Pain & Repentence

This weekend during PK's sermon he talked about the amount of pain he'd been a part of and experienced in the church in the past weeks. It seems that a lot of sins are coming to the surface, people are opening up their 'secrets' and revealing their wounds and it has been a hard week for so many families in the church. As much as I don't want families to be in pain --- I actually do. I thank God for what is going on. As I said in my last post -- pain is a great indicator of an area of our life that we need to allow God to work on. The pastor prayed wonderful prayers and blessings for our church.... and I want to write about what my prayer for the church (the families in the church going through pain right now) is.

I pray that these families run toward the pain. Yes run toward it! I pray that all of us will take the risk of ruining our reputations (see previous post for more on this) , will take the (perceived) risk of getting rejected (which God will absolutely never do), and take the risk of experiencing lots of pain and having things get worse before they get better.

We have to run toward the pain because if we hold back our sin, if we try to cover up our blemishes in anyway, we are not allowing full healing. The only way to true and absolute healing is to allow God to put us and our loved ones face to face with our sin. He would never allow our sin to beat us down beyond repair. Yes there WILL be pain when I have to confront my sin - there's pain, there's guilt, there's shame, but I know that the Spirit allows me that pain and shame only so that I will never want to do that sin again. The pain and guilt never last. God allows them for a short time and then washes them all away. That is what healing is all about -- admitting the scar, coming face to face, letting God bring to the surface ALL the stuff you don't want out in the open....being totally vulnerable and uncomfortable and then letting God totally heal it - not like a bandaid over a broken leg heal -- but a totally better than new, healing! that IS available to us!

If you only allow a little bit of pain and leave some areas covered up --- you will only get a little bit of healing. It's only when you allow full air to the wound and feel almost excruciating pain temporarily that the healing will come.

Like I said in my last post --- I am learning that to get closer to being Christlike, means you get farther away from being worldly. I can't focus on worldly things. My prayer shouldn't be that people understand me anymore - my prayer should be that I look good to God. I don't want to impress any crowd anymore - I just want God to delight in me. Psalm 19:10 King David prays to God, "May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock, My Redeemer". Let us pray like him!! Let us be more concerned with what God thinks of us, our thoughts our motives, our actions than what the world does. God does not give a hoot at all about what the world thinks of us. Let's not cover ourselves up --- but take the risk of being the one to step away from the crowd, show our failures and how God gives us 100% healing from them.

As a final thought --- I was reading Genesis this morning about the first sin ever committed --- and I was thinking about the blame game. Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent.... let us not blame our actions on others. God knows what happened. God can not forgive excuses --- God can only forgive a repentant heart. On KLove this morning --- I was so excited when I heard a mini-sermon on exactly what I had just read. The pastor said.... let's not come to God saying I missd up a bit, I slipped, I made a teeny mistake ---- let us be like King David coming and exclaiming I have sinned against you! No matter the sin --- take the risk of being obedient and realizing sin is sin and we need forgiveness no matter what it is. Be humble, completely open, vulnerable and truthful. He will never forsake you, He is always trustworthy.