To Walk On Water

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. John 15:16

Some of us were never taught to conquer our fears. But God loves to call us into the uncomfortable and break mans rules. He wants us to know and face our fears so we can be better warriors, less susceptible to the enemies schemes. 

As long as we have fear in us, we're vulnerable. As long as we're comfortable we are missing our true purpose in this life and we're missing out on seeing what what God can do in our lives firsthand.  As long as we stay in the boat we are blinded to the stuff in us that God wants to heal and change because it's what is outside the boat that works as sandpaper to surface what is already there. 

He will apprehend us- as much as we want Him to. Our hearts need to be apprehended, taken captive, by Him in order to break free from the fears and faulty thinking in our heads. And in order for that renewing of the mind to take place, we need to surrender our fears and get out of the boat. We need to be willing to be changed, strengthened and set securely on His foundation so that we can be true warriors. We need for Him to show us what the "warrior" should be like. 

I write things like this because it's what I need and it's what I feel led to share. This particular topic was one the Lord spoke specifically to me about. He gave me the words above and He molded that morning around His message for me. He sent my son to tell me about his first vision, which had everything to do with this topic. But then, He reminded me that other people need this message too. It is appropriate for all of us.  

We, especially in America, lean towards the comfortable; comfort and efficiency are molded into our culture even so much that it bleeds into our faith. But we've got to be careful with this because that comfort, meshed with following Jesus won't work. Our culture will cause us to compromise our calling, our walk with Him for the stuff that makes us comfortable. 

I struggle with this myself, so please don't think I am finger-pointing. I am heavily convicted lately of the things I should do, but don't because it is hard, I am not good at it or I'm afraid. 

I dare to say that following Jesus isn't comfortable, but very uncomfortable most of the time. We are, and will be, called to do some hard things, some awkward and scary things. Those are the things that stretch and grow us into what we were created to be. They help us see what we're capable of when we put our trust in Jesus. It would be such a shame for us to spend our time here never knowing what our purpose and calling is, sacrificing true contentment and peace for a mere facade of it. 

The Heart of a Warrior

Because your heart was tender, and you have humbled yourself before the Lord, when you heard what I spoke against this place....I have also heard you, says the Lord. 2 Kings 22:19

I have felt extremely weary and have been tempted to harden my heart over the past week or two. Let's face it, hardening our hearts is easy to do, in fact, it is easier than staying tender. But the Lord reminded me of something  He has said to me on countless occasions- His warriors have tender hearts. They refuse to allow theirs to become hard because they live a life that goes against the flow. 

Spiritually speaking, a tender heart is the strongest heart. It is a threat to the darkness because it loves in the face of adversity. It stays vulnerable no matter what it is dealt and handles matters of life like a warrior of love. A tender heart is not a pushover or an enabler, but does what is best for the other person even if they ask for something else. A wise tender heart can set and adhere to healthy boundaries where abuse and unproductive behavior cannot stay. The one who has a tender heart can hear God best and his decisions will reflect that. He or she can love and care for others with true freedom from the "what if's." He or she can have healthy relationships where honest and loving feedback is given and received.  

A hard heart is a fearful heart that has become so paralyzed by life that he/she has stopped accepting love from God and others and is full of anger, apathy and fear. A hard heart is a defeated one, full of lies and too hard to let the truth in. It an effort to keep out certain things or people, it keeps out the good as well as the bad. And it is easy to get that way when life presents one heartbreak after another. Not to mention, the habit to stuff feelings or finger point only increases the temptation to harden. Heartbreak hurts but hard-heartedness causes us to be even more miserable even longer. It separates and isolates community. The only relationships that survive are unhealthy ones where lots of pain and resentment stay. 

It takes tenderness, humility and vulnerability to ask God and others for help. Only by facing the uncomfortable can we go from hard to tender - but God will walk the willing down that path. 

Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. 1 Peter 3:8

There are reasons for staying tender, but the most important one is this- It is obedient and honorable to the Lord. A tender heart pleases Him and I have seen His fierce protection firsthand over His tender hearted children. We don't have to wall up to look out for ourselves when the King of the world is so protective over us. When we are where He wants us, doing what He asks of us, we are in the safest place. 

See, the enemy loves for us to think God doesn't care so that we will stop caring too. That should tell us that caring and loving are threats to him. The enemy loves for us to take the bait and harden because it renders us useless as warriors and takes us off the spiritual battlefield. We have a choice in the matter to be courageous and stay tender or to let our fears drown us into submission. 

Staying tender-hearted is a battle for us because there are so many opportunities to harden. It is a lifelong struggle and probably the biggest struggle we have in our walk with Christ. But we have to keep on the course to developing a heart like His if we are going to walk the walk meant for us. 

The Harvest

I will bring destruction on all the nations where I have banished you, but I will not bring destruction on you. I will discipline you with justice, but I will be no means leave you unpunished.  Jeremiah 46:28

I have noticed in many Christian circles, Satan gets the blame for all the suffering. But that isn't scriptural. Okay, maybe it was taken from a scripture or two, but it doesn't match up with the context of the Bible. Just because we don't want to make God out to be a meanie doesn't mean we have to go to the opposite extreme and make Him out to be a pushover. God does bring discipline as well as punishment because, as much as He loves us He isn't a codependent weakling who surrenders His throne. 

I want to preface this by saying that I struggled with this message because I don't want to be one of those hell, fire and damnation people who judge others and manipulate people into coming to Jesus with fear. But I feel God wants me to speak what He has put on my heart about this topic and I pray it is received as graciously as it is meant. I know God to be patient, kind, gentle and gracious. But I also know Him to be firm. He has such fierce love that we cannot grasp it. He is merciful with each day to hold the gates of heaven open so that we may make it. 

There is a difference between discipline and punishment. Discipline is the process of teaching and instructing; it is a training that corrects and perfects. Discipline usually bears the fruit of self control. Punishment is retribution, a penalty that is on a more severe level. God won't force us to learn, but I do believe He instructs and disciplines us more than we realize. And we have a choice in each instance - to obey or rebel.   

God disciplines us for the same reasons we discipline our kids- to grow us up by preparing us for the future. He isn't mean and unreasonable. Those boundaries are in our best interest. And He loves us way too much to stand idly by as we trade in our calling as warriors for a spoiled brat, comfortable and superficial religion.  He loves us way to much to watch His warriors become lazy sloths and their hearts become as hard as rock. Discipline makes us stronger warriors with a higher level of self control and a more tender and courageous heart. 

Discipline is a hard place to be for the flesh. But we can find comfort in knowing that He does it because He loves us and that He is making beauty from ashes. It is a reminder that He hasn't given up on us and He is calling out what He made us for. He disciplines those who follow Him with a thick mercy. We are safe with Him even in this state. 

Notice that He doesn't handle those who do not love and follow Him with the same "white glove" discipline. He promises punishment instead. He loves them the same but, remember that He isn't codependent. He allows us to make our own choices but He warns us that those choices have consequences. 

The God Almighty deeply cares for all of us. He also is a secure God who has perfect boundaries. I can't imagine a god who would stand back and allow everything to happen without consequences. For without discipline and punishment, this world would be even worse than it is. No one takes seriously a leader who doesn't take a firm stance. Our God is respectable and He makes that clear all throughout scripture. 

A Heart To Hear

They have not become humble to this day, and they have not feared or walked by my law or my statutes that I set before you with your ancestors. Jeremiah 44:10

The land of the Israelites was overcome by the Chaldeans and the man who they put in charge to oversee those left behind was assassinated. So the remnant of Israel fled in fear of punishment. They asked Jeremiah to seek the Lord's direction and swore to obey it if he would seek and share it. After ten days, God gave Jeremiah direction for the people. And so Jeremiah spoke it- they were to stay where they were and were strictly told not to go to Egypt, where things seemed more comfortable at the time. 

But they didn't like this direction and instead of listening they replied, "You are speaking a lie! The Lord our God has not sent you to say, 'You must not go to Egypt to live a life there for a while!'"

Isn't it just like us to immediately dismiss the things we hear when they don't agree with our own desires? We don't stop and weigh the things said by those who love the Lord, even as fellow believers, because we subconsciously think that God agrees with us. We determine our own views to be truth without being willing to have those views challenged. 

"When Jeremiah had finished speaking to all the people all the words of the Lord their God-- all these words the Lord had sent him to give them-- then Azariah son of Hoshaiah, Johanan son of Kareah, and all the other arrogant men responded to Jeremiah..."

We put up walls of offense and yet our anger reveals the pride within us. You see, pride allows us to justify disobedience. I didn't call it that- God did. Scripture went on to say, " So I sent you all my servants the prophets time and time again, saying, 'Don't do this detestable things that I hate.' But they did not listen or pay attention; they did not turn from their evil or stop burning incense to other gods." Notice that He didn't chalk their responses into mere "learning their own way" It's disobedience no matter how we slice it when we aren't willing to hear God in whatever way He chooses to speak. 

Change is hard; changing our views is probably the hardest type of change to make. But the only ways we're to have our minds renewed is to humble ourselves to drop the shield we place over what we already think. It's dangerous to ignore the words spoken to us by fellow believers, knowing God speaks to us through each other. Everything spoken must be weighed in prayer and seeking of God's truth on the matter- not our own. 

To simply dismiss everything that doesn't immediately agree with us is dangerous. And we  aren't just impacting ourselves. 

"Why are you doing such harm to yourselves? You are cutting off man and woman, child and infant, from Judah, leaving yourselves without a remnant. You are provoking me to anger by the work of your hands." 

I don't believe we can learn to hear God personally until we humble ourselves to hear from others, weigh it before deciding it to be truth or lie. I had to be humbled enough to hear even the things I didn't want to hear, perhaps even from people I didn't want to hear them from. My own "opinion" in the grand scheme of things doesn't matter; only God's truth does. But sometimes our biggest obstacles are those things we believe and our decision to guard them too closely.