I’m mad as heck, and I’m not gonna take it anymore.

Yesterday’s service at New Covenant and other subsequent messages that I’ve gotten are starting to really culminate in my life. I realized that instead of standing in defiance to the enemy and being on my face before God I do the reverse. Getting impatient with God’s progress in me is me wanting to take control, charging head long into battle and falling butt over tea kettle in the face of adversity. I’m going to use the second person pronoun here, but realize that I’m talking to myself, or, allowing God to speak to me. If this speaks to you, awesome. If not, awesome.

Listen, the problems you face aren’t from God. God isn’t a divine bully, He isn’t a cruel master, He is my rock, He is a "strong tower: the righteous runneth into it and is safe" (Proverbs 18:10). God allows things to exist for your growth, He wants you to rely on Him. Growth is painful, there is no getting around it. This world sucks so forth and so on but God didn’t make it bad, we did. In the beginning God made everything and "it was good" (Genesis 1, seen a bunch of times). Paul illustrated the difference between being troubled and being defeated: "We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed" (2 Cor 4). It’s ok to be angry, confused, and sad but with these emotions comes the temptation to distrust God. Jesus didn’t say ‘my office hours are between 9 and 5,’ He said "I will NEVER leave you or forsake you" (Hebrews 13:5). He also said that NOTHING in all creation is able to separate us from His love in Christ (Romans 8). If you’ve accepted Christ and surrendered your life to Him, than it’s His and you have to trust that He knows your growth and He knows what you can handle. You’re no longer against God so stop resisting Him. He wants to make you perfect and nothing in all of creation will stop Him except your decision to not let Him. "Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as He is pure" (1 John 3:2-3). When you stop trusting in God you walk away from Him. It starts in your mind, perverts your heart, then dictates your actions. When you’re walking closely with God and you sin you know right away. When you’re not walking with Him you’re walking into darkness and you won’t know what makes you stumble (proverbs, somewhere). When you believe He has left you, you’re really turning your back on Him, so stop blaming Him, stop blaming yourself, stop blaming others. Blame gets you nowhere. If peace isn’t ruling your heart then get aggressive. As I struggled in my mind yesterday and I got angrier and suddenly I felt as though God stopped me and asked "Bry, why are you taking this from him (the enemy)?"

I come from a background that is a bit legalistic and lacking in grace. So I tend to get critical with myself. I gave up a lot when I got saved and it was necessary for a period but after a while I felt God say "I told you to sin no more, I didn’t say to stop being alive." There are two types of fear, the fear of the Lord and the fear that has no place in a heart surrendered to Christ. Proverbs says a number of times that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Fear of the Lord is awe, it should result in deeper love, devotion, and worship of God. God lets us know what happens if we deny Him and it isn’t pretty but He has to make it clear. I know it’s a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God, trust me. You realize your sinfulness, your wretchedness. However, when you surrender to Jesus that isn’t who you are anymore. Ahem, again, that isn’t who you are anymore. He changes your heart and your desires. If your fear of God leads to resentment that isn’t Godly fear. If you serve God out of fear of punishment you’re not trusting in the fact that your sins are forgiven. This is the difference between a martyr and a self-proclaimed martyr. Someone with enough devotion to lay his/her life down for God trusts Him so implicitly that they "take no thought" for their lives. They don’t worry that God will make them do this or that because they trust that nothing in the past, present, or the future will separate them from the love of God (Romans 8).

The thing that trips most people up is that God is completely devoted to them, not because He needs to be, He needs no one, but because He wants to be. Blows my mind. We have a hard time trusting in the fact that He simply loves you that much because of our tainted experiences with love and devotion in the world. He created me and then He came and died for me, in some part of me that makes perfect sense and in another part of me it doesn’t. The new man and the old man.

The difference between dead religions and real Christianity is this: it isn’t just a set of rules it’s the deepest relationship you can ever have. From that relationship, the rules get written on your heart. The more you love God the more you will want to obey Him.

You have God living inside you, the God of all creation is with you. There is a difference between being unsure or having a bad day/week/month/year but still having the peace of Christ ruling in your heart and being tormented. You don’t have to take it, so don’t. You have weapons to fight with, your feelings might not change in that moment but that is where faith comes in. Don’t let the enemy knock you down, he’s already been defeated, so lay the sucker out. God gives you what you need to get out of whatever situation you’re in and the only way you won’t get out of your hole is if you believe that He can’t get you out of it. If your trust isn’t in God, you’ll have a hard time loving Him, yourself and others. Loving everyone and God is interconnected no matter which way you look at it. You can’t profess to love God and treat others badly and you can’t really love others the way Christ did unless you really love Him.