Avoid the obvious paths that will lead us to temptation and we all know which paths they are that affect us personally.

When you read Matthew 5:29 Jesus tells us bluntly about removing our eyes or limbs if they cause us to stumble into temptation. I don't believe for a fleeting second Jesus meant literally to start removing body parts but He does want us to know how serious is temptation.

We need to do some pretty drastic housekeeping in our lives if we are to live for Jesus and avoid temptation and sin. We have to make sure we don't go where temptation is rife and not to put ourselves in a situation where we know temptation will abound.

We need to call on His name when confronted by temptation and I mean to literally throw yourself at Jesus - call out His name loudly if possible and feel His presence holding you tightly.

Even if our spirit is so willing not to be tempted, don't let our weakling flesh lead us into sin this week  - start building muscle with God - reading His word, holding court with Jesus and learning more and more about Him. Hold Him ever close to you. Feel His presence with you wherever you go.

God bless you as you stride out with Jesus - boldly holding His hand with the grace He has already given to you. Take whatever steps are necessary for you to avoid temptation and YES! you can do this with Jesus by your side.