Bible Study Blog for Sunday, August 28, 2011
Job 17-19; Acts 10:1-23
Have you ever been in a dark place spiritually? I have. A few years ago I started having financial difficulties, cancer had touched my family, and family relationships were strained (arguments!). Like Job, I said my spirit is crushed and I didn’t know where the end was at. Job said “my eyes are dim with weeping, and I am but a shadow of my former self”. Well, I wasn’t that bad….but I was hurting.
Do you know what helped me the most? It was concerned friends; they showed up. They didn’t have to say a lot, but just sitting with me and offering their sincere help and not criticizing me helped lift the burdens I was under. I knew that they loved me just by their actions.
I learned higher values in life, like not living for the pleasures of this life but for those of the next one, to turn the other cheek, and to cling to the promises of God even when we don’t feel His presence. I didn’t want to just feel better or be healed……I discovered it is more important to find and know God, especially in the middle of your problems!
Tags: Acts, Bayside Church Woodland, Bayside Woodland, Bible Study, Job
The hardest times for me are the times when I’m not clearly and consistently exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit. Even though I know better I sometimes can’t control myself and willingly sin.
I have the sense of being far away from God because I’m, for example, frequently getting frustrated and losing my temper, failing to control my eyes in the lust of the flesh or not truly caring enough about the poor guy who clearly needs a touch from the Lord. I believe that the worst pain in Hell is the eternal awareness of our separation from God.
When I fail to show the fruit I have the feeling that I’ve willingly abandoned the most important relationship in the whole of the universe. That, for me, gives some credibility to the false doctrine that we make our Heaven or Hell right here in this life. More accurately, I think, we get our own preview of Heaven or Hell as we live or do not live in the forgiveness and empowerment of the Holy Spirit. God made a way, but it’s up to us to look to Him and use the tools He made available to us to overcome the temptations to sin that Christ overcame and promised to give us the same power to overcome, too.
You mean like the time that lady at Knotts Berry farm wanted to call paramedics “cause we looked so bad?
I think it was your first big day out.
Thanks for all that you taught me about studying Scripture. It has been a tremendous source of strength all these years.