The Present-Day Christian and His Emotions

 In some Christian circles, repressing or disavowing authentic emotions is considered a virtue or perhaps even a gift of Spirit. Denying anger, ignoring pain, skipping over depression, running from loneliness, and avoiding doubt are not only considered normal but actually virtuous ways of living out one’s spiritual life.

But this is not the model we find in Jesus, who freely expressed his emotions without shame or embarrassment:

• He shed tears (Luke 19:41).
• He was filled with joy (Luke 10:21).
• He felt overwhelmed with grief (Mark 14:34).
• He was angry and distressed (Mark 3:5).
• He was sorrowful and troubled (Matthew 26:37).
• His heart was moved with compassion (Luke 7:13).
• He expressed amazement (Mark 6:6, Luke 7:9).

Jesus was anything but an emotionally frozen Messiah.

In Gethsemane, we see a fully human Jesus—anguished, sorrowful, and spiritually overwhelmed. He is pushed to the extremes of his human limits: “and being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke 22:44).

So, we must ask ourselves: Where did we get the idea that acknowledging and expressing authentic emotion is somehow less than spiritual? And why do we believe that we can—or somehow should—grow in spiritual maturity without simultaneously growing in emotional maturity?

And then there’s the example of Job:

After this, Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his

birth. He said:

“May the day of my birth perish,

and the night that said, ‘A boy is conceived!’

That day—may it turn to darkness;

may God above not care about it;

may no light shine on it.

May gloom and utter darkness claim it once more. . . .

If only my anguish could be weighed

and all my misery be placed on the scales!

It would surely outweigh the sand of the seas—no

wonder my words have been impetuous.

The arrows of the Almighty are in me,

my spirit drinks in their poison;

God’s terrors are marshaled against me.”

(Job 3:1—5a; 6:1—4)

Job was one of the richest men in the world in his day. In contemporary terms, his assets would have included a fleet of Rolls-Royces, private airplanes, yachts, thriving global companies, and significant real estate holdings. “He was the greatest man among all the people of the East” (Job 1:3). After a series of natural disasters, however, something unthinkable happens—Job is reduced to poverty and his ten children are killed in a terrible natural disaster. When he attempts to get on his feet, he is infected with “sore boils” from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. Physically, it looks like he is about to die at any moment. His wife’s compassionate counsel? “Curse God and die” (Job 2:9).

Job finds himself alone, isolated, and living outside the city walls in the garbage dump. As the text indicates, Job is very angry. But there is a lesson for us even in Job’s anger. Here is how author Philip Yancey describes it:

One bold message in the Book of Job is that you can say anything to God. Throw at him your grief, your anger, your doubt, your bitterness, your betrayal, your disappointment—he can absorb them all. As often as not, spiritual giants of the Bible are shown contendingwith God. They prefer to go away limping, like Jacob, rather than to shut God out. In this respect, the Bible prefigures a tenet of modern psychology: you can’t really deny your feelings or make them disappear, so you might as well express them. God can deal with every human response save one. He cannot abide the response I fall back on instinctively: an attempt to ignore him or treat him as though he does not exist. That response never once occurred to Job.”

In the same way, God invites us to feel our emotions, experiencing them without self-condemnation, and exploring them in his loving presence.

Question to Consider

In what ways do you tend to suppress or deny difficult emotions—anger, sadness, fear—rather than admit them to yourself and God?

Prayer

Father, the idea of being emotionally transparent with you—especially when my emotions are raw—is very difficult. In fact, it almost seems disrespectful. Thank you, Lord, that you love all of me—the good, the bad, and the ugly—and that your love is without conditions. In Jesus’ name, amen.

________

Adapted from Emotionally Healthy Relationships Day by Day: A 40-Day Journey to Deeply Change Your Relationships by Peter Scazzero. 

In this groundbreaking devotional book, Peter Scazzero reintroduces and expands upon the ancient spiritual discipline of the Daily Office. The basic premise is simple: Christians need to intentionally stop to be with God twice each day to create a continual and easy familiarity with God’s presence for the rest of the day.

Stray Blessed.

Manipulated by a Curse

   Different from the instance of Saul who was plotting to plant his daughter in the life of David, like a timed device, for future detonation with maximum devastation, the forces that manipulate into disaster do not always reside in a person; they sometimes reside in a curse. 

That is our next story, about an elderly priest who worked so hard all his life yet in the evening of his days was mis-‘led’ to join a promising but doomed political party; a step that became the irreparable mistake that suddenly cost him everything, according to a strange and ancient pattern that had followed his ancestors in the past 150 years.

26 And unto Abiathar the priest said the king, Get thee to Anathoth, unto thine own fields; for thou art worthy of death: but I will not at this time put thee to death, because thou barest the ark of the Lord GOD before David my father, and because thou hast been afflicted in all wherein my father was afflicted.

27 So Solomon thrust out Abiathar from being priest unto the LORD; that he might fulfil the word of the LORD, which he spake concerning the house of Eli in Shiloh (1 Kings 2:26-27).

According to the passage, Abiathar’s sudden loss of his priestly office was the result of an ancient curse that was pronounced in Shiloh against his ancestors.  That story is told in 1 Samuel chapter 1 – chapter 5.  Abiathar’s great-great grandfather was the high priest Eli, who had two very irreverent sons that abused the worshippers that came to the house of God. They brazenly stole from the offerings of the men and mindlessly slept with the female parishioners, right in the sanctuary. Displeased by their conduct, God sent warnings, but those wicked associate-priests seemed too drunk to care, forcing God to declare that He would cast them out of the office, kill them all in one day, and  make the surviving other descendants to never see old age or enjoy the fruit of their labour (1 Samuel 2:29-36; 3:12-14).

Shortly after God had announced His verdict against that household, the first phase of the curse came into effect, and all sons plus father and daughter-in-law died in one day. It was the unforgettable inauguration of worrisome multiple deaths (1 Samuel 4:18-22).  About 80 years later, the next recorded phase occurred.  In their priests-village of Nob, they often received visitors.  One day, however, the active curse manipulated or ‘invited’ some wrong visitors.  David had been there to seek the Lord.  Coincidentally, another man was also at that sacred place on a ‘personal retreat,’ but apparently planted there by the curse that had ripened for another season of bloody harvest.  That other visitor, Mr Doeg the Edomite, a chief pastor of the king’s flock, witnessed the priests serve hollowed bread and protection to David.   Promptly, Doeg ingratiatingly and deviously reported their care to King Saul who had been seeking David’s head.  The consequence was the massacre of eighty-five priests with their wives and children, along with their livestock, on allegations of conspiracy with David to undermine the regime (1 Samuel 22:6-22).

We might blame the massacre on the bloodiness of the demonized King Saul; we might blame it on the restless lips of Doeg the gossip, but realising that the sad event was in continuing fulfilment of the pronouncement that had been made years earlier in Shiloh, we can only say that Doeg was planted there that day by the curse that had been seeking expression and merely found ready vessels in the duo of Doeg the gossip and Saul the demented sanguinary despot.

Now Doeg the Edomite, Saul's chief herdsman, was there that day, having been detained before the Lord (1 Samuel 21:7, NLT).

Did Doeg know that a Curse might have led him there that day; that he had merely been responding to a mystical impulse that found him in that place at that time to see those things that he was further ‘compelled’ to report?  Would he ever have agreed that the steps of a wicked man are ‘ordered’ by the devil (Psalms 37:23)?  Can a curse manipulate even the choices of a person?  Did an unseen hand coordinate the visit of David to coincide with the ‘retreat’ of Busybody Doeg, so as to bring about the subsequent disaster of over three hundred and fifty deaths?

The Bible states that Doeg at the tabernacle had been “DETAINED before the Lord.”  What does that mean?  Detained, held back, super-ordinarily restrained from departing, until David would be on the scene so that Doeg could see what to report?  Can a curse instigate a people against a person?  Can it also inspire the kind of rumours that are spread about someone?  Should we then entirely blame the impetuous lips or also diagnose the manipulating curse?

Several years after Abiathar as a little lad had escaped Saul’s massacre in Nob, that priest of God felt verily ‘led’ (or mis-‘led’) to join the new political party of Adonijah the surviving eldest son of David.  The reverend priest probably had a dream or some strong ‘ministration’ that urged him to take the step.  Only too late did he realize and regret the ‘lying spirit’ that had assumed the voice of Jehovah and urged him on in his fatal path.  He joined the masses to endorse Adonijah, only to discover that the incumbent king’s electoral-collegiate preference lay in Solomon.  Others paid with their life for the error; he escaped again with the skin of his teeth, but he lost all that he had spent years labouring with David to build up. 

The Scripture interprets Abiathar’s sudden political, social and religious disaster as a fulfilment of the word of God that had been spoken in Shiloh 150 years before.  In other words, all the events that lined up to that priest’s abrupt sack: his ‘righteous’ persuasions to endorse the wrong political candidate, the ‘friends’ and ‘worshippers’ who had ‘genuinely’ and ‘caringly’ persuaded him with the idea, the subsequent ‘ungrateful’ actions of the young and purportedly ‘wise’ Solomon, etc., had been remote-controlled by a slithering Curse that the respected priest never perceived.

Again, sometimes it is helpful to look beyond the hands that perform the act, as there might have been primary hands unseen, manipulating the secondary hands we see.

God helps us all to overcome in Jesus Name. Amen!

Stray Blessed.

The Church of this age.

   In times like this, things that mostly will stop many from entering Heaven and give them free access to go to hell fire is sin. Their is only one way to go to Heaven, but their are a million ways to go to hell fire. Why are you still rejecting God's love for you my friend: while still allowing sin, Satan and self still be in control of you. Come to Jesus Christ and be saved. (John 14:6; 15:5; 3:16-one-conner  6:23). To freely access the Father is through Jesus. No other way known to man. Not at all.

Difference between old time church service and modern time church service.

1. When the choristers of the old time finish singing, the congregation burst into tears because they sang down the glory, but in the modern, after the Delilahs and Jezebels finish singing, the congregation respond with a clap offering returning Ichabod to Ichabod.

2. In the old, during message, the congregation cry and tell God that they are

sorry, but today, as message is going on people drop money, blow whistle and shout "ride on pastor." Oh, what a world we are in!

3. The old went to Church and the message gave them faith but the modern went to church and the message gave them fake (olive oil, handkerchief, apron, sticker, holy water and calendars of their G. O.)

4.The ancient carried their bible in booklet because they were not ashamed of Jesus but some today carry iPad to church because they feel shy to be identified with Jesus and to such, Jesus will be ashamed of you on the last day.

5. The old go to church with their hair covered with their head ties but the modern cover their hair with Brazillian weavon and many other kind.

6. During prayers, the ancient close their eyes and give God their whole attention but the modern open their eyes, looking around like armedrobbers and even answers calls during prayers.

7. The old dance godly dance to thanksgiving and offering but the modern is not even afraid to dance doro, awilo, one-conner, hip pop, senakei, and azonto even before the altar. This wasn't so in the ancient.

8. The ancients go to church with their body covered and are focused on inner beauty but the modern wears mini skirt, show everything, and everything on her is artificial and ends up looking like "mermaid". They are prone to falling at the slightest prayer because all she is putting on has a demon attached to it.

9. In the old, sinners go home weeping but today sinners go home rejoicing.

10. The ancients answer altar calls with tears rolling down their faces. The modern do the same chewing gum.

Oh, Lord! Revive your work once again. May the revival of HOLINESS precede the rapture.

...Do you know

We can speak in tongues and miss heaven.

We can "win souls" and miss heaven.

We can see vision and miss heaven.

We can prophesy and still miss heaven.

We can cast out devil and miss heaven.

We can perform miracles and still miss heaven.

We can read the whole Bible and miss heaven.

We can attend all church services, fellowship activities and camp meetings and miss heaven.

We can have anointing and miss heaven.

We can have all spiritual gifts and miss heaven.

We can be rich, prosperous and wealthy and still miss heaven.

We can give and sow seeds and still miss heaven.

We can wield power and be influential and still miss heaven.

We can have a powerful voice to sing and miss heaven.

But we cannot LIVE A HOLY LIFE and miss heaven.

HOLINESS IS THE REAL DEAL! 

"Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy: for I am the LORD your God." (Leviticus 20:7)

"O worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness: fear before him, all the earth." (Psalm 96:9)

"Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord." (Hebrews 12:14)

   I pray God helps us all to make it to the very end in Jesus name.

God bless you.