Be Holy as I am Holy

Be holy, for I, the Lord, Your God, am holy. Leviticus 19:2

 This is the verse that has been floating around my head since the last day of March.  It came about as a result of a discussion from one of our infrequent family get together. It was a question as to whether or not grown adults, who professed Christ as their Lord, should be watching shows that promote a life style that is away from their beliefs.   My sister said they are adults and therefore should be allowed to do whatever they want?  That is the issue.  It is not me or her but God’s word that convicts and lays out for those who will follow, a standard that is above and away from what is the norm of today.

God says, be holy as I am holy.  While I am thinking about it, I am examining my own life.  I am looking at the many things that I have allowed my senses to partake of in the guise of entertainment.  I have laughed at the off colored jokes that were laced with immorality.  I have turned a blind eye to shows that have content that are dirty for lack of a better word.  I have allowed the language to leave a stain on me.  I may not repeat it out loud but my mind captures each scene and replays it without a conscious effort on my part.  It sums up to this one word - unholy.

Maybe this is just for me. Maybe the magnifying lens of this verse was to closely examine my own actions as a Christian.  Maybe it is for me to realize that as a child of God, there is a higher standard that is set and I need to live up to it. I need to come up higher and be holy as God is holy.  The question that comes to me now is how can I do this?  How do I live holy in a world that sees nothing wrong with two men in a bed, or speaking about pre-marital sex as an everyday occurrence and a normal part of any relationship?  

After doing some research, I have concluded that God is saying to me be set apart, be the city on the hill, be the light.  There should be some distinction between Christians and non-believers.  There should be a difference that calls others to the light of Jesus Christ that is within us.  There should be a moral standard that is based on the word of God that others can see and know and follow.  So while we are all consenting adults, I will echo Paul’s sentiments to the people of Corinth “Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial….” (1 Cor. 10:23).

 

 

 

 

 

Wasn't it just today?

I wrote this song, that has no melody, so I suppose that just makes it a poem. It came swiftly and poured like water out of me.  I was inspired. I was inspired by Peter, an apostle of Jesus. His denial of Jesus was what grabbed my attention. You see, when I read his story, I realized that when he declared with passion and intensity to never deny Jesus in Matthew, it was perhaps the same day that he said I don't know the what's it not man named Jesus in John. I am not throwing stones because I am just like him. I believe that maybe even so are you.  Jesus didn't abandon Peter. He knew it would happen and he told him ahead of time. Yet, he extended grace. You know that favour extended to us from God when it is undeserved.  Jesus called him and set him right. He is calling you today.  Do you not hear him through your pain?  Do you not hear him through your shame?  Do you not hear him calling your name?  Do you love me?  Do you love me? Do you love me?  Wasn't it just today...?


God I did it again
Went against your word and fell
It took only a minute to swing my attention
To one less worthy
To satisfy me

Wasn't it just today
I said with strong convictions
I would rather die than to deny
You Jesus
Wasn't it just today that I declared
with all my heart
That I would be loyal and ever true
Giving you my all and all

How could I ever imagine that this would be my end?
That what you said would really happen
Before the cock crowed three

Wasn't it just today
I said with strong convictions
I would rather die than to deny
You Jesus...

Guilt and shame are by my side
They stand ready to accuse me
To cause me pain
But piercing through the dark abyss
Is your gentle calling of my name

Wasn't it today
I said with strong convictions
There is therefore now
No condemnation within me?
Today my child, I set you free
Come now and stand in my liberty

Carpe Diem - Seize the Day

Carpe Diem is one of two of the only Latin phrases I know. I learnt it in my youth and never forgot it, despite never using it for years on end.  Until today. 

I am a complainer. I admit it.  I have complained about the weather. I have complained about the traffic. I have complained about the lines being too long, the injustice of my pay cheque, my son and his mess, and the list goes on. Today my pastor, Ron Binda, sent out an email which has caused me to re-think my strategy and adjust my attitude.  As God, spoke to him he shared this "David reminds us that "...this is the day the Lord has made...." (Psalm 118:24).  In this scripture he is saying this because God created the day and it belongs to Him. Therefore seize the day. Don't waste the day on negativity, bitterness, ...hating, fuming, worrying, fighting,...."  He continues to say that we must learn to rejoice and be glad in the days.  If God took it from us, well then life as we know it will be over. 

Why waste the day on things that don't matter in the big scheme of things?  Why spend the day complaining half of it away?  OUCH!Pastor Ron is right, we cannot control the weather, other people or even the circumstances  we sometimes face, but we can control our attitude and responses to them. 

So today, I encourage you, and maybe this is mostly for me, to Carpe Diem (Seize the day) by rejoicing and being glad in it!

F.O.R.G.I.V.E

Friday nights for me are usually spent surrounded by kids. I teach bible at my church's youth night.  Usually these kids have me on my toes as they want answers supported by the bible.  This Friday, our topic was about Forgiving.  It is a topic that seems to have no end.  I find that repeating the truth of forgive and forget God's way is beneficial to all.

So I asked them what they think Forgive means.  I got answers like this:

To forget it.  To give someone a chance to say sorry and then you can be friends again (emphasis on the apology).  To not think about something anymore.  To say sorry to someone else and more.

When presented with a scenario, not one single person was able to say they could forgive the wrong doer.  I asked them if they found out that someone had told the entire school that they were "ugly" which resulted in other kids sending face book name calling, tweets and other terrible insults would they forgive the person.  No-one said yes. For everyone, there was a list of deeds that were "forgivable" and "unforgivable".

However, while I may agree that we do feel that way sometimes, I had to highlight the lie in that way of thinking.  Clearly, the bible does not say that we are allowed to pick the offences against us that we forgive.  The truth, whether we believe or not, is that we have to forgive.  We forgive whether or not the offender is apologetic/sorry.  We forgive even when the deed against us is horrific. We forgive even when we our self still hurt and show fresh bruises. We forgive because God says we ought to and that is the final, blaring truth. We forgive so that we also may receive the Father's forgiveness as well.

By now, some of you are choking on this and perhaps your thoughts run along these lines "You don't know what has been done to me."  You are right. I don't.  But because I know the truth, I can say with bold assertion, it doesn't matter the situation - you are called to by God to forgive.

I told my class and I will tell you, to forgive is to rid yourself of a poison that if allowed to stay, will eventually destroy you. That will also destroy relationships with others, cause you to be sick and promotes evil. Lastly, unforgiveness separates you from God's provision and is a one way ticket to Hell. 

While this may be a lot to ingest, let me leave you with this acronym from my students (4 - 15y/o):

F   - Forget about it

O  - Old, it's in the past

R  - Respect the person and others

G  - Go on. Keep moving ahead.

I   - Ice the pain with prayer and include the person

V - Vent it out to God

E  - Enjoy life, dont get trapped in the bitterness of unforgiveness.

Living in Holland

My Friend and I read an amazing piece written by Emily Perl Kingsley.  What makes it so wonderful, was how it spoke to both of us and I am hoping you as well. 

I made up my mind that I will live in the moment.  I am still amazed that God does what he does.  I am even more determined to live in my “Holland” with joy.  I don’t want to miss the details of it.  I am not going to pine over what I don’t have.  I am not going to say things like “why is it that my son can’t be like that other child. You know the one in university, not smoking and is gainfully employed.  Yeah that child that is different from the one I really have.” He is a part of my Holland experience.  He asked me the other day “Am I not doing okay?  Am I not going back to school?”  I have been guilty, if I were charged, of telling him about “Italy” and how much I wanted him and I to be there – not in HOLLAND.  I am not going to pine over what is not and what could have been.  I am going to live in the moment.

 

For my friend, she writes:

I can hardly believe that it has already been 1 week since my baby's PSARP. I am amazed by his strength and resilience. I guess after 6 hours of surgery I did not expect him to be sent home 3 days later with Tylenol (as needed) and some Polysporine cream for the incision. He is a happy baby and is doing wonderfully well.  God knows we had a rough time getting those colostomy bags to stick when he came home from the NICU but today I am happy to report they are sticking for at least 24 hours which is a victory for us.

Someone shared this poem with me and I wanted to share it with you because it helped me put things in perspective. A little sad but it really spoke to the sadness and worry I felt last week.

 

WELCOME TO HOLLAND

by
Emily Perl Kingsley.

c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland

Arise and let us be going

Truly, I must say the thoughts that I am about to share were planted from someone else.  I was reading Oswald Chambers My Utmost for His Highest and was inspired.  He communicated that when we realize we have not seized an opportunity, we tend to fall into despair.  Isn't that true?  He goes on to say that when faced with this despair, "...Jesus Christ comes and says - "Sleep on now, that opportunity is lost forever, you cannot alter it..."  If I were to end here, you would not only be in despair but certainly, this might cause you to sink further down the emotional pit of defeat and hopelessness.  For me, my eyes couldn't wait to get to the end of this sentence.  I needed to find hope.  Oswald continues, "...but arise and go to the next thing."  That is the answer.


I have spent a considerable amount of time bemoaning my many "missed opportunities".  I have prayed for some of them to return so that I may take advantage of the do over.  I have kicked myself and spent time trying to re-build the windows as it were of opportunities.  All have been a waste of time.  What I needed to do was as Oswald said, Arise and go to the next thing.  It sounds so simple.  Is this really all I need to do?  Oswald explains that to do this we must "Let the past sleep...on the bosom of Christ and go into the irresistible future with Him."  Jesus had compassion on his disciples and gave them that grace when they missed their opportunity.  Instead of watching, they slept as Jesus prayed.  I could imagine how they felt when he woke them up.  They were caught sleeping on the job and maybe they were ready to beat up themselves about it.  Jesus, didn't allow them to wallow in self pity and despair, "Rise, let us be going".  Move on.  They couldn't watch and pray with Jesus.  It was already too late.  The time was past. 


Can you relate to this?  I can.  So, let us move past those things that we should have done, could have done and even would have done.  The time for that is gone and it is time to move on to the next window of opportunity with Christ.  As I started with Oswald I will finish with him, "Never let the sense of failure corrupt your new action." Arise and let us be going. (Matthew 26:46)

Unravelling

On Sunday I witnessed a person unravelling.  I didn't know it at the time.  I admitt that I got caught up with the action instead of the cause behind it and may have over reacted a little. 
He came into the house and was hell bent on having it out with his offspring.  It was like something inside of him snapped, but it really had little to do with the current situation.

I tried to say "calm down", to which he responded "DONT TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!  I DON'T WANT TO CALM DOWN!"  Unravelling. Just like a roll of thread that falls to the ground, rolling along without a destination point. I could see this was going nowhere and fast. So I tried my best to keep my voice calm.  His ranting continued.  He was out of control, only he didnt know it.   He didnt see that with every word he carlessly spoke he was hurting his child.  He didn't see the wedge he was building.  Each word was like a hammer.  Knock. Knock. knock. Bruise. Bruise. Bruise.  He was like the very animal he claimed his offsprings had to be treated as for them to "move". Unravelling.

Before it was over, I was on the verge of tears.  As I closed the front door, the damn burst open and I cried long and hard. I was hurting for them both. The child that had to endure that verbal abuse and the father that couldnt see beyond his own ideas of right and justice. I hurt because this was not the first time and I imagine that it would not be the last time. I hurt beacuse this glimpse into the reality of people I thought I knew was heart breaking.  I cried some more.

As I write this, I am thinking of how many of us are trapped in the cycle.  You know, our parents did it to us and so we do it to our kids.  I wonder how many people are unravelling in our circle but no-one is able to see it because we brush it off as their personality trait.  "That's just how they are" we say.  What I witnessed on Sunday was not the problem but a manifestation of something else. That behaviour, erratic and out of control, was more than a father excercising discipline.  It was void of love. It was void of reason. It was the picture of a man unravelling. 

What is it that lurks in the minds of those we love that causes them to loose their temper, drink every day, harden their hearts, hide behind other things.  What causes them to pretend that all is well when inside they are dying to say "Help me please! I am hurting!  I don't know what to do!"   I don't know.  But this I do know with certainty, prayer works. It will take a power greater than the Demons of the past that haunt and terrorize.  It will take a light bright enough to dispell the darkness on the inside. It will  take a love that is unconditional to combat the hate and lies propagated by our common foe - the Devil.  It will take a name that is higher than any other name - Jesus. Jesus, we are calling upon your precious name so that we might be saved!  In Jesus' name Amen!