Friday, February 28, 2014

Don't Get Separated From God's Truth in Your Trials

“What shall separate us from the love of God?”
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I woke up early this morning after having a bad dream. In the dream my daughter and I were driving through a town and for some reason left our little granddaughter on the sidewalk. As we drove away it seemed unimportant but down the street I realized the enormity of what we’d done. I insisted we go back and get her. I was furious with my daughter and she couldn’t drive fast enough. I imagined my little granddaughter wailing outrageously and us finding her and grabbing her up. There was no finality to it – I just woke up.
Life can be terrifying. All the night terrors we experience are not bad dreams. They are real life situations of life and death and many things in between. We step into the situation, or rather we are drug into it. Nobody wants to leave a child on the street and nobody wants to go into hard times. We often start out thinking this is no big thing, but the enormity of it all crashes in on us. We want to go back. We want to find out if we could change it. We want to escape the fear, the tragedy, the worry, the horrendous situation of our lives or the life of our loved ones. We want to wake up from the dream, but we also want closure. We are so wrapped up in our hurt that we begin to insist that something be done. If we’re not careful, we will begin to blame others. 
You could say I had separation anxiety in the dream. In my mind my granddaughter had that same anxiety as well. Beloved I know that some of you are going through unbelievable hardships. When we go through a hard place, we are often so intent on the trouble, so focused on the wrong, so humiliated by the rejection that we forget what we know. 
We forget God. We begin to feel condemned. “Couldn’t I have done something to prevent this?” and “Can’t I do something to fix this?” We wrangle and wring our hands and walk the floors and try to blot out the bad dream. We feel separated from God as well. We forget that He is with us, that He is helping us, that He will never leave us. We get separated from our Savior because we are looking at circumstances and believe that those circumstances are all we have. 
Oh beloved, you need to know this day, regardless of your situation or your bad dream you are living through, that God is with you always. He is saying to you “no condemnation”. He is reminding you of things you have gotten separated from. “Nothing will ever separate you from My love”. And the verse just before that one holds another nugget of importance, just for you – “Jesus intercedes for you”. You are not walking alone and you don’t have to live by your own strengths. You don’t have to face the situation of your life unaided. You have not been left alone on the street to fend for yourself. 
Don’t let the circumstances you are presently in become your truth. You can ask your Heavenly Father for His peace and live in the truth of what the Word has to say. Whatever you have need of to make it through this day, you can have it from God the Father as Jesus is ever interceding for you at the right hand of the Father. Precious one, just as my bad dream was over, you can be assured that these present troubles will not last forever. 
God loves you and He’s for you. Keep the Truth close to you and let Him guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus.
Romans 8:34-35 who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Hebrews 7:25 Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.
Philippians 4:6-7 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.
Acts 2:25 King David said this about Him: ‘I see that the Lord is always with me. I will not be shaken, for He is right beside me.’

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