What's Holding me Back?

WHAT HOLDS ME BACK?

Romans 12:1-2 Therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.

Philippians 2:1-4  If then there is any encouragement in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by thinking the same way, having the same love, sharing the same feelings, focusing on one goal. Do nothing out of rivalry or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.

Mar 10:17-22  As He was setting out on a journey, a man ran up, knelt down before Him, and asked Him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" "Why do you call Me good?" Jesus asked him. "No one is good but One--God. You know the commandments: Do not murder; do not commit adultery; do not steal; do not bear false witness; do not defraud; honor your father and mother." He said to Him, "Teacher, I have kept all these from my youth." Then, looking at him, Jesus loved him and said to him, "You lack one thing: Go, sell all you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me." But he was stunned at this demand, and he went away grieving, because he had many possessions.

1 Corinthians 2:9-12

But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.

   

    God’s spirit gives us scriptures to meditate over every day, this month I would like to share these. Because this is a Bible study posting, today I am going to ask you to do some things to play along. Before we starts you should go and find, if possible, a folder and some sticky notes, a notebook or journal or just some plain writing paper and a Bible… Go I will wait for you…Good you’re back. Take a few minutes to read the passages on this post in your Bible and write down some or as many significant event in your life in chronological order. Write them down in terms of before and after you met Jesus. Make sure you have enough sticky notes or paper to right on. When you have written them down (all the ones you care to deal with for now) place them in the following categories:

• ·        Which ones were the times that you felt most isolated from God?
• ·        Which ones were the times were conflict was present?
• ·        Which ones did you feel Divine intervention must have happened?
• ·        Which ones you felt close to God?

   Now in light of both the passage in Mark and the passage in Philippians above, words of encouragement and love for one another and considering others better than us, ask yourselves this question; Like the rich young ruler, what is it that I have to let go of to be able to follow Jesus? Is it bitterness, anger, pride, attitude, traditions, passive aggressiveness, lust, a nagging sin that you just won’t let go, hate towards someone or something, neglecting following through with an idea, forgiveness, etc. Pray and ask God to help you deal with your hang up. Repent and ask for forgiveness and surrender your gifts to Jesus that you may better follow Him and serve others. Go and pray and when you finish praying you’re dismissed, just be mindful of the event that just happened in your life.

RH

What are you crying for? Thoughts on John11:35

   

   Have you ever cried so hard that nothing mattered? Your loss is so deep and your hurt is so painful that you cry without control?  In the gospel according to John in chapter 11 Jesus weeps. The definition for that type of emotion in the Greek is to shed tears: - weep, to sob, wail aloud.

   When you read the gospel according to John he stresses that we have a God who cares deeply. After arriving at Lazarus, Mary and Martha’s house in Bethany, Jesus is overwhelmed and when he saw the weeping and wailing, he too wept openly. This was a close friend of Jesus that has just died. Even if he knew that he would bring him back from the dead, Jesus was showing us that even God grieves the loss of a loved one. The popular Greek concept of God in that day was of a God with no emotions and no messy involvement with humans. John brings so many emotions of Jesus in this passage—compassion, indignation, sorrow, even frustration. Often Jesus expressed deep emotion, and we must never be afraid to reveal how we really feel to him. He understands all of our emotions, for he experienced them. We go around being politically correct with everyone and hiding things from God instead of being honest; stop trying to hide anything from your Savior. He deeply, intimately and passionately loves and cares for you.

   OK so picture this scene; the mourners are wailing, Mary weeps inconsolably, and Jesus comes in. He can’t help but start crying! Here is my question, didn’t He knew what would be happening? Why, then, does He weep? Besides the obvious loss of Lazarus. Hear me out, maybe Jesus wept because He started to think of how sin destroys, sin kills, and sin stinks. Don’t we find this to be true? If you look around, you find it to be so? When we look around the World and our lives, aren’t we seeing heartache and sadness in many places all around us because of sin? Does it not break your heart and make it heavy when you realize that so many dear precious people and strangers are hurting because of sin?

Maybe Jesus wept because of all the unbelief that constantly surrounded Him. He gave a promise that Lazarus would rise to Mary and it went right over her head, no one embraced or believed it because they thought He was just trying to make them feel better. Instead they were all wrapped up in their mourning. Jesus was trying to tell them; "It's going to be all right." But they said, "No, it's not." So, too, when He says all things are working together for good (Rom_8:28), and we say, "No they're not". Our unbelief must break His heart as well.

Perhaps Jesus wept because He knew He was going to pull Lazarus out of Paradise and bring him back to this planet. Poor Lazarus! So what are you crying for? Is it your friends, your sin, your circumstances? Does your heart ache because you don’t spend as much time with God as you would like? What are you waiting for? Cry out to Jesus and surrender your all to Him!

RH

Satisfaction Guarantied

 
  We have but a few real guaranties in life. When we buy anything we all look for the manufacturer’s warranty. We make sure we are familiar with its parameters so we don't void it. Some of the guaranties we get in this world seem to be somewhat bleak; death (10 out of 10 people die), taxes, poor people, politicians will lie. Some are very encouraging; children being born, good friends, favorite meal, favorite song, a smile. What makes us really satisfied when we think about it?
   In one of my weekly Bible lesson prep days I was reading the story in Luke 9:10-17.  It's a familiar story, is the feeding of the five thousand.  At first glance when you read the story you go "Oh Wow!" "What an amazing miracle!" When you dig into it, in a more scholarly manner you find out things that make it even more amazing. The fact that scholars believe that not mentioned is the fact that the 5K men may have had women and children with them. This tidbit of information makes it even more amazing because it implies that at least 13-15 thousand people were fed that day. Just try to wrap your mind around that; 13-15K people fed in one day from five loafs of bread and two fishes. If you do not stop there you will start to see the little things in the story.
   Jesus was trying to take his disciples aside to give them some time to recover from preaching to other towns right before this episode. In the midst of their time-out with Jesus people show up and Jesus has compassion for them and starts healing and preaching to them. Noticed the disciples attitude when it starts go down. They showed concern for the people but it totally escaped their minds that they had the solution to the hunger problem. Their concern was; "look at all these people, there is no way we can house, let alone, feed them all. Let's ask Jesus to send them away until tomorrow, they will listen to Him he's, well Jesus after all." So the disciples go to Jesus and instead of asking what to do, they already have a plan for what Jesus should do. Does that sound familiar to you?  They had good intentions but misguided plans. We have a tendency to try to give God a plan that he can follow for our lives don't we? Instead of asking Jesus; what should we do?
   Jesus has the best response of all time; "You feed them!" OH Snap! No He didn't! Then their focus got really narrow; "But all we have are these two fish and five loafs!" Their focus was on want they didn't have, enough to feed 5K, it should have been; let's start with what we have and see how it goes. Jesus then intervenes and the miracle takes place. Scripture uses the Greek word chortazō (khor-tad'-zo) which denotes the sense of filled to satisfaction to describe how everyone felt after they have all eaten.  Completely filled and in need of nothing more. If we surrender to God's involvement everyone who surrenders is satisfied. Then and only then will your satisfaction be guarantied