#anyway i suffered way worse than jesus. tied up on a cross for 3 days

[starrysharks]

good night my disciples, i actually have to finish and start comms tomorrow instead of fucking about 💔

[deyensee]

Soul: Searching...

So, I’ve just come back from a weekend road trip. 908 miles, 3 days, 1 night camping. Up the (beautiful) Oregon Coast and down through central Oregon. In short order, here is what I learned: - The world is a big place. It is much bigger than our life and all of its problems. It is easy to get tunnel-visioned on all of these seemingly large things in life that dominate our view. Traveling literally helped me to get a new perspective on my life and my problems and the bigger picture of it all. - There is tremendous value in going or doing something alone, especially if you need the time to process and mull and consider, especially especially if your daily life allows little of that precious time. Make more time to pray and remember and consider and think, especially if big problems in your life need a lot of consideration to grasp the whole of. - Gas is cheapest in Oregon in Crescent, Oregon. 2.59 per gallon! Dang! Sadly, the things I really gained from this trip can’t exactly be bullet-pointed, so here is my trip in long-order. (Warning: VERY LONG -  but filled with spiritual insight)      I have (had) been feeling stuck between a rock and a hard place. The Rock was continual suffering and the Hard Place was being selfish and unloving and running away from it all. Neither of them felt like the right solution, or at least not in the way I was handling either of them.      The last weekend before my trip, I decided I just needed a lot of time on my own, in companionship and communication with God throughout it. Letting my thoughts wander to my stresses and concerns and hurts and bringing them to God, heart-brokenly asking for help and guidance. He was there, and he did provide the help I needed.       On the last day of my trip, I figured I needed to take a big picture view of the past 10 months and try to make sense of it from a Heavenly Perspective. Considering what God was doing and how He was working and what He was trying to achieve. Writing is typically the best way for me to bring a lot of ideas into focus at once, so here Is what I wrote, with some additions for clarity      “I was in a good, growing spot with God. My idol of relationships that I have built throughout my life was in full view of God, and he decided to have a go at it. I was chasing God and saw another who seemed to be doing the same, and so started pursuing her alongside God. As my pursuit of her grew, my pursuit of Him lessened as I was being whispered to that the longing in my heart would be better fulfilled by her. With no hint of ill-intent or any desire to leave God’s side, I slowly grew more and more enraptured by this relationship, with ample encouragement from friends and family, and less and less in love with God. it was a relationship of selfish-enjoyment. She was and is great, and I was becoming close with her family, with some struggles here and there. I was chasing my desire for acceptance and love in Humans, which, if granted, would have contented me for this life.      I was then wholesale rejected by her family; I was cut-out. My closeness with her was destroyed and I am now distant from their family, by their desire. I hurt from that. I had huge dreams of love and relationship and family and beauty that had been subtly planted in my head by the relationship and her family and those close to me and my own longings. Images of the man I could be and the life I could have. None of those images or dreams excluded God, but God was not the focus, My life was. I wanted my reward in this life.      As the reality of their rejection slowly and continually settled in; first as rejection as a boyfriend, then rejection as an adopted member of their family, then rejection as a close friend, then rejection even to the point of simply being good friends, all while not understanding why I was being rejected, I struggled. Each one of those dreams or hopes that was ripped away was like a stab in my heart. I struggled with deep frustration because of the seemingly contradictory actions from others who claimed love as their highest pursuit. I struggled with confusion over whether their actions gave me the right to be spiteful and run away from them outright - and whether that would be the loving and Godly response (hint: it’s not).      When your deepest desire is to be Loved and Accepted and you face rejection mixed with obfuscation and hypocrisy and selfishness (I am in no way claiming to be above those things myself), alongside loneliness, with no human whom you can reach out to for support while also truly understanding the situation and being wise enough to counsel you in it, what do you do?      Do you continue trying to fulfill your desires to love and be loved and be close with them even though every rejection is ripping you apart? Do you love them in an impersonal way somehow, without being bitter? Run away from them entirely because it just hurts so much? Be depressed and mope and give up on life because you have been affirmed yet again that you aren’t good enough to be loved by someone without obligation? Be so furious and hateful that you see red and proclaim their injustices to them and the world, though they wouldn’t listen anyways, then cut all ties with them because You have been Hurt by Them? Do you seek to be loving and be Godly even though it is actually like dipping your heart in acid every time you are around them? What does love even look like in that situation? Are you even strong enough to love like that? Or, do you just give in to the never-ending, ever-present, anxious whispers of hurt and pain and injustice at the cost of everything you have tried to stand for and everything you believe?      Or, do you instead seek to try to understand what God is purposing with all of this, in order to comply with his direction and move with his command and learn from his discipline?      I went through many of these questions in some form. I tried to be loving in the face of rejection and found only deep hurt. I was depressed and gave up on life for a while because I was affirmed, yet again, that I am not enough. The thought of cutting all ties out of hurt and abandoning everyone there crossed my mind so many times that I’d lost count. Most of the time, I tried understanding what God was doing in all of this but received scarcely a reply. I couldn’t tell what I needed to do or how to move forward without it just being wrong. All the while, those never ending whispers of pain and hurt and bitterness whispered to me in my quiet moments, when I wasn’t forcing myself to distraction; when I lie down to sleep but instead only stayed awake for hours in anxious tension until falling into troubled dreams.      So, here seemed to be the root of all of this:      My heart wants love and acceptance and seeks it from people because I have a hard time accepting it from God.      But, here is the reality of all of this:      God brought me to all of this pain intentionally. It wasn’t like he was completely surprised by this turn of events. No, he orchestrated and planned every bit of it. Then did he do it out of malice and evil glee? No. Read the Bible if you want to understand God’s heart.      He showed me that the more I seek and hope for satisfaction in humans and come to expect it from them, the more I hurt from disappointment and pain and the worse I make the situation, as sin is wont to do. No Man (or woman) Can Satisfy Me. It is a lie to believe that I will be completely and finally fulfilled and happy if I find the right person. Maybe I will be happy for a while, maybe even for a lifetime, but likely not for long and certainly not at the end of this life.     Here is the reality. God loves me so much that he will hurt me in the deepest, most excruciating way that I know to be hurt, for my own good. He will bring me to the very precipice of my deepest desires then violently rip them from me, with tears in His eyes as I weep in agony, because I have a health condition that will kill me called Misplaced Desires and he has graciously set himself to healing me at any cost to himself or me. He will lovingly rip me apart and suffer the heartbreak of a Father having to amputate His child’s legs from the boulder that crushed them so He can save his child’s life and so they can spend eternity together in joy. He is loving enough to see me through every step of my painful treatment as both my Father and my Doctor. That is his role. He loves me enough not to stop, even though it breaks his heart to see his child in agony.      “He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, How will he not also, along with Jesus, graciously give us all things?”      “All things” is not defined as “All Materially Beneficial Things”. It is defined as “Anything that ensures that my human son, David, will live with me for eternity, because that is the best thing I can give.” This graciously includes my own suffering and heartbreak and hurt, because it all leads to healing.      So, I am not healed of my heart problem, yet, I think. I may not ever be till my death. But, God loves me enough to see me through it, at any cost. He has already paid the highest cost, that of his own Son’s life, what else wouldn’t he give to keep me? And because he has set me as his son and patient, I will undeservedly reap the reward at the end of this life. (John 17:3). And the one thing that will offset, and completely overshadow, the excruciating pain of the treatment is knowing that I am so Loved now, and that my Reward is coming. I will dwell in the house of Yahweh all the days of my life, I will gaze upon the beauty of the one who truly loves me, and I will inquire in his temple.      God Himself is the point of Heaven. Having and Knowing God Himself is the point of Jesus on the Cross and of every ounce of suffering, both to unbelievers, being subjected in hope of their hearts opening to him, and in believers, being transformed into the same image of Jesus, from one degree of glory to another. Knowing of his love empowers me to embrace the suffering and even share the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ to others who are in dire need of hope for treatment from their terminal illness. Delighting in the beautiful person of God is the purpose of every created human, and is what He is offering.       So, this is all more or less what I learned on my journey.      God loves me enough to hurt me. I love him for that, and desire to grow in knowledge of his goodness even more.      I can love the Rock and avoid the Hard Place by finding forgiveness to replace my bitterness and acknowledging that God has set me on a treatment plan and has plotted a course for my life that does not have me in certain relationships at this time. My Guide and Lover and the One I trust has direction for me, and I accept that and can embrace the state of relationships that He has set.      There is one more thing I realized. It is how to forgive. God uses everything for the good of his children, both the “good” things in life and the “bad” things in life (such as others acting in ways that hurt you, physically or emotionally). Those people might have had ill intent in their heart, or maybe they didn’t. However, what they set out to hurt you with, or what you have been hurt by, God is using for good. My landlord who strangled me and forced a drastic change in my life, God used to reunite me with Himself and bring about good change. Can I in good conscience hold that against my landlord?? Sure, my body was injured but God used even that for Good. This rejection by the ones I sought acceptance from, how can I hold it against them when I know that God is using it for my good, as an act of love? (Gen: 50:20, Rom 8:28) Forgiveness isn’t only only in knowing that “they will get what they’ve got coming to them”, in fact, I don’t truly think that is forgiveness at all. It also isn’t only in knowing that any harm done here should be forgiven because this flesh is temporary and that better is coming, or in light of what we have been graciously forgiven for (Eph. 4:32). Those can be motivating reasons to forgive - but truly, how can you be mad at someone who did something with evil intent (at the worst) that turned out, by God’s hand, for your good?      Perhaps I will think differently in the future regarding this, but it makes a lasting sort of sense. Forgiveness is easy when you have benefited from the wrong (or perceived wrong), which, for an adopted son or daughter of the King and Creator of the Universe, is every wrong. And every right or good thing is only given to reveal more of the goodness of God’s person within that gift. God is the gift.

[ar3volut1on]

Well, I had this planned for last night but the weather had other plans, it knocked out our power most of the night.  So I stewed a little longer over it, not a problem really.  So anyway here goes.

Last night our preacher taught on 1 Thessalonians 4, a great passage I must say.  I usually take notes, jot down ideas, verse references etc. during the lesson and I’m telling you that the pen never left my hand.  God was speaking to me, leading me to speak to you about this.  Someone out there must need to hear this.  Cause God knows his own and he knows when one of us in need of something.  But he doesn’t always say it directly to us, maybe he knows we are too tied up in the situation to hear him, or maybe he knows the message bearer will benefit from the message as well, maybe he just likes to give us something real and meaningful to do, who knows.  All I know is he has laid it on my heart to write about this and well I’m not in to disobeying my Lord.

Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk and to please God, so ye would abound more and more.  1 Thessalonians 4:1

Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel;  Philippians 1:27

That ye would walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom and glory.  1 Thessalonians 2:12

Our calling is an upward calling, holy and pure, and God makes it very clear to those who will hear him how we as followers of Christ are to present ourselves to the world.  We are the Lord’s hands and feet here on earth and we should always bear this in mind and walk worthy of being called to serve our King.

For ye know what commandments we gave you by the Lord Jesus.  1 Thessalonians 4:2

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.  Matthew 22:37-39

The Lord himself gave us the two greatest commandments, ones that when we make them the foundation of our lives we will never stray from the path he has set before us.  For when we love God with all we are then we live to please our Father in heaven, and when we love our neighbor as ourselves then we will treat one another just as Jesus treated his brethern and neighbors, with love abounding and overflowing.  We will also present ourselves to the world as followers of Christ, following in his footsteps, allowing him to change our old stony hearts that wallowed in sin, mire, and misery into tender, pure, overflowing hearts that reflect his love and ways back into the world.  That means we not only love as he did but we also act as he did – we reject sin, turn from it choosing instead to follow the one who died to take that sin from us.

For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication:  1 Thessalonians 4:3

That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.  Ephesians 5:27Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:  Colossians 3:5

As true believers no matter how vile and sinful we were before trusting in the Lord once we allow him into our hearts to work that wondrous change we no longer desire those old lusts and snares.  We can resist the temptations the devil once bound us with and stand strong in the power and might of our Lord and Savior knowing that old slewfoot and his vile lies and lusts have no hold on us any longer.  We are no longer of this world, but above it.  No longer bound by sin, held in it’s chains, a slave to the lies and treachery – we are FREED!  Freed by the death of Christ on the cross, bought and paid for by the only one who could love us so much he would suffer, die and ultimately rise from the grave the third day that you and I might be set free, made whole, restored to rightness with God in heaven.  That we might accept grace.

That every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour;  1 Thessalonians 4:4

  I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.  Romans 6:19

We are changed, made new and brought into relationship with God, with his Son, and through this we begin to know right from wrong in the truest sense.  Not man’s sense but God’s!  We understand how we ought to behave and act, we understand that we live a higher calling, we exist to please and serve God, and his ways are always pure, just and true.  He never leads us to fall back into our old paths for the old man is dead and gone, replaced by the love of his Son, cleansed through his precious blood!

Not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God:  1 Thessalonians 4:5

Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:  Colossians 3:5

This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:  Ephesians 4:17-18

Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame.  1 Corinthians 15:34

I find the repentance part of our salvation to be the most fascinating.  See before I accepted Christ that was the part that kept me from him, my sin, I didn’t want to be told what to do, I was in rebellion, rejecting the only real hope I had.  I wanted to continue doing the things I did, Satan had me believing I loved rushing headlong down that highway straight to an eternity in the lake of fire.  Even though I wasn’t raised to know God, didn’t go to church, never read the Bible, my parents never prayed with us or for us but it didn’t matter because deep in my heart I knew that there was hope somewhere.  For the first 30 years or so of my life I was lost, my soul was under torment as the devil tried to steal it and I was to blind in my ignorance to see what was happening, I couldn’t hear the voice telling me wait there’s a better way, I love you, I can save you.  No instead I spent my waking hours in sin and my sleep, well the little of it I got was a foretaste of where I was headed.  But finally the sweetest voice broke through the sheer cachophony and I heard the most amazing words I’ve ever heard “It’s ok, I love you, I’ve always loved you and always will.  I will never leave or forsake you child for you are mine.  I made you because I wanted you, I love you in spite of all you’ve done because I know all you have yet to do, all I created you to do and it is glorious!  Will you trust me?  Come to me?  Let me wash those wounds from sin that are destroying you away, I never made you to suffer and hurt like this, I made you to love and be loved, to bless and be blessed, to share eternity with my Father and I as our own.”

That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in any matter: because that the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also have forewarned you and testified.  1 Thessalonians 4:6

In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:  2 Thessalonians 1:8

I answered that voice, I accepted the most amazing and wonderful gift, allowed the most incredible man who ever lived into my heart to change my life forever.  On that day I experienced real love, pure love.  Love so breathtaking it broke my rock hard heart of stone, dashed it right to smithereens and replaced it with a heart that brimmed, spilled, with love for my Savior, my Father.  I longed to please Him, to be who he always intended me to be, do as he would have me do.  I rejoiced as I gave him my heart, all of it.  That joy overflowed in me, turned my anger, hurt and fear into love pure and true.  Suddenly I was free to truly love others, I knew how to because Jesus had shown me how.  Never again would I willfully mislead or hurt a brother or sister in this world, never again would I be led onto that oh so common path of the world to put myself before others, before my Savior.  No instead I love, even when they make it hard, cause I know that no sin is worse than my sin and that love is the only way they will ever let the scales fall from their eyes, let Jesus into their lives, have their Damascus road moment.  I have to show them the love he showed me.

For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness.  1 Thessalonians 4:7

For I am the LORD your God: ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am holy: neither shall ye defile yourselves with any manner of creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.  Leviticus 11:44

I was no longer consumed with hate for the world, hate that disguised itself as lust, as anger, as greed, really it all boils down to hate and I had been a willing slave to it for far too long.  But no longer, from that day forward I was set free.  I knew whose I was and who I served and it was not this world or it’s prince, not ever again!  I knew true love then, selfless love that puts others first, finding the pure joy of serving those the Lord has seen fit to bless me with.  Whether it is something as simple as getting up early to back my husbands lunch allowing him a few extra minutes of rest each day, having his coffee ready when he comes in the kitchen, fixing his favorite meal when I know he’s had a busy day.  Or choosing to homeschool our son because I want to answer the Lord’s call that we train him up in the way he should go, teaching him to love God with all his heart from the beginning, to hide the word of the Lord in his heart and teach him the ways of God even though we face resistance, persecution, rejection from many in our lives, it doesn’t matter because God’s word is clear that parents are to raise their children to fear him, know him, love him.  Mine did not do that and I suffered for 33 years because of their decisions, I will not make that mistake with my precious gift from God, the son he has entrusted into my care to raise for Him.  In spite of the way those who should share our joy instead hate it and us I no longer share their worldly feelings, I no longer hate them, I love them, they don’t know the truth, their eyes are blinded, they are filled with stubborn pride but I love them anyway.  My heart breaks for their wretched condition, just as the Lord’s does for he loves them even more that I do.

He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his holy Spirit.  1 Thessalonians 4:8

He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me; and he that despiseth me despiseth him that sent me.  Luke 10:16

But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.  1 Corinthians 2:10

I know now that hating one of God’s children is the same as hating God.  God is love, not hate.  True he is also just and has shown the world his just wrath when it rejects him, when we spit in his face screaming leave me alone well he will, but we will ultimately regret getting our way.  He has judged before and will again one final time, there’s no escaping it, the world will face his judgement for their rejection of him.  But I am not the judge for God, vengeance is His and his alone, for he alone searches and knows all hearts.  I am just called to share his love that great and glorious news with the lost and dying world in the hopes that they will see and hear truth.

But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another.  1 Thessalonians 4:9

But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.  1 Thessalonians 5:1

And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.  Jeremiah 31:34

And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.  Matthew 22:39

As followers in Christ we are called to share the good news and love… love God, love our brothers, love!  It’s that simple, and that hard.  Cause love isn’t always pretty, easy.  Sometimes it’s tough, sometimes it’s hard, it hurts like a surgery that ultimately mends it hurts as it is healing.  Love can be like that, it has to be tough sometimes to get through the lies, the sin, to find the heart.  But even if we have to show tough love, we are called to show love.  Trust the Lord to lead us, to fill us, praying always that we serve and honor him with our lives, bringing him all the praise and glory.

And indeed ye do it toward all the brethren which are in all Macedonia: but we beseech you, brethren, that ye increase more and more;  1 Thessalonians 4:10

So that ye were ensamples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia.  1 Thessalonians 1:7

When His honor and glory are our purpose, our goals then we know we are serving him and that he will bring the increase in our lives.  We just have to invite him in, let him be our Lord.

And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you;  1 Thessalonians 4:11

For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies.  2 Thessalonians 3:11

I have shewed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.  Acts 20:35

Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth.  Ephesians 4:28

That way he can lead us and we will live lives pleasing to him, fulfilling the purpose God has for us.  We will no longer be consumed with the spirit of laziness, expecting others to do for us what we ought to do for ourselves.  We ought instead to work hard, laboring to serve those who can’t labor, working to provide for our families as well as those in need.  I think it is clear here that those in need are not those unwilling to work, but those unable to.  It’s clear we are to work if we are able, God has given us that ability from the beginning, that purpose that we work with our hands, that we till the soil, provide our bread, etc.  He also tells us to be generous with the rewards he bless our labor with too, to share our abundance with those who lack the ability to do the same.  If all who are able to work do the work the Lord calls them too willingly, sharing the results cheerfully then we will bless those unable to work with their hands, to till the soil or labor physically and we will show them the love of the Lord.

That ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing.  1 Thessalonians 4:12

Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying.  Romans 13:13

  Walking With God Well, I had this planned for last night but the weather had other plans, it knocked out our power most of the night.