Post by Cindy on Jul 18, 2015 12:07:41 GMT -5
We all know we're living in the last days of the end times right now, and that means of course, that Satan is very active. I know there's often been a general tendency to blame Satan for just about everything instead of realizing that it's simply our flesh or the world that's been causing us the problems in our lives, but right now, in one area especially, I think Satan and his demons are to blame. It's our families.
It seems like just about every Christian family I know has or is experiencing severe relationship problems within it. Family members are fighting with each other, some are walking away from their faith, others haven't been saved yet, there's affairs, divorces, anger, malice, rage, bitterness, grudges, slander, gossip, deceit, hatred, jealously, selfishness, self pity, self-righteousness, vindictiveness, and a whole lot of unforgiveness.
All those characteristics are often shown together in God's Word as the characteristics of the unsaved, and that we're to rid ourselves of. These characteristics are part of our sin nature, so they show up naturally in all of us. At our salvation, the Lord gave us a new nature, but we have to choose to walk in it constantly, otherwise we'll simply revert to acting out of our old nature. And we all know how easy it is to fall back into old habits.
We know that Satan is out only to steal, kill and destroy. We've seen in the news how he's been attacking the family for a long time now. We've seen him do that through the homosexual activists, and before that through the women's lib movement, as well as things like abortion, no fault divorces, etc. I never looked at it as "personal" before, but saw his scheme as trying to destroy the foundation of marriage and family, not individual families. Now I realize however, that he's doing both.
While those things can certainly affect our individual families, he's also attacking us each individually by another of his standard modes of operation: strife and division. When I say Satan's attacking us individually, I don't mean that Satan himself is personally attacking each of us. His demons simply plant the seeds and our sin nature takes it from there. Plus he has the help of the secular worldview (how we see and interpret the world and our lives) which he's always been behind as backup. (It's yet another reason why the Lord says we need to be in His Word daily so our minds can be renewed with His Truth, and we won't fall back into the way the world sees things.)
Knowing the cause of the problems made me realize that we had been duped by Satan; he loves putting evil thoughts and ideas in our minds, and encouraging those thoughts and resultant feelings, causing all the strife and division. That made me angry! Real angry! How dare he! Then it made me ashamed. For years I'd tried to figure out the cause and gone from blaming myself to this person, to another. To finally discover that it was one of Satan's schemes that we're to be aware of, made me ashamed because I hadn't seen it before and I should have. But I was too busy blaming everything else and nursing my feelings of rejection. It was a relief also to know that all the garbage was from Satan and not really from my children at all.
Most importantly though, knowing the cause of the problem, I finally knew how to "fix" it with the Lord's help and guidance. To overcome Satan's scheme, all we really need are 4 things; and they're the 4 most basic and most important things that the Lord tells us about over and over again in His Word: love, forgiveness, humility and obedience. That's it. Loving God and others, forgiving, being humble, and being obedient to Him, are the four main things that God tells us to do from Genesis to Revelation and they're what Satan hates more then anything else, and that will beat him every single time! (assuming that we're already saved)God pours His love into our hearts for the very purpose of loving Him and others and forgiving. Obviously, we can't do this without His help, but with His help, we can.
If you take another look at the list I wrote in the 2nd paragraph, all but the "affairs and divorces" are feelings, and the affairs and divorces happen because of "feelings", right? God's Word tells us not to trust our feelings in the first place, but instead to trust only in what His Word tells us. He also tells us that we're to be in control of our thoughts, because it's our thoughts that produce our feelings, which in turn produce our actions. We need to replace the thoughts that lead to those kind of feelings with thoughts that lead to the kind of feelings He wants us to cultivate, and dwell on those instead.
The "trick" however is in the forgiveness, because we have to forgive the way God does, not the way the world does. We have to forgive, promising to never bring up the matter to the person or anyone else, including ourselves, ever again. That's what "forgetting" means, when God says He forgets our sins. You can read more about that in Forgiving and Forgetting the Lord's way, if you want to (it's very short!).
When we bring love, forgiveness, and humility into the cycle of broken relationships, under the covering of prayer, they begin to heal. When the others push our buttons and get nothing back from us except for more love, they have nothing to continue their fight with. Oh, they'll keep trying for awhile, but you'll be amazed how it will change the whole dynamics of the situation. And it's when they push our buttons that humility comes into play too, for humble person will serve others, and put others before themselves, submitting themselves to God and others the way the Lord tells us to.
There's another very important aspect to all of this though. We need God's help to do this, for only with His help can we really pull it off. His Word tells us that there are two basic necessities for getting His help: constant prayer and being in His Word daily. We need to keep talking to the Lord about what we're doing and why, asking for His help and guidance, expecting answers. His answers come through His Word. So we need to be alert, and ready to apply what He shows us, and He will show us! We need to remember too though to always put the Lord first...even before the family we love. If we do, then the Lord says He will grant us the desires of our heart. I know my desire is to see each of my family members reconciled to the Lord, to each other, and to me and Bruce. Knowing God's promise if I'm obedient, I know that He will reconcile my family and is even now working in each of us to bring it about; and doing it for His glory and our good. Satan may have gotten a running start on us, and it may be his hay day, but our God always wins!
One last thing so there's no misunderstanding. If our loved one is living in sin, and is unrepentant about it, then we cannot forgive them, because God never gives forgiveness until after the person confesses and repents of their sin. In that case we can pray for their forgiveness, we can ask God to reveal the truth to them, and we can forgive them for hurting us with their sin, but we can't forgive them for the sin itself if they haven't repented, and we shouldn't pretend to do so either. We can of course still love them and we can still be humble, but in a case like this, we must also make sure we have and are doing all that the Lord tells us to in these kind of cases. If we are keeping our mouths shut for fear of alienating our loved one, then we are not obeying God. Nor are we trusting Him. God tells us to rebuke and correct a person who's living in unrepentant sin and He tells us exactly how we're supposed to do that, step by step until the person repents. Most of God's promises in His Word are conditional, so if we want to be able to apply his promises to our lives, we must therefore be willing to obey Him, regardless of the possible consequences. You can find this step by step process that He gives us in the longer study about forgiveness: An Intensive Study about Forgiving and Forgetting
These are the last days my friends, so Satan has ramped up all his efforts, and God is allowing many things to happen to open the eyes of those who do belong to Him, for judgment always begins with God's children first. If we want the good promises and all the wonderful things He tells us He has for us, then we have to be willing to pay the cost by being obedient to Him and trusting Him for the outcome. Remember though, trust, just like love and forgiveness is not a feeling, it's a choice, a decision. We choose to trust Him regardless of our feelings. We may not feel like trusting Him, but it's imperative that we choose to trust Him - one circumstance at a time. Let me end with something one of my books says about this:
Our 1st priority in times of adversity is to honor & glorify God by trusting Him. We tend to make our 1st priority the gaining of relief from our feelings of heartache, disappointment or frustration. This is a natural desire, & God has promised to give us grace sufficient for our trials & peace for our anxieties. But just as God’s will is to take precedence over our will, so God’s honor is to take precedence over our feelings. We honor God by choosing to trust Him when we don’t understand what He is doing or why He has allowed some adverse circumstance to occur. As we seek God’s glory, we may be sure that He has purposed our good & that He will not be frustrated in fulfilling that purpose. The truth we must believe is that God is sovereign. He carries out His own good purposes without ever being thwarted, & He so directs & controls all events & all actions of His creatures that they never act outside of His sovereign will. We must believe this & cling to this in the face of adversity & tragedy, if we are to glorify God by trusting Him. Trusting God
In many places, including Phil 1:6, we are told: “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:28 tells us: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” These are the Truths we must hold on to with all our strength in these trying days; believing them, and trusting our loving God to fulfill them in our circumstances in our lives. Why should we set aside our fear of losing a loved one and trust and obey God anyway? Because the Lord tells us that “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him;” (Psalm 103:11) “As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;” (Psalm 103:13) and “But from everlasting to everlasting the LORD’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children— with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts.” (Psalm 103:17–18) Do you see the condition of these promises? Those promises are ours when we choose to trust and obey.
John 10:10 —The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. *
2 Corinthians 2:11 —in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes. *
1 Peter 5:8–9 —Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. *Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. *
It seems like just about every Christian family I know has or is experiencing severe relationship problems within it. Family members are fighting with each other, some are walking away from their faith, others haven't been saved yet, there's affairs, divorces, anger, malice, rage, bitterness, grudges, slander, gossip, deceit, hatred, jealously, selfishness, self pity, self-righteousness, vindictiveness, and a whole lot of unforgiveness.
All those characteristics are often shown together in God's Word as the characteristics of the unsaved, and that we're to rid ourselves of. These characteristics are part of our sin nature, so they show up naturally in all of us. At our salvation, the Lord gave us a new nature, but we have to choose to walk in it constantly, otherwise we'll simply revert to acting out of our old nature. And we all know how easy it is to fall back into old habits.
We know that Satan is out only to steal, kill and destroy. We've seen in the news how he's been attacking the family for a long time now. We've seen him do that through the homosexual activists, and before that through the women's lib movement, as well as things like abortion, no fault divorces, etc. I never looked at it as "personal" before, but saw his scheme as trying to destroy the foundation of marriage and family, not individual families. Now I realize however, that he's doing both.
While those things can certainly affect our individual families, he's also attacking us each individually by another of his standard modes of operation: strife and division. When I say Satan's attacking us individually, I don't mean that Satan himself is personally attacking each of us. His demons simply plant the seeds and our sin nature takes it from there. Plus he has the help of the secular worldview (how we see and interpret the world and our lives) which he's always been behind as backup. (It's yet another reason why the Lord says we need to be in His Word daily so our minds can be renewed with His Truth, and we won't fall back into the way the world sees things.)
Knowing the cause of the problems made me realize that we had been duped by Satan; he loves putting evil thoughts and ideas in our minds, and encouraging those thoughts and resultant feelings, causing all the strife and division. That made me angry! Real angry! How dare he! Then it made me ashamed. For years I'd tried to figure out the cause and gone from blaming myself to this person, to another. To finally discover that it was one of Satan's schemes that we're to be aware of, made me ashamed because I hadn't seen it before and I should have. But I was too busy blaming everything else and nursing my feelings of rejection. It was a relief also to know that all the garbage was from Satan and not really from my children at all.
Most importantly though, knowing the cause of the problem, I finally knew how to "fix" it with the Lord's help and guidance. To overcome Satan's scheme, all we really need are 4 things; and they're the 4 most basic and most important things that the Lord tells us about over and over again in His Word: love, forgiveness, humility and obedience. That's it. Loving God and others, forgiving, being humble, and being obedient to Him, are the four main things that God tells us to do from Genesis to Revelation and they're what Satan hates more then anything else, and that will beat him every single time! (assuming that we're already saved)God pours His love into our hearts for the very purpose of loving Him and others and forgiving. Obviously, we can't do this without His help, but with His help, we can.
If you take another look at the list I wrote in the 2nd paragraph, all but the "affairs and divorces" are feelings, and the affairs and divorces happen because of "feelings", right? God's Word tells us not to trust our feelings in the first place, but instead to trust only in what His Word tells us. He also tells us that we're to be in control of our thoughts, because it's our thoughts that produce our feelings, which in turn produce our actions. We need to replace the thoughts that lead to those kind of feelings with thoughts that lead to the kind of feelings He wants us to cultivate, and dwell on those instead.
The "trick" however is in the forgiveness, because we have to forgive the way God does, not the way the world does. We have to forgive, promising to never bring up the matter to the person or anyone else, including ourselves, ever again. That's what "forgetting" means, when God says He forgets our sins. You can read more about that in Forgiving and Forgetting the Lord's way, if you want to (it's very short!).
When we bring love, forgiveness, and humility into the cycle of broken relationships, under the covering of prayer, they begin to heal. When the others push our buttons and get nothing back from us except for more love, they have nothing to continue their fight with. Oh, they'll keep trying for awhile, but you'll be amazed how it will change the whole dynamics of the situation. And it's when they push our buttons that humility comes into play too, for humble person will serve others, and put others before themselves, submitting themselves to God and others the way the Lord tells us to.
There's another very important aspect to all of this though. We need God's help to do this, for only with His help can we really pull it off. His Word tells us that there are two basic necessities for getting His help: constant prayer and being in His Word daily. We need to keep talking to the Lord about what we're doing and why, asking for His help and guidance, expecting answers. His answers come through His Word. So we need to be alert, and ready to apply what He shows us, and He will show us! We need to remember too though to always put the Lord first...even before the family we love. If we do, then the Lord says He will grant us the desires of our heart. I know my desire is to see each of my family members reconciled to the Lord, to each other, and to me and Bruce. Knowing God's promise if I'm obedient, I know that He will reconcile my family and is even now working in each of us to bring it about; and doing it for His glory and our good. Satan may have gotten a running start on us, and it may be his hay day, but our God always wins!
One last thing so there's no misunderstanding. If our loved one is living in sin, and is unrepentant about it, then we cannot forgive them, because God never gives forgiveness until after the person confesses and repents of their sin. In that case we can pray for their forgiveness, we can ask God to reveal the truth to them, and we can forgive them for hurting us with their sin, but we can't forgive them for the sin itself if they haven't repented, and we shouldn't pretend to do so either. We can of course still love them and we can still be humble, but in a case like this, we must also make sure we have and are doing all that the Lord tells us to in these kind of cases. If we are keeping our mouths shut for fear of alienating our loved one, then we are not obeying God. Nor are we trusting Him. God tells us to rebuke and correct a person who's living in unrepentant sin and He tells us exactly how we're supposed to do that, step by step until the person repents. Most of God's promises in His Word are conditional, so if we want to be able to apply his promises to our lives, we must therefore be willing to obey Him, regardless of the possible consequences. You can find this step by step process that He gives us in the longer study about forgiveness: An Intensive Study about Forgiving and Forgetting
These are the last days my friends, so Satan has ramped up all his efforts, and God is allowing many things to happen to open the eyes of those who do belong to Him, for judgment always begins with God's children first. If we want the good promises and all the wonderful things He tells us He has for us, then we have to be willing to pay the cost by being obedient to Him and trusting Him for the outcome. Remember though, trust, just like love and forgiveness is not a feeling, it's a choice, a decision. We choose to trust Him regardless of our feelings. We may not feel like trusting Him, but it's imperative that we choose to trust Him - one circumstance at a time. Let me end with something one of my books says about this:
Our 1st priority in times of adversity is to honor & glorify God by trusting Him. We tend to make our 1st priority the gaining of relief from our feelings of heartache, disappointment or frustration. This is a natural desire, & God has promised to give us grace sufficient for our trials & peace for our anxieties. But just as God’s will is to take precedence over our will, so God’s honor is to take precedence over our feelings. We honor God by choosing to trust Him when we don’t understand what He is doing or why He has allowed some adverse circumstance to occur. As we seek God’s glory, we may be sure that He has purposed our good & that He will not be frustrated in fulfilling that purpose. The truth we must believe is that God is sovereign. He carries out His own good purposes without ever being thwarted, & He so directs & controls all events & all actions of His creatures that they never act outside of His sovereign will. We must believe this & cling to this in the face of adversity & tragedy, if we are to glorify God by trusting Him. Trusting God
In many places, including Phil 1:6, we are told: “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:28 tells us: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” These are the Truths we must hold on to with all our strength in these trying days; believing them, and trusting our loving God to fulfill them in our circumstances in our lives. Why should we set aside our fear of losing a loved one and trust and obey God anyway? Because the Lord tells us that “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him;” (Psalm 103:11) “As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;” (Psalm 103:13) and “But from everlasting to everlasting the LORD’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children— with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts.” (Psalm 103:17–18) Do you see the condition of these promises? Those promises are ours when we choose to trust and obey.
John 10:10 —The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. *
2 Corinthians 2:11 —in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are not unaware of his schemes. *
1 Peter 5:8–9 —Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. *Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. *
!!
