Put Aside Shame and Guilt

 

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Therefore, there is no longer any condemnation awaiting those who are in union with the Messiah Yeshua

~ Romans 8:1, KJV~

As a Christian - we only stand condemned when it comes to our own sense of shame and guilt. Why then do we carry the shame, guilt, and blame from others? We do not need to accept another person's blame, neither defend ourselves. For that would only start a fruitless battle. Those who do not understand and know of the grace and mercy of our Heavenly Father may blame us out of their own insecurities, anger, and disappointments. They unload deep rooted pain and distress onto us. Instead of responding defensively let us respond out of empathy and compassion. Out of charity and love.

There is no need for me to accept the gift of anger, condemnation, judgment and criticism from another. Just as much as it is not for me to accept my own gift of anger, shame, and guilt toward myself. I deal with my own shortcomings and weaknesses through Jesus Christ and the amazing grace offered toward me. If I do this honestly and humbly - following the truths of our Savior - the change in me will reflect outwards in love and compassion. It is therefore how I choose to walk each day - not by my own flesh and desires but through the grace of God and His spirit.

~ Today's Prayer and Meditation ~

Heavenly Father, help me understand that it is not by my will but thine that I walk accordingly. When someone comes to me with judgment and condemnation, let me reach them with thy love and compassion. With a spirit of truth and grace. For it is the broken and desperate human spirit that lacks understanding and seeking, hungering, thirsting for truth. They may judge and scorn in vain O Lord, let me stand in thy Grace and Truth and minister to their broken spirit through thy divine light. In Jesus Name, Amen. 

Our Invitation to Live Faith Day-to-Day

 Whether we live inside or outside of religious enclosures, the monastic concept of balancing our lives and ordering them around God offers hope for living a deeper and more fulfilling spiritual life.

Debra K. Farrington

Living Faith Day by Day

How the Sacred Rules of Monastic Tradition Can Help You Live Spiritually in the Modern World

Recovery is an invitation to begin living a spiritually mindful life every day. It is an opportunity for a person to create their own unique guidelines for living a more healthy and meaningful life. These guidelines impact all aspect of our lives: Emotional and Mental, Physical and Nutritional, Relational, Financial, and Spiritual well-being. The core goal of recovery is to establish a balanced life where a person derives a sense of meaning and has a sense of purpose.

This begins by developing an intimate relationship with our Heavenly Father. Striving for balance in our lives incorporates time for prayer and meditation. Time to explore and mindfully contemplate the scriptures. Lest we become too consumed with our daily activities where they compete for our attention. Failure to secure times where we engage in thoughtful prayer, seeking God's will, wisdom, and counsel will bring us to a place of disconnect from self and others. 

This disconnects from a mindfully spiritual living creates imbalance in our lives. We are no longer at peace. Recovery is all about how we go about restoring peace of mind and forces us to focus on what matters the most. And, because of our disconnect and unbalanced life, we succumb to the desires of our hearts and minds. However, a spiritual recovery becomes a meaningful and purposeful way of living life. 

Surrender is a spiritual act of faith

What this means is that we do not merely surrender our life and will over to the care of God as a onetime gesture. Spiritual recovery and spiritual living require our continued need to surrender daily over to God's divine and providential will and care. It is our connection with Him that brings us to a place of finding balance. It is our ability to be present and consistent in our meeting God. He is constantly there, ready to counsel us, to strengthen us, inspire us, and to bring us through those early days of recovery. Our divine Heavenly Father is there, ready to sustain us in maintaining a healthy balance in our lives. Securing us as we grow in our faith and confidence in Him.

Yet, if we disconnect and ignore our relationship with God, if we are insufficient in spending time being present and seeking Him, our mutual connection with God goes away. When this mutual connection disappears, we are no longer being challenged. We are no longer growing, and we are no longer strengthening and enhancing our confidence and peace of mind.

That desire to be in a relationship with God is at the core of the rule of life. By making a commitment to prayer, to study, to a spiritual community, to our own needs and those of others, we create a balanced life that revolves around our love of God. We come to that commitment as a result of our own romance with God, out of the knowledge that God loves us and wants - desperately - to be in relationship with us. And, as a result of the love we experience, we are emboldened and spread that love outward toward others. ~ Debra Farrington ~

Recovery presents significant struggles and challenges. A person is challenged to struggle through intense cravings. Environment and social network are another challenge and struggle. Irrational thoughts, intense emotions, and physical discomfort are difficult to manage. However, one is capable of receiving strength, just for today, when we turn our hearts and minds over to the care of God. Through His sovereign grace, God will bring us through those times. We make the decision to submit over to His will and desire for our lives. This is the initial act of faith we engage in. 

By surrendering our present attitudes, behaviors, thoughts, emotions, and situation over to Him, we are brought into His grace. Surrendering is the spiritual act of faith where we renounce our present experience, present relationships, and present comforts of our perceived world. Surrendering is a step of faith where we withdraw from the present world - as we understand it.

This initial spiritual act of faith focuses on quelling our body's needs for whatever we had become dependent upon (e.g., Alcohol/Drugs, Sex, Gambling). We come to believe that these compulsive and maladaptive behaviors are a prominent distraction from God. It is, therefore, through our initial step in abstinence that we are able to shift our focus and connection toward God. A true and radical surrender to live in accordance with God's will and desire for us comes when we are at the end of our own self will and desire. We are no longer ruling over our lives. Instead, and with humility and sincerity, giving over to allow God to rule over our hearts, minds, and spirit.

Surrender leads to spiritual nurturing and growth

After we cross the threshold from discomfort, misery, and dependency; we begin to develop a spiritual journey toward self-discovery and restoration of our soul. This is because, and if we are seriously committed and sincere in our approach, we have allowed God to work within us in order to transform us. Within the Christian faith, a person is first Justified in Jesus Christ. Meaning, we are initially forgiven of our past transgressions and sins. We are made clean, whole, and righteous before God (see, Romans 3:23-25, ESV).

What are some of the things that may nurture your soul? This is part of the self-discovery we are invited to participate in. Through recovery, we discover what nurtures us. What completes us, and what brings us peace of mind. While our spiritual life is focusing on cultivating a deep and enriching relationship with God; we want to also focus on those things that will nurture our own spirit. These are those things outside of our daily routine of prayer, scripture reading, and meditation. They are also outside of attending Church services and reflecting on the messages heard from the pulpit. What nurtures our souls is what brings us a sense of belonging. Gardening, woodworking, writing, reading, crocheting, working on some type of restoration project, being creative, or engaged in some type of activity. These are things that nurture us and bring us a sense of satisfaction.

Recovery is our invitation to spiritual growth and wellness

Take a moment to ponder the core reason you are wanting to engage in recovery. For many people, it is simply to stop using drugs, drinking alcohol, or watching pornography. Others desire to disengage from toxic and co-dependent relationships. Whatever the reason for your recovery, it is much more than wanting to stop. 

Since recovery is a journey toward healing, restoration, and moving into a direction of living a life with meaning and purpose; we come to recognize that it is our personal invitation toward spiritual growth and wellness. By establishing our own pathway toward healing and restoration, we come to rely on God. We strive to cultivate a healthy relationship with Him. We establish daily routines of prayer and meditation, scripture reading. We take time to reflect on a message delivered over the pulpit.

As we move away from toxic and co-dependent relationships; move away from using drugs and/or alcohol; resolve to eating healthier and overcome our eating disorders; resolve to no longer engage in viewing pornography: we come to realize the importance of nurturing our relationship with Christ, and through him, with our Heavenly Father. 

It is our personal invitation to grow spiritually. An invitation to live out our faith each day. It is our invitation to cultivate a sacred and intimate relationship with our Heavenly Father. 

Pursuing Hard After God

 Authentic Christianity begins with one main experience: pursuing hard after God. What does it mean to pursue hard after God?

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My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me

~ Psalm 63:8, ESV ~

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A. W. Tozer writes:

We pursue God because, and only because, He first put an urge within us that spurs us to to the pursuit (The Pursuit of God, 2013).

We approach the Sovereign creator because he first calls us into relationship with Him. Not of any good we have done in our own lives. He regenerates us by creating a new heart and gives us a new spirit (Ezekiel 36:26). We are drawn to Christ because it is God who draws us (John 6:44). Tozer continues:

...it is by this very prevenient drawing that God takes from us every vestige of credit for the act of coming. The impulse to pursue God originates with God, but the outworking of that impulse is our following hard after Him; and all the time we are pursuing Him, we are already in His hand...

This idea of pursuing God requires we hunger and thirst after righteousness (Matthew 5:6). It is our genuine response to what has already occurred in our own lives. We cultivate a genuine and personal relationship with the Savior because of God's grace in that while we were yet sinners, Christ had died for us (Romans 5:8).

Being made in His image we have within us the capacity to know him. ... The moment the Spirit has quickened us to life in regeneration our whole being senses its kinship to God and leaps up in joyous recognition. That is the heavenly birth without which we cannot see the Kingdom of God. It is ... not the end but an inception, for now begins the glorious pursuit, the heart's happy exploration of the infinite riches of the Godhead (Tozer, 2013).

Are you pursuing hard after God? Have you experienced the power of God's sovereign grace in your life and received a new heart and spirit whereby you hunger and thirst after His righteousness? Have you truly been saved and been born-again by the simple message of the Gospel and have truly received Christ as your Savior? Where do you stand in relation with God?

The days are growing short, the time is almost at hand. Come unto Christ and know that through God, we receive eternal life because he sent His only Son to die for each and every one of us. Through Christ, we receive forgiveness of our sins, and it is through Christ we may enter into the Kingdom of God.

 

Our Chief Endeavor

 

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If you were asked what the chief endeavor of the Christian life is - how may you answer? It is a strange phrase to begin with. Chief Endeavor, what does that entail? It simply means, the foremost goal we desire to achieve in the Christian life. And what is this foremost desire of our hearts? It is to meditate upon the life of Jesus Christ. It is the pinnacle truth of the Christian message: He that followeth me, walketh not in darkness (see John 8:12)

It is not merely believing in Christ, Jesus for our salvation. It is not even confessing Him as our Lord and Savior (Yes! These are essential and important truths of the Gospel Message). What distinguishes Christians is the very act of imitating His life and manners as a result of believing in Christ and confessing Him as our Lord and Savior.

Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we become enlightened to this simple and yet wonderful truth. It is where we receive sustenance from the Lord. This is because, through the Spirit of Christ, we are affected in a manner in which our lives are completely transformed. As we come to understand the words of Christ, we desire to conform our lives to mirror his life wholly and completely.

All other things become vain. King Solomon remarked, through his own personal experience, that all one endeavors to accomplish in life is nothing but vanity. The only truth, and a very profound and simple truth at that, is two things: Fearing God and Obedience to the commandments of God.

We are either driven to achieve the honors, wealth, and satisfy the desires of our present human existence; or we are driven to walk faithfully with our heart set on the Kingdom of God. Either we lose the favor of the Lord over our lives, or we gain his favor through grace by obedience and walking in humility after the manner in which Christ lived out his life.