Friday, December 1, 2017

You’re Never Too far


Mark 14:38 “Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

Continuing Pastor Giglio's message : Just like with you and I, If we could just be real with each other for a moment; if we could just say today : “Here is the thing that I am struggling with.” … this is my potential Pitfall. This is the thing in my life that, if if it goes unchecked, is going to lead me to a place where my whole story can collapse and my whole opportunity to honor God can be lost. It says to us that our collapses don’t happen in one decision. They are a series of small decisions that maybe, individually, don’t look insidious to us, but then, combined together over the course of time, build a “pattern of life” that leads us to an outcome that we really never saw coming at the very beginning of the journey. It starts with “low hanging fruit” that we couldn’t resist … the enemy putting the temptation right down at eye level; temptations that speak to those fleshly desires that are unchecked in our heart and is the tool of the enemy to dismantle the effectiveness and leadership that God has given us. The flesh, the God-rejecting world system and the devil are a relentless enemy that constantly brings temptation after temptation into our world. If they fail one time, then they’ll come another time. If they can only take an inch today, then they’ll take a foot tomorrow. If we resist on the right, then they’ll come on the left. They just keep coming at our weakness with the “right” kind of temptation, on the “right” day, at the “right” time. This is the card they play: “If you really love me, you will do it.”, nagging the temptation until we relent, give in and fall.

Judges 16:28 Then Samson called to the Lord, saying, “O Lord God, remember me, I pray! Strengthen me, I pray, just this once, O God, that I may with one blow take vengeance on the Philistines for my two eyes!”

In the story of Samson’s fall, he was vindicated for the glory of God in the end, and this tells us that we have not gone too far for God to intervene and use our life again. That tells us that nobody has done to much that God cannot step into our story and allow the Holy Spirit in our life again. But, it also tells us that if we are on a path to destruction, then tonight is the night that we need to jump off of that path and ask God for a Comeback in our lives. So often, we look to God to do great things through our lives, but, in this moment, we need to ask God to do the great things in our lives. That takes two big steps. (1) IT takes transparency and vulnerability. It takes us saying to the people around us; “I look strong, but I am weak. You may see the good in me, but there are things that I am harboring in my heart that, if they are not brought to light, are going to be the end of me.”  We don’t want a Comeback at the end of the day that brings glory to God, we want the Comeback today that saves me from that day and puts me on a path of truth with God and other people. (2) Be willing to receive God’s path and walk on it. That may not happen overnight nor be a one-time decision for you. To open our lives in transparency, to open our lives in honesty, to admit to close people around us, then actually get on a godly path and walk on it rebuilds our life and thoughts of living openly with whatever our weaknesses are. That is going to put us in “the zone” of experiencing God’s power now, so we don’t have to hope and rejoice that we get it at the very end of the day.


Psalm 51:10-12 “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.”

If you feel like you’ve blown it all up, God’s Spirit can still come on you and there can still be a Comeback in your life. It is not too late for you. What is it that we need to address today? What do we need to invite Jesus into right now? And what Comeback do we need to call on God for in this moment, so that we can live and not die? And in doing so, proclaim to the next generation to come, the goodness and the faithfulness of our God.


In Christ, Brian

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