Grace is still standing!

As I read a friend's story that he sent me about a father who forgave his son's murderer and talk to a high school friend going through a divorce. I am amazed at how God's grace still stands, the power of His love displayed on the cross is bigger than the worst human sin committed against love. We were made to live in God's love and when we go against love we pay deep inside. We may be able to hide the damage inside for a season but like David said "let the bones you have broken rejoice". Our hearts do not heal when we choose justice, our way, selfishness, worry, or indepedence. We are only at home in His love and no other comfort will do. God's Word is timeless when everything around us is constantly changing, but His Word tells us "there is nothing new under the sun". Humans search for answers to the daily problems that confront us and yet God's Word is considered by so many to have nothing but religious language written in ancient times. If we as believers only understood the power of God's revealed Word to transform lives, broken marriages, broken relationships, and ultimately broken societies. His Word is what points us to a relationship with Him that gives life. As I have personally struggled with many fears, anxieties, and darknesses in my life over the past few months which are deeply rooted in my childhood, I am reminded by the Holy Spirit of the passage in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-17 which says "Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everthing give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." This is a difficult section of Scripture for me when I have spent the last 15 months wrestling with deeply held strongholds of belief which have caused me to lose a lot of sleep. I am to rejoice, pray without ceasing, and give thanks. This sounds like insanity but yet the revealed Word of God breathes life into us. I choose to rejoice in His salvation of me though I did not deserve it, for taking me out of the darkness of sin and putting me into the light, and for loving me when I am my most unlovable. I have a wonderful wife, two great kids, co-workers to minister with who love the Lord, and God has given me breath today. I pray that the Lord will do a transforming work in me that I will rejoice always, this is not something that comes naturally to me. Growing up I learned how to complain, look for the worst, be critical, and the pathway to discouragement was paved. I am sowing seeds in life and these negative seeds will bear fruit. We were born to live in Eden where we would walk in God's love and life all the days of our life. We were born to spread His glory over all the earth, grace in places of darkness is what brings His Light. God is light and Him there is no darkness (1 John 1:5). At the end of many lifetimes Grace will still be standing because the goodness of God is what we long for. When we see Him then we are truly alive. Could it be that the darkness in our world is not because of the economic situation, crime, broken families, or war but the lack of God being lifted up. Grace is an atmosphere that softens hearts, heals, brings hope, and restores. Grace is who God is because Jesus is the fullness of grace and truth. My choice today is to live in His grace and love, though apart from His grace I deserve death. I pray you will choose to rejoice in the Lord, no matter what you may be going through.

In His Amazing Grace,
Bret

Is God Nurturing?

I ask this question because as I was reading a book about Experiencing the Father's Embrace it touched on the mother wound. I realized that over the years God has done so much healing and transformation in me around the wound of my father's suicide. This train wreck through the center of my life, has been the focus of much prayer and healing. So to realize that God wanted to be nurture me like a mother to fill the places where I did not receive was a surprise to me. I had not seen God as nurturing or in anyway mothering. Don't let me lose you here, there have been distortions by New Agers about Mother God. Yet as you look at the Word you see that God is indeed nurturing, tender, and caring. Psalm 91 and Psalm 22:9 & 10 reveal the picture of a God who cares and raises us up. I am learning to accept the nurturing and tenderness of my God that is healing a place in my heart that was wounded. As I ministered to a man who had been deeply hurt by both of his parents and out of his wounds had sought women for comfort and being wanted, I began to see the nurturing heart of God. The man was shocked to realize that God could be this for him, he realized he had hurt many people by seeking to fill this need his own way. Especially for men who are taught by our society to be tough, strong, and aloof it is revealing to see that we need the nurture, tenderness, and love that comes from the feminine qualities of God. I realized in my own life that what caused difficulty in my marriage was my inability to receive nurturing, thus to be tender and loving to my wife the way God wants. I have realized you cannot give what you have not received, so if you did not receive something growing up then receiving it from God allows you to be a conduit of His love. Why do counselors talk about the past? Because our identity has been formed through our experiences and to take on our new identity in Christ we must release the old to walk in the new (Ephesians 4:22-25). I also see in my own life that I am not good at nurturing myself (receiving it from the Lord), I tend to be driven too much by fears, demands, or others expectations. I am learning how to allow God to nurture and love me with His tenderness. I pray that God would reveal this dimension of His love to you.

In His Love,
Bret

Lies and Darkness

I was recently amazed that we can walk in internal darkness. The Word says God is Light, we often think that is great but don't know how to apply this to life. I found that I hit some internal darkness in my life which was very painful and difficult to walk through. When we believe lies about our identity it produces an internal darkness that we may try to avoid or medicate but can only be displaced by an encounter with the one who is light. As I was having emotions overflowing to the top, I actually got physically sick. After going home and going to bed God began to reveal some things to me. I had a picture in my mind of approaching the throne of Jesus and He told me that I couldn't bring "that" with me. I had worn old rags of hopelessness, a twisted love, defeat and despair, and loneliness. These were a darkness that weighed me down and kept me hunched over. These different things met needs in a twisted way and I was scared to take them off because they were all I ever knew. I was scared to be exposed because I felt totally ill-equipped to love and be loved. After finally discarding these defiling garments I was able to sit with Jesus and talk. He showed me His scars and what they meant for me. He answered the deepest questions of a little boy who had been deeply hurt. I realized I needed a Jesus who could be there in a more tangible way to meet those deep down love needs that had not be met. Jesus was always patient and didn't seem to mind my questions. It was very powerful when He wanted to listen to me, I had not really felt heard in my childhood. Jesus was patient to listen to all that I had to say, even asking me "what else". There is something so powerful about being deeply heard, this brought healing to a broken heart. When we encounter God we may not visualize Him but if we truly have encountered God there will be transformation in our lives. Confronting the darkness in our life takes the courage of God but also it takes desperation. It was those who hungered and were desperate who approached Jesus and then never walked away the same. It was those who relied on an intellectual system of religion but would not come to Jesus needy, who missed encountering the Savior. We all believe many more lies about our identity than we want to admit, otherwise the whole earth would covered in His glory. To be God's beloved children is the most amazing truth but an even more wonderful truth to be experienced and lived. It has struck me over and over again through the Word that "roots" are important. This is not the physical roots but what we really believe deep down inside. Since the Word says "love your neighbor as yourself", then having our identity "in Christ" as our root is primary in being able to love others. This is an identity that comes from "the Word became flesh" which means receiving our identity from the Spirit of Christ. The Word of God tells us about this identity but it is the Spirit that reveals and takes us into this identity.

In His Grace,
Bret

Spiritual Ears to Receive

As I was preparing to do my second sermon in history on "Receiving" the Lord led me back to the beginning (Garden of Eden) to understand where our barriers to receiving from God came from. In Genesis 3:10 "He [Adam] said, 'I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself". The phrase "heard the sound of You" jumped off the page, God revealed something I had never seen before. Adam and Eve would have received God's Word by revelation (in relationship) before the Fall but for the first time Adam was relying on his natural senses (hearing) and not his spirit. Since God is spirit Adam and Eve would have related with God through their spirit. In another words Adam and Eve would have sensed God was in the Garden with their spirit but now they are trusting their 5 senses because their spirit died. This is significant because we often now attempt to relate to God via our senses trained by our soul (mind, will, and emotions), rather than trusting His voice to be spoken in our spirit. It is also significant because the first response to God after the Fall is fear, which is then what trains our senses. It now makes sense to me why Jesus would continually be saying "...he who has ears to hear let him ear..." Since for so many years people have lived with a dull sense of hearing, Jesus is waking them up. How would you like to have supernatural hearing? Isn't it frustrating to listen to so many sermons, read books, and even read the Bible and not see transformation in your life. How many ministers are frustrated because it seems the congregation never really "hears" them? Hebrews 5:10-14 tells us that the dullness of hearing is being "unskilled in the word of righteousness". Righteousness is most talked about in Romans and this is the understanding that we are totally accepted by God based on the finished work of Jesus Christ and not our own works. When I was struggling to grasp righteousness, a friend said "it is being naked and unashamed". This means we can come to a Holy God with our flaws, sins, failures, weaknesses, and difficulties yet He accepts us. We are changed when we encounter the Spirit of the Lord (2 Corinthians 3:16-18), not when we try to change ourselves. All of us need to be changed to walk in God's love and truth. It is being skilled in the word of righteousness, so we walk in the reality of God's unconditional acceptance of us which is His love which is what casts out all fear. I know in my life because of rejection, disappointments, and unmet needs I am too often afraid of experiencing these same things again so my senses have been tuned to these fears. As God continues to free me from these fears and live in His love my senses trained by to love. I have often thought I was "too sensitive" but I realize it was just that my senses were trained by fears instead of resting in Love. It makes sense to me that you cannot mature if you have not had a revelation of righteousness. Thus you are always trying to earn God's approval by striving to do what you believe will please Him and make you acceptable. If we don't find our acceptance and love in the arms of the Father, then it becomes very easy to turn to people, addictions, job, and other counterfeits for His love. Practicing our senses being trained to His Spirit means that we can experience God and His Word, not just a mental ascent. We were created to live in the reality of His love and in continual relationship with Him. Let's have ears to hear.

In His Love,
Bret