Open your heart and mind to the Lord!
You will gain nothing by grappling with your problems apart from the enlightenment that only the Holy Spirit can bring, and the Holy Spirit is not stirred up within you by struggle, but by praise.
Don’t be afraid of your pain. If death were as close as you fear, there would be no need to store sustenance for the winter to come. Your strength and help come from the Lord; abide in Him. Let your roots run so deeply that you are able to withstand cold, storms, or drought.
The Lord will exchange your weariness for strength; come unto Him!
Scripture: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28).
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Saturday, September 3, 2011
How to Think About Death
Sometimes those who are the most spiritually perceptive are the most prone to fear. You see and sense spiritual truths you cannot completely understand, and apart from a steadfast focus upon the Lord, you fall to fear.
Let go your fear of death. As Jesus told the thief, “Today you will be with me in Paradise,” so the Lord tells you, “You’ll only pass through shadow, and into light again.”
Death is a passageway. Stop thinking of death as a different level of consciousness; it is like walking through a door. You will still be aware, you will still be you. Death is not like anesthesia. There is nothing of paralysis, constriction, or altered consciousness about death. Almost the opposite is true, death is a freeing process that delivers you to new life.
Death is somewhat like falling asleep, but for the Christian, death does not entrap, it releases. The distorted awareness and paralysis of anesthesia are responsible for the fears you harbor now. Let go this misconception that death is like anesthesia. It is not.
The Valley of the Shadow is a passageway to be traversed, not a place to set up camp. God's children do not linger in the valley. In the same way that a baby being born is pushed down the birth canal and then delivered, death is only the passageway between this world and the next; and the Lord is with you. Dying is sometimes as simple as stepping across a threshold.
Do not be afraid.
Scripture: "Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death" Hebrews 2:14-15
Let go your fear of death. As Jesus told the thief, “Today you will be with me in Paradise,” so the Lord tells you, “You’ll only pass through shadow, and into light again.”
Death is a passageway. Stop thinking of death as a different level of consciousness; it is like walking through a door. You will still be aware, you will still be you. Death is not like anesthesia. There is nothing of paralysis, constriction, or altered consciousness about death. Almost the opposite is true, death is a freeing process that delivers you to new life.
Death is somewhat like falling asleep, but for the Christian, death does not entrap, it releases. The distorted awareness and paralysis of anesthesia are responsible for the fears you harbor now. Let go this misconception that death is like anesthesia. It is not.
The Valley of the Shadow is a passageway to be traversed, not a place to set up camp. God's children do not linger in the valley. In the same way that a baby being born is pushed down the birth canal and then delivered, death is only the passageway between this world and the next; and the Lord is with you. Dying is sometimes as simple as stepping across a threshold.
Do not be afraid.
Scripture: "Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death" Hebrews 2:14-15
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