History in the Making

If we look back upon the losses we have endured over the years, we might see certain trends...bad breaks, poor timing, lack of attentiveness to crucial details, slovenly habits, dysfunctional relationships, distorted views of self.  It could be that we got sick at the wrong time, were tripped up by our lusts or were mistaken about the character of certain people.    The regretful glance backward that morphs into self-pitying is corrosive to the working of God in you.  The very thing He came to do, redeem your life completely gets hindered by the regret you keep eyeing.  If we take God at His word, that Christ came to save us from our sin, then the obstinate pout must be put away.  But you may wonder how God could do this, how He could make the ugly moments of your past "redeemed".  His answer to you is the same as it was for the withered Elizabeth past child bearing.  "Nothing is impossible with God."  The worst of your circumstances are made new by Christ upon His sin bearing.  They are bought back and rebuilt...remade just as thoroughly as if an old wreck of a car were blown to smithereens and the molecules of it put together into the most spectacular of yachts.  "Nothing is impossible" includes your past and what has been done to you and by you is of no account anymore.  What matters is what God will do with it and that is, "make all things new."    The Lord is not afraid of your past even if you have built it up into a monster.  He has faced it squarely while dying on the Cross and mastered it.  You have nothing to hide anymore...it is out in the open...out in the bright sunlight of God's love for you.   Is it not perfectly reasonable that the bearing of your sin took place as day splintered off into darkness and the redeeming of your life came to pass as the first sparkles of sunlight broke upon the dawn?  You can moan about the missed opportunities and the regrettable decisions you have made but what is the point of that?  It is like weeping over winning the lottery or despairing over the successful surgery that saved you from cancer.  You have been redeemed!  Never look past that.

"Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.  Isaiah 43:1 NIV

Cornerstones and Cobblestones

The cross of Jesus Christ accomplished in one fell swoop the challenge of all mankind.  Without a cornerstone, a place from which to build perfect peace, we all flail about trying to make the best of a variety of bad situations.  Even the great optimists with a pot of gold at their disposal realize at some point how empty and vain it all is.  Yet at the moment Christ made it possible for recreation to take place with the act of crucifixion in a specific spot in history, the cornerstone for perfect peace was put in place.   You have as a born again Christian all you need to be done with anxiety, ongoing discouragement and despair.  The Holy Spirit will, as you keep your mind turning back into Christ and your behavior is steeped in the Word, give you a superstructure of peace within your whole personality.  Perfect peace is not a dreamy intellectualization, it is the way of the Christian whose life is stone by stone built upon the salvation of the Cross of Christ.

The Wandering Reality

The moment you begin to question the reality of your experience with God, question the presence of the Holy Spirit, return to your root.  The Cross of Jesus Christ happened at a specific moment in history among an actual crowd of people just as reliable as you.  No one ever questioned the crucifixion of Christ and the empty tomb was never doubted.  Return to the physical moment when Jesus Christ died for You and let that spot in time steel your resolve to follow Him anywhere.  The Cross is the power of your faith in God and it is your anchor that keeps the stormy day from swamping you.  Let the Cross of Jesus Christ be the source of your strength and hope.  Ponder it rather than your doubts.