Bible

What do you do with your disappointments?

Miss Havisham and Pip, in an illustration for ...

Miss Havisham and Pip, in an illustration for the Household Edition of Dickens's Great Expectations. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock” (Psalm 27:5).

John and Mary had only lived in their dream home for 6 months before it was set ablaze by an electrical fire. “What am I going to do now?” John asked, looking up to the heavens. With tears running down his cheeks, he exclaimed “I have spent every penny I had on this house, and now everything is going up in smoke.” “Life is so f—ing unfair!”

I am sure you have heard the phrase, “Life is so unfair,” perhaps multiple times before.” People usually use this phrase when they are faced with unusual circumstances, such as disappointments. Dealing with disappointments can be difficult. Each of us deals with our disappointments differently.

What do you do with your disappointments?

You could do what Miss Havisham did in Charles Dickens‘s novel, Great Expectations? Abandoned by her intended just before her wedding, Miss Havisham froze in time.  She closed all the blinds in the house, stopped every clock, left the wedding cake on the table to gather cobwebs, and wore her wedding dress until it hung in yellow decay around her shrunken body. Her wounded heart consumed her life.

We can follow the same course, or we can follow the example of the apostle Paul. Intended to be a missionary in Spain, the apostle ended up in a Roman Jail. Sitting in jail, Paul could have made the same choice as Miss Havisham, but he didn’t. Instead he said, “As long as I am here, I might as well write a few letters.” Hence your Bible has the epistles to Philemon, the Philippians, the Colossians, and the Ephesians.

Paul made the best of his difficult situation. He never gave up and he never felt sorry for himself. He knew that the happiest people don’t necessarily have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything.

I am not saying this because I am in need, but I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 For I can do all this through him who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:11-13)

The reason for the Cross

Jesus Christ Crucifix

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“The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. Otherwise, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins. It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said:

“Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
but a body you prepared for me;
with burnt offerings and sin offerings
you were not pleased.
Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll—
I have come to do your will, my God.“

First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them”—though they were offered in accordance with the law. Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:1-10)

Man by himself cannot deal with his own guilt or sin problem. He must have help from the outside.

In order to forgive himself, he must have forgiveness from the one he has offended. Yet man is unworthy to ask God for forgiveness.

That then is the reason for the cross. The cross did what sacrificed lambs could not do. It erased our sins, not for a year, but for eternity. The cross did what man could not do. It granted us the right to talk with, love, and even live with God.

You can’t do that by yourself. I don’t care how many worship services you attended or good deeds you do. Your goodness is insufficient. You can’t be good enough to deserve forgiveness. Not me, not you, not anyone! The Bible states in Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.”

And that is why you and I need a savior in Jesus Christ. “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit” (1 Peter 3:18).

Let The Kingdom Manifest Through You

Christ and The Pharisees

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“Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people” (Matthew 4:23).

The gospel of the kingdom moves Jesus Christ into the center most part of your personality, your spirit, and your heart. He cannot be on the fringes of your life and be the king of your life.

When the King and His kingdom enter your life, they come with great power and authority. His government rules you, His words direct you: “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all the other things which you want shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33),

His love motivates you: “Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13),

His wisdom guides you: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group, and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?”  They were using this question as a trap, to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”  Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

 at this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there.  Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

 “No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and sin no more.”

His grace frees you: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:8-10),

And His heart draws you close to His: “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3).

His kingdom has not come to hide within you, but that it may manifest through you. You can proclaim His kingdom to others by the way you live, by the choices you make, by the attitudes you express, and by the love you demonstrate.

Jesus wants us to walk the path of holiness

Stained glass at St John the Baptist's Anglica...

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A man’s walk is the way he journeys through life–his direction, his focus, the steps he takes. Every day he chooses a path. One path will take him forward. All others will take him back. The way he walks affects every aspect of his being–how he relates to other people, how he treats his family, how people view him, even how he looks.

I have seen men who were unattractive by any standard change radically as they learned to walk in the Spirit of God. as His image became imprinted upon theirs, they develop a richness of soul, a glorious purity and an inner confidence of knowing what direction they were going. This gave them a strength and a sense of purpose that is not only attractive and appealing, it’s magnetic.

The Bible reveals much about the kind of walk we should have. We are to walk with moral correctness because “For the Lord God is a a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly” (Psalm 84:11). We are to walk without fault  because “whoever walks blamelessly will be saved” (Proverbs 28:18). We are to walk with godly advisers because “blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly” (Psalm 1:1). We are to walk in obedience because “blessed is every one who fears the Lord, who walks in His ways” (Psalm 128:1). We are to walk with people of wisdom because “he who walks with wise men will be wise” (Proverbs 13:20). We are to walk with integrity because “he who walks with integrity walks securely” (Proverbs 10:9). Most of all we are to walk a path of holiness. “A highway shall be there, and a road, and it shall be called the Highway of Holiness, The unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall be for others. Whoever walks the road, although a fool, shall not go astray: (Isaiah 35:8).

Jesus said there is only one way to get on the right path, one door through which to enter. “I am the way,” He says (John 14:6). The way that leads to destruction is wide and broad and many choose to go that route. but “narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:14).

Integrity is what you are in the dark

Integrity is not what you seem to be when all eyes are on you. It’s who you are when no one is looking. (character is what you are in the dark). It’s a level of morality below which you never fall, no matter what’s happening around you. It’s a high standard of honesty, truthfulness, decency, and honor that is never breached. It’s doing for others the way you would want them to do for you.

A man of integrity says something and means it. He doesn’t play verbal games so you never really know where he stands. He knows to let his “Yes” be “Yes” and his “No” be “No.” “For whatever is more than these is from the evil one” (Matthew 5:37). He will not play both sides of the fence to please everyone. his goal is to please God and do what is right. A man can be highly esteemed among men but an abomination to God (Luke 16:15).

A man of integrity “swears to his own hurt and does not change” (Psalm 15:4). He will keep his word even if it costs him something to do so. When placed in a possible compromising situation, he will continue to stand strong in what he believes. (The three Hebrew boys stood strong and never bow to the golden image or worship Nebuchadnezzar‘s god. They were later thrown into a fiery furnace). Above all, he is a man of truth; you can depend on his solid honesty. A man “who walks with integrity walks securely” (Proverbs 10:9), because his integrity guides him and bring him into the presence of God (Psalm 41:12).

Integrity happens in the heart. Therefore, being a man of integrity is something  a man must choose to do on his own. But loved ones can prayerfully help him fight the enemy that seeks to snare him, blind him, and keep him from making that decision. Even when he makes the right choice, there will be a negative reaction to it in the realm of evil. Your prayers can help shield him from anything that causes him to doubt and waver, and give him strength to do what’s right–even when no one is looking. The Bible says “The righteous man walks in his integrity; his children are blessed after him” (Proverbs 20:7).