I'm So Vain.

Please, Lord, help me to not be filled with the vanity that is threatening to disrupt my life. Help me to not be consumed with how I look, not at all.

Psa_119:37  Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity; and quicken thou me in thy way.

Pro_30:8  Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me

Ecc_1:2  Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.

Pro_31:30  Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised.

Your word tells me all is vanity and yes, all is vanity because we are so caught up in ourselves. We are indoctrinated from a very young age to care about our appearance. We are called names by others who want us to know we don't meet the standards of acceptable appearance. We are told we have nice smiles in order to keep us from being called homely, plain, ugly. We grow up and this never changes. We just get to see the beauty in the younger ones around us as age takes its toll on our flesh- regardless of our attempts to use the touted products to slow down the wrinkling, crinkling, crepe-like, mole appearing, skin deteriorating flesh we possess. We console ourselves with words like- my genetic makeup predisposes me to aging badly- we're a family of early wrinkling. There is just so much that is TOTALLY out of our ability to control. I can't stop a single wrinkle from appearing, I can't stop a single mole from showing up. I can't keep arthritis from disfiguring my hands. I cannot take my flappy, loose flesh and make it taut.  I can't do any of that without becoming rich enough to afford a lot of plastic type surgery. VANITY!  I'm so vain! Satan wants me to want to hide away, to become bitter about my lot in the appearance pool of life. Satan would have this depress me, to turn my outlook on my life completely inward and let this keep me from walking in the path Christ wants me to walk.

Should I care if people whisper behind my back saying how old I look, how I look so much older than my years? How I look older than they are when in fact they are much older than me? Should I care if it is TRUE? Should I feel shame that I can't look better for my spouse? Should I feel apologetic for aging badly and now he has to be seen with the ugly old lady looking me? Should I care? Should I care if when he looks at me he sees his great grandmother looking back at him? Should I care?

If people are judging me in this way- or consoling themselves by saying they're not judging - just observing facts-  should I care? If people are making themselves feel better about their own aging and their own appearance by holding up mine as something to make them happier because they look better, should I care?!  Doesn't it just make me awful, because I in turn must be hoping I look better than they do, that I'm aging better than they are if it bothers me they are wanting the same thing?!

Why am I caught up in this nightmare? I care because Satan wants me to get caught up in the CARES OF THIS LIFE! Satan wants to trap me any way he can and he's trying so hard to rip me away from Christ. All stops are being pulled out - one plug after the other is coming undone because Satan knows how incredibly short his time is.

My SAVIOR is stronger than Satan! My Savior WILL save me and keep me from all these awful traps being thrown up all around me to trip me up! My Savior has told me that this LIFE is temporary, it is ETERNITY WITH HIM that is the most important thing ever! My Savior tells me to put my TREASURES in heaven!  I can't have my treasures here on earth or they are not in eternity with Him!  The treasure of my appearance must be the treasure of transformation when I'm finally with Christ, not the treasure of earthly beauty fading quickly away.  If I become the most physically ugliest of all here and now it shouldn't matter one bit! If I'm despised for the horrors of my aged, weight abused flesh it shouldn't matter not in the slightest! NONE of it should matter except living for CHRIST and eternity with HIM.

We are to count ALL things as loss but CHRIST. Meaning nothing but CHRIST and living for HIM, with HIM in us directing our way of life so we can reveal HIS love to others, should matter. What good would all the beauty in the world do me if I don't have Christ?! Just as riches are the root of all evil, people believing having riches would solve so many of life's problems, beauty is a close second- people thinking if only they were better in appearance then a lot of life's problems would be swept away- LIES.

LORD, please help me to live YOUR TRUTH, protect me from Satan's many evil traps! Help me to truly have my TREASURES in heaven. Help me to care first and foremost for YOU!

Php_3:8  Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ

This includes my looks, my youth, any comeliness I may have ever possessed at all. Help me count it all but loss so I may live in the knowledge of YOU, my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!

Help me to ONLY care about what YOU think of me and no other!

Let my beauty be YOU in me, and nothing else. Please, Lord, please.

Help me! Help my head know and live what my heart knows and desires to live- all for YOU. Help my heart and head, Lord as only You can do!  Thank you, Lord! Thank you!

Make Straight Paths.

We grow weary…yet we must not faint.

Heb_12:3 …lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.

Heb 12:12  Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; 

Heb 12:13  And make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed. 

We must look to Jesus and when we look to Jesus find His strength for our spiritual existence. Satan would trap us in so many ways trying to keep us from ever looking to our Savior- as truly being our Savior. Satan wants us to stare at our lives and dwell on the places our feet have taken us- down paths of unrighteousness, through fields of sin, over hills of despair. Satan doesn't want us to make straight paths for our feet- the path that leads to Christ, the path that we follow as the world reveals millions of other paths tempting us towards the crooked ways.

We must make straight paths for our feet… when we make straight paths for our feet any lameness we incurred as we were on the crooked paths can be healed! Our feet which can barely move will gain new strength in Christ! We don't have to be stuck in the thick muddy paths Satan entices us with. Every single path Satan puts in our way will look amazing, fun, fulfilling, satisfying… his paths do NOT present as haunted horror trails meant to terrify you. The paths that Satan dresses up are more like the candy laden lanes that lead unsuspecting children into witch houses. You might not be tempted by a candy lane, but put your besetting sin, your most tempting of all temptations in the place of that candy and you will find yourself wanting almost desperately to head down that path- it's HOW Satan works. And barring entrapping you with pleasure inducing paths, Satan will construct paths that will call to our despairing, depressive, self-depreciating, self-sabotaging sides. Do not think all people are enticed by the feel good- some are enticed by the self-pity, self-centered sides that give them an opportunity to bemoan their existence. They'll enter the path of pain and pity secretly (sometimes even to themselves a secret) just so they can be caught up in the cares of this life so much so they can't even imagine the straight path that leads to salvation in Christ. 

Tricks and traps surround us on every side making their snaking, sneaking ways off the path of righteousness, but truth will shine out as a brilliant beacon of hope guiding us through it all. We must make a straight path towards that Light so we can be healed from all that would cause us to go spiritually immobile, sinking us into whatever evil Satan can use to entrap us.

We must…

Heb 12:14  Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: 

Heb 12:15  Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled

More on this tomorrow by the grace, the mercy, the will of our Lord, Jesus Christ, now and forever!

Do Not Faint!

Heb_12:3 …lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.

Faint in our minds. That means it is possible for us to faint in our Christian walk, our spiritual selves can faint in our minds, we can grow weary in the lives we are living for Christ, this possibility exists.

Let's talk about fainting for a moment.

Fainting- the dictionary meaning-

Not bright, but dim. Done feebly without conviction. Dizzy or weak, about to be unconscious. Remote, slight. Weakened, losing courage.

Being faint of heart most certainly eludes to being weak, losing courage, losing conviction. If we are fainting in our Christian walk, that means we are not growing stronger in Christ, we are giving into Satan because the hardships of the walk we are called to endure becomes too much for us. We are in essence, relying upon ourselves for strength. We are allowing Satan to interfere.

Luk_18:1  And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint

Pray - Don't Faint.

Prayer is one safeguard we need to use in our striving not to lose courage as we fight our spiritual war.  Just as a soldier in physical combat is given armor and weapons, we too are given spiritual armor and spiritual weapons.  After we are given - in great detail- our armor and weapon, we are told to PRAY ALWAYS. (Ephesians 6:11-18)  Prayer is reaching out by faith to God, it's putting our lives in His hands, for His will to be done. Prayer is powerful and able to keep us from fainting, from giving in. Prayer reinforces our comprehension that we are creatures and our Creator reigns over us. We look to our Creator knowing so much of life is totally out of our control, but it is all in His control.

Pray even if it is a singular cry to our God.

Rom_8:26  Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

Pray, don't faint.

2Co_4:1  Therefore seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not.

Faint not.

2Co_4:16  For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.

Faint not.

Our outward man perish… we live in perishing flesh bodies subject to all sorts of flesh ailments. Paul prayed to God three times asking God to rid him of a flesh ailment, and God chose not to do so. Paul who went about healing others constantly, was not healed of the infirmity he possessed in his flesh and why not-

2Co 12:7  And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. 

2Co 12:8  For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. 

2Co 12:9  And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 

A thorn in the flesh- a messenger of Satan buffeting him… and this thing was NOT healed, not removed from Paul. God's strength was being revealed in Paul's weakness. Even though Paul had to contend with this weakness which was bad enough for him to seek God, asking Him to remove it more than once, He persevered in spite of its continued existence. He didn’t take God's choice not to remove the infirmity from him as a sign that God had forsaken him. That's something we like to do. We like to assume God has decided not to act in our favor when things go horribly wrong in our lives, with us, and with people we love. Nothing could be further from the truth. God's choice to allow all the chastening, all the infirmities, all the buffeting we receive by Satan is for us to grow ever closer to the source of all love, all life. God wants us to partake of His holiness and He is trying to hone our comprehension of what it means to have complete and utter faith in Him.  Paul prayed, God answered, Paul accepted. Paul did not faint.

Gal_6:9  And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

Faint not.

We can grow weary in well doing. Satan wants us to grow weary. Satan will set up scenarios designed to test us to our spiritual limits wanting us to despise our doing good to the seemingly undeserving, to the ungrateful, to those who turn right around and ridicule and malign us, and go on expecting us to keep doing well for them. And WE MUST continue in well doing, to give in and refuse to do well because we are buffeted relentlessly by Satan, is to faint under the pressure of our spiritual attacker who is using all he can to cause us to faint and give in to him and the limits he's placed upon love, something that is limitless in God. Yes, Satan places limits on love telling us our love is too precious to give to the undeserving, the unappreciative, the abusers of that love. Yet, how we have abused the love of God is incalculable, and He still loves us. You can love with God's love, without compromising the truth of another's hatred and abuse. Your love will not negate their wrongs, it simply allows you to let God's love work in them. They will either come to know the love of God and seek true forgiveness, or they'll dig themselves deeper into Satan's hold and be dealt with accordingly when all fates are decided.  We love, we continue in well doing, and allow them to continue in their path of choice, never letting their choice affect our choice. When we allow the bad choices of others to affect our choice to do well- Satan gains a victory.

Eph_3:13  Wherefore I desire that ye faint not at my tribulations for you, which is your glory.

Faint not.

Tribulations. Yes, life is filled with tribulations tailor made to fit every single life- rich, poor, sick, healthy… you name it, each life no matter how seemingly tribulation free- will have its tribulations.  We cling to the hope beyond the tribulations, all by the grace of God.

Heb_12:3  For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.

Faint in your minds.

Jesus paid the ultimate price in tribulations, in facing the mocking. He taught the ultimate well doing in spite of Satan's many attempts to make Him grow weary in His well doing. Jesus, we must look to Jesus, if we look elsewhere- especially to ourselves for our own strength to endure- we will grow faint in our convictions.

Heb_12:5  And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:

Don't faint.

We will be taught many lessons. We will be chastened severely. The Lord will allow all this tribulation and we must use it all to overcome through HIM. We will be tempted to despise the chastening, the constant tribulation and to allow ourselves to give up our choice of trusting in spite of it all, in spite of being rebuked by the Lord. We must not give in to the temptation to give in, to faint, to grow weary! We are told it exists! We know it exists! We must NOT give in! Please, Lord, help us NOT give in!

Grievous Chastening.

Grievous chastening. NO ONE likes to be chastened. 

Chasten means- to subject someone to discipline. 

Being discipline means-  enforcing the acceptable patterns of behavior, punishment to teach obedience.

Grievous chastening is not something we are supposed to enjoy. We are to endure it because we know that we are being taught to obey, taught to follow the Lord as we need to. We endure it because we know that the ultimate goal of the many hard learned lessons will be our holding fast to Christ's righteousness, and being partakers with God's holiness. The ultimate result of enduring the chastening and allowing ourselves to be taught obedience to God's will is only for our good.

Heb 12:11  Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. 

The many trials and tribulations we go through in our lives, the many chastening's we endure as we navigate this sin-filled existence, struggling to find the narrow way, struggling to be known by our Savior- known so that we may be called His, belonging to Him- are for a purpose. Teaching us that to obey our Creator, our Savior, to obey our Heavenly Father, the Holy Spirit, and the Only Begotten Son of God.. this is the lesson we must learn. Obedience- surrendering our will which would have us try and demand obedience rather than give it. Surrendering to the love of God. We must be exercised by the tribulations, the chastising, the grievous times of our lives that can happen often, constant, or seldom. We need to allow God to work in us and let it be for His glory. We need to have all the situations we find ourselves in draw us closer to Christ, being exercised by the very things that would destroy us if Satan had his way.

Please, Lord, help us surrender, help us endure, help us learn obedience, help us be YOURS in all things, in all ways!

All through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, our Lord, now and forever!

Lives of Tribulation.

If I were to ask you to undertake a top secret, obviously extremely important mission you would laugh at me, wouldn't you? I know I'd most likely laugh at anyone I knew who asked me to do such a thing. Why would I laugh, or expect you to laugh? Because I am a person of little influence, as are most of my acquaintances. I lack the authority, the power to be involved in much that could ever be construed as being top secret, or a mission of any consequence. However, if an FBI agent, or CIA agent, or one of those 'men in black' came to you and convinced you of their authority then asked you to undertake a top secret mission then how would you feel? What do you imagine your thoughts would be? You might be frightened, apprehensive, worried, as well as excited and thrilled to be a part of something deemed important.

Where am I going with all this? Well, the most supreme authority in existence has asked us to be a part of His organization, a part of His plan, He wants us to undertake the most important mission (albeit not top secret) that we will ever be asked to undertake in our lifetime. Are you scoffing right now? Are you sitting there shaking your head as if what I'm saying is a letdown, that it is nothing new and not overall very important. Maybe you already know where this is going and are going to stop reading about now, or you have already and that's fine, you can. It's not like I have you tied to a chair, with your eyes taped open forcing you to read what I put in front of you, no, no and yet another, no. That would be considered torture and manipulation, force that the Highest Authority would never ever consent to being used.

Seriously, God would have us be PARTAKERS of HIS HOLINESS.

Partakers of HIS HOLINESS. GOD WANTS US! And not only does God want us, He wants us to partake of HIS HOLINESS.

When becoming a secret agent, or perhaps joining an organization such as a fraternity, or lodge, or other such club- often as a part of ritual you are subjected to certain traditions called hazing or more acceptably- tests. And yes, some are truly tests of skill to prove your capabilities, while others are simply pranks passed down to intimidate and assert power and authority over others, doing to others what was done to you, making others go through what you had to endure- a rite of passage.

Government agents I like to believe are truly tested, not hazed, and in their testing they are subjected to a lot of situations that are unpleasant, dangerous and possibly deadly.  Why are they tested? We know the answer to that, they have to be prepared for the jobs they are going to undertake, the missions they are called to go on. They are often tested to their breaking point, and part of that breaking is part of the teaching experience. They are broken and then put back together piece by piece if they are deemed worthy to continue on with their training. 

People who join the army might not realize what they signed up for until they are in the rigorous basic training. The realization of what it really is can be a bit daunting for some because it is set up to break down individuality and build up team mentality. It is geared towards stripping a person of individual thought and teaching them to listen to authority, to obey authority even against their own seemingly better judgement. They learn a chain of command and their place in that chain of command under hard training, and yes, a lot of ridicule. Those movies about basic training aren't all lies by any means.

We are asked to join God's army. We are asked to take on the supreme mission of eternal life. We are told that God wants us to be partakers of HIS holiness. God wants us to be a part of HIM. The importance of all God wants of us cannot be stressed enough! This isn't some past time in our lives meant to give us social status among those who believe like we do. More often than not in the Bible those who were called of God weren't called for stagnation, but for action. To spread the good news, or help those called to spread the good news. Spreading the good news was very necessary. And the gathering together was to strengthen one another during the spiritual warfare each person is called to endure once they return to their everyday life. The gathering together wasn't a social event, it was a spiritual event to uplift one another through the guidance of God's chosen to lead others in the truth.

Spiritual strengthening, this is why God told those who choose to follow Him that they are to not forsake getting together. We strengthen each other spiritually by sharing the truth that we are called by God to be partakers of His holiness. We are called to a life most treacherous, most dangerous, more so than any FBI, CIA, Black Ops, etc. agents are called to because their calling may endanger their physical lives, but our calling endangers our spiritual lives.

The recognition that our spiritual life is eternally important is something God allows by His mercy and grace, by His will, because He wants us to be partakers of His holiness in eternity, not a member of a clandestine organization for thirty, forty, fifty years.

We need to remember something very important. People go through a lot of hardship when they are in training, and some training never ends. If I'm to believe some of the shows I watch on television, then training for S.W.A.T., for Navy Seals, for many of those types of jobs- never truly ends. They are constantly striving to stay in shape and on top of things, never allowed to grow soft, or forget their hard training because to do so would mean they would be less efficient at their jobs. They have to work hard constantly, not get to a place where they can kick back and relax because they attained the status, the position they were aiming to attain.

As God's soldiers we are called to such a position. Our training will never end. Our need to be up to date in all our spiritual skills is paramount and if I understand correctly, those skills will be forever honed- never reaching a place of complacency- at least not until the entire battle is over in all its aspects.

You are being called to enlist in a lifelong mission of the greatest importance, yet how many take it that seriously?

We are told we will be spiritually chastened and scourged- and often the spiritual lessons we are being taught through the chastening and scourging are those found in our physical, mental, emotional world that feeds into our spiritual existence.

You may face innumerable challenges all geared to ultimately guide you to a spiritual existence that will culminate in partaking fully in God's holiness as a son or daughter of God's.

When we stop recognizing, or fail to even begin to recognize that our life is such that it is a training ground meant to keep us trained for God's service we fail to live spiritually.

The trials and tribulations we face which can be overwhelming are allowed to exist because we are being called to a spiritual strong hold, called to recognize our nothingness and God's everything.

Heb 12:6  For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. 

Heb 12:7  If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? 

Heb 12:8  But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. 

Heb 12:9  Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? 

Heb 12:10  For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. 

Heb 12:11  Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. 

This is truth!

Joh_16:33  These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

We live our lives now in constant tribulation. There is NO sugarcoating going on here. Constant spiritual tribulation that stems from the countless number of worldly tribulations that exist all around us in our lives. One tribulation after another, one chastening after another, one scourging after another and NOT to destroy us but to have us recognize that there is an eternity which is the ultimate goal in overcoming as our Savior overcame. NO MATTER what we go through here and now, or have gone through in our past, or may be called to go through in our future- what awaits us in eternity with God, partakers of His Holiness, all through our world overcoming Savior, Jesus Christ, will make it worth clinging to the hope found only in Him. IN HIM ALONE WE HAVE PEACE. Any peace we find elsewhere is meaningless without HIS PEACE.

God please, help us believe! Make our spiritual lives reality far beyond the reality of the tangible temporary training ground we live in now.

All through Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, now and forever!!!!!!!

Amen!

Chastened...Why?

Chastened.

Who likes being chastened?

To be chastened means to - make somebody subdued, to be subjected to discipline, to moderate the intensity of something. Here in the word of God we know the term is being used as being subject to discipline.

So who likes to be disciplined?

To be disciplined is to - practice the methods of teaching and enforcing acceptable patterns of behavior, a controlled orderly state, the ability to behave in a controlled calm way even in a difficult stressful situation, mental self-control used in directing or changing behavior or training for something, education, punishment to teach obedience, a system of rules in a religious order.

Here in the passage we are studying now it is being used as punishment to teach obedience.

Well, who likes to be punished?

Punished- to undergo a penalty for a wrongdoing, receiving a punishment for a crime, to treat someone harshly, causing damage or pain, to be treated unfairly, discriminatorily.

Okay, enough of the breaking down word meanings. Let's read the Biblical passage, the message from the Word of God.

Heb 12:5  And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: 

We are NOT to despise the chastening (discipline, punishment) of the LORD.

THE LORD will chasten us! The LORD will rebuke us! We receive this chastening, this rebuking from our CREATOR, from our HEAVENLY FATHER why? How?

Hold up for a moment of contemplation. All of us started out as babes, grew into toddlers, aged into young children, became older children, entered into the teenage realm and then young adults and onwards (depending on your age whoever might be reading this). The point being we grew up with parental figures in our lives and those parental figures tried to chasten us in order to teach us the proper way of behaving in our society. Even if you have the most awful parents (or parental figures, not particularly your biological parents) in existence you were exposed to some sort of chastening during your upbringing. Home, school, wherever it was you had exposure to learning what behaviors were acceptable and what behaviors weren’t acceptable. One way we learned was by behaving unacceptably and when that occurred we were told it was wrong and if we insisted on continuing that behavior we were punished, chastened in order to enforce the comprehension of what is acceptable and what isn't.

Learning to behave acceptably or knowing there are consequences to unacceptable behavior, and choosing to risk those consequences really are the only choices we have in our lives. Behave or not to behave. You may think there are more choices but there aren't- it's all wrapped up right there. Even if you NEVER get caught misbehaving and suffer any of the possible consequences to your misbehavior, you are risking the possibility of receiving the known consequences to your misbehavior.  Behave or not to behave. We live our lives under this rule of life and we also live our lives under the SPIRITUAL rule of life that is the same- behave or do not behave.

In the spiritual realm of this- our HEAVENLY FATHER will do all He can to teach us the necessary right and wrong behavior and guide us to the right behavior.

Let's read a bit more of the passage-

Heb 12:6  For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. 

Heb 12:7  If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? 

Heb 12:8  But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. 

Heb 12:9  Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? 

Heb 12:10  For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. 

Heb 12:11  Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. 

Why does our Heavenly Father chasten us- so we might be PARTAKERS OF HIS HOLINESS. He wants us to be HIS! And to be HIS, we need to comprehend right from wrong and choose the right over the wrong. To choose to obey rather than disobey. To comprehend obedience is a gift, true love, true life not a stricture placed on us to hurt us in any way at all.

We all understand the ways parents use to protect children- restricting them in ways they seem to resent. The parents restrict them to protect them out of love. If you have a child who begins to crawl and an open stairway down to a basement, you take precautions to keep the child from hurting themselves. You aren't doing it to be mean, you aren't trying to limit your child from its life- you are protecting the child so the child continues to have a life. God would protect us in this way. If we become willful, as children can, we might succeed in circumventing any protective measure put up to keep us from taking a bad fall down the stairs. The consequence will be us falling and even dying.

God would have us be PARTAKERS of HIS HOLINESS.

The position we were originally created for- to be a part of God's existence in pure peace, in pure love. The joy that waits for those who will partake of God's holiness goes beyond true comprehension in its wonder, try as we might to compare it to something we can only know it now cumbered by sin's degradation.

We are spiritually chastened so we may become PARTAKERS of GOD'S HOLINESS.

More on this tomorrow by the will and the mercy, the love, the grace of our LORD and SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST.

The Race for Eternal Life.

The weight of the world, we've all felt it haven't we? Of course, figuratively speaking we've felt that weight pressing down on us threatening to destroy us. It's those days when everything seems to go wrong. One problem after another arises and the flood of mental, emotional pressure, as well as physical ailments just want to crush us until there is nothing left of us. We somehow make it through- though there are times we end up broken from it all and need a lot of time to heal. Some of our world-weight, crushing injuries are able to be hidden, other times we can't help but wear the fresh wounds for all to see. The term mental breakdown holds a stigma - less so now than years ago- but still, it's a term we use to label those we classify as too mentally, emotionally weak to handle the weight of the world pressing down on them.

Are people who have mental breakdowns weak simply because another person in a similar situation is able to handle it without succumbing to a mind freezing, world altering, numb, strangeness that slips us out of the normal world into an unfamiliar and very scary strange realm of mental existence? Weakness truly has no place in mental, emotional breakdowns- they are the result of sensitivities unique to us all as individuals. You may have a sensitivity to eating mushrooms and they make you break out in hives, are you weak because of that? No. You may not be able to take the same medicine that thousands of others are able to take without bad side effects, does that make you weak? No, it's just who you are. Your heart may have damage to it done from genetics along with various abuses - diet, smoking, lack of exercise does that make you a weak person? No. You may have been born with the inability to regulate your insulin, does that mean you are weak? No. All these things that happen to us in response to the world's influences, through our genetic makeup and the like do not make us weak people, they make us people with sensitivities that are perhaps not average, perhaps not the same as yours, and when the weight of the world comes crashing down on an emotionally, mentally sensitive person and puts cracks in their way of life making things really difficult for them, we need to build them up, help them without stigma and ridicule.

We need compassion to comprehend their differences. Their difficulties in handling this thing we call life is not due to weakness but to their individuality.

Their weakness may exist because of your strength- and if you refuse them your strength they only grow weaker- where does the failing lie in this scenario, in truth? We have the ability to give our strength, and as long as we have no sensitivity of our own preventing that ability to give our strength, then our refusal to give strength to the weak makes us the truly weak ones, the flawed ones so much more beyond the one who is sensitive to the world in ways not fully comprehended.

That the world HAS weight that can crush us is not lost in Biblical teachings.

Some of the weight is of our own making, our own choosing. When we choose to disobey God's teachings and surround ourselves willing with sins we are covering ourselves with weights of this world. When we have knowledge of sin and know something we are doing is contrary to God's love- and we have NO repentance, no remorse, no guilt at all- we can't expect the weight of sin not to crush us.

God expects from us capable of doing so, to choose His love, His compassion, His ways of living. God knows that sin will tempt us and try us threatening to destroy us. We choose God's way over the way of sin, the right over the way of wrong, we choose to live surrounded by the weight of sin's temptation without it piling up on us.

We will never live in this world without sin tempting us on a constant basis. Some sins are more appealing to us than others and do easily capture us and it is those sins we have to lay aside. We have to recognize them and consciously decide to keep from them, to strive to keep from them, to actively choose to stop yielding to the temptation. To repent with a sincere remorse and desire not to yield to the temptation. To seek forgiveness always! To beg for whatever it is we need to keep from us from sinning.

We have entered into the race for our eternal life and along the route are millions and millions of potholes waiting to trip us up. But it's not too hard to avoid a pothole because we see it as being detrimental to our racing. Yet, also along the route are many waystations set up to tempt us to stop racing, offering us every incentive to drop out of the race. These waystations are outfitted with the most personally tempting enticements and often there is a tempter in the waystation with its foot stuck out in front of us ready to trip us up so they can pull us into their station keeping us from running.  We need to run the race with patience- with comprehension that all those temptations to keep us from running are out there waiting for us and we need to purposefully choose to look to the finish line and not let ourselves be taken captive by anything that would keep us from making it there. 

We have to look to JESUS who ran the race and won. We have to look at the horrors that Jesus endured to get to the finish line, paving the way for us. We need to keep Jesus ever before us in the race, not looking away from Him for a moment, ever dragging our focus from the tempting sins and towards Him and His love for us! He endured the greatest of temptations because He had the greatest relationship with the Father. He knew He could drop out of the race all He had to do was say the word. His temptation was so much more than any temptation we can imagine, and He never yielded! He wants us at the finish line with Him! He knows the sin weight of the world would drag us down and keep us from Him if we let it. He is there always to encourage us on toward Him. He comes to know us, every bit of our lives, as we race on and keep in constant contact with Him.

Yes, we may be called to struggle through the darkest valleys, and pits of the thickest mud on the racing route but as long as we keep our hope in that finish line where our Savior waits for us, ever pressing onward He will see us through the most world weight crushing times of our lives. Even when we break under the weight, He is there ready to keep us safe in Him as we heal. 

Our Savior will help us avoid the pot holes, get us through the rough terrain and inclement weather, and He will keep us from turning into the tempting waystations which only want to keep us from finishing the race. Our Savior gives us all the supplies we need along the racing route, we get the refreshing life giving water from Him, we get the bread of life from Him to sustain us, we get all the rest we need safe in His embrace, and the joys of true, everlasting love will be given to us.  All by HIS grace and mercy, His love now and forever!!!!!!!

Heb 12:1  Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 

Heb 12:2  Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. 

Heb 12:3  For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.