I have been somewhat bedridden with a sinus cold, fever and a
cough that makes me feel like my bronchitis is coming back. To be able to spend
time with God, I need to take two pills in the morning which allow me to feel
better for a little while. I found myself stuck in Hebrews, unable to move on. Furthermore,
I kept feeling overwhelmed by the revelation of His word in the Hebrews book. There
are times I would read two or three verses and that’s enough for me for the day
because it is too much to take all at once. So, I would close my Bible and
meditate. But, in the back of my mind I am always rushing my mediation time to
get to those people that I pray for on a daily basis, just because I am afraid
the pills would wear off and I would be useless.
So, yesterday I was meditating after I closed the Bible, I
decided not to rush myself and not to pray for anyone else. I felt the need to minister
to God and I wanted the time to be about Him alone. Finally God got my
attention. I realized that’s what He has been trying to do for the past few
days. Then He asked me if I noticed the difference in the way I read the book
of Hebrew now compare to a few years ago when He was using Hebrews to teach me
about my walk with Him? I answered yes I
notice you are teaching me as if I am a pastor reading some verses to prepare a
sermon. I have no idea why this comparison. It just felt like it.
The difference is when He was training me few years ago to
prepare me for a walk of holiness and faith He focussed on this book with me
and taught me why certain passages had to be imparted to me. He did that, to
help me understand the pain I was going through. Through this kind of training
with Him, I learned that when we are suffering, He uses our trials to impart
this life in us. So, the frustration disappears or at least it becomes more
bearable when we understand the process and all the benefits intended by God. We
know the pain serve a purpose so we can focus on the goal instead of the pain.
God turned things around this time. The first time there was
joy, I was learning, and the word was coming alive in my life. This time around
is so painful and the only way I can describe the pain that I am feeling is
that I feel like I am carrying the world on my shoulders. I am frustrated that
God chose to show me these things. I am frustrated because I feel powerless. I
am also frustrated because I do not know how to help people understand how
important it is to heed to God’s words. As I was asking God what gives? He told
me to blog about it. Honestly, that’s not what I wanted to hear for several
reasons.
Right away, I thought about the last time I posted the Godly
wife’s post; I lost over 500 people on Facebook. Secondly, I have a craving to
be normal, even a little bit superficial so that I could attract more people. (Confession
time) I hate the fact that my ministry resemble to the prophet of doom. There
is a beauty in God and a beauty in being His heir that I would love to be able
to talk about all the time. Yet, I know God’s plan for me is to help people
understand how to get to the beauty we find in Him. That’s what we Christians
tend to avoid. We want the beauty but not the pain we have to go through to get
there.
Times like that, I find solace in knowing what God is asking of
me is the size of a fly compare to Noah. Imagine, having to live more than
hundred years warning people about something that was totally unreal to them. But,
I supposed because he would have needed tons of strength to persevere in faith
and to take on the ridicule that he must have been exposed to, God must have
lavished His grace on him to help him keep the faith alive. I find solace in
knowing that as ridiculous as I sound sometimes when I warn people of the
danger of a shoddy Christianity, when it matters most, they will know that I
was right. Sadly, it will be too late.
When you think about Noah, he preached every single day for over
hundred years, warning people of the flood and calling them to make things
right with God, yet he was not able to save a soul except the members of his
family that God granted him. I would not have understood why if God did not
explain it to me. You see, it is extremely important to God to use others to
warn people. The funny thing is that God usually chooses people who do not like
this task. God already knows the majority
of people you are warning do not care about your message. But, like He said to
me before and gave me a glimpse of an image, when judgement time comes, He will
have an answer for those who are planning on using “ I DID NOT KNOW” as their excuses.
This is part of God being a just God.
You see, as Christians, we are so in love with what we
understand with our intellect and in the flesh when in reality God’s word have
to be grasped with the Spirit to understand the full scope. For instance, when
we say something like, “NOTHING COULD SEPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF GOD” people
feel all warm and tingly, they get a buzz, they say amen with all the strength they
have and if you post this on Facebook, you will have hundreds of “likes.” Then,
they go on with their shoddy Christianity feeling really good. In reality, it
is awesome to know that, but there is so much more to it that we cannot grasp
with the flesh and with the intellect.
While we should be grateful for knowing this truth, we should
know that God love for each of us is so wide, so deep and so humongous that it feels
and look bigger than the world. But,
when He teaches you about His love, you realize there is an intensity to it
that could cause you to suffocate within seconds of being closer to His love. The
intensity you find in His love has a consuming passion, jealousy wrath etc. As
you get to know Him intimately, through loving Him and walking with Him in the
spirit, you realize none of these attributes are negative. In fact, the word
negative does not even come to mind. You are not scared of His wrath either. His
nature in you, teaches you how to accept them and see His beauty through it
all. His love is as intense as His wrath and knowing the two, it brings some
sort of balance in your walk with Him. But, this is not something you can grasp
over night and neither in the flesh. Only as you live and walk in the spirit
you learn these things at his feet. – You see, TALK IS CHEAP!
Another reason that I find it hard to have my ministry is
because I know how hard it is to tell people they are in reality spiritually
blind. They find so much satisfaction in “doing” Christianity. They have lots
of activities in their lives, they attend church, bible study, they feel passionate about things etc., and
you cannot tell them they are spiritually blind. They simply do not understand what
you are talking about. Yes, these things are good things to have in our lives,
but if we remain spiritually blind throughout our Christian walk, well, a
caterpillar that has not morphed into a butterfly is not a butterfly.
Through the book of Hebrews the warning is about the Jews who remained
on the side and did not want to have anything to do with Christianity. But most
of the book, the writer dedicated to us Christians, to also warn us about how important
to have true faith and go forward with Him for the inward transformation to
take place so that we can all become butterflies. When it comes to blindness, we
have an example of Job right in front of us. When I read job, I don’t care his
problems stemmed from Satan having given permission by God to bring him down. What
I take from the book is how we are to grow through our trials. It is how to worship
God, live for Him in good or bad times and be all that He wants us to be. Even
though I read the book over and over again, I cannot wait to get to chapter 42:
5-6 where Job said: “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen
you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” Job was
referring to the eyes of his heart there. I find the book beautiful because I
know without the shadow of a doubt, that we all need to go through some major
trials in our lives to get the eyes of our hearts open, and only then we can
say “oh I see” – Job had no idea he was spiritually blind, I had no idea I was
spiritually blind either, until I was able to see. Another thing we find out is
that as we can see with our spiritual eyes, we also realize we have no use for
those ears we have on the side of our heads. God wants us to hear with our hearts I remember
saying “oh!” That’s why even deaf people have no excuses for not knowing you
intimately.
So, I have no intention of revealing all that God has revealed
to me from the book of Hebrews. But, for the next few weeks, I will be using
some of the puritan and those classic pastors like Spurgeon perhaps to blog about
the book. I will make sure to include some of my own experiences and thoughts.
I feel so lousy, I have to stop but I hope all that I said make
sense and prepare some of you to learn to hear with your heart. I hope you
crave intimacy with Him and that you learn to live just to know Him more.
I love you all,
MJ
