What to do when you are ensnared in sin.

Have you ever let a sin into your life that you never meant to allow in? Did the sin creep in until it ensnared you? I had the pleasure of hearing my Pastor speak this morning on the difference between being a "slave to Satan" and a "servant to Christ". (I plan to put up a link to the podcast on www.becomforted.com in a couple of days, after it is on the church website.)   There were a few things my Pastor said that got me thinking about habitual sins that, when birthed, can enslave a person. There is very little comfort for a person who feels ensnared by sin-- or in the words of my pastor "a slave to Satan". 

After getting my kids to bed tonight I flipped open to the Psalms and just happened to land on the 25th Psalm. I got to verse 15, "My eyes are ever on the LORD, for only he will release my feet from the snare" and it struck me how God was pulling the two messages together. Verse 15 was really popping out at me.
It seemed to be the answer to the "slave to Satan" issue.  Check it out. Here's David's answer:

Where do you go when you have gotten ensnared in sin? 

You keep your eyes fixed on the Lord, not on the sin, for "only GOD will release your feet from the snare".

David goes on to say this in the 25th Psalm:

"Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. The troubles of my heart have multiplied; free me from my anguish. Look upon my affliction and my distress and take away all my sins. See how my enemies have increased and how fiercely they hate me! Guard my life and rescue me; let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you. May integrity and uprightness protect me, because my hope is in you. Redeem Israel, O God, from all their troubles!" 

Ten things you can do when you are "ensnared" in sin, as taught by David in the 25th Psalm:

1.  Keep your eyes on the Lord.

2. Admit the sin. Ask the Lord to be gracious, and to take away your sins.

3. Acknowledge the feelings you have that are connected to the sin and the enemies who you have hurt or who have hurt you. Flush those feelings out in prayer.  God can take it.

4. Ask God to guard your life.

5. Ask God to rescue you from where you are. 

6. Ask God that you would not be put to shame.

7. Take refuge in God.

8. Look to live out your integrity and uprightness from here on out, that it might protect you in the future.

9. Put your hope in God. 

10. Pray that God redeem what needs redeeming. 

I will wrap up this post with Psalm 25:1-3. 

To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul;
in you I trust, O my God.
Do not let me be put to shame, 
nor let my enemies triumph over me. 

No one whose hope is in you

will ever be put to shame, 

but they will be put to shame who are treacherous without excuse. 

 As you feel led, give God praise. Psalm 33:1 says, "Sing joyfully to the LORD, you righteous; it is fitting for the upright to praise him." As you see God's hand at work, give him the glory for that. This is another great lesson we learn from David over and over again in the Psalms. Praise God in the big victories and in the little victories. "It is fitting for the upright to praise him." You are loved.

The power of a word

“Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.” – Mother Teresa

A careless word may kindle strife;

A cruel word may wreck a life.

A bitter word may hate instill;

A brutal word may smite and kill.

A gracious word may smooth the way;

A joyous word may light the day.

A timely word may lessen stress;

A loving word may heal and bless. 

~Author unknown

"May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer." Psalm 19:14

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

The Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. 

Where there is hatred, let me sow love. 

Where there is injury, pardon. 

Where there is doubt, faith. 

Where there is despair, hope. 

Where there is darkness, light. 

Where there is sadness, joy. 

O Divine Master, 

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console; 

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love. 

For it is in giving that we receive. 

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned, 

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life. 

Amen. 

Making the most of every opportunity.

In a world that screams to do more and be more, we are encouraged to believe that we are only as valuable as what we can produce. This mentality pushes people into hard drive, leaving little time to hear the voice of God and there is very little patience for those times in life when God provides a still, peaceful moment. Where does this pressure come from? Does the Bible tell us to work at an unrelenting pace? 


No, the answer is it doesn't actually. 

Ecclesiastes 8:6 says, "For there is a proper time and procedure for every matter, though a man's misery weighs heavily upon him."

There is a time for going hard and fast, and a time for resting and waiting on the Lord. Jesus was a carpenter for a good 30 years before he started his "full steam ahead ministry" and even then he took time to get away and go to "the mountainside to pray" (Luke 6:12). David spent lots of time with the sheep before he took down Goliath and he spent lots of time in the caves before he was ever a great King. Paul was sitting in jail when we wrote some of the great chapters of the Bible. Many of the "greats" in the Bible had times of "waiting on the Lord" before they had their "God is glorified" moment. The Bible tells us to "be still and know that God is God", (Psalm 46:10) and if he is God we cannot be. If we are not God then we do not have to take on the responsibilities of the world as if we are. We can trust God with the big picture. The point is that God be glorified through the things we say and do. Each of us is given our own responsibilities to take care of according to the gifts we have been given, (Galatians 6:5) but none of us must think that EVERY problem that crosses our path is our problem to fix. It is not about us proving that we are the Alpha and Omega...we're not. God is. If anyone needs permission to slow down this is it. God is God, and is in control, and will reveal to us what we are to do, and when we are to do it as we draw closer to Him. As we are faithful in serving Him he will be glorified. Check out what Ephesians 5:15-16 says.

Ephesians 5:15-16, "Be very careful, then, how you live —not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil." 

We are to be looking for opportunities. Every day is an opportunity. Some are bigger than others. It may just be that over time God will lay a big idea on your heart and call you to join with others to carry out a big, exciting project that will make a huge difference for the kingdom. It may also just be, though, that God would call you to gather up the nerve to "make the most of the opportunity" when talking to your neighbor about going to church this weekend. The things you do don't have to be earth shattering to have a big, lasting in impact. 

Finally, when we seek God's kingdom, and His righteousness first and foremost then everything else falls into place. Everything else is secondary. The Bible is riddled with verses that hint at this idea, and some that boldly state it. Colossians 3:2 is one of those verses. Simply put, it says this:

Colossians 3:2, “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”

Three things I would encourage:

1. Pray for opportunities to glorify God with your life, that it would benefit the Kingdom.

2. Keep your eyes open for those opportunities.

3. When God shows you the opportunity you've been praying for thank Him for it and take action accordingly.

Awesome song time.

A reason to love and follow Jesus.

God's big book of love: The bible. 

The whole thing is written with our best interest in mind, and yet some parts hit us with a different kind of sting (or conviction) depending on what season of life we are walking through and what past we have endured. 

What part of the Bible would you 
rather leave out if you had a choice?? 

Some people might like to leave out the ten commandments: coveting. 

For others of us, if we were really honest, we might wish to omit "Love your neighbor as yourself".

Not you though, right? ;o) Okay, good. No. Me neither. :o)

I'm not here to call everyone out. We all have our own battles to fight. The last thing I want to do is run someone into the ground who is already running themselves into the ground. I'll just save you from beating yourself up right now and let you in on a secret--one that was told years ago: "we all have sinned (and continue to for that matter--some of us are just more or less aware of our own personal shortcomings than others) and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). Now there is a difference between an outright sin (one where you know you are actively, consciously going against the will of God, but choose to do it anyway) and a time when you are admitting to the fact that you fall short of the glory of God, but you are striving to live a life of holiness to the best of your abilities, leaning on the grace of God and praying for His strength and wisdom to guide you from day to day. I am not posting this to make a judgment call one way or another on your particular situation. This is not a message of judgment. It is a message of freedom. None of us is perfect, and yet all of us is on a journey of being transformed more and more in the likeness of Jesus. God never gives up on us, and I am trusting if you have read this far that you are someone who is actively seeking God's transforming work in your life, or is at least interested in the idea. READ ON.

The message below (in red) is taken from the book, "The Life God Blesses: Weathering the Storms of Life that Threaten the Soul", written by Gordon MacDonald. I love the way it breaks down "the gospel". Check it out:

"He knew what was in a man," John says of Jesus. And that must have been maddening to men who had spent their lives decorating their outer lives with the ornaments of religiosity, power, and wealth. I mean, how do you respond to a person who cares nothing about how much you know concerning the Law and the Prophets, how well connected you are to the temple infrastructure, how many prayers you pray in a day's time, and how may pilgrimages you've made? What defense do you put up when someone looks into the center of your soul and causes you to face up to the evil and sleaze that reside within?

If there is a deeper reason for crucifying Jesus than just that He was a threat to the religious structure and that He enjoyed the affections of the common class, it is that He forced men to look into their souls and face the inadequacies there.

Conversely, it is why others loved and followed Him. Because they came to realize that He was less interested in their reputations as prostitutes and tax collectors and more drawn to the sorrow that lay in their souls and their desire to be liberated from the deadening evil that proscribed their lives up until that point. They wanted clean souls, and Jesus was in a position to help them through forgiveness and redemption.
THAT was the gospel."

YOU ARE LOVED!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fighting gloom.