I get it that some days we clearly don’t feel like the resurrected people that we are. Yeah, we’ve been transformed, renewed, forgiven and made righteous through Christ and now the old is gone and the new lives on with Christ’s resurrected power in us, but yet we fail to live it out where the rubber meets the road.
So, we’re in a slump and a snag? So we fail, we fall, we feel all in but our shoelaces, however, we have important choices to make and so we do. We either choose badly or we choose wisely. We can choose to spiral down the ‘sin’ slope farther with a bitter spirit, and revenge, or we can choose to wise up, rise up, stop blaming others, and take responsibility for our actions. We can choose to move ahead, beyond the guilt of failure! I love how Peter rose up after his failure and denial of Christ, don’t you? Where Judas fell under the weight of his guilt and ended his life in remorse, Peter went on with Christ, with sins forgiven, and preached 50 days later.
Peter chose life after his failure, where Judas chose death out of remorse. We have the option to do the same. Christ’s resurrection power dwells in us and His forgiveness empowers us to keep shining even after a fall. Yeah, so make wise decisions even in the consequences of bad choices and choose life. Choose the resurrection power of Christ in us, the hope of glory!
He is there for you even on the rainy days and the blue days, and the so gone-wrong days. He led David through a few of those with a jealous Saul in relentless pursuit. David knew death entangled him and torrents of destruction overwhelmed him but he called on his God for help and His God delivered him and gave him a song and he gave praise back to the God who delivered, with the words of the song in Psalm 18: 1, 2, 3
It’s in our darkest hour that God comes! He enters into the problem, although we may not be aware of His exact timing and presence in those lonely despairing times.
Friends, it’s dark there in the crevice of the rock with the Lord’s hand covering our eyes, don’t you think? But it’s safe there in the shelter of that rock as God does His thing to reveal His glory in our circumstances. He did it for Moses, and He does it for us if we give Him the reigns to shelter us from the trouble and hide us securely protected from His awesome work. So, we may feel in the dark these days and yeah, we might not be aware of His presence when He presents Himself in the struggle, because He covers us with His hand so we can’t see His face, but it’s here, He’s working with a powerful, sovereign hand to fix it all just the way He desires to fix it. It’s in the dark He works so sovereignly to reveal His glory and to shine directly and radiantly into our darkest of dark.
So for you today, in the dark, down, needing desperately to see something from the Lord, hold on to hope and stay safely there in that dark spot, in that safe place, protected right there, until God is finished doing what He’s doing. When He takes away His hand, then look! Then smile! Then be thankful for the dark that just passed over!
Oh yeah, we need to go deeper with Him today. Go deeper into His ever-loving love and know that he cares even for the littlest of the little. All those fears that tug at the heart and all those insecurities that well up inside? He’s what we need for all that stuff! Those protective arms of our Almighty and Sovereign One stretched out over the cross for you, with a love so great no one can fathom it! No one can understand it! But you can know it was for you, just as you are, with no strings attached.
So today, reach out to the One who can take it all and speak peace into those dark corners of your world. Those places where anxieties lurk and rejections haunt and yeah those insecure places where any strengths go unnoticed. Today, right now,
Yeah, so you can know today, right now, this moment, Those same hands took the nails and those same arms outstretched the cross to reach you, to hold you, to protect you, to carry you, to love you and to grace you. So lets you and I and we and us go deeper today into His presence and saturate in His most amazing grace!
Hope and Healing In Hard Places 