Month: August 2013

Psalm 51 NIV84

1 For the director of music. A psalm of David. When the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba.
1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.
…
10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will turn back to you.
14 Save me from bloodguilt, O God, the God who saves me, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.
16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings.
17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

I love Psalm 51:17.  I mess up regularly.  And when I have messed up bad, and the excuses don’t mean a thing, I have this cry of David to give me the comfort I am desperately looking for.  If I “own” my evil action, and wish I had never done it, and I am committed to never doing it again, Our Father in Heaven will “blot out my transgressions”.  Why would He do that?  Because of all the good things I’ve done? or all the good things I promise to do?

No.

He forgives me because He is my Father and He loves me.  (And He loves you just as much).  And He has the right to forgive us because He suffered and died to pay the price for our sins.

But what does Our Father do when I have been forgiven and commit the exact same sin again, and again, and again?!  Matthew records Jesus:

Then Peter came to [Jesus] and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?”
Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.

Matthew 18:21-22 NKJV

If God tells us to forgive others that many times, how will He treat us?  Our Father has limitless compassion on us His children.  If He endured torture and death for us when we were His enemies, what will He withhold now that we are His friends?  Or, as the Apostle Paul wrote:

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

Romans 5:8-11 NKJV

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. 

Romans 8:28 NKJV

In my case, my consequence of mental illness has given me insight and credibility to help others who are experiencing mental illness and/or to help their loved ones understand what mental illness is like.  Whatever mistakes you have made, if you turn from it, God can use it for good.  And He can make using that mistake an opportunity to help others… And a joy!

Why don’t you ask Him to do that for you right now?

I have received no comments on any post since I started in May.  I may be doing something wrong, but I don’t know what it is.  Please let me know your comments or what I am doing wrong by emailing me at james-mcnaughton@sbcglobal.net

Jesus said that even He did not come to be served but to serve and be a ransom for many.  This was after His disciples had been arguing about who would be the greatest.

What is important to me?  Is it to be great?  Jesus said to do that I need to be the slave all.  This made no sense before I knew Christ.  To be a Jesus learner He said I must deny myself.  I must stop wanting what I “naturally want” and choose to do what I don’t naturally want.

Serving others does not come naturally for me.  A friend of mine once said that he has the “gift of being served”.  It still makes me laugh because I (and everyone else?) has the same gift.  Since a Christ follower follows in the footsteps Christ, He wants me to serve, right?  But does He want me to be a ransom, too?  Not in the sense that I can pay for someone else’s sins, but Jesus died to serve me, to love me.  Am I to die for others?  I interpret this as me needing to value others above myself and what I want.

I can serve someone without valuing them, but I can’t value someone without serving them.  And as long as the “I” is more important than “You”, I don’t value you like Jesus does.

 Jesus said for us to die to ourselves daily, to take up our cross (God’s purpose for our lives of serving Him by serving others) and follow Him.  I can’t do this without the Holy Spirit’s help.  Pastor Dr. Charles F. Stanley of http://www.InTouch.org suggests that, before I get out of bed in the morning, I ask the Holy Spirit to fill me with Himself and lead me through the day.  Clare DeGraaf author of the blog Following Jesus in Real Life (www.claredegraaf.com, see the top of this blog), suggests asking God to give me impressions during the day of how I can be used by Him to help others.

So with all this dying and serving others what’s in it for me?  Is this all self-denial and pain?  Jesus said, “I have come that they might have life, and have it to the full”.  When I serve Jesus, in the power of the Holy Spirit, I come to know God in a way I have never known, and I feel fully alive!.  As Eric Liddell, Olympic 400 metre champion and missionary to China said in the movie Chariots of Fire, “When I run, I feel His pleasure”.

You can feel His pleasure too!  Ask the Holy Spirit to fill you and lead you.  Then do what He says.  As Dr. Stanley says, “He will not ask you to do anything sinful or foolish”.  What God says will never contradict the Bible, if it does it is not the Holy Spirit speaking to you.  The devil will try to stop you, but as Jesus said, “take heart, I have overcome the world” and the devil.