Unshackled Moments ~ February 28

One of the men who trained my father to minister used to say that we don't go by our feelings, but it's nice to feel what you're going on. I love this statement. I've learned that I can't always trust my feelings, and if I wait on feeling God's love for me, on feeling faith and trust in Him, on feeling accepted, more times than not I'd never get out of bed. Today I feel these things almost as much as I don't, and it is indeed nice to feel what I'm going on. But I never, or almost never, felt any of this at the start of my return journey into relationship with my Creator.

The truth is that knowing and feeling God comes from getting to know Him, and getting to know Him comes from saturating myself in His truth and from trusting and obeying before I feel it. The more I leap into His arms from the cliffs of my life, the more I can feel sure that He won't drop me, because my experience proves it out. He's never dropped me before. But if I never leave the ledge I'll never know for sure, I'll never feel, that He can and will catch me every time. 

So how do I let go and let God when I don't feel it? How do I trust enough to jump before I gain the experience of His faithfulness? One way is to exemplify spiritually the ad slogan of "Just Do It." I'm not being flippant or purposefully trying to frustrate by saying that you learn to do by doing. When I can't go on my feelings because I don't feel what I need to feel in order to go with God's way, I can ask myself, "What would I do if I felt the love, faithfulness, might, etc. of God that I came to believe in?" Well, if I believed in His power and love for me, I'd probably join Peter in climbing out of the boat and walking to Jesus right on top of the waves of this storm. So that's what I do. And the more I walk on the water flooding my life, the more I feel I can do whatever I need to do, can go through whatever is going on in my life through Christ Jesus. I learn to feel the truth as I learn to live in and by the power of the truth. 

Lord Jesus, all I feel is the winds of the storm threatening to demolish me, that is when I can feel anything at all, because the cold blasts have numbed me to the point where I sometimes don't feel even that. Help me to run to you, even if that means that I must walk on water to do it. I know that I can, not because of who I am or my power, but because of who You are and Your power. Help me to remember and act on the understanding that truth doesn't rely on what I feel to be true. If I drop something it will fall, because gravity in this atmosphere is true, regardless of what I feel or believe about it, and You are the truth on which I can trust and stand, even more than the gravity that You put in place, regardless of what I feel or believe. Today let me walk by faith in the truth rather than by faith in feeling. Amen.

Unshackled Moments ~ February 27

Sometimes it feels like there are no such things as second chances, that God may forgive but the rest of the world never forgives or forgets. We may feel like we have a scarlet letter that others may not be able to see but can somehow sense. It flashes beware, don't trust, worthless, loser, screw up, or whatever (just insert your own feeling of inadequacy and failure here) to those we encounter, and they respond accordingly. Conventional wisdom is that this phenomenon is a result of poor self-image and low self-esteem that we project to the world. The answer, according to said CW, is to project self-confidence, to focus on your strengths, put your best foot forward, to act like the you that you want others to see, etc.

So come on, let's all grab our masks, use our positive thinking about who we are and what we can be to cover up the blemishes of our failures and fears like we're putting on makeup so the world can't see what we really look like underneath the face we show. But maybe there's a better solution. I think there is.  We can be washed clean of the past. I can stand clean before the Lord, and not one blemish does He see. If I believe that God doesn't see any blemishes, then why should I be afraid of what the world sees?

Well, duh, Dalyn. Because it's the people of the world who do the hiring, dating, marrying, etc., the accepting or rejecting that is necessary for me to live in this world and get what I need and want. Oh the Great Lie that so easily distracts us from trusting God like a toddler trusts Daddy transforming us into a People Pleasing Beast, seeking the approval and acceptance of others by projecting an image of ourselves that not even we ourselves believe, even after staring in the mirror and repeating the lie for 30 minutes to begin our day.

No matter how many times we post on social media that we may have done whatever but we're really something besides that, we may look like blank but underneath we're a better blank, they may think this meanness or horror but I don't care what they think because I know better about myself, and so on and so forth; no matter how we spin and twist the past for our resume; no matter what illusions we attempt to present for our first impressions, trying to control people's response, reactions and or acceptance of us is not the answer. Manipulating and controlling self-image doesn't make us feel better about ourselves for long, and when the towers we build on this shifting sand begin to fail, we end up hurting worse and worse before each rebuild. Some of us give up and don't even try to rebuild anymore or reach the place where we simply can't.

And that's a good place to start a new building on a solid foundation. Giving up the fight of trying to look good, of trying to fix or sell our broken flesh. Clean before the Lord. I'm not a repaired creation, I am a new creation. Why so downcast oh my soul? Put your confidence and trust in the God who loves, accepts and died for you. God shall supply my needs. Don't look to man who is fickle and fails, but put your hope in the God of love and deliverance. Let God part the sea, break down the walls, slay the giant keeping you from reaching what you need, and let Him do it without wearing makeup, so the world will know it wasn't you that accomplished this but Him. And what He has done for you, and for me, He wants to do for them as well.

We don't need religious or spiritual plastic surgery, especially not from the shaky hands of our own self-improvement. Our value doesn't come from who we are, or even who we can be. Our true value, worth, and esteem is found in who He is and His great love for us. That image doesn't crumble when the makeup gets smudged or wiped away, it doesn't crumble apart in the light, and it isn't shaken. Find yourself by losing yourself to Him and in Him, and then you can have a you that is truly lovable, even by you, and a life worth living, job or no job, relationship or no relationship, (fill in the blank) or no (fill in the blank).

Unshackled Moments ~ February 26

Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”

Matthew 22:37-40

Are you looking for a life of purpose worth living but feel sick of fighting to know what's right, to remember all the religious do's and don't's of religion, and to do them? Why not trade them all in for two rules, that are really just one rule, and follow Jesus? It's so simple that a child can understand and do it. Love. That's what it all boils done to. The Beeales actually had it right. All you need is love. Place relationship with your Creator above everything else. Do things that will bring you deeper into that relationship, that improve your conscious contact with He who called you to come. Don't do the things that increase the distance between the two of you.

Come to understand that God loves you, YOU, just as you are and not as you should be, to steal a great truth from Brennan Manning.  The messed up, broken, confused, scared, angry and rebellious, self-hating ego maniac that you are at the depths of you is so precious to Him and valued by Him that He took the weight of your past, present and future, you know, the weight that's crushing you, upon Himself and died in your place, and mine. Understand that? Got that value in your mind? Good. Now don't treat yourself as less than precious as if you have no value. Treat and look at yourself as though you are worth the King of Kings being beaten and executed to pay your ransom because the Creator of the whole universe declared you worth that much. Awesome. That's how we are to love ourselves. Now that you got that, treat everyone you run into like they are that precious and valuable too.

That's it. Just love. But wait! That doesn't sound easy at all! Nobody said anything about easy. I said it's simple. It's not easy. It's impossible. It's so unbelievably hard to even think about doing well that most of us would rather have a list of 600 plus do's and don't's that we can fail at then just fail so epically at only one.  But we don't have to have the ability to do it. Jesus said that if we will choose to follow Him and seek relationship with Him that He will live in us and we can live in Him. Awesome. The Lord of the universe will live in me and love through me and make it possible for me to live and love as He does. And all I have to do to have that relationship with Him is accept that He accepts me, believe He made the way, choose what the Father wants over my wants (deny self). 

Abba, I belong to You. You bought and paid for me on the cross. Help me to surrender every part of myself to You today so that You can love through me unhindered, even when it comes to seeing and loving me. Help me not to do the things that would take me away from You are would cause someone else to run from You or feel farther away from You. Draw me closer to You today. Amen.

Blessed Assurance

Dalyn Woodard shares on having the assurance of being God's and how by surrender to Him we can walk in the power of the Spirit to bear the fruit of the Spirit rather than the fruit of the flesh, which is all we can produce in our own efforts. The freedom and victory oer self and the bondage in our lives comes from God and not our efforts.. The sermon, "Blessed Assurance," is about 51 minutes long and was recorded at Nacogdoches Christian Fellowship on Wednesday, February 25, 2015. It's our prayer that you are blessed and ministered to as you listen. May God bless and keep you.

Unshackled Moments ~ February 25

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.  And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. 

Philippians 2:5-8

There is an idea that has slipped into Christianity that may have  started with a kernel of truth but has been twisted into a tool to hinder our progress and thwart what we could be used to do by God. The idea behind this lie, this snare to keep us in bondage even as we attempt to walk with God, is that there is a type of selfishness that is both good and necessary in order for us to walk with God and serve Him.

We know that selfishness and living for ourselves is the opposite of denying self, taking up our cross and saying not my will but Yours be done and we follow Jesus, and yet, I have actually read devotions and heard sermons where the admitted conflict between ridding ourselves of selfishness and being selfish about our relationship with God is rationalized away.

Some seem to think that the selfishness needed to walk with God is different than the selfishness of self-indulgence that put us in bondage is a necessary selfishness. I call nonsense. There is no selfishness that isn't self indulgence. The idea that I have to be selfish in order to make sure I have my relationship with God right before I can concern myself with others or be of service is a lie specifically designed to help me hold back a part of myself rather than completely and utterly surrender to God.

I will give one example of what I mean. I have been told that I have to be selfish with my prayer time and put it before service to others or I won't be able to minister well. Sounds good doesn't it? It sounds like the truth behind get the plank out of your eye before you go digging in your brother/s. Except it isn't true or the same. People who make this claim have used the example of the prayer life of Jesus to try to prove their argument. So I will use Jesus to show how it is actually self-denial to pray like Jesus, not selfishness. Jesus got up early, while it was still dark, and went to be alone with the Father and pray. He didn't sleep in. He didn't put His physical need for rest above His spiritual need. He denied Himself. He also didn't tell the hungry crowd to go home and get something to eat because He was pretty wiped Himself and needed to spend some time in prayer before the evening service. He multiplied the fish and bread, fed the masses and continued to minister and serve.

In Mark 7 Jesus showed how the spirit of the law is twisted for selfish tradition. He tells the Pharisees who claimed that the service due their parents that was instead given to God was in fact breaking the commandment to honor parents and a sin, regardless of the idea that it was honoring God. That's because it didn't honor God to dishonor others.

Whenever we hold back the love that we should be giving to someone else for ourselves in order to stay spiritually fit and remain free from areas of bondage that we have been delivered from, we actually accomplish the opposite. When we deny self and love others even to the point of death, we're doing what Jesus did.

Now, please don't start beating yourself half to death with the truth stick. You're not going to be able to do the last sentence of the above paragraph. I can't even come close. There is a God and neither I nor you are Him. If we could live this selflessly we wouldn't have needed Jesus in the first place. The idea, the goal is to grow in this, to have progressively more of Jesus and selflessness and less of me and selfishness. There are going to be times when that person needs to talk and I'm going to say I can't and justify it with the truth that I simply am not up to dealing with it right now rather than stepping out to serve and trusting God for the grace and strength to walk on the water of my weariness. It's happened before, and it will happen again. But let me and you call it what it is. It isn't honoring God by taking care of me so that I can minister and serve better later. It's selfishness, and rather than calling it honor so that I can be comfortable with it, I need to remember that it is something that will keep me on parole rather than free. The bars of bondage may be gone, but the threat of reincarceration  remains. The more self I hold onto the greater the threat of the enemy issuing a warrant to return my shackles.

Jesus said to die is to live, so we might  want to get this idea that we need to preserve ours life out of our system. Besides, we're too late. Colossians 3, Galatians 2, Romans 6 and other scriptures tell us that if we are in Christ we are already dead to our self and to sin. Any life we have is now only found in the extent that we allow Jesus to live in and reign over us. So selfishness, even in "Service to God," is slow motion suicide and trying to breathe life into a corpse, not the freeing life we need and are called to.

Daddy, I thank You that You will not withhold Your love from me when I fall short of the ideal of selflessness. I am grateful for the grace and mercy to still hear from You and be of service to You and have relationship with You even though I am still spiritually sick, selfish and far from perfect. Help me to remember that my selfishness and failures never surprise You tempt You to give up on me, that what You have begun You will complete. But keep me broken and honest enough to see selfishness for what it is. Daddy, right now, I am willing to give You all of me, the good and the bad. I ask You to remove from me demand of selfishness and sin that stands in the way of my usefulness to You and to others this day. Give me Your strength and grace as I climb the hill to my daily cross and respond to Your call on my life today. May I do Your will over mine this day and always. Amen.

Unshackled Moments ~ February 24

As I worked on what I planned to post as today's UM, I received a notification that a cousin had tagged me in a Facebook post. She'd posted the link to the song "Fear" by Blue October. She wrote that she'd listened to the song and thought of me, so she thought she'd share. She didn't feel certain about her reasons for sharing, and if she doesn't know, I certainly don't.

Maybe she simply saw me in the song or parts of the song, or maybe God gave her a nudge. Perhaps both are true. I know I related to several parts of the song, and I felt God stir some thoughts within me. So, I set aside the writing I'd begun for another day, and well, here we are.

The song begins: All my life / Been running from a pain in me / A feeling I don't understand / Holding me down /  Rain on me / Underwater / All I am, getting harder / A heavy weight / I carry around.

Today / I don't have to fall apart / I don't have to be afraid / I don't have to let the damage consume me, / My shadow see through me

I most certainly relate to the above. It grabbed me right away that once again Justin Furstenfeld tapped into my life, mind and or emotions to find inspiration for his lyrics. I did run from a pain in my life that I could never quite escape from or cover up completely. My father told me the other day that I lost my joy and all the crazy that I embraced and bathed in as a teen and beyond came from a desperate attempt to find my joy again, anywhere and everywhere but in God, where it'd first been. I hadn't thought of it that way, but he was right. I lost my joy as a child, and the void created by that loss filled with pain and with fear. it almost killed me.

Today I don't have to fall apart or be afraid or allow the damage of the past consume me, at least not for any longer than it takes me to turn my eyes to Jesus and cry out "Son of David! Have mercy on me!" See, the only part of Blue October's song that didn't resonate with me was the solution, lines like Believe in yourself And you will walk. 

If you've got a past anything like mine, you know better by now than to believe in yourself as any type of solution. If it can be screwed up, I'll find a way to do it. If it is possible to fail and fall short, that's exactly what will happen when I put my best into it, at least that's true with the important stuff such as oh, I don't know, life. If I'd heard this song before I found freedom from addiction I'd have felt hopelessness instead of the thankfulness I felt this morning. I've known since I was about 5 that I couldn't be counted on for long.

But there is One who is always faithful, who does indeed have the power to protect and deliver from fear, to heal our pain and restore our past. His name is Jesus, and He feels our pain and fear and hurt in His gut. Remember that time you got that horrible news that made you feel like a mule kicked you in the stomach and you forgot how to breathe? That's what Jesus felt too. That's what He always feels when your tears threaten to fall. That's what it means when the Bible says Jesus was "moved with compassion."

He hurts with us and for us, but He's not afraid, because He's not weak like us. He never failed and quite simply is as incapable of failure as I am of perfection. He doesn't want us to be afraid. The messengers of God always began by saying, "Fear Not!" For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.  2 Timothy 1:7.

Lord, I thank You for the desire and willingness to heal as much of my past as I will give You. Thank you for being trustworthy. You have to the power to heal and restore, so I don't have to keep trying to do the impossible and make myself whole through my efforts. Help me to give You all of me, good and bad...past, present and future, so that I can be completely restored. Help me to remember that I can believe in You, in who You are and Your great love for me, and in the power of that belief I can walk through life without fear, regardless of how often I've failed on my own, regardless of the circumstances, no matter how dark the valley of the shadow of death becomes. Amen.

"Fear" Lyrics

Unshackled Moments ~ February 23

Did you know that God sometimes changes His mind? But what about God the same yesterday, today and forever? That is true. Who God is doesn't change. His nature doesn't change.  His eternal purpose and plan doesn't change. But the details of the plan? The steps between A and Z? Yes, sometimes He changes His mind about the details.

Not long after God delivered the Israelites from the bondage of Egypt, Moses, God's chosen leader of the people, moved outside of the will of God. God changed His mind. The man chosen to lead the Israelites from slavery to the promised land would never physically step foot into the promise land. His blessing was given to another, Joshua, Still God consoled the grieving leader. He took Moses to the mountain top and gave him the first look at the promise. And He did something else. He showed Moses the face of love. Moses received a glimpse of God that made him glow. He may not have walked the land of promise, but he received the promise before the rest, the promise to see God, to know God and have relationship with God. The Israelites reaching the promised land was nothing more than a step towards what Moses got being available for all of us.

Not long after Moses messed up, the Israelites decided to start worshiping a golden idol they'd made. They shocked God with the sheer audacity and ingratitude. He decided to wipe them out and start over on the Master Plan with Moses and his children. But Moses interceded on behalf of the foolish former slaves. God changed His mind and let them live. God showed mercy due to intercession.

Let's look at one last example as the Word that was with God and was God made flesh in the Messiah Jesus tried to take a break. He needed to rest rather than minister. A Greek woman enters the scene begging for help for her daughter from Jesus. He basically told her No. She pushed. She showed she knew the truth of His goodness, and she wouldn't settle for being told there was no way for her, a gentile, to approach the God of the Jews. Jesus, enjoying her faith and understanding, to the perception of those who heard the "No," changed His mind, said "Yes" and delivered the daughter.

God changes His mind, but never His nature. The nature of God is goodness and love. Sometimes He shows mercy. Sometimes He brings life to the barrenness of our lives. Sometimes He takes away the Garden and the Land of Promise. But what He never takes away or denies is His great love. He never holds back His goodness. God will sit with us, wrap Himself around us and weep with us as we grieve and mourn. He feels our pain in the core of His being. Then, when He's felt our hurt, He'll wipe our tears away, look at us with eyes full of love, forgiveness and empathy, say "I love you so much," and give us what we need. There may be blessings on this plane that are withheld. He may or may not give us what we want. But if we go to Jesus as the broken, unclean people we are, we always, always, always find what  we need. We always find ourselves receiving the promise, the big one, the one all the little promises serve to point the way to, the promise of acceptance from and relationship with the Holy Creator.

Daddy, I thank You for Your love for me. I thank You for the glimpse of the Promise during times when it feels like the blessing is withheld. Help me fill the holes in my life with Your love and to come to You with all my scrapes and bruises and with all of my broken heart whenever I fall short of walking in Your truth and promise. Help me to remember that one of the best names for Jesus is Son of Compassion because You not only hear us when we cry but You feel our tears to Your very core. Thank You for Your great compassion that took You to the cross for me. Amen.

Unshackled Moments ~ February 22

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. 

Matthew 11:29-30 

 I remember reading and hearing this verse and thinking my burden sure doesn’t feel light, and the task doesn’t seem all that easy either. Doing God’s will, loving and serving like Jesus is so opposite of who and what I am that it not only feels heavy and hard, it feels impossible. It feels impossible, because it is impossible. I’m just not good enough, caring enough or strong enough, and I never will be this side of eternity.

 But that’s me trying to pull God’s plow. I’m not built for it. My father and I have moved quite a few pieces of heavy equipment and furniture that two people who aren’t built like the Hulk shouldn’t move on their own. We’ve both done that sort of thing solo as well. But the truth is we didn’t.

Dad taught me early on how to use the laws of God to make the load work for us rather than against us. Understanding certain truths like balance point and leverage can make a weight impossible for one man to lift manageable. I can recall more than once when a load on my shoulder shifted causing me to lose that precarious balance point and suddenly what had felt like a heavy load became a crushing weight that I had to get out from under fast before it hurt me.

Relationship with Jesus is our Spiritual balance. He is all the leverage we need to move the mountain and lift the impossible crushing weight. When it starts feeling like too much, don’t throw your effort into it. Position yourself closer to the balance. The more balanced the load, the lighter it feels. When we rely on the truths of God’s love and word, He works for us. As long as we remain positioned, we can accomplish whatever He would have us accomplish. It is only when we try to work against the truth and manhandle the load that it hurts us and reminds of just how small and weak we truly are on our own.

Abba, help me to remember that it is in my position with You that my burden becomes Your burden and the task becomes doable. Help me to surrender to Your truth today so that I don’t try to manhandle or muscle my life and what you would have me do. Amen.

Unshackled Moments ~ February 21

The concept of powerlessness comes up repeatedly in my sermons and writings. This is more than just secular recovery jargon invading the faith. The concept is scriptural. We have all sinned and fallen short. If we weren't powerless to deny self and control sin, there would've been someone besides Jesus able to pull it off in all these years.  There is none good but God. Our righteousness is as filthy rags. I could go on. But the truth that I cannot control myself, that I can't consistently do what's right and live for God and others does not let me off the hook. Neither being powerless to control sin and manage our lives nor the awesome amazing grace of God are excuses to just do our own thing, to sin, to not try. The idea that "I'm going to fail anyway so I might as well just do it now instead of fighting this temptation" is a natural response to being in bondage, but it is not a Godly one.

The point in admitting powerlessness is not to give up hope of freedom or to absolve us of responsibility. "I'm sorry I hurt you, but you know I'm powerless over that sin, so I don't see why you're upset or surprised I did it. We all knew it was just a matter of time." No. That's not it. The reason is so that we will stop trying to do it on our own. That we will see the need for absolute surrender to He who does have all power, trusting in His love and desire to set us free and restore us. The point of my powerlessness is to remind me to use His power. Galatians 5:16 clearly states that if we walk in the power of the Spirit of God, we will not fulfill the lusts, the desires, the selfishness of the flesh, the sinful nature.

Yes, grace covers a multitude of sins. No, we're not yet made perfect. We will fail. We will fall short. Yes. His mercies are new every morning, and His goodness towards us knows no bounds. But if we use the truth that we can't walk with God, that we can't stop being selfish, that we can't be holy on our own combined with the concepts of grace and forgiveness to ease our guilt of just doing what we want, we're not in relationship with God. We've stopped following.

Jesus said if you want to follow me deny yourself and follow me. We may believe in theory, but not in practice. We profess faith with our mouths and our T-shirts and deny Him with our lives and apathy. We don't truly believe in the awesome unearned life changing passionate love of God for us personally. Personally. JESUS LOVES ME! JESUS LOVES YOU! My child I know more about you than you do, and not only do I not hate you, I still love you. Just as you are.

The natural response to that kind of love is to love back. To say thank you for your love, can I stay with You now? I like it here in Your presence. Jesus responds yes. Live in me, and I will live in you. Deny your selfishness, love God and love others, and if you do that you won't ever have to wonder about what is and isn't OK to do. Love me, and I will send you the Holy Spirit, who has power that you don't have, and He will lead, guide and strengthen you so that you don't have to do those things that the new you hates.

Grace and powerlessness do not absolve us of personal responsibility. We are not the victims of sin and impulse. We are victors through and in Christ Jesus who loved us and gave His life for us. With everything we are we throw ourselves on His mercy asking for His help. Then God does the work. He sets the  captive areas of our lives free. He heals our wounds and forgives our transgressions so that we no longer act like slaves to sin but free men and women whose very lives give glory to God whose Spirit makes life possible.

Abba, You are my Lord. I belong to You. Help me to take responsibility for my attitudes, thoughts and actions today. I own my failure so that I can give what is mine to You, so that You can heal, deliver and strengthen. I know I don't have the power to walk with You today, so I ask You to fill me with Your power and grace as I seek Your will and not my own. I deny my selfish desires and determine to do what You want me to do today, but even as I say that I know I can't. So, I give You permission to do it. Whenever I have a choice today, I will choose You and rely on Your power and grace to carry out that choice. I love You Lord. Thank you for giving me the ability to walk with You today and for wanting to hang out with me today. I love You. Thank You for loving me.

Unshackled Moments ~ February 20

We've all either known or been that someone who just refused to change their attitude and behavior or to quit doing things damaging to a friendship. Sometimes the friendship ends in an ugly blowup of hurt and anger, sometimes friends "simply grow apart" and aren't friends anymore, and sometimes a zombie of the friendship arrives. Zombie friendship? Yes, it looks roughly like the same entity and moves around. But it's not the same, and movement isn't proof of life. In a Zombie friendship both parties may still claim to be friends, one may even mean it. They may do things together. They may still visit when they are around each other, like at church or when they run into one another at Wal-Mart. But the life has gone out of the relationship. There is no desire to seek out the other person. Who wouldn't rather avoid someone who keeps doing the same things that hurt you?

With true gratitude I tell you that God does. No matter how many times we've blown it, regardless of repeated sins thrown in His Holy face, He doesn't want to avoid us. He sends us messages that He wants to get together for a visit, that, truthfully, He loves us and wants to move in together. He calls over and over wanting to talk. It's ridiculous how often He'll interrupt our day to talk if we don't turn the ringer off.

And that's the problem. If we are in a Zombie friendship with God, one with no life that vaguely resembles a rotten shell of what we once experienced, it's on us. We're the one who lost our minds, not Him. We're the one with repeated sins that hurt Him, not the other way around, Yet He is the one calling and we are the ones avoiding, giving excuses, putting Him off.

We just can't stand in His Holy presence covered in rot. If we refuse to surrender our will we are saying, "I like my rot thank you very much. You can't have it." And God lets us keep it. But while He never looks at us with anything but love and compassion, we aren't comfortable in His presence. We only feel we belong in the graveyard of our sin.

Or we can grunt out through our brokenness and rot, "Daddy help!" And He in His power and grace and love does what we can't. He restores life to the dead man walking. He removes the stench. He wipes away the goop. He freshens the breath. He restores the mind. He makes new clothes free from filth. He brings life into us and into the relationship with Him.

God' love is the only cure for the epidemic of dead men walking and for apathy and death in our relationship with Him. But there is a part of the cure that's on us. We must see we need it. We have to accept His acceptance of who we are, as we are. And then we have to submit to His healing hands that clean us up and give us new life. He does the work, but we must let Him or continue to rot away and wander through life in our stink, gnashing at people around us, wondering why we feel separated from everyone.

Daddy help me to see the rot and smell the stink in my life. Help me to remember today that I don't have to hide that from You in shame, but I can run to You just as nasty as I am, without having to clean or heal in any way first. Thank You for Your faithfulness to clean away and heal as much of my body and life infected by sin as I will let You. Help me hold nothing back. I give You all of me, the good and stinking, nasty, bad. Amen.

Unshackled Moments ~ February 19

There are periods of our life when happiness just disappears, runs and hides and thwarts all our attempts to find it. In fact, the harder we try, the less happiness we seem to find or the more fleeting what we do find turns out to be. We fall into despair. Scriptures that say things like the joy of the Lord is our strength can make things feel even worse. If joy is my strength and I'm full of sorrow how am I supposed to get through this?

But happiness comes from the external, from our situation and circumstances. It is dependent upon what is happening in our lives. Joy is internal. It does not depend upon our outward anything. It is a response that comes from understanding the truth, the awesome, incredible, mind-blowing truth that we are loved by God. It is the joy of our natural response to such amazing love that gives us the strength to go through whatever we have to, even anguish and sorrow.

Hebrews 12:2 tells us that it was for the Joy that was set before Him that Jesus was strengthened in the garden to get up, walk into His betrayal, take the beatings and endure the rejection, desertion and pain that came with the cross. Joy that brings strength that can't be shaken or destroyed by darkness comes from knowing we are loved by our Heavenly Daddy and can trust Him completely without reservation when we align our will with His.

Father, help me to know and understand Your love for me today, so that I have Your joy to empower me as I go through this day and all the ups and downs that may take place. Thank You for Your love that draws me to You and claims me as Your own. 

More Of Jesus

Dalyn Woodard sharing on the purpose and meaning of Ash Wednesday and calling for a time to reflect on our love for God, our desire to follow Him, and out understanding of His great love for us. The song played at the end of the sermon was "More (Of Jesus)" by Mylon Lefevre and Broken Heart and has been cut out of the recording for copyright purposes. The song is included below the message, which is about 40 minutes long and is titled "More Of Jesus." It's our prayer that you are blessed and ministered to as you listen. May God bless and keep you.

Unshackled Moments ~ February 18 Ash Wednesday

"Today, if you will hear His voice: 'Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion...'"

Psalm 95: 7-8

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of the time of reflection and preparation for Easter known as Lent. Ash Wednesday is a reminder to us that we live or, if a believer, lived under the curse of sin that brings death. Due to sin and separation from God this world and all that is of it shall one day be nothing but ash. But praise be to God our Father who sent His Son Jesus to die on the cross and raised Him up from the dead that we may also escape true death and have life eternal!

In addition to serving as a reminder that we have need of or have received Grace that brings eternal life and salvation, Ash Wednesday serves as a reminder that we can do nothing without Jesus Christ that is worth more than dust and ashes. We can not fight sin on our own. We can not set ourselves free. When we try to live a Godly life on our strength and in our own might, the result is bondage, ashes and death. But there is freedom and life in the cross where His love poured out for us.

Lord, lead me to the cross this day and every day. Rid me of my self and give me victory over my difficulties that my freedom, joy and peace may be a sign to others of Your love, Your power and Your ways that are so much better than my ways. Help me to remember that in my effort and works is filthiness and death, nothing but ash, but that through Your power and grace I am righteous, clean and have the growth of new life within.

Unshackled Moments ~ February 17

“They can be analyzed, counseled, reasoned with, prayed over, threatened, beaten, or locked up, but they will not stop until they want to stop.” 

(Narcotics Anonymous) Basic Text, p. 62

One of the daily readings I use started today's reading with the above quote. It's such a sad truth for family and friends but a true statement for addicts and alcoholics. I know, because being raised in a Godly home and being loved by my parents wasn't enough to get or keep me clean and sober during my quarter century using career. But this quote is also very true for the Prodigal and the Stranger At The Kingdom's Gate, regardless of the form the shackles manifest.

Some may never use drugs or alcohol, but without a relationship with God find themselves just as imprisoned and trapped in an every tightening spiral of pain and misery as any addict. Prayers of family and friends do help. I may not have lived long enough to recover without them. But no matter the bondage, none of us can be free without surrender, and only as individuals can we lay down our arms (our will) and declare from where the sun now stands I will fight God no more, forever (a paraphrase of Chief Joseph's surrender to the United States). 

No one can surrender for anyone else.  Jesus lived in surrender to the Father in a manner that made it possible for us to surrender. An earthly example would be Lee surrendering to Grant. What Lee did ended the war for those who accepted it, but meant nothing to those who chose to still fight and raid in some areas. Until we get tired enough of the fight, the destruction and the death in our lives the war will never end for us, despite the fact that the war ended with an act of surrender on a cross long before any of us were ever born.

Father, thank you for making it so that Jesus' act of surrender covers my rebellion against you and brings me by grace into Your kingdom. But help me to remember that I have to take up my cross and follow Him, that I have to surrender this day and every day in order to keep from slipping back into civil war with You. Help me to remember that victory over the things that hold me captive and freedom from the shackles in this life comes from complete and unconditional surrender to You. Amen.

Unshackled Moments ~ February 16

Show me Your ways, O Lord; Teach me Your paths. Lead me in Your truth and teach me, For You are the God of my salvation; On You I wait all the day.

Psalm 25: 4-5

As I worked a spiritual program of recovery from alcohol and drugs and began developing a deep and personal relationship with God I learned that when I faced difficulties and indecision and do not know what to do that I should pause and ask God for direction. While waiting on that thought or decision inspired by the Spirit I should relax, stop worrying and fretting. Don't struggle and stop trying to fight the battle myself, after all the battle belongs to the Lord. This process is waiting on God.

But there is no reason to wait on the Lord only during times of difficulty, confusion or indecision. When we wait "all the day" as the above scripture says we learn His ways and His paths and we live constantly in the safety and security of His direction.

As a boy my father would take my brothers and I hunting. I could shoot well. I used to competition shoot, but I was never the woodsman my father and brothers were. So I learned to let my father lead while I waited. I kept my eyes on him. If he started walking, I walked. If he stopped, I stopped. If he got quiet, I tried to get quiet. I crouched when he crouched, got my gun ready when he did, relaxed when he relaxed. His path got me through the woods with little tripping, kept me from stepping in holes or banging my head on branches. By going where he went I found the best way to get through thorn patches that would've made the Brer Rabbit hesitate.

Sometime Dad would stop for a minute and then look back at where I had stopped when he did. He'd call for me to come to him. I'd get close and he'd whisper what to do. Other times he'd start walking again, and I would follow, step for step, on his path. This is how we wait on God all through the day. We keep our eyes on Him. We go where He goes and stop when He stops. Do what He does. Don't do things He doesn't do. The more we're able to do that, the more we stay in a place of His protection, the more we learn His ways and the easier it becomes to follow Him. We have less scratches from the thorns of life, and the holes we can't seem to avoid on our own no longer cause us to stumble.

Waiting on God sets us free, renews our strength with His and gives us peace and security in the midst of the scariest, most treacherous woods of our lives.  So if we want to learn to walk free of the things that have kept us stumbling from hole to hole, tripping over one thing and the next, cut and scratched from the thorns that ensnare, we need to stop looking for a way through the woods and start looking at He who knows the way. Hurry up and wait on the Lord.

Father help us to wait on You in an active way.  Help us to walk where You walk, the way You walk. When we wait on You this way, let us not be afraid or grow weary, but let us walk in the peace and security of who You are and Your great love for us. Amen.

Unshackled Moments ~ February 15

When I let go of who I am I make it possible to become who I might be, who I want to be and who God created me to be.

 Father may we let go of who and what we are without You and pursue Your presence today and every day so that we can become like Jesus and the people of love and liberty that You have called us to be. Amen

Learning From Experience

I read a saying this morning as I went through the materials that I read daily, experience is what you get when you don't get what you want. I understand the message behind this statement. I even agree with it. I've learned a lot from not getting my own way, from learning to accept things as they are..

But I believe that the most important lessons I have learned in life, and therefore my best experience gained, have come from the many situations where I went right down the path of my own choosing, did exactly what I wanted to do, received exactly what I wanted, only to realize that the road led to misery, pain and heartache. When I want what my Heavenly Father wants for me, I can have joy and peace in any situation, after the Gethsemane moment it takes to line my will up with His. But if I don't line my will up with His, then even if I get what I want, I don't.

I want to be happy joyous and free, to have and be loved, to be content with life and have a life worth living. In all the times that I have refused to surrender my will and line it up with God's I have had some fun, I have had pleasures, I have had times where distraction made life not so bad, but I have not had a life worth living. Only in surrender of my will and life can I find life. It's a paradox, but it's not complicated.

Purpose

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good tidings to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, And the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”

Isaiah 61: 1-3

I woke up early this morning after approximately three hours of something somewhat resembling sleep. Within minutes I found myself forced to filter incoming messages that made my poor barely functioning brain cry out to God for help not to be distracted from what matters and not to be led astray by people who may mean well but have it all backwards. 

The first message I could have done without this morning came from some television ministry airing at 5 AM that I couldn't help but overhear some before I was able to get my headphones in and Pandora playing. Discussions of Biblical Prophecy and how the math of the Scriptures shows.....blah blah blah. The second hit me a few minutes later as I read my morning materials and heard once again the message of stick with the winners, avoid those struggling or reveling in the bondage from which we have been delivered, stay safe by staying separate from those not free.

Prophecy serves a purpose, but knowing the future is less important than doing what we have been told to do. Jesus said inn John 14 "he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do." That's what we're to be focused on. Also, I understand staying away from situations and people we can't handle less we be led back to the pit from which we've been delivered, but if you're alive you are facing things that you can't handle on your own. That's why we need God. The answer to staying safe and free is not hiding from the people, places and things that are still in enemy territory but rather it is to stay safe in the shadow of the One who set us free in the first place and to give away our freedom, our solution.

Jesus said what I've done you do and do it more. Jesus said He is the fulfillment of Isaiah 61. So if we want to be free, if we want to get through hard times in the future, we don't need to avoid anything or know exactly how, when etc. We need to preach good news to those who are in desperate need for it, to help heal the broken hearted, to tell those who are in bondage that they can be free and then show them the way to that freedom, we need to declare that today is the day of deliverance and God's love and grace are available and better than His judgement. We are to empathize with care for those who mourn, point the way to the one who can give them "beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness" that they can be righteous (clean before a Holy God) and God gets the glory. It's not about our safety or looking special or important because we're in on His play by play. It's about loving the hurting and freeing the captive and surrounding ourselves with those who need the solution we have.    

Christian Freedom

Dalyn Woodard shares on what it really means to be free in Christ and to be free of the law. The sermon, "Christian Freedom," is about 41 minutes long and was recorded at Nacogdoches Christian Fellowship on Wednesday, February 11, 2015. It's our prayer that you are blessed and ministered to as you listen. May God bless and keep you.

It’s not about what we want or feeling good ~ at least not for now.

“If you want to be a follower and disciple of Jesus, you must stop thinking about yourself and what you want. You must be willing to sacrifice the idea of immediate satisfaction, sacrifice our wants, desires and feelings on the cross and obey Jesus. By doing this we follow Jesus one step at a time.

~ Matthew 16:24 paraphrased

We want to feel good, and we want it now. We want to be happy, healthy and pleased with how our life and day is going each and every minute. If things aren’t good, or don’t feel good, we want the problem fixed immediately. That’s why feel good, no cost, positive spirituality is so popular, even to Bible believing Christians. We’d much rather eliminate any negative feelings than have a hard time, even if that means losing touch with reality and the truth that sets us free. 

But if we want long term, lasting and true liberty and joy, it isn’t instant, and isn’t free. Jesus paid a high price to provide it for us. His grace is sufficient to help us walk in it, but He won’t walk it for us. We must learn to deny ourselves and stop spiritually acting like a spoiled two-year old. We must learn that sometimes we have to say no to what we want, and sometimes we have to wait and even work for the relationship with God that we wanted when we chose to follow Jesus. We have to stop turning back every time we don’t get our way or get what we think God promised as fast as we’d like. 

The beauty of grace is that God does all the work. It’s only Him. That’s truth. But it’s also true that it takes every bit of us. We have to choose, this moment, I have decided to follow Christ and do what’s right, no matter what I want, no matter what I feel. 

Today I choose to follow Jesus, no matter the consequence, no matter the cost, no matter what I want in the moment and no matter how I feel. I thank God for His grace to walk in that, but I also realize I may have to make this same decision a hundred times today as my selfish old nature rises up and says, “But I want…..” and “But I need….” I will remember that all I really need and want is relationship with My Creator and to do what Christ has called me to do.

Faith During The Storm

Dalyn Woodard sharing on the purpose of faith and going through good times and bad with our eyes on Jesus. The song played at the start of the sermon was "Praise Him In This Storm" by Casting Crowns and has been cut out of the recording for copyright purposes. The song is included below the message, which is about 48 minutes long and is titled "Faith During The Storm." It's our prayer that you are blessed and ministered to as you listen. May God bless and keep you.