My fellow Christian
We have missed your presence here during worship. We have missed the encouragement we get when you fellowshipped and worshiped with us. Just as a hand is smashed with a hammer, or a leg or nose broken, the body suffers and puts all its attention to that area in hopes of easing the pain and ridding the problem causing the pain. So we too as a church extend our hands, our attention to a hurting member of our family. You suffer, we therefore also recoil in your sufferings wishing we could take away your pain and not knowing how to do it. So we wait in patience with hope that the Lord has found a way to help heal you as you allow Him.
We extend our love and concerns, not shaking our fingers or our heads in shame but with embraces and a listening ear if you so wish. We can not even begin to understand what you are going through. There is no doubt in my heart that we all have skeletons that hang on the back recesses of our spiritual minds and we struggle with them. Some of those skeletons are small ones yet others are seemingly colossal in size. Regardless of your trials, allow us as your family to share in that load. But we can not do that if you stay away and avoid us. We have prayed fervently for you that you may overcome your trials. If only we could forget.
If only we could erase those ugly mistakes we have made in our pasts, it seems that life would be so much easier to bear. We could stand back up and go on as if it has never happened. Yet it is not to be that way is it? The Lord has given us memories which seem to haunt us and each time we look back we once again fall on our faces.
It is like running a race in the heavy terrains of the mountains. Some of those mountains are low and easy to run across, while others appear to be impossibly steep and sap our very strength with every step we take. That is all bad enough. Then we start looking back over our shoulders to see why seemingly everyone is passing us. We look back to seek out our mistakes and in doing so, we have lost our focus on where we are going and we stumble over the logs and rocks. Spiritually we fall and scrape ourselves up. It hurts and we feel like giving up because we have made too many mistakes and can not see how to get back into the race set before us. We see others who seemingly race on ahead of us like they have the race all figured out and are stronger and more determined. These are those who we see as more spiritual than ourselves and focused. However, you are only seeing the moment. You did not see several years back as they too fell flat on their faces and scarred themselves up. They too faced the similar hills, valleys and great mountains and wondered how they could ever finish. And they will run into obstacles time and again until the race is finally over. We all go through that. No one is exempt.
The difference is that they stood back up and started putting one foot in front of the other again. Slowly and sorely at first and then as they focused more on their future with God, the stronger and faster they ran…..until the next fall. Now you see why the Lord has told us that the path we run on is straight and narrow and few there are who find it. Life’s path is full of detours which are tempting to take yet none but one takes us to the finish line. The good news here is that you know that path. You know the direction which God has set before you.
Some of the runners of life (your Christian brethren) have paused for you with extended hands to offer support and guidance and strength as we put our arms about you to help you get back into step and on the right path. Take advantage of the love we extend. We are not running the race to beat each other to the finish line. We are not comparing ourselves. We are running a race against the devil and all the obstacles he sends our way.
Don’t listen to Satan. Don’t let him tell you that you can not be forgiven. And if you believe that you have been forgiven, then perhaps he is saying you should not forgive yourself. That is a device he has sent to all of us and we all struggle against them for some time. But understand this. We will never forget our mistakes but the point is, if God can forgive us as individuals, why shouldn’t we learn to forgive ourselves? Sure, sometimes others may remind us of our past and perhaps our personal past has dealt us consequences, scars if we can make the comparison, which always stand out to remind us when we look into our spiritual mirrors. We need to remember to quit looking at the scars we bear, but look at the overall person. Look at it carefully and remember that Christ died on our behalf so that when we finally come to the Father in spirit, the scars will all be erased. God can and does forget…..through Jesus. Satan is forever accusing us, but don’t listen to him. God won’t listen to Satan’s accusations as long as you continue to love as Jesus does and never stop striving to do His blessed will. Jesus’ blood does the rest.
Finally, after all we have said, read this scripture:
Heb.12:1-13 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation which addresses you as sons? -- "My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor lose courage when you are punished by him. For the Lord disciplines him whom he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives." It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers to discipline us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time at their pleasure, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant; later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.
Come back to us and allow us to help heal your wounds.
In Christ with much love,
The church
(written by David Johnson)
