THE TERRIBLE FEAR OF WHAT OTHERS WILL THINK OF US
I send greetings to you in the name of Jesus our Lord
It is my prayer that God's richest love reaches you through the words extended through me in the power of God's Holy Spirit. I want to take the time ever so often to relate to you from my personal life experiences what God has taught me in some great personal trials.
Some of the most deceitful things I have ever experienced as a Christian have been around what others may think about my personal testimony in Christ. This fear has caused me to actually give up ministry when I should not have. I have found that the very fear that I might make a mistake in the eyes of someone else has caused me to be very timid at times, and has allowed Satan to get a foothold in some of what should have been glorious victories in my life. Being too worried about what others have thought of me as a person has hurt my testimony and my witness in Christ. I spent a great deal of time trying to understand God's role in my life when all along I should have been trying to understand my role in His life. There is a really important difference between the two, and that is what I would like to take a moment to discuss with you today.
Like it or not most of us are very self-aware as people to what someone on the outside looking in think about who we are. We start to learn these things in first grade or kindergarten and continue to develop a sense of peer-pressure from that time through the rest of our lives. The influence of what someone else thinks plays over and over within our subconscious mind as we get older until we find ourselves going along with what we are told to think and do about almost everything in life. That is how the media gets such control over us because it shows us ( no matter if it is true or not) what the cool kids are doing or wearing, or driving, and for the most part we go along with that mental image because we are programmed from a very young age to not ever question it.
In the movie " The Matrix" the man was asked which pill he wanted to take? Was it the Red pill; that would show him the truth, or was it the Blue pill, that would put him back the way he had always been not knowing that anything was wrong and never knowing the truth about life? Today we too are kind of living out that same question when it comes to being able to see the real truth about life. Even though we are living our lives and getting along what we might consider as being " very well" there are times when there are glitches that show us things that greatly disturb us about who and what are actually pulling the strings of our lives. At some point, we must ask ourselves if we really want to know the truth, no matter how scary it may be, or should we continue to be led around in our lives by what the majority of others think about us?
God works in our lives differently from the time we come to Him for salvation all the way through our final days on this earth, and many times He does not take us the most popular routes in life to teach us very valuable lessons. There are many times things can only be learned from getting dirty. While it is the popular concept to always stay clean many people would never be reached by someone who had never experienced failure in their spiritual lives. There are some who must be dirty first before others will put any stock in their ability to know that God will forgive us all. What has your Holyness cost you in this life? Before we can live a Holy life we must first understand what it means. My mother would say "If everyone else was going to jump off a cliff would you do it too?" It seems like a lot of us are doing just that...It is time to take the "Red Pill" May you richly bless God through your life in Him.
THE UNWORTHY SERVANT
It is my prayer that God's richest love reaches you through the words extended through me in the power of God's Holy Spirit. I want to take the time ever so often to relate to you from my personal life experiences what God has taught me in some great personal trials.
Some of the most deceitful things I have ever experienced as a Christian have been around what others may think about my personal testimony in Christ. This fear has caused me to actually give up ministry when I should not have. I have found that the very fear that I might make a mistake in the eyes of someone else has caused me to be very timid at times, and has allowed Satan to get a foothold in some of what should have been glorious victories in my life. Being too worried about what others have thought of me as a person has hurt my testimony and my witness in Christ. I spent a great deal of time trying to understand God's role in my life when all along I should have been trying to understand my role in His life. There is a really important difference between the two, and that is what I would like to take a moment to discuss with you today.
Like it or not most of us are very self-aware as people to what someone on the outside looking in think about who we are. We start to learn these things in first grade or kindergarten and continue to develop a sense of peer-pressure from that time through the rest of our lives. The influence of what someone else thinks plays over and over within our subconscious mind as we get older until we find ourselves going along with what we are told to think and do about almost everything in life. That is how the media gets such control over us because it shows us ( no matter if it is true or not) what the cool kids are doing or wearing, or driving, and for the most part we go along with that mental image because we are programmed from a very young age to not ever question it.
In the movie " The Matrix" the man was asked which pill he wanted to take? Was it the Red pill; that would show him the truth, or was it the Blue pill, that would put him back the way he had always been not knowing that anything was wrong and never knowing the truth about life? Today we too are kind of living out that same question when it comes to being able to see the real truth about life. Even though we are living our lives and getting along what we might consider as being " very well" there are times when there are glitches that show us things that greatly disturb us about who and what are actually pulling the strings of our lives. At some point, we must ask ourselves if we really want to know the truth, no matter how scary it may be, or should we continue to be led around in our lives by what the majority of others think about us?
God works in our lives differently from the time we come to Him for salvation all the way through our final days on this earth, and many times He does not take us the most popular routes in life to teach us very valuable lessons. There are many times things can only be learned from getting dirty. While it is the popular concept to always stay clean many people would never be reached by someone who had never experienced failure in their spiritual lives. There are some who must be dirty first before others will put any stock in their ability to know that God will forgive us all. What has your Holyness cost you in this life? Before we can live a Holy life we must first understand what it means. My mother would say "If everyone else was going to jump off a cliff would you do it too?" It seems like a lot of us are doing just that...It is time to take the "Red Pill" May you richly bless God through your life in Him.
THE UNWORTHY SERVANT
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