Love makes the World go Round

 

Problems occur everyday. It’s hard to go a day without ever coming across a problem. Problems are hard to solve but it’s easy to dodge them. Within this whole week, I can’t imagine a moment of time where I didn’t have a problem.

 

I understand the meaning of ‘life happens’. You can have so many things planned to get done, so many tasks at hand to do, and places you have in mind to go and so many dreams you desire to chase but then life happens. Things don’t go exactly the way you thought it would go. Your joy, confidence, and happiness all go down the drain because now you’re faced with a problem that sucked the life out of you. For me that’s where a test of faith comes in. Will I do what I always do and dodge solving the problem by skipping it and leaving it behind or will I stay focused, practice patience, find a solution and endure to the end?

 

Other times, life happens by choice. We have the power to choose what happens in our life. Sure things happen out of our control but other times it’s how we plan, react, and/or respond to those situations that is important. Whether we choose to live unrighteous or to live with God in our lives, problems are going to occur. Life didn’t get easier friend just because we have an awareness of God in our lives because now we have to keep ourselves in check, and He’s given us His Holy Spirit to help us do so. We have to choose our hard, we have the power to choose what we want to suffer for. You can either die a foolish death with people who don’t have your best interest at heart, or you can die for Christ, living a wise life by dying to your flesh and resisting the temptations of this world.

 

The reality is… life will always happen, but we have the strength to overcome the world. Even when it’s a small pebble being thrown at us, we have the power to dodge it and continue forward to our next goal in life. Some may laugh at the thought of a pebble ruining their lives but look at what happened to Goliath. Never underestimate what looks weak compared to you because that could be the very thing that conquers you, and it can honestly be embarrassing.

 

What that may look like in real life is:

You running over a nail you saw beforehand but decided not to move it out the way, now you’re left on the side of the road 40 minutes behind at work, with no spare tire, and finding yourself flagging people down to stop for you.

 

For me I was assigned to create a podcast for a non profit organization I am apart of. I was happy and confident, ready to get things started. First,  I was able to create my Apple ID but it would not let me move forward with creating the podcast account. As I kept trying, my mood slowly started to change, it was starting to get frustrating. I ended up resolving the issue by asking Apple for help. I stayed on the phone for a good hour with the woman until I was finally able to create the podcast account. I was so happy and couldn’t help but to thank God. Soon as I moved onto the next process of posting the podcast onto the website…”an error has occurred” I was immediately hit with another problem. I literally walked right out of a problem into another one. And that right there, helped me learn a valuable lesson to never give up no matter  how many problems occur. It’s better to try than to not even try at all.

 

I was doing right by being patient, and I knew not to quit or give up, because sometimes it’s easy to run away from our problems, but that’s why we have the help of other people. As time goes by, patience slips as well being in a fast paced world, because everyone demands for it to be done now but God taught me the virtue of patience even when this world is impatient. It’s our personal job to stick to our values and not let anyone change who we are.

 

For some it could be sin.  If so you’re not alone, I’m right with you.

 

 A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.

Galatians 5:9

 

Just a little bit of sin can ruin your whole life. We underestimate the power that sin has. Sure enough we have the power of God that is bigger than the power of sin, but we don’t partner with Him. We are to come into full agreement with the truth, the living Word of God.

 

“For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”

Hebrews 4:12

 

Sin is the biggest problem and the only way to solve that problem is not by looking at others, ignoring the problem and going back into the world to fill you up with every pleasure under the sun, or running away to your cave to put the focus on yourself and condemn yourself.

 

The solution to the problem of sin is Jesus Christ, Himself. He is the answer. We are to focus on Him and His word. To prevent us from sinning or living a lifestyle of sin we must hold on to His word. We must believe what He says to be true even when the world around us makes us question or doubt the very word He spoke, because that’s what trust is. When you trust someone, you hold onto their word when you don’t have nothing else of them to hold onto.

 

When you and your partner or friend have trust in each other, y’all expect each other to act the same with each other AND  away from each other. Overall it matters most what y’all do away from each other, that’s where real trust goes into play. You don’t see how that person acts or hear what that person says but you trust that they’re on their best behavior.

 

We have to trust that what Christ says to us is true and He won’t harm us or punish us, because He already took the punishment! We have to believe that even when we are rejected He is there with us. We have to trust that the commands and principles He gives us will lead us to a life of freedom. We have to believe that He loves us even when we don’t feel loved by others. We have to believe that He will cleanse us from our sin and break the power of sin off our lives, even when we fall again because we’re like a baby doe coming out the womb of its mother. It quickly gets up and learns how to walk on it’s own. When we fall, we have to go to God, be a woman or man and confess our sins, read His word for correction and learn how to quickly walk on our own, learning from our lesson.

 

And that may take time, as His child, God is gentle and patient with us more than He is angry, and to know that, you have to know Him. But in the mean time we have to stay away from danger, the wild of life that easily influences you to go where you can fall harder than you were supposed to. God may allow you to experience a little bump and will heal you from that pain but others will put you in a place to get hit by a car and get put in a position where you may be paralyzed because of the reckless living. We have to watch who we are around, I say that to you and me because sometimes it’s easy to gravitate where the Son of God doesn’t shine because that’s where we come from. Even in the midst of temptation, He gives us the power to submit to Him, resist the devil and the devil will flee.

 

Remember don’t be afraid to tell someone no, or something I would love to do the next time I get tempted, “How could you ask me to commit such wickedness and sin against God?”

 

In return all He asks is that we show Him our appreciation and thankfulness by simply holding on to His word and applying it to our daily lives. He says that If you love me, you will keep my command. Even when people mistreat us, misunderstand us, curse us, tempt us; all He asks is that we love them the way He loved us. Sometimes that requires you to set boundaries, other times that requires you to give them what they need, because a friend to Christ is a friend of yours.

 

This life is all bigger than us, and the problems we face aren’t just for us to conquer it’s to save those whom God loves. Saving a person can look like telling your testimony, saving one from going into debt, losing their child, being homeless, being fatherless, being an orphan, committing a sin, running out of gas, going without food, or facing eternal death.

 

That’s why we have lawyers, doctors, police officers, orphanages, adoption centers, families, gas stations, pastors, born-again believers and people who are blessed by God to be a blessing to others. No one is better than the other, this life is all for the glory of God. Without Him none of this will exist. This world was put together for His pleasure. He may not need us but He made a way to save us for Himself to be apart of His royal family through His Son’s death. We need Him to operate in this world and He loves us so much that He’s given us a world that requires love in order to make the world go round. True love. A love that gives even when the world doesn’t give back because that’s what Christ had to face. He gave himself to be slaughtered on the cross in silence while we persecuted Him, betrayed Him, and murdered Him. Our sins nailed Him to  the cross. We made Christ look like the bad guy, it was easy to pin everything on Christ because he was the victim.. We deserve the death penalty for our sinful nature, one sin we all sin, but it was through Christ’s obedience we have a chance to live as Christ lives.

 

Perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. Holy as He is holy. Blameless and without the stain of sin because Christ has set us free.

 

He was a victim who became a victor when He defeated sin on the cross. He overcame the death of sin when He rose up three days later from the dead.