I have some encouragement for you. If you are getting beat up either by your own introspection and/or the enemy condemning you, I am here to tell you put it in it’s place and say, “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus.
I quite often get in a battle through my own introspection and the enemy sees this weakness and tries to sabotage me. I get thoughts like, “you just need to shut up!” Look at you, you are so unholy, you don’t have any business preaching and teaching. Look at all this stuff you need to clean up? You’d be better off keeping your mouth shut and working on getting your life together. You think God is proud of you? HAHA!” These thoughts are an outright assault.
My dad and I had a wonderful talk this morning about walking in faith and not your feelings. I was so greatly encouraged. My word of encouragment is don’t wait for the feelings, just act. The Christian life is not about cleaning yourself up and waiting for the right feelings. It is about stepping out in faith in spite of the feelings.
Oswald Chambers said, “To be surrendered to God is of more value than our personal holiness. Concern over our personal holiness causes us to focus our eyes on ourselves, and we become overly concerned about the way we walk and talk and look, out of fear of offending God, but perfect love cast out fear, once we surrendered to God. We should quit asking ourselves, “Am I any use?” and accept the truth that we really are not much use to Him. The issue is never of being of use, but being of value to God Himself. Once we surrender to God, He will work through us all the time.”
CS Lewis said, “Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality.”
We can’t have courage without a fear of something. Having courage requires stepping out in faith despite the feelings. We will find that acting in faith, the feelings of fear will disappear and will be replaced with love. The Ten Booms were most certainly facing great feelings of fear in hiding the Jews during the Holocaust but they were courageous and acted despite the feelings. They acted out of love.
Jesus said love the Lord your God and love your neighbor, don’t wait for the feeling, just act. If the thought occurs to you to do something kind for your neighbor, do it. Don’t analyze it. Just do it. If the thought occurs to you that you should show a kind turn to someone that maybe was not so kind to you, then do it. Don’t wait for the feeing, don’t say, well I need to wait for the right motivation. Just do it! All we have is right now. Tomorrow is not promised.
Let’s help each other live a bold and courageous life in Christ, walking by faith.
stones from the quarry 