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September 14, 2016 by Dave Diehl Leave a Comment

The Jezebel Jury – Part 2

In giving Laura a well deserved break, I (Dave) have decided to give this a shot.  This is part 2 of The Jezebel Jury.  If you haven’t already read part 1, I encourage you to click here to read it first.

We saw in part 1 that out of all the traits of the Old Testament Jezebel, the one trait that the woman Jesus named Jezebel in Rev. 2:20 was teaching and promoting sexual immorality and eating food sacrificed to idols.  This was done in complete defiance of the only “burden” the apostles put on the church, after a divisive argument about circumcision (see Acts 15:28-29).  So when it comes to the “spirit of Jezebel”, I believe it is critical to go with the definition Jesus gave in Revelation.  So why do so many define it based on the domineering traits of the Old Testament Jezebel?

The Jezebel

Many see the story of King Ahab as a weak man controlled by a domineering un-submissive wife that uses her husband’s powerful position for her purposes.    This perception is then used as part of their definition of a spirit of Jezebel.  The scripture isn’t specific about this, so it may or may not have been true.  However, I believe this view tends to overlook the true character of Ahab.  He was the the most evil King that Israel ever had, before he married Jezebel!  It’s my opinion that it was this evil in his heart that drew him to the wickedness of Baal worship and its sexual nature.

1 Kings 16:30-33 NIV “30 Ahab son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him. 31 He not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, but he also married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him. 32 He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria. 33 Ahab also made an Asherah pole and did more to arouse the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, than did all the kings of Israel before him.”

Ahab not only did the evil of his fathers, but he then went on to marry Jezebel, a priestess of Baal worship.  While it is highly likely that this marriage was also for political purposes between two kingdoms, which was customary, it is also highly likely that Ahab, consumed with lust, purposefully choose Jezebel because of her close connection to Baal worship and its sexual debauchery.

Verse 32 & 33 says that Ahab set up the alters for Baal worship in Israel.  I am sure Jezebel was right there encouraging him, but I do not believe she manipulated him into it.  It was already a strong deception in his heart and she was right by his side.

There is no question that Jezebel was evil (I mean she was killing as many of the Lords prophets as possible and let Elijah know he was next).  It is said when two people are perfect for each other they are a “match made in heaven”.  These two were a match made in hell.  Her wickedness was only matched by his.

Then there is Naboth’s vineyard that Ahab wanted.  Interestingly enough, Ahab didn’t just take it, he offered Naboth a better vineyard or payment.  Naboth rightly said he could not, as it was the Lords inheritance.  It was forbidden for him to give it away even to the King.  purple-grapesAhab went away angry and sulked, refusing to eat (1 Kings 21:4).  Many use this to show how week Ahab was and Jezebel “wore the pants of the family”.  I see this a little differently.  I think Ahab was confronted with God’s word that he knew was true and didn’t know how to get past the dilemma and get what he wanted!  That’s why he didn’t just take the vineyard.  Jezebel in many ways is “standing by her man” here it seems.  Verse 7 “Jezebel his wife said, ‘is this how you act as king over Israel? Get up and eat! Cheer up. I’ll get you the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.’”   Jezebel devised an evil plan to set up Naboth to be killed without implicating her or Ahab.  Once Naboth was dead, Ahab took the vineyard.

Many use 1 Kings 21:25 as evidence that Jezebel manipulated Ahab.  KJV “But there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up.”  NIV uses the term “urged on”.  Did Jezebel manipulate him?  Possibly, but I believe this scripture shows the type of relationship they had.  Have you ever seen when one person is complaining about something, how another will be in agreement with them and the two stir each other up into a frenzy?  This is what I see happening here.  The bottom line is Ahab is responsible for what he did to Israel with or without Jezebel!

So to me, it seems obvious that the “spirit of Jezebel” affecting the church is best defined as Jesus did in Rev. 2:20, “Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols.”  It is teaching that sexual immorality is okay and so is eating food sacrificed to idols.  The church is urged not to allow that to be taught in their local fellowships.  Can you see this happening in America today, at least the sexual sin portion?

Don’t get me wrong, I do believe there is a spirit of control that can affect relationships as well, but I do not believe this should be considered the spirit of Jezebel (who was very domineering).  In some cases this may be why some accuse others of having the “spirit of Jezebel”.  Often those struggling with their own control issues will accuse others of the very thing of which they are guilty.  This is an area to be careful with as well.  Our natural flesh can have control issues.  Often we are just dealing with our fleshly nature.  However, if we refuse to allow God to deal with us in that area when He points it out to us, we can open a door for demonic activity in our lives.  Controlling spirits can affect the church greatly.  Have you seen it?  460px-Rock-paper-scissors.svgDeacon-elder boards controlling the pastor and what he preaches; pastors trying to control the congregation and boards; a congregation member withholding their financial support if they don’t get what they want.  I like how the book Conquering the Game of Control by Craig Green states it.  There are three types of control. Manipulation, intimidation and domination. A manipulator can control a dominator.  A dominator can control an intimidator and an intimidator can control a manipulator.  It’s like playing rock paper scissors.  The only way to win is to not play the game!

 

20150501_104633Gems from the Crown is a weekly blog from Crown of Glory Ministries to strengthen and encourage believers in Christ in their walk with God, especially in the areas of vision, authority, and identity. If you would like to have Gems from the Crown delivered directly to you, please click here.

 

Filed Under: Authority, Gems from the Crown, Idenity

August 31, 2016 by Dave Diehl Leave a Comment

The Jezebel Jury

In giving Laura a well deserved break, I (Dave) have decided to write this week’s blog.

There has been a lot of buzz in some circles of the body of Christ about the Jezebel spirit.  Many books have been written about it, and messages preached on it.  It is a very serious thing.

The Jezebel

But I believe that in our fervency to make sure we don’t “tolerate that woman Jezebel” (Rev. 2:20) the enemy has used Christian leaders to falsely accuse people in the body of Christ of this (mostly woman), causing them to be deeply wounded in their spirit, if not lose their faith over it.  That is simply wrong, and a blemish we need to remove from our garments.

Many have defined the spirit of Jezebel as a strong controlling spirit.  Others believe it is an unsubmissive wife.  It is crucial we look at what the scripture says about this, so we fight the right fight and avoid wrongfully accusing our brothers and sisters of such a horrific thing.

First off, nowhere in scripture will you find the term “spirit of Jezebel.”  Scripture tells us of all sorts of types of spirits such as a “spirit of stupor” (Rom. 11:8), “an impure spirit” (Matt.12:43) “You deaf and mute spirit” (Mark 9:25) and others.  Now I am no Bible scholar, but what I find curious, is that the only place I’ve ever found where Jesus told a spirit to name itself was when He encountered the demon possessed man that lived among the tombs in Holy Spiritthe eastern coastal area of the Sea of Galilee in Mark 5:1-20.  Verse 9 says, “Then Jesus asked him, ‘What is your name?’  ‘My name is Legion,’ he replied, ‘for we are many.’”  So, other than this example, as far as I can  tell, naming of spirits is something man came up with, not a scriptural practice.  I’m not saying it’s wrong, I’m just making an observation that it may be subject to error, since it is man’s idea. (I also find it interesting that when the term spirit is used in the Bible, it is overwhelmingly referring to the Holy Spirit or an attribute of the Spirit of God.)

So where does this “spirit of Jezebel” get its name?  Let’s look at when Jesus told John to write to the church of Thyatira in Rev. 2:18-29.  Verse 20 “Nevertheless, I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols.”

To better understand this, we need to understand the culture the church of Thyatira found itself in.  As a city in the Roman Empire, it was a center of trade and the home of worship of the Greek pagan god, Apollo.  Trade guilds ruled the economy and you had to be a member of a guild to practice your trade.  These guilds were intertwined in the culture and had constant meetings where members worshiped Apollo, sacrificed animals to him and had banquets serving meat sacrificed to him.  Worship also included having sex with the priestess.  Since you were required to be in a guild for employment, it was demanded that you take part in these daily rituals.  You can see the struggle the church had.  But unlike the counter cultural church in Smyrna that would endure persecution rather than worship another God, the church in Thyatira accommodated it.

red flagcBack to what Jesus said in Revelation, first, notice that this woman named Jezebel calls herself a prophetess. That should be an immediate red flag to anyone, especially church leaders.

Second, she was placed in a position of leadership in the church and taught that it was fine to give into these cultural requirements for employment.  The leaders allowed her to “mislead my servants in to sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols.”

This was actually in direct defiance of the only requirements placed on the church (other than the two commandments of loving God and our Christian brothers and sisters) found in Acts 15.

The early church had a very divisive issue come up regarding the gentiles who were getting saved; they were not circumcised.  Some in the church were saying if the gentiles were not circumcised, they were not saved.  So the apostles met to discuss this issue, and determined that it was not of God to force circumcision and other requirements of the law on the Gentile believers.  They sent the church in Antioch a letter saying “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.” (Acts 15:28-29)

Compare that to what we read Jesus told the church in Thyatira “Now I say to the rest of you in Thyatira, to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan’s so-called deep secrets, ‘I will not impose any other burden on you, except to hold on to what you have until I come.’”. Did you notice that?  The same words are used both by the early church leaders and Jesus: They both stated they will not impose or lay any other burden on the believers, and they both said the main issues were abstaining from sexual immorality and do not eat food sacrificed to idols.

This is the “spirit” of Jezebel directly described by our savior!  The trait the woman named Jezebel in Revelation had in common with Jezebel in the Old Testament was seducing His people into accepting sexual immorality and idol worship in the teachings and practice of His people. This was in direct defiance to the exact two things the early church was instructed not to do.

So before “discerning” a Jezebel spirit in someone, if that person is not seducing others into sexual immorality or encouraging them to eat meat offered to idols (compromising in their relationship with God and His importance in his or her life) then do not use that label, for this is what Jesus himself described it as.

I would also say that I don’t believe it was the fact that the leaders allowed the woman Jezebel to fellowship in their church (even with that lifestyle), that Jesus had the problem with.  It was the fact that as leaders, they allowed her to teach her false beliefs and accommodated it in the church, instead of correcting her and protecting the rest of the saints from such abusive and outright rebellious teaching.

So why do so many diagnose the “spirit of Jezebel” based on the domineering traits of the Old Testament Jezebel?  Let’s tackle that question next.

20150501_104633Gems from the Crown is a weekly blog from Crown of Glory Ministries to strengthen and encourage believers in Christ in their walk with God, especially in the areas of vision, authority, and identity. If you would like to have Gems from the Crown delivered directly to you, please click here.

 

Filed Under: Authority, Gems from the Crown, Idenity

August 17, 2016 by Laura Diehl Leave a Comment

Is Faith Our Golden Ticket? Part 2

Have you ever been told the reason something bad is happening in your life is because you either don’t have enough faith, or because you are not walking in your God-given Kingdom authority?

Is Faith Our Golden Ticket to a Good Life_part 2

Yes, there are times those things are true.  But having enough faith or authority does not mean we will never again be affected by this sinful, fallen world in a way that hurts or shatters us. Eventually, those who hold to this Christian “golden ticket” belief either become angry with God for failing them, or they condemn themselves when something devastating happens and try to figure out what they did wrong.

This article is actually part two of this discussion. If you have not read part one, I recommend you read Is Faith Our Golden Ticket to a Good Life? Part One and then return to continue reading Part 2.

As I said last week, there are many scriptures to support how our faith stops the enemy, and learning how to walk in our Kingdom authority is powerful and effective against the enemy’s advances against us.

But does that mean if something which is obviously evil and not from God hits us, we are at fault for not being strong enough in faith or authority to stop it?

Let’s look at the Word of God to consider an answer to this question.

Moses was instructed directly by God to go back to Egypt to release the people of Israel from slavery and lead them into the land they were promised (which had been promised 400 years earlier and instead they became slaves in a foreign land). As Moses obeyed God, it got worse for the people as Pharaoh came down hard on them before they were released (Exodus 3-13). After they got their breakthrough and were set free, God led them crossing_of_red_sea___pastels_by_pawlis-d4b3hspspecifically to a place where they were cornered by the enemy, and once again things looked much worse after God stepped in and started leading them. They were very upset, not knowing that God had a bigger plan. God performed a miracle, causing the water to separate, giving the people an escape route (Exodus 14). None of these events had anything to do with the people’s lack of faith, and everything to do with God having a plan that could not be seen at the time of extreme difficulty.

Then there is always Job. Can you believe God called Satan’s attention to Job, and then allowed Satan to mess with him in such devastating ways? It didn’t matter how much faith Job had in God’s goodness; the Lord had lifted His “hedge of protection” from Job and let the enemy attack him time after time. He lost his wealth, his children and his health (Job 1, 2). And in the end, God restored Job’s health, wealth, and gave him more children (Job 42).

Okay, so those examples were under the old covenant. What about in the New Testament?

Well, what about when Jesus told Peter, “Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.” (Luke 22: 31-31 NKJV). Jesus didn’t tell Peter, “When the enemy comes to attack you, just take your God-given authority and use your faith to cast him off and all will be well”. Yes, Peter was later filled with the Holy Spirit and grew immensely in his faith, but that was still not a golden ticket to a world with no trials or instant deliverance for any of the apostles.

And then there is the Apostle Paul. If there was anyone who knew how to walk in faith and his God-given authority, he was the man.  Paul is also the one who wrote the most about our faith and our authority, instructing us to grow in these areas to defeat the enemy. And yet Paul, himself, tells us he has had “…far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death.  Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten Pieter_Mulier_A_Ship_Wrecked_in_a_Storm_off_a_Rocky_Coastwith rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.” 2 Corinthians 11:23-27 ESV). Was all of this because Paul had not yet learned how to have enough faith to keep these things from happening to him? I highly doubt it.

The story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego has been brought to my attention several times lately (which is actually what prompted me to write this article).  When threatened with death, their famous answer was, “If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up” (Daniel 3:17-18 NIV). It seems these three gave that “cop-out” answer of “if it’s God’s will” which some of us have been told shows a lack of faith in God’s Word and stops Him from moving in our lives.

When I recently heard this story once again in a Sunday morning message, it caused me to think of those in Hebrews 11. This entire chapter lists out those who stood in faith and gained what was promised, and also those who did not live to see the answer they were standing in faith to see. What’s up with that?

I want to go back to what I said in part one of this open Biblediscussion. Faith and trust can be interchanged. I can have a bold faith in scriptures I have picked out, believing God is going to do exactly what those scriptures promise. Or I can have a trust that comes from knowing my God intimately, so that when I stand on the promises in His word, I also turn the situation over to Him, knowing He is in full control, no matter what I see, feel, or hear.

Sometimes, I believe our faith can get in the way of God’s greater plan. Most of our growth actually comes through adversity. When God knows a greater good can come from the trial, sometimes He will trump our faith and authority with His greater good, especially when we have a heart that wants His will to be done over our own will.

In other words, God doesn’t need our opinions or demands (sometimes disguised as “faith”) in order to do His job.  He needs our trust.  He needs our belief in His ability to see, know, and do, what we cannot see, we cannot know, and we cannot do.

I have not said all of this to discount faith, or to discourage anyone from growing in learning how to walk in our God-given authority. These things are a must! I have written this to remind us that God is still bigger than our faith and our authority. He is sovereign and has the final word on everything. If you have done all you know to do, trust God with the outcome. This is especially true when your faith is met with resistance, or the opposite happens of what you were believing in faith. Don’t’ quit and don’t blame God for being God.

As someone who knows what he is talking about has written, “Having done all, stand!”

20150501_104633Gems from the Crown is a weekly blog from Crown of Glory Ministries to strengthen and encourage believers in Christ in their walk with God, especially in the areas of vision, authority, and identity. If you would like to have Gems from the Crown delivered directly to you, please click here.

 

Filed Under: Authority, Gems from the Crown, Vision - Past, Present, Future

August 3, 2016 by Laura Diehl 2 Comments

Is Faith Our Golden Ticket to a Good Life?

Some believers in Christ are taught that being a Christian is like having a golden ticket to a good life. They are told when we trust God and “stand on His Word” nothing bad will happen to us or our family (based on Scripture verses), that we will receive an instant miraculous healing in our bodies (based on lots of healing verses in the Bible), that our finances will be overflowing with abundance (once again, based on Bible verses) and…well, you get the idea.

16. Is Faith Our Golden Ticket to a Good Life_

Some of us have been told if these positive things don’t happen, it is because we either don’t have enough faith, or we are not using our authority in Christ. Now let me stop and say before I go any further that I believe God’s Word is absolute truth! Every Word of it! And I also believe we have been given the authority of Christ on this earth, no doubt about it! And I also don’t have full understanding of God and His Word, just like everyone else!

Back in 1985, our three year old daughter was diagnosed with cancer, facing having her tiny left leg amputated and going through chemotherapy.  I was convinced if I had enough faith, she would be healed. I told anybody and everybody she was going to be healed and not need the amputation. My thought process was the more I spoke it out in faith, and the more people I told, the more God would have to honor His Word and heal her. Our church also did forty days of prayer and fasting for her healing (along with two other women who had also been diagnosed with cancer).

1280px-X-ray_table (2)The morning the amputation was scheduled, x-rays were taken, to make sure they knew exactly where to make the cut on her leg. I was sure someone would come back shocked, saying the tumor was gone, and therefore no need for the amputation or any further chemo.

That didn’t happen, and I can still picture her looking over the shoulder of the big male nurse who had taken her out of my arms to carry her back for the procedure, as she waved slowly to us. That memory still grips my heart and can bring tears to my eyes.

For a long time, I questioned what I did wrong that left my daughter still needing this horrible procedure which would affect her for the rest of her life. We also had some Christians telling us we must not have had enough faith, or that we needed to learn how to walk in more of our God-given authority. People were giving us books on these subjects to “help” us. (I look back at it now and think how awful a response that was from some in the Body of Christ!)

Guess what I have learned over the years? Faith is almost cjb_coverexactly the same thing as trust. As a matter of fact, in the Complete Jewish Bible, you will never see the word faith. It is always translated as trust. For example, Hebrews 1:1 says, “Trusting is being confident of what we hope for, convinced about things we do not see.”

This has given me a whole new revelation which has answered so many questions in the arena of my “faith walk”, including when my daughter died.

I have always felt like faith is something I have to figure out how to have enough of, based on what I do. Things like, “Faith comes by hearing the Word of God” (Romans 10:17). I have to either be speaking out the Word or listening to someone preaching a lot throughout my day to build up my faith big enough to have no more problems. But I can never quite seem to get to the point where I do it enough to have that perfect life some Christians say the Bible tells us we are supposed to have.  Anyone else ever feel that way?

When I realized the truth, that trust can be equated as having faith, it changed everything! I no longer had to figure out how to conjure up enough faith.  I just needed to learn how to trust God more.  I can do that so much easier!

And so the adventure began of learning how to trust my Abba Father God, which was essentially learning how to rest in my Daddy God’s incredible and extravagant love for me.

As I said earlier, rather abruptly, my daughter died (twenty-six years later from heart damage caused by the chemotherapy). Once again, I felt blindsided, because I truly believed God was going to heal her heart (either miraculously, or through a needed heart transplant). But this time it was different. My faith was not an audacious presumption that God was a genie to grant my wishes, using the Bible as my lamp to rub. This time it was based on a precious trust I had come to have, in knowing my Daddy God in a very deep and personal way.

When I asked Him about the fact that my faith was not met with the healing of my daughter, He gave me the most precious answer I could have had. (And it was not the Christian cliché answer, “He did answer your prayer because she is healed now in heaven.”) He reminded me of Hebrews 11:6, that without faith it is impossible to please Him. And He told me that my faith – my trust – had brought Him so much pleasure! Wow! I was amazed and in awe that I would bring God pleasure by how much I trusted Him with my daughter’s healing!

So let me summarize all this up for you.

  • Faith is not equivalent to using God as a magic genie to grant your wishes for a good life, using verses from the Bible as your lamp to rub.
  • Faith is essentially equivalent to trust.
  • You can’t trust someone you don’t know. That means in order to be able to trust God, you must get to know Him. Deeply and intimately.
  • The more you get to know God as your loving Abba (Daddy), the more you will know and experience His deep unconditional love for you, which makes it even easier to trust Him more, putting you in a wonderful circle of more love and more trust, aka “faith,” no matter what is happening in your life.

question-634903_1920 (1)And the bottom line is, whether we like it or not, trust means unanswered questions.  If we knew the answers, we would not need to trust Him. We would not have to increase our faith (our trust).

I want to encourage you to give God pleasure, by trusting Him more.  Spend time with Him, imagesCN8OJL0Nin His Word, in intimate worship, in conversations with Him. The more you do those things, the easier it will be to believe that He loves you with an extravagant love so incredible, that He would give His own life in exchange for yours.  Because that is exactly what He did!

With that kind of proof of His love, I think I can trust Him in this life to do what He knows is best for me. And so can you.

Remember those three young Hebrew men who were thrown into the fire, believing God would save them, “but if He doesn’t…”? What was that all about? Was it just an excuse in case they didn’t have enough faith (like those who tell us asking God for “His will to be done” is a cop-out for our lack of faith)? We will discuss this in the next article Is Faith Our Golden Ticket to a Good Life Part 2.

20150501_104633Gems from the Crown is a weekly blog from Crown of Glory Ministries to strengthen and encourage believers in Christ in their walk with God, especially in the areas of vision, authority, and identity. If you would like to have Gems from the Crown delivered directly to you, please click here.

 

Filed Under: Authority, Gems from the Crown, Vision - Past, Present, Future

July 6, 2016 by Laura Diehl Leave a Comment

How Good Are You at Hiding Your Messes?

A while back we were having up to 50 people over at our house downstairs in the family room for a time of fellowship and ministry.  Of course, I was working really hard to have a clean house.

How Good Are You at Hiding Your Messes_

I had the men in my family help me take a bunch of little used work-out equipment out of the basement and carry it up to our three season porch, and move the pool table to a different spot. We also rearranged the sectional couch to accommodate all the chairs we would need to set up.

At the time, we were also in the process of replacing our kitchen/dining room carpet (it was there from when we bought the house well over 10 years ago) to hardwood floors.  Before putting in the new floors, we took out some cupboards that separated the kitchen area from the dining area and moved them against the dining room wall. So this meant all the “stuff” in the cupboards had to come out, and when it went back in, everything had to be rearranged to make it functional for the new set-up.

The question became just how much work do I put into cleaning and making the house “presentable”? My plan included making time to clear out the back basement area that some people might see if they use the downstairs bathroom.

Then I had to ask myself why?  Do I really not want people to see that we actually live in our house and that we use our basement to pile up stuff we are storing until we decide to find a place for it or to get rid of it?

I can’t help but think of the parallel when it comes to what we try to hide in our lives. As Christians, we have a hard time letting those in the body of Christ see the real us, so we clean things up on the outside, and hide what is really going on in our lives, especially if we think it shows we don’t have things all together like a “good” Christian should.

Why do we seem to believe that if we have guitlyChrist in our lives, everything is supposed to be great, and if it isn’t, it must be our fault? Jesus, Himself, told us we would have tribulation. He said He would never leave us or forsake us. We are told to come to His throne boldly to obtain grace in the time of trouble. Paul, himself, went through a long list of trials and tribulations (such as being shipwrecked and being beaten (and left for dead) more than once.

Life is messy. We live in a fallen sinful world, and there are plenty of times we get caught in the fall-out. Why do we try so hard to hide it from each other? How can we share our burdens with each other and weep with those who weep, if we don’t take off the masks and let anyone around us know we are hurting because of… well, life?

We need each other. Let’s stop trying to pretend like everything is in perfect order in our lives, if it isn’t. I am not encouraging complaining and gossip. But what I am encouraging is not hiding behind a false pretense thinking you can’t let anyone know you are being affected by the “stuff” life throws at us.

Satan wants us isolated. If he can’t do it to us physically, he will try to do it to us emotionally. If we live our lives pretending to be someone we aren’t, or live in a way that causes people to believe we have no real problems in our lives, it is like my trying to clean up my house to hide the fact that we actually live in our house, and if you come over, you might see some messes.

Let’s stop hiding our messes and come clean with the fact we all have “stuff” we are dealing with. We are all working out our salvation, and in the process of becoming who God wants us to be. And that’s okay.

20150501_104633Gems from the Crown is a weekly blog from Crown of Glory Ministries to strengthen and encourage believers in Christ in their walk with God, especially in the areas of vision, authority, and identity. If you would like to have Gems from the Crown delivered directly to you, please click here.

 

Filed Under: Gems from the Crown, Idenity

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