Christ Will Rescue You: April 2022

Tuesday, April 26, 2022

You’re Never on Your Own

Matthew 11:28-30(NLT)

"28 Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”

A good friend and I were having a conversation the other day, and she told me how tired she had been lately. In her words, “Life seems to be getting tougher, and I’m tired of having to juggle everything by myself.” She’s 58 years old, and even though she’s always wanted to be married, it has never happened. Feelings of depression and loneliness creep up every time she thinks about all the heartaches and obstacles she’s had to face on her own. Even though my friend is over fifty, the feelings she’s having are not unique to a certain age group. The loneliness of being single far longer than you’d like doesn’t discriminate.

My conversation with my friend made me remember when I felt much the same way she does. I’d go to bed at night feeling depleted and sad, thinking that I’d feel better in the morning. The funny thing is, I’d awaken the next morning just as tired as I was the day before. It dawned on me that I needed more than a good night’s sleep. Like all of us, I needed, and will always need, the deep spiritual rest that only the Lord Jesus Christ can give.

In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus Christ extends an invitation to all of us that are feeling exhausted and burdened down by life. He knows that the world can wear a person down, and he tells us to bring our tired and worn-down selves to him. He will give us rest. The rest that he gives is supernatural. We can’t use human reasoning to explain it because it exceeds our understanding. His rest is administered to the deepest part of us, and there, it restores and replenishes our souls. It’s a rest that belongs to us because our Master Jesus paid for it with his life when he died on the cross for our sins.

You and I must take this rest by faith. Taking it by faith is the only way. Jesus Christ laid this out for us in Matthew 11:28-29. He said, “I GIVE, YOU TAKE!” That’s the order! He gives, and then you and I have the great privilege and honor to respond to what he has done. We are to take what he offers. Well, what are we taking? In this passage, he also answers this question for us as well. We are taking his yoke—his guidance, direction, truth, example, power, and love. He tells us to learn about him, because in John 14:6, he teaches us that he is the way, the truth, and the life.

His truth is food for our souls, and after we feast on him, our souls will be at rest. In John 6:35(NLT), he said “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” Jesus Christ is life to us! Again, learning about him feeds us in a way that nothing else can. This is the part where so many of us go south and miss the greatest blessing of our lives. For some reason, we will not place ourselves in a posture of studying and reading to learn more about God and His Word. We will not avail ourselves to Christ and will not connect the reality of our soul’s starvation to our refusal to know more about Jesus Christ than we know right now.

Our Master and Savior is humble. He left the throne of God to come to earth to save us. Philippians 2:6-8(NLT) declares, "Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. 7 Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, 8 he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.” Jesus Christ was not forced to die for our sins, he chose to die a humiliating, agonizing death on the cross in order to redeem us from the slavery of sin and death.

We’re never on our own. God is always with us and knowing His great love through Jesus Christ will transform us! He freely offers us this love, and the greatest thing we can do for ourselves is to take it. Spending year and year feeling sad and depleted is not God’s desire for any of His children. He wants us to be happy and blessed every moment of every day, but the joy that He gives is no ordinary joy. The world cannot give it, and the world cannot take it away. It is a joy that isn’t dependent on what we have or don’t have. It isn’t dependent on a relationship with anyone else other than our Master Jesus.

The yoke of Christ will demand that every drop of our tendency to look to someone else for our joy and happiness is completely abandoned. Jesus Christ is LORD! There can be no other who occupies that place in our hearts but him. We don’t get to tell the Lord that our heart belongs only to him, because none of us know our hearts that well, but God knows them. He tells us in Jeremiah 17:10(NLT), “But I, the Lord, search all hearts and examine secret motives. I give all people their due rewards, according to what their actions deserve.” Every good relationship that any of us will ever have is birthed from our love, devotion, and loyalty to God through Jesus Christ. When this spiritual lesson is firmly in our minds and hearts, we will enjoy God’s rest and all the blessings that come with it. ■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Tuesday, April 19, 2022

Be Aware of the Consequences

Galatians 6:7(NLT)
“Don’t be misled – you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant.”

“I know actions have consequences, but I didn’t know it would be like this.”

It’s not an easy pill to swallow when we finally understand how the circumstances and conditions of our lives fit into the Law of Cause and Effect. In simple terms, this law means that for every action there is a re-action or response. This is the way our Heavenly Father designed the universe to operate. Whatever we put out there is going to boomerang back to us. In other words, whether it is good or bad, there’s a consequence for every action. We’re going to reap what we sow.

Jesus Christ teaches us in Matthew 12:35(NLT), “A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart.” Our Master Jesus defines a good person as one who has a heart that wants to please God and to bless others. When this is our motivation, we will see positive consequences and blessings reflected in our lives. But there’s a flip side to this, and that’s the side we should try our very best to always avoid.

When there’s ugliness in our hearts like bitterness, anger, arrogance, jealousy, selfishness, and resentment, it’s going to come out of us and be expressed through our words and actions. The boomerang of our negative actions and words will often surprise us, because the consequences are far worse than our initial poor behavior. God doesn’t want these remnants of darkness in our hearts because they injure our relationship with Him and keep us from being who He wants us to be. He tells us in Ephesians 4:22 to “throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception.” He has commanded us to rid ourselves of those thoughts, attitudes, feelings, and words that do not represent His Kingdom. We are children of His light, and we have the privilege and responsibility to represent His goodness in the earth.

2Timothy 1:7(ESV) states, “for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” God has empowered us through the Spirit of Christ to have self-control. This means that we don’t let people and situations determine who we are going to be and how we are going to act. We should know that our identity is in Christ, and we can and should walk in his love continually. If we don’t do this, we are setting ourselves up for consequences that we will not like.

The truth is that no one escapes the consequences of their actions. We sometimes think this, but it isn’t true. God said in Revelation 2:23(NLT), “I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am the one who searches out the thoughts and intentions of every person. And I will give to each of you whatever you deserve.” God is telling us this because He wants us to understand His laws and how they work. He is a God of order, not confusion. Everything He does has order, and as His children, He wants us to follow His Word because He blesses His Word.

He has given us free-will to live our lives the way we choose. His love doesn’t shove or push. He doesn’t force us to love Him but hopes that we will. When we turn away from God’s love through our actions, our lives begin to deteriorate, and unless we recognize this, our lives will continue to spiral downward. We can change this, and we should.

You might ask, “Why does God want people to suffer?” John 3:16(NLT) tells us, “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” Our Heavenly Father has shown us how much He loves us by giving His one and only Son, Jesus Christ, as a sacrifice for our sins. He did this when we were at our worst. We were lost and without hope, but God rescued us through Jesus Christ and redeemed us from the curse of sin and death. Now, we can walk in the victory of Christ every moment of our lives, but this is a choice we all must make.

Consequences can be devastating, but God doesn’t cause pain and suffering. However, He will allow them whenever and wherever there is disobedience and sin. He’s equipped and empowered us in Christ to live in love. This means we have the privilege and honor to line up all that we do, think, and say with the reality of who God has made us through Christ. The time is out for excuses. Now is the time to come to God with humbled hearts and made up minds to serve and honor Him. He will forgive our sins and transform our lives to such a degree that we will produce good things from the treasury of a good heart. When we put on our new nature in Christ the way God commands, we will love others through Him, and our lives will overflow with His goodness.■

“Be Aware of the Consequences”, written by Kim for https://rescuefromdomesticviolence.blogspot.com© 2022. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

Tuesday, April 12, 2022

You Are Not Alone

1Peter 5:9(NLT)
“Stand firm against him and be strong in your faith. Remember that your family of believers all over the world is going through the same kind of suffering you are.”

Whenever I’m going through a tough season in my life, I always remember my mother’s words. She’d tell us, “Life will beat you down if you let it.” It must have been over twenty-five years ago that she first said this, but she spoke it with such conviction that I have never forgotten it. Hitting it home even more is the reality that over the years I’ve come to know a little bit about life’s challenges; I’ve had more than a few myself. Admittedly, my mother had been through a lot, including domestic violence. She’s survived things that most couldn’t imagine pulling through, but her faith remained strong in the Lord. This has been such a profound example for me, because through my own struggles, more than any other thing, faith in the goodness of God has pulled me through as well.

1Peter 5:9 makes it clear that we have a spiritual adversary, the devil, but rest assured, God has not left us defenseless. Our Heavenly Father tells us in Ephesians 6:11(NLT) to put on all of His armor “so that you will be able to stand firm against all strategies of the devil.” He goes on to tell us that we are not fighting against a flesh and blood enemy. This is the mistake in our thinking that many of us make. People can be mean, vindictive, manipulative, and very unkind. Many of us encounter folks like this every day. When they behave badly towards us, our first inclination is to want to give them exactly what they have given us, but this isn’t the right strategy.

God makes it 100% crystal clear that our issue isn’t with the individual, but the demonic influence that works through them. These individuals haven’t understood the truth about Jesus Christ, and because of this, they can be used by the devil to come against us. If we neglect the truth of what God is telling us in Ephesians 6:11, we will continue to be blinded and attacked by satan and his demonic cohorts. We must open our eyes and become aware of our real enemy, because it isn’t a person, it’s the devil.

In Ephesians 6:13, Heavenly Father instructs us that every piece of His armor is necessary to resist the enemy. First, God tells us to put on the body armor of His righteousness. You and I don’t have any righteousness to call our own. We receive God’s righteousness when we accept Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior, and we are to wear it like a second skin. We must also hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil, and we must put on the shoes of God’s peace. We’re to wear the salvation that Jesus Christ offers us as a helmet, because following the example of Christ protects our minds, hearts, and souls. When we think, speak, and act like Christ, we leave no room for the enemy to steal the authority that Christ has given us. Living through the example of Jesus Christ means that we can stand firm with soundness of mind and in the strength of God’s love and power.

Lastly, we’re to take the Holy Spirit’s sword, which is the truth of God’s Word. A sword is a mighty weapon. Many of us have been outsmarted by the devil because we haven’t adequately protected our minds and hearts with God’s Word. At times we made the mistake of behaving as though our enemies were flesh and blood. We tried using physical or human-made weapons on a spiritual enemy, and this will always be futile. 2Corinthians 10:4(NLT) declares, “We use God's mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments.” In other words, we must recognize that God has equipped us with every spiritual weapon we need to stand strong. When we put on the mighty weapons that God has given us, we will not be tricked by wrong teachings, false arguments, philosophies or any other plot of the devil. Instead, our faith will remain strong in the Lord as we dedicate ourselves to living for Him.

There’s no question that life is challenging. We might get knocked down, but God wants us to know that we don’t have to stay down. That’s not His Will. He wants us to be strong, and to stand tall, because Psalm 3:3 declares that He is the Lifter of our heads. He loves us and only wants what is best for our lives. Romans 3:23-24 says that we all have sinned and fallen short of God’s standard. We are going to make mistakes, and some will cause us great pain, but God is always with us and will never leave or forsake us. He has proven through Christ that His grace, mercy, and love have no limit, and we can be assured that He will always come to our aid.■

Tuesday, April 5, 2022

Heavenly Father Comes to Your Rescue

2Peter 2:7-10(NLT)
“7 But God also rescued Lot out of Sodom because he was a righteous man who was sick of the shameful immorality of the wicked people around him. 8 Yes, Lot was a righteous man who was tormented in his soul by the wickedness he saw and heard day after day. 9 So you see, the Lord knows how to rescue godly people from their trials, even while keeping the wicked under punishment until the day of final judgment. 10 He is especially hard on those who follow their own twisted sexual desire, and who despise authority.”

Many of us wake up every morning and go about our daily business without giving thought to how God keeps our lives thriving. He protects us from hurt, harm, and danger, and He allows us to see another day. Ephesians 2:8(NLT) teaches us, “God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can't take credit for this; it is a gift from God.” We can’t take any credit for the salvation God offers us through Jesus Christ, and we can’t take credit for the many marvelous ways in which He blesses us each day. Many individuals go through life feeling as though they’re trying to juggle too many balls, but make no mistake, God is the One keeping them in the air. He’s the glue that holds our lives together. We must not ever forget this, and every day is an opportunity to demonstrate our gratitude to Him.

God has done great things for us! Those of us that have children send our kids off to school, and we hope and pray they will be safe and sound. God has protected them, and we should never take this for granted. For years, we’ve gone about our routines of getting ourselves from one place to the next, driving to and from work, going shopping, taking care of our responsibilities and ourselves. We do all of this and more. Do you think it’s all you that's keeping you and your loved ones safe and secure? Uh huh! It’s all because God has rescued us through Jesus Christ, and because of His grace, we can have access to a more than abundant life.

Look at what is happening in our world today. There isn’t a day that goes by that we don’t hear or read about some outrageous nonsense or worse, a needless violent or preventable tragedy. We should all say, “There but for the grace of God, I was spared.” We must be thankful to God for how He preserves us, and those we love and hold so dear.

2Peter 2:7-10 tells us about the Old Testament record of Lot, Abraham’s nephew. Lot was vexed in his soul after witnessing wickedness daily. It was all around him, and no one was honoring God and giving thanks to Heavenly Father except Lot. It may feel to some of us that the wicked ways of many people haven’t changed much since then, and in fact, may have gotten worse. The truth that we must all comprehend is that God has not changed. He is good all the time. Just as He made sure His hand of protection was with those living in Old Testament times that trusted Him, God will do the same for those of us who love and trust Him today.

In the Old Testament, people who served God were His servants. Because of what God accomplished through the sacrifice and resurrection of His beloved Son, Jesus Christ, not only do we have the responsibility and privilege to serve God’s Kingdom, but we are God’s children! We have His seed, the Holy Spirit, abiding within us through the new birth experience. If you and I will allow him, the person of the Holy Spirit will lead, guide, and direct us to the truth. Jesus Christ teaches in John 16:13(NLT), “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future.”

Heavenly Father doesn’t leave anything to chance. When we are committed to remaining close to Him, He corrects us through His Word. He helps us go deeper into scripture to receive tremendous revelation and understanding so that we live victoriously in Christ! He doesn’t want His kids to suffer or to be lonely, sad, and without love. 1John 4:8 tells us that God IS LOVE! He wants us to let His love swell to overflowing in our hearts so that we learn to love through Jesus Christ. He commands us in Colossians 2:7 to let our roots grow down into Christ, to learn so much about our wonderful Savior that our lives are built on him. This is how we grow strong in faith and overflow with thankfulness.

God commands us in Philippians 1:27(NLT), “Above all, you must live as citizens of heaven, conducting yourselves in a manner worthy of the Good News about Christ.” We must be more vigilant about living by the example of Jesus Christ, and no one should confuse us with those who are of this world. God has called us to be set apart. Our responsibility is to pray without ceasing for everyone, this includes those who believe in God and trust His Word as well as those who do not. Through His unending and amazing grace, God will always come to our rescue because we are His children. This is the message we must give to others and that we must trust wholeheartedly ourselves.

“Heavenly Father Comes to Your Rescue”, written by Kim for https://rescuefromdomesticviolence.blogspot.com© 2022. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.■