“Patience People”

"Don’t Stand so close to me"

Do you love music?  Especially songs during Christmas you see the stress of the holiday’s triggers sadness and depression for many people. This time of year, is especially difficult because there’s an expectation of feeling merry and generous, then there’s the foe or enemy of covid. People compare their emotions to what they assume others are experiencing or what they’re supposed to feel. Then they think that they alone fall short. They judge themselves and feel like an outsider.

Christmas carols can really deepen our appreciation and help us connect with the Christians who passed down their faith to us in song as they battle those enemy sparks. Can you count the number of times that you have thanked God for this wonderful gift? and how it can uplift and encourage when you are at your lowest. Scripture often depicts music as having a soothing and calming power. You can see an example of that in 1 Samuel 16:14-23; a distressing spirit of the Lord tormented Saul, and it was only when David played the harp that Saul found peace. 

 

A faith that is tested is a faith that can be trusted. My first experience with the song “Patience People” was at a young age while attending church with one of my mom’s sister’s. My thoughts were struck by the message of that song. The lyrics of this song were based off of James 5:7-9, 11; Be patient, therefore brothers, until the coming of the lord. See how the farmers waits for precious fruit of the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and late rains. 

 

Not knowing it but the music was dying hollow that day in my heart and I was wondering if God wanted me to hear something that I needed to obey. The problem was that even when I still consided myself a person of God, my worship was fruitless; a worship that had become nothing more than an irritating sound to God:  

 

“Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps, I will not listen.” (Amos 5:23) Worship means so much more than sharing a kind word for a job well done. It means actively bending your knee in submission, praise, and sacrifice to something or someone worthy of your utmost devotion.  Are you devoting yourselves to less than the best that we were created for?   

 

I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.” John 8:24

 

Have you ever been convinced that without a shadow of a doubt that you have trials that have become your enemies; from your negative experiences, your hurts and maybe your addictions? Deriving hardships that most believers have faced. The challenge then is to truly learn how to consider each trial joy. Joy is often presented as “true” contentment based on faith. Happiness, in contrast, is often thought of as “false” or “superficial” emotion dependent on circumstances. 

 

Of course, there are different types of joy and happiness. There is a joy that comes from the world, such as “the fleeting pleasures of sin” spoken of in Hebrews 11:25. There is a joy that is part of the fruit of the Spirit Galatians 5:22. There is a temporary happiness and an eternal happiness, but we can call both “happiness. Do you ever split hairs between the meaning of joy and happiness? Sometimes we just need to decide where our joy comes from. Are we happy in the Lord, or are we content with the enemy of happiness the world affords? So, who are your enemies?

 

Pondering all of this as I read Matthew 5. I thought what enemies were there to love when I had so many. Here I am God standing knee-deep in the deepest valley of my life. Breathing my last ounce of faith, wondering how do I finish this race. You see we muster up the courage to stand but yet in the mist of things we are hit with another building of musical notes without a rest. Can you relate to being out of control, and needing that rest, thinking how can we change the narrative,” perceived back to a reality of contentment”?

 

What does our faith in Jesus Christ mean? Come to me and I will give you rest. What is that rest, “it’s the promise that still stands the promise of salvation through God’s provision—Jesus Christ”. Though we desist in our self-efforts to earn salvation and the promised eternal rest, we also “make every effort to enter that rest” by choosing to depend solely on God, to trust Him implicitly, to yield totally to the promises of God through the free grace of His salvation. Why? So “that no one will fall by following their [the Israelites’] example of disobedience” (Hebrews 4:11). We either trust ourselves to save ourselves, or we trust God to do that for us through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. 

 

I said to my enemy, “Don’t Stand so close to me original sin”, meaning that we cannot please God on our own. No matter how many “good deeds” we do, we still commit sin, and we still have the problem of a corrupt nature within. We must have Christ; we must be born again (John 3:3). God deals with the effects of original sin in our hearts through the process of sanctification and turn from sin and turn to him who is the forgiver of sins, take a breath/rest to the giver of new life, and the giver of the Holy Spirit. Bend your knee to Jesus and confess him as the true Lord and Savior that he really is.  Make Jesus the object of your worship as you listen to the song, “Patience People”, and you will never run out of power to worship our good God. 

 

However, almost immediately, with the help of the Holy Spirit, the voice of the Lord speaks to our heart that moment, saying “every time you hear those echoes from your enemies that offend or hurt, I will give you rest. We enter into God’s rest by first understanding our total inability to enter God’s rest on our own. Next, we enter God’s rest by our total faith in the sacrifice of Christ and complete obedience to God and His will. We are to enter God’s rest by faith in Him, faith which is a gift from Him by grace (Ephesians 2:8-9). 

 

God Bless You and This Ministry!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Are You Hungry?”

 

 

Is any negative interaction between black and white a distinctiveness of intolerance? If so, who is the victim? How can we as Christians end a one-sided opinion of race? What can you do to change the narrative? Throughout history, when people have engaged with each other, there have been negative encounters. I remember as a kid years ago, it was obvious who was a racist.  Once you’ve seen it or heard it you never forgot it. Sadly, one group shows favoritism over another by being fitted for and spend money on a white gown and don a pointy hat that greets you like a disembodied menace. You celebrated racism by getting some burlap, wrapping it around a cross, setting it ablaze and dancing around it carrying torches. 

 

Some showed their narrowness, by memorizing poems for whenever a black student showed up for admission to their high school or college. For example, "Two, four, six, eight, we don't want to integrate!" In earlier times, you didn't have to be sophisticated, but it took a bit of work, to be a racist. Today, all that has changed. To be a racist today takes little effort, because racism has become an opinion. 

 

"So how must we heal this?" First, we must understand and identify the problem, There is only one race, and that is the human race. God does not show partiality or favoritism Deuteronomy 10:17; Acts 10:34; Romans 2:11; Ephesians 6:9, and neither should we. Second, we mustunderstand “The Why of our Purpose” and third, “Do we want to be healed”?

 

"How should we live our lives in light of our identity in Christ?"

 

According to 2 Corinthians 5:17, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” I am a Christian first. 

 

In 2 Corinthians 5:17, Paul has written that Christ’s death for sin has changed the way he regards people. Instead of looking at each person as a mere human being, he must view those who are in Christ as something entirely different. those who are “in Christ” are those who have faith in Him, credited with Christ’s righteous life, and their sin forgiven by Christ’s death in their place. Such people are new creatures. Those “in Christ” have become something they were not before. Their identity has changed from being the fallen version of themselves, to being associated with the righteousness of Christ. 

 

Isaiah 53:5, which is then quoted in 1 Peter 2:24, is a key verse on healing, but it is often misunderstood and misapplied. “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” The verse (1 Peter 2:24), is talking about sin and righteousness, not sickness and disease. Therefore, being “healed” in both these verses is speaking of being forgiven and saved, not physically healed.

 

As I study the above scripture, I can't help but ask the following questions.  If Jesus can cure diseases can he cure racism? You see racism is Sin? You see the way Jesus cures is a physical cure, but is that any different from trying to claim racism is a disease in the physical sense of the word? But it doesn't mean we as Christians don't have anything to say when given an opportunity to talk about racism as we listen with the goal of understanding each other’s perspectives. 

What can you do as a Christian differently to make it better?

 

A friend recently asked me for guidance as to what the Bible says about racism, He seemed surprised when I suggested that perhaps he was asking the wrong question. Plus, the weight of this issue requires full engagement not a single “drive-by” conversation and are you ready to be exposed? When we think about things like economics and government, we don’t ask the Bible to tell us how to manage things directly. Instead, we ask and pray how the Bible may inform our vision of a just society. Most of the Bible’s instructions concerning race address things like a man’s obligations to love your neighbor as yourself.  We are not loving our neighbor at all when we boldly without reservation, when we say sin is sin, racism is sin and Jesus Christ forgives all your sin. We don't indoctrinate it we preach with our Christ voice of Forgiveness and be known as a person of prayer who has adoration for all! 

 

What we are seeing now is a function of our bondage to sin. What that means is bondage to ourselves, “we try to see who is the best in applying the Law”. What makes me happy, egocentric myself and I bondage to sin. I’m Mickie, so to speak as the commercial suggested, " I want it my way", this is our sin. That to me is certainly, part of what we are seeing played out.

 

Jesus calls the Israelite the lost sheep of the house of Israel and that is part of that bondage to sin, was then and is now our compulsion to think our identity is in the Law. To think our identity is anything other than except Jesus Christ.  Are you hungry for the old life to be gone and a new life to begin!” 2 Corinthians 5:17, Ephesians 4:24 Have you looked outward to say to your neighbors, "I love you" and mean it? Because, in Christ we are loved, forgiven, and secure.

 

Our new identity in Christ means we have the same relationship with God that Christ has—we are His children. God has adopted us as sons.In broad strokes, Scripture places obligations on Christians to push back against racism. The Bible promotes impartiality James 2:1, the equality of all people Genesis 1:27 and to spur Christians to action, James 4:17. Most of all, we respond to each other in love—not the feeling, but a selfless, conscious act of sacrifice, which is reflective of the agape love of the God who loved us and gave Himself for us Galatians 2:20. 

All of this is the ideal of the “Why”—the character of a mature follower of Christ. Our identity in Christ is the grace we’re given in order to grow into the spiritual maturity that truly reflects our new identity Philippians 1:6. Our lives in light of our identity in Christ are filled with a heavenly Father, a large, loving family, and the understanding that we are citizens of another kingdom and not of this earth. It is this experiencing of God’s love that distinguishes Christianity from all other religions. Why does God love us? It is because of who He is: "God is love. “Are you ready to be what God wants you to be”? “A role model, To Love”!

 

God Bless You And This Ministry!