Christ Will Rescue You

Tuesday, October 3, 2023

Nothing Shall Hurt You

Luke 10:19(ESV)
“Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you.”

I learned over the summer that a good friend had been going through a difficult season in her life. Everyone that knows her is quick to say how outspoken and brazen she is, but for the last few months she’d been noticeably more withdrawn and isolated. My friend and her teenage daughter moved in with her grandmother after being evicted from their apartment. In her words, nothing was going right. She was too embarrassed to tell anyone about the financial hardship she’d been having after her divorce two years ago.

My friend is not alone in her struggle. Many of God’s children are facing troubling times and feeling ashamed that their lives are so far from what they used to be. We shouldn’t walk in shame about any of our struggles, because the reality is that we all have hard days, and sometimes they last a lot longer than we’d like. During those difficult times, we might want to pull the covers over our heads and isolate ourselves from everything and everyone, but Jesus Christ offers us a better solution. If we trust him, he will lead us to a path of strength and wisdom. There, on the path with our blessed Lord, we need to increase our confidence in who God is and what He has promised us. On this path, we surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ. We let him lead, because when we place our hope in him, Romans 5:5(NLT) tells us, “…this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.”

Through Jesus Christ, God has given us authority and power to live victoriously! Our Heavenly Father wants us to be happy and whole, and He has equipped us spiritually through Jesus Christ to stand strong. Romans 8:37 tells us that we are more than conquerors through Jesus Christ who loves us. No matter what we face in life, we are overcomers. Our problem is that when our conditions, situations, and circumstances look troubling, we forget that God is our fortress. We forget His Word tells us that He’s our refuge and shield. The psalmist said in Psalm 3:3(ESV), “But you, O LORD, are a shield around me; you are my glory, the one who holds my head high.” When we don’t feel like even trying anymore, this is the truth on which we must anchor our hearts and confess with our mouths.

Our minds and hearts must be drenched in faith towards our God. As Psalm 3:3 tells us, He’s the lifter of our heads. Sure, things sometimes look very bleak, and we don’t think we’re going to make it through. We don’t want people to see our sadness and disappointment, but it’s on our faces. It’s in the way we move, and we can’t hide it. God desires to connect with us, especially when we’re in pain. Even though we may feel shame, we need to remind ourselves that He will lift our heads above it if we cling to Him and trust in His power.

Jesus Christ showed us the heart of God when he carried out his ministry on earth. He helped and healed the hearts, minds, and bodies of people, because he loved everyone, and it pleased the Father to restore them. God wants to do this in our lives. When He lifts our heads out of the muck and mire of our troubling circumstances, our perspective should change from one of despair and shame to greater understanding and faith. We will see that we’ve been stuck in one place for too long, and through Christ, we can gain a greater vision of the future that God has in store for us.

In Luke 10:19, Jesus Christ blessed the disciples with absolute authority to carry out the ministry he had given them. He gave them power over the enemy, satan, and he declared, “nothing shall hurt you.” Because he finished the mission that God gave him through his sacrifice and resurrection, we can walk with this same authority, dominion, and power when we honor God with our lives and have faith in all that He is. We are God’s children, and He lifts our heads high, not with arrogance, but with the humility and confidence of being members of His spiritual family. The choice to believe God and lean totally on Him is the right one to make. We must pray that as we choose to believe the truth, God will speak to our hearts and remind us that we are strong through the Lord Jesus Christ. He will keep us through our darkest hour as we remain anchored in His faithfulness, deliverance, and strength. ■

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.

Saturday, September 23, 2023

Love Is Not Supposed to Hurt

1Corinthians 13:4-8(NLT)
“4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. 8 Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever!”

I had just flown home from visiting my family in the south. My two-year-old daughter was with me, and my soon to be ex-husband was on his way to pick us up from the airport. I knew it was going to be a rough night because while I was away, I’d called and told my husband I wanted a divorce. He didn’t take it well at all. My stomach was in my throat the entire flight home, and I dreaded the thought of being in his company, but at the time, I had nowhere else to go and had no other choice but to go home with my husband.

I should have had a plan. I should have waited until details were in place before I declared that I wanted out, but I was young. I really didn’t care about a plan, I just wanted to breathe, and I felt like I hadn’t done that in a very long time. Whenever my ex was upset, it seemed to me that everything in the environment conspired with his rage. He yelled. He punched the walls or anything in his reach, and sometimes that ‘anything in his reach’ was me. I had been on the receiving end of his anger and punches for so long that I didn’t even feel that it was me living my life anymore. I was a shell of who I once was but managed to preserve a little piece of that woman for my daughter.

That night was horrible. I thought I had braced myself for it, but there was really no way to do that. I was a punching bag the entire ride home, and it got worse. That night resulted in another domestic dispute. The police were called, and he was arrested.

I can’t say for sure how I ended up with a man who abuses, but I remember people telling me when we were dating that “He loves hard.” I wasn’t wise enough during that time to equate those words with other words like obsession, jealousy, anger, rage, and out of control, but I certainly learned the hard way. As individuals that have been abused and are being abused, we need to know that there are other ways to learn the lessons of life and love, and those ways do not involve things like pain, abuse, and suffering.

One of the first things that we learn about God’s love is the reality of His kindness and patience. He tells us in 1Corinthians 13:4-5 that love is not jealous, abusive, belligerent, vengeful, irritable, or hurtful. Love is patient and kind, and this is the way our Heavenly Father loves us. It’s the way He wants others to love us, and it’s the way He wants us to love others as well. We learn from God’s example that love isn’t supposed to hurt. Love should nurture us and make us better people. We often think of love as this romantic and emotional ooey-gooey-ness that makes our hearts flutter like butterflies. That stuff is fun of course, but it’s too vacillating and fleeting to match the quality, longevity, and stability of real love. 1John 4:8 tells us that God is love. He’s the definitive authority on the subject, so we don’t get to put our own spin on how love looks and operates. He’s told us what love is, and based on His truth, we can discern and understand when we’re not being treated with love, and when we, ourselves, are not operating in love.

Jesus Christ lived by God’s love. He left us a perfect and lasting example of how to do that. The twelve disciples that were taught by him also closely walked and talked with him during his ministry on earth, and he loved them very much. In John 13:34(NLT), he told them, “So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.” Our beautiful and beloved Lord and Savior set love in perpetual and continuous motion by commanded us to carry on loving just the way that he did. Because of the enduring and powerful love of God that our Master demonstrated, we have the distinct privilege and responsibility to let God’s love be our life’s goal and work.

Just because someone tells us that they love us, it doesn’t mean it’s true. Love doesn’t hurt or make us feel bad about ourselves, and this is a lesson that we don’t have to learn the hard way. It is not God’s Will for His children to live a life of suffering and despair. He gave the life of our precious Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, as a sacrifice for our lives so that we can live abundantly! This is how much God loves us. He has made it overwhelmingly clear He has stamped us deserving of love. This is the way He sees us, and we must learn to see ourselves this way. We are worthy to be loved, because this is what God tells us. When we believe this in our hearts and begin to live by His love and Word, we will make wiser choices and decisions, and only accept the kind of love that doesn’t hurt. ■

“Love Is Not Supposed to Hurt”, written by Kim for https://rescuefromdomesticviolence.blogspot.com© 2023. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

Thursday, September 21, 2023

Let Go of the Baggage

James 1:5(ESV)
“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.”

Noemi is a girlfriend of mine, and we decided to go out to dinner together to catch up. We were just finishing up when her boyfriend, Jake, called to say that he would need to break their plans for the weekend. He’s a truck driver, so she’s used to him being on the road, but this time, she felt things were different. He’s been distant lately. At times, she says his attitude and words are hurtful and aggressive. She told me, “I think he may have found someone else! He’s just not the same, and I don’t know what I’m going to do! I really need him in my life!” When will we understand the only person that we truly really need in our lives is Jesus Christ? Without knowing him and his love, we can be easily deceived into thinking that another human being can give us what only God can.

We read it in romance novels and see it on just about every form of media out there. Through them all, women are taught to make the significant man in their lives their everything, and this is never a good move. When we believe our prayers are answered, and we find someone that appears to be compatible, some of take all our eggs and put them in his basket, so to speak. We immediately invest times, energy, and other resources into this man, without a green light from the Lord that this is the man God has sent.

As women, we should be confident that our eggs are well preserved and beautifully adorned. These eggs are representative of wonderful goodies like our spiritual well-being in Christ and our level of confidence and authority in our Blessed Redeemer. They also represent our womanhood, self-esteem, and our capacity to love, grow, and thrive in God’s peace. As you can see, our eggs are very valuable, and this is the way we ought to view them. Placing all our eggs in a man’s basket without investigating the condition of his basket or his capacity to handle one, is not wise, and it often leads to heartbreak.

Is the heartbreak worth it?
Proverbs 4:7(NLT) tells us, “Wisdom is the principal thing; Therefore get wisdom. And in all your getting, get understanding.” Our Heavenly Father is a God of order, and He leaves nothing to chance. He’s set the priority that leads us to a fulfilling and meaningful existence, and this priority is wisdom. It’s the principal things, which means it must be the first step in acquiring all that God has for us. Proverbs 1:7(NLT) says, “Fear of the LORD is the foundation of true knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.” We should never want it to be said that we will not listen and despise wisdom and discipline. Wisdom is more than just acquiring knowledge. It’s the right and proper use of the knowledge we’ve acquired; and honoring and reverencing God is where it all starts.

We must be wise, especially in relationships, and we must seek understanding from God’s Word so that we can accurately use the wisdom we’ve acquired. Without wisdom we make mistakes, and this is where heartbreaks makes its grand entrance. Without wisdom, we invest our resources and energies into a man that was never meant for us. We allow his baggage to become our baggage, and we become so weighted down that we can’t see straight. Then, when things inevitably crumble, and he decides he no longer values what we have to give, some of us use this as an excuse to fall apart. It’s important for us to know that we’re the ones to decide how we’re going to respond to heartbreak. We have a choice. We can continue to spiral, or we can release the baggage and choose to trust wholeheartedly in God. We can choose to believe in the strength and power He’s given us through Jesus Christ.

There can be no question that we learn from our mistakes, but there can also be no doubt that it’s best not to make the mistake in the first place. Mistakes often cause us to lose time, momentum, and stamina. This is especially true with heartbreak. It’s not worth it to put ourselves through heartbreak when it can be avoided. James 1:5 gives us a strategy for choosing the right person for our lives. It tells us that if we don’t know or we’re unsure, ask God, and He will not be upset if we keep asking for His wisdom and help. Our Heavenly Father will let you know what you’re working with because He wants you to avoid heartbreak and to have a blessed and bountiful existence.

Jesus Christ told the disciples in Mark 11:22-23(NLT), “22 Have faith in God. 23 I tell you the truth, you can say to this mountain, ‘May you be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and it will happen. But you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart.” God is our everything, and no human being deserves or can handle the heft of that distinction. A human being can’t make you, and if the man leaves you tomorrow, that’s not going to break you. God is your sufficiency and the Source of your blessings. Have faith in Him. He gave His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to save us from the destruction of sin. So, let go of the baggage. You might have thought it was a basket, but it was baggage you don’t need. Let it go, be more committed to grow in Christ, and always let God’s wisdom be your guide.■