How To Get Out of Bed When Sorrow Makes You Sleepy

Whether you suffer from a life-long struggle with depression or you simply live life on this earth, most of us have known seasons of sorrow. These are those times when life just seems unbearable and you must battle to just even take another breath. One of the ways our bodies often deal with the stress that deep despair of mind heaps upon us, is to sleep. This morning as I read my Bible. I noticed something I had previously failed to see.

After the event we know as the Last Supper, Jesus headed out to the Mount of Olives, where He goes into the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. I always knew that this was a deeply distressing time for Jesus, as He was about to go to the cross where the Holy, sinless Son of God, would become sin for us, paying the ultimate penalty we deserve. Read here Luke’s account of this event.

Luke 22:39-45
And he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him.  And when he came to the place, he said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.”  And he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”  And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him.  And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.  And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow,

I had always looked at the disciples in this story as simply lazy bums, who leave their Lord alone in the garden to pray while they sleep. But Dr. Luke tells us that they were not just tired and lazy, they were sleeping for sorrow. They were broken within themselves. They were depressed, despairing, and probably felt a loss of hope. Not only had they finally woke up to the fact that Jesus was about to die, they had just learned that one of their own would betray Him. But even worse, Jesus had also told them that they too, would abandon Him in this hour of need. I get it. How often my own sin has reminded me of my own experiences of failing Jesus.

Maybe this very morning, you have woken up from sleep wondering how you will get through this day. Sorrow, despair, and feelings of failure permeate your mind. The truth is, this is of the devil. It is a spiritual attack. We are at war with our enemy the devil and he will tell you that all that despair is deserved and that there is no hope.

But Jesus has an answer to these times of sorrow and depression. He knows they are temptations of Satan, who does not want us to turn to God in these times, but instead he tells us to pull up the covers and just go back to sleep. If Satan can keep us in bed sleeping, he knows we will be ineffective as Christ’s disciples. So, listen to what Jesus has to say to us.

 Luke 22:46
“Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.”

Rise and pray that you might not enter into temptation. Jesus speaks not only with authority here, but also with the credibility of knowing true sorrow. As Jesus faced the most sorrowful event ever in human history, He, like us, was in agony. Dr. Luke describes it; “And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down.”

Prayer is the answer to rising out of the ash pit of true despair. It was the means by which God empowered Jesus to say, “Not my will, but your will be done.” For God hears the prayers of those who are His when they in humility come to Him in their despair. God even sends help.

Luke 22:43
And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him.

Hebrews 1:13-14
And to which of the angels has he ever said, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet”?  Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?

When we face the trials and temptations of this life, we can go to our Father in Heaven and He will give us the strength to face the day. He will even send angels to help strengthen us.

The story of Jesus in the Garden is a story of both sorrow and of victory over that sorrow. But we must pray and as Jesus did, pray fervently and earnestly. We must, as Jesus did, submit ourselves to the sovereignty of God having faith in the fact that He will bring us through.

I hope this morning; whatever trial you face you will wake up and go to your knees. Pray. And don’t be afraid or too prideful to ask others to pray for you. I will. Just let me know what prayers you need.

Be blessed.

To Whom Are You Thankful To?

One thing that has perplexed me greatly since becoming a follower of Christ is the question of Thanksgiving. It is this. For those people who live in America, who grew up here and are familiar with the holiday of Thanksgiving, yet demonstrate no belief in God, who are they thankful to?

Sure, I get it, they probably make statements about how they are thankful to their boss or the owners of the company they work for. Probably tell Grandma they appreciate the meal and the desserts. Maybe even post on Facebook that they are thankful to their wife for doing their wash and keeping the house.

But to whom are they thankful to, in the general spirit of the very holiday we gather once a year and celebrate. If you don’t believe in a creator than the only logical conclusion is to believe that all the blessings and good things are a result of your own great efforts. So, I guess that is it. I am thankful to myself for being such a wonderful survival of the fittest accomplisher of so much good. Wow. That’s a really prideful attitude.

The truth is that there is a God and He is the one to whom belongs all our thankfulness. For those who know and believe the truth of the God of the Bible, we must understand that it is He, who deserves our thanksgiving.

In John 3:27 we read this, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven.” Nothing, nada, not one single thing, is ours unless God has given it to us.

In James 1:17 we see that “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

Every good gift comes down from above, from God. Every single one.

The unsaved world does not understand this. The truth is, they know God exists. But listen to what Romans 1:21 says, “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.”

This failure to be thankful to God is a dangerous place to reside. It will ruin your thinking and darken your heart.

But fellow Christians. We know better.

If you can think of nothing else to thank Him for as we enter this holiday, remember this verse.

Isaiah 12:1
You will say in that day: “I will give thanks to you, O LORD, for though you were angry with me, your anger turned away, that you might comfort me.

God loved us so much He sent His son to pay the price and the penalty of our sin. Because of Christ, God’s anger has been turned away from his children. Now we can dwell in His comfort.

So, what should we do on this holiday we call Thanksgiving?

Psalm 95:2
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!

How To Find Truth In A World of Lies

As I have been traveling through the Gospels each morning in my personal Bible study, it strikes me how much emphasis the Bible puts on truth. The opposite of truth is of course, the lie. On the surface, it seems black and white. Something is either true or it is false. But the world we live in is not that simple. There is another word that creates a blur in our quest for truth versus lie; it is the word deception.

Someone in the world is always trying to deceive us. Advertising is often an attempt to get us to purchase something, we don’t want or usually, don’t need. Politics, well, having just spent the last 3 months listening to the TV ads, have clearly become about each candidate spending more effort to make us see that the other guy is a terrible person who cannot be trusted, than it is about one declaring his own merits. It has become almost impossible to know what the truth is based on what we see on TV or read in our mail, about the different candidates. Social media has become the source many people get their information from, on just about every topic. And our culture continues to buy into the falsehoods that reside on the internet. Truth is hard to come by.

If you think about it, the Bible presents the battle of truth versus untruth, as one of the salient points of its history. The very fall of mankind, the entry of sin into the world, came about because of a battle for truth and that battle was fought with the weapon of deception.

Genesis 3:1
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”

The serpent, Satan himself, casts doubt on what Eve thought was the truth. Did God REALLY say that? Have you ever had someone do that to you? This is a subtle form of deception and falling into that trap pulls us away from the truth. Listen to Eve’s explanation to God after she disobeyed Him.

Genesis 3:13
Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

The serpent deceived her. And the battle that we all wrestle with today is filled with the serpent’s work of deception. The Bible describes our enemy in Revelation 12:9 , “…that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world…”.

Jesus gives a stronger description of the devil here in John 8:44-45, “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.  But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.”

Satan does not stand in truth. He is a liar and the father of lies. And the modern-day culture of the internet, has given him a world-wide platform to work his deception. I believe that since the advent of the smartphone giving us continual access to information, we are becoming conditioned to believe whatever we read. It simply too easy to assume what we read is true. Of course, as one who grew up in the sixties, I also was not always reading or being taught the truth. But we made attempts to research things. I was taught to question and to seek evidence before making decisions. My parents raised me to think for myself and I was not afraid to challenge authority if I had credible reason to do so.

Truth is hard to determine. Personally, unless I was an eyewitness to an event, I lean towards carrying some doubt as to the veracity of things I hear of. But what about our faith? Can we believe the things we hear in church? Can we trust our pastors, our Sunday school teachers, or any other Christian when they discuss the Christian faith?

The first step all Christians must take in their personal quest for truth is to not buy into the post-modern philosophy that truth is relative. It is not. There is a truth. There is a right and there is a wrong. If you say you are a follower of Christ, then you have no choice but to accept the Bible as the Word of God, because if you cast any doubt on what it says, you have no credible reason to even believe Jesus is who He says He is. The Bible is the only source for knowing who Jesus was or is. No other document from the ancient days is going to tell you He is the Messiah, He is the Son of God, and He is God. As Christians, we accept the Bible as God’s Word. There is also good news here; there is solid archeological evidence that we can study that give us reassurance of its being, what we believe it to be. If you are a young Christian who needs to get familiar with the Biblical evidence, there are many great resources to be found. Do the work.

The next step in the battle for truth is to read the scriptures and find out who God is, what He is like, and what He calls on His church to be. What you will learn is that Jesus is the truth. Jesus declares this Himself in John 14:6 saying, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” Jesus is the truth.

If Jesus is the truth and Satan is the deceiver and father of lies, then the battleground is clear. We are fighting a war for truth. Anything that is not of Christ is a lie. Jesus warns us over and over in scripture to not be deceived. The end times spoken of in the Revelation, will be a time of deception. Paul spoke of this deception as well.

2 Corinthians 11:12-15
And what I am doing I will continue to do, in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission they work on the same terms as we do.  For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.  And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.  So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.

The warnings are clear, and they are scary. Satan masquerades as an angel of light. This means we cannot simply believe what anyone says, no matter how many Bible degrees they have. No, I am not saying you can never trust your pastor. I am saying you must be reading your own Bible and testing everything against scripture. Everything. This is not me speaking, it is what God’s Word commands us to do.

1 Thessalonians 5:20-21
Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good.

Test everything. As I started this blog, I mentioned my current studies. As I read Jesus talk about the coming of the end times, when He returns, I cannot help but wonder if all this internet, fake news, and other stuff people fall for, is part of Satan’s preparatory battle plan to lure people into a state of deception. He seems to be molding the world into a place where the truth is so blurred, he thinks no one will believe God. Did God really say that?

We must become seekers of truth. Prepare for this battle by training in truth. Open your Bible every day. Then when the deceiver comes, you will be ready. Stand for truth. Stand for Jesus. This means we don’t believe things simply because someone says them. We don’t simply buy into what the internet tells us.

Stand for truth. Be a diligent seeker of facts. Start with God’s Word. The days are soon coming when the great deception will be upon us. Prepare yourselves and those under your personal authority. Look to Jesus in all things. He is the way. He is the truth. He is the life.

Have a blessed day.

Replacing Fear With Power

This past Sunday, I heard a sermon in which the pastor was reminding his congregation of the way in which we Christians, so often sort of put the Holy Spirit in the background of our faith, both in our church and in our personal walk. He preached from the text of 2 Timothy 1:7-8. As I have meditated on that passage since listening to him, I find myself drawn deeply into thoughts of the second verse of that letter to Timothy.

2 Timothy 1:7
For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.

I love the Word of God. I never cease to be amazed at how it works in my life. Hebrews 4:12 tells us that “…the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” The more I mulled over this statement from 2 Timothy, the more it began to judge the intentions of my heart, many of which really don’t demonstrate that I am allowing the Holy Spirit to change the way I live, as much as He wants to.

The first aspect we see here, is spoken of in the negative. We have not been given a spirit of fear. As a man, I don’t ever want to display a sense of fear in front of my fellow man. Neither do they, yet most of us, men and women, live out our Christian lives in fear. This is what hinders our witness and why we so often dim the light of Christ in our lives. If we let the Sword of the Spirit, God’s Word, pierce deeply into our joints and marrow, judging the intentions of our heart, can we honestly say we consistently speak out in sharing Christ?

In response to the fact that we do not have a spirit of fear living within us, we then see that we have power. For those of you who remember the old TV show, Home Improvement, you will recall that Tim the Tool Man Taylor, was always talking about more power. He was constantly tinkering with everything he could get his hands on and tweaking things so that they would have more power. Wouldn’t we all like to have more power. Guess what? God has given us a spirit of power and that power is complete in itself. It does not need to be tweaked in any way; it simply needs to be exercised. A power tool is completely powerless unless you turn it on and use it. We simply need to exercise our faith and when we do, the same power that raised Christ from the dead, lives in us.

It is this power, which enables us to attain the fullness of the Christian life, by which we must walk. Galatians 5:16 instructs us to “walk by the Spirit” and if we do that then we “will not carry out the desire of the flesh.” The desires of the flesh are selfish desires. But as our text from 2 Timothy tells us, we have been given a spirit of love. Again, if we turn to the Word of God, in this case from 1 Corinthians, chapter 13, we learn that love “does not seek its own.” The Holy Spirit empowers us to love as God calls us to love. The love that God calls us to is not speaking of itself as an emotion, which emanates and is manipulated by our feelings, but it is a love that is dictated by our choice to act. Love is a choice. The Holy Spirit empowers us to make choices that override our selfish desires and our own feelings. This is how we can, with all our being, love our enemies. It is how we can forgive the unforgivable.  It is how we shine the light of Christ, who took upon Himself, the horrible payment of our personal sin.

Finally, we see that we have been given a spirit of self-control. There is no limit to the effects of the power God has given us in changing our lives. This Holy Spirit power enables us to overcome addictions. 2 Corinthians 10:4 is clear, “For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.” Read that again. “For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.” Addictions are strongholds. We have been empowered to overcome them by the power of the Holy Spirit, who lives in every believer. We have the power to say no to sin. We have the power to live a disciplined life in Christ, one that reflects to the world, His light. Yes, every single believer has this power, this spirit. Again, open the Word of God.

1 Corinthians 3:16
Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?

If we are truly Christ’s. we have this power living in us. We have the power to have self-control and choose what we do, how we act, and what we think. We have the power to love as Christ loved. We have the power to overcome all fear.

Yet, we fail so often. What do we do about this? The answer lies in the verse before the one I am speaking of.

2 Timothy 1:6
For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.

The Spirit lives in us, but like a power tool that remains unplugged and turned off, His flame will burn low and be ineffective. God calls us to action. Like any fire, if we want it to burn brightly, we must fan the flame, kindle the fire, stir up the coals, and keep it ablaze. We do this by staying in God’s Word, being in constant prayer, by worshipping God, and by meeting with other believers though our local churches. We must get up and walk in the Spirit.

Open your Bible, ask the Spirit of God to help you flame the fire of the gift of God. If you do, you will find the spirit of power, love, and self-control warming your heart to action and will be restored to the joy of your salvation.

Be strong in the Lord Always.

God's Anger of God's Mercy?

Countless times over the years I have heard pastors and teachers tell people, "God is not mad at you." Could someone show me the scripture that guarantees that? The author of Hebrews reminds us of the dangers of willful disobedience and rebellion to God and His Word.

Hebrews 3:7-11 

So, as the Holy Spirit says: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried me and for forty years saw what I did. That is why I was angry with that generation, and I said, 'Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.' So I declared on oath in my anger, 'They shall never enter my rest.'"

This is THE Holy Spirit speaking, God Himself. It is possible that God can be angry with us.

Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts against Him and His Word.

Romans 2:5-8 

But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God "will give to each person according to what he has done." To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.

It's time to repent and accept the truth. To those who do so, God's love is expressed in His pouring out of grace and mercy through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, who suffered the anguish of God's wrath for us. To those who refuse Him, they will bear the eternal anguish of God's wrath and anger.

2 Corinthians 6:1-2 

As God's fellow workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain. For he says, "In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you." I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation.

The Gospel of Losing Things

This morning my Bible lesson was a familiar one as it was the Parable of the Rich Young Ruler. Most of us who have attended church for awhile have probably heard sermons on the parable many times. All three of the synoptic Gospels record the story. Simply put, it is about a rich man who asks Jesus the most important question one could ever ask, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

There are many important lessons to glean from this story. More often then not, it is preached as a warning about not letting money be what controls our heart or some other similar thought. But this parable is much deeper than just money. It is about what things we hold on to that prevent us from making Jesus what He must be in our hearts; our Lord and our King. This parable brings me deep conviction and causes me to pause and consider my own heart. What is the condition of my heart?

This morning the lesson did its usual work on me and I will ponder its implications all day. I will pray that the Holy Spirit will lead me away from my love of stuff and direct me towards loving Jesus with all my heart, soul, and mind.

But I saw something new this morning in this parable. Not sure how I missed it and I don’t think I’ve ever heard it preached exactly like this. As I listened to Jesus speak to the young man in the story, I realized that the Gospel is not just about what we gain from it, though the blessings of salvation are the greatest blessings one can know. The Gospel must first be about losing things.

This must change how we preach the Gospel. We need to stop telling people how great their life will be if they “accept” Jesus. We must stop telling ourselves this, (preaching the Gospel to ourselves must be a daily practice), and start telling ourselves that we need to let go of what we possess.

Again, this isn’t a story about money, it is one about what captures our hearts. What has priority in our lives? The greatest commandment is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”- Matthew 22:37-38

Many things possess our hearts. We must lose them all. Salvation requires death to self and to all our selfish desires. To obtain eternal life, we must give up our grip on everything else. Everything.

This convicts me. It scares me honestly. It drives me to prayer. I am blessed with an abundance of wonderful things. If Jesus told me to give it all away, would I? Could I?

We justify ourselves by telling ourselves that, yes, we would, but then we say that He hasn’t asked us to. So would we? Really?

The truth is this; none of us really know our own hearts. We think we do, but the Bible says differently. Jeremiah 17:9 says this about our hearts, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” Our hearts lie to us and we cannot understand them. That is a fact.

So how can we find any peace in all this? How do we not spend the rest of our days worrying because we have many things? The rich man went away sad, yet he appears to have done all the right things. He came to Jesus seeking eternal life. He humbled himself, he publicly ran to Him, which was a huge no-no in that culture. He followed the commandments. He did everything we would expect one to do. This seems hopeless. But wait. It seems to get worse as Jesus follows the story up with this scary thought.

Luke 18:24-25
Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said, “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!  For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”

Jesus seeing that the man was sad, said that to Him? That ought to scare all of us Americans, because we are all wealthy compared to most of the world. Camels cannot go through the eye of a needle. It’s impossible. This is speaking right to us.

But finish the reading.

Luke 18:26-27
Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?”  But he said, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”

Salvation is impossible with us, we cannot do this. But with God? Salvation is possible.

My hope does not lie in ANYTHING I do or say, but in God.

So today as I meditate on these words, I will bow my head in confession that I am a sinner and I will lift my head to God and simply ask Him to save me. I will ask Him to remove the heart in me that deceives me and to replace it with a heart that lives in submission to His Holy authority.

That is the Gospel. It is not what I gain but what I lose that will bring me the greatest blessings of all. Praise God for His grace and His mercy. It is my hope.

God bless all of you.