July 29 - Continuous, low-lying black clouds

Scripture focus: With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ's being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death. God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn't deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that. The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn't deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us. Romans 8:1-4 (The Message)

Because the human body was not equipped to handle sin, shame and betrayal, the effects of sin, shame and betrayal are felt in body, mind and soul. Some common types of trauma that result in suffering include: assault, serious car accidents, other accidents or injury, natural disasters, life threatening illness, sudden death of a loved one, learning about another's trauma.

Trauma is so serious that even listening to someone else's story can trigger PTSD, depression and anxiety disorders. In fact, trauma is so stressful to the human experience that these three conditions can co-occur. Did you know that panic attacks, agoraphobia and other phobias, obsessive compulsive disorder and general anxiety disorders, separation anxiety, depression, mood disorders, and bipolar disorder can all be triggered by an encounter with trauma?

These continuous, low-lying black clouds have physiological and spiritual components.

It really freaks me out when well-intentioned folks suggest that our low-lying black clouds will blow away and reveal blue skies of happiness if we just have enough faith, pray more and up our quiet time commitment. Trusting God is absolutely key to the clearing of the air and acquisition of the freedom we desperately seek.

God in his infinite wisdom uses a multitude of ways to provide deep healing. He uses faith-based communities to provide support and encouragement, gifted therapists to help us see ourselves clearly and provide tools for transitioning from victim to survivor, sometimes medical interventions are needed. These are just a few of the tools that God has had his disposal to help us recover our lives.

For today, it's my prayer that you will embrace what the Spirit is doing in you -- in every form that that aid takes. May the eyes of your heart recognize the rescuers God sends your way!

Recommended reading: 1 Samuel 28-29

- click on the word comments and join our conversation

© Copyright 2009 NorthStar Community

July 28

Scripture focus: I can anticipate the response that is coming: "I know that all God's commands are spiritual, but I'm not. Isn't this also your experience?" Yes. I'm full of myself--after all, I've spent a long time in sin's prison. What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary. But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. Romans 7:14-25 (The Message)

Abuse of any kind is a terrible thing. Whether spiritual, physical, verbal or emotional -- all abuse is an affront against God's command to love him with all our prayer, passion and intelligence and love others in the same manner. It's easy to throw stones at the bad guys in stories of abuse.

I want to remind us of something. Sometimes we're the bad guys and we may not recognize that about ourselves.

Things go wrong deep within us, but we may not recognize our wayward ways. We may not realize the rage that shows on our faces, or is manifested when we behave passive-aggressively towards another. Like Adam and Eve, we try to find some clever fig leaf to cover our compulsion to control, intimidate or manipulate another person.

What if we are the bad guys and don't know it? Here's a thought -- we can ask God to show us the truth about ourselves. We can ask him to reveal ways we've rejected, ignored, terrorized, isolated or corrupted others. We can ask him to point out when we are behaving in ways that are controlling, intimidating or manipulative of others.

It's hard to face the truth about our own selfishness when it's so easy to point out ways that others have hurt us. But I'm praying that today's scripture passage will remind us that the answer, thank God, is that Jesus can and does set things right in our life -- even when we're the bad guys.

Recommended reading: 1 Samuel 25-27

- click on the word comments and join our conversation

© Copyright 2009 NorthStar Community

July 27

Scripture focus: But now that you've found you don't have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God's gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master. Romans 6:22-23 (The Message)

Since our bodies and minds are not equipped to handle sin, sexual abuse causes tremendous damage. It also inflames shame. Shame, once inflamed, tells us to hide and isolate, keep secrets and cover our wounding. This plays right into the abuser's plans, and decreases the chance of receiving help and rescue. Below are some statistics for your consideration. These are just the reports of harm done. As you consider these facts, ask yourself: is there some sexual issue that I need to address in order to become whole, healed and able to experience a put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way?

• One in five girls report being solicited for sex on the Internet prior to age 18.
• 20% of U.S. men report being sexually abused prior to age 18.
• At least 20% of women and 12% of adolescent girls have experienced sexual assault or rape.
• More than one woman per minute are sexually assaulted per year in the United States.
• Close to 100,000 men are raped each year. (These are just the ones reported.)
• Two thirds of rape victims had a prior relationship to their offender.
• 70% of reported assaults are committed against victims 17 years or younger.
• Between 50 and 85% of American females will experience some form of sexual harassment during their lives.

Rape -- non-consensual sexual penetration obtained by force, threat, or during a time when the victim is incapable of giving consent (mental illness, developmentally delayed, or intoxication for example).

Sexual harassment -- when one person is treated as the object of another's sexual prerogative in the workplace.

If you or someone you love has experienced sexual abuse or harassment, they have suffered from betrayal. Could this be an area of past wounding that needs healing? If so, loving communities must seek to be a sanctuary for all who are suffering -- whether abused or abuser -- and hurting people must consider asking for help in their time of need. It's my prayer that you will find your place in God's story of redemption as God's people seek to be the kind of refuge that is restorative.

Recommended reading: 1 Samuel 22-24

- click on the word comments and join our conversation

© Copyright 2009 NorthStar Community

July 26

Scripture focus: So, since we're out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we're free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it's your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you've let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you've started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom! I'm using this freedom language because it's easy to picture. You can readily recall, can't you, how at one time the more you did just what you felt like doing—not caring about others, not caring about God—the worse your life became and the less freedom you had? And how much different is it now as you live in God's freedom, your lives healed and expansive in holiness? As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn't have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter. But do you call that a free life? What did you get out of it? Nothing you're proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end. Romans 6:15-21 (The Message)

I was telling my confidant and dear friend about all the things that I believe about myself that are negative –- and there is a long and nefarious list. On a bad day, even the thought that a different, healed and expansive life enveloped in holiness seems like a shaming thought.

Maybe that's why I love God's word so much, and appreciate knowing that God's grace not only saves but transforms.

I've learned that experiencing the emotion and belief of shame -- that feeling that I’m broken beyond repair, suitable for being called a long list of negative adjectives -- is more a form of arrogance than true humility.

It's also a stumbling block to transformation. If I can get stuck in the self-pity party of feeling "less than," then I certainly don't have time to explore my potential and embrace God's prevailing purposes as a roadmap for right living.

When I get specific about my self-seeking ways of how I have actually behaved in an uncaring manner toward God, self and others –- I create a list that illuminates the defects of character that I'm willing to acknowledge –- which frees me to invite God to have his way with me.

As our devotional days continue, we'll continue our discussion about specific examples of harming choices. It's my prayer that this may jog a memory, stir an insight or hasten a moment of clarity –- so that each of us can be more specific about how we have lived an unholy life. But we won't stop with the confession –- we will invite God to heal, redeem and restore to us the joy of our salvation.

Recommended reading: 1 Samuel 19-21

- click on the word comments and join our conversation

© Copyright 2009 NorthStar Community

July 25 - Name the dead end

Scripture focus: So, since we're out from under the old tyranny, does that mean we can live any old way we want? Since we're free in the freedom of God, can we do anything that comes to mind? Hardly. You know well enough from your own experience that there are some acts of so-called freedom that destroy freedom. Offer yourselves to sin, for instance, and it's your last free act. But offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits. All your lives you've let sin tell you what to do. But thank God you've started listening to a new master, one whose commands set you free to live openly in his freedom! I'm using this freedom language because it's easy to picture. You can readily recall, can't you, how at one time the more you did just what you felt like doing--not caring about others, not caring about God--the worse your life became and the less freedom you had? And how much different is it now as you live in God's freedom, your lives healed and expansive in holiness? As long as you did what you felt like doing, ignoring God, you didn't have to bother with right thinking or right living, or right anything for that matter. But do you call that a free life? What did you get out of it? Nothing you're proud of now. Where did it get you? A dead end. Romans 6:15-21 (The Message)

When we ask God to take control of our lives, we take a crucial step toward freedom. But that doesn't mean we automatically acquire all the skills, knowledge and discipline to live a free life. Our decision to trust God provides us with the capacity to experience freedom -- an act of grace and a gift from God to us. But the giving doesn't stop with that single act of acceptance. God continues to give us the grace to experience transformation. I've realized after years and years of studying the transformation process that sometimes we get stuck along the way. Sometimes we don't even know we're living in bondage to something -- so therefore, we aren't looking for a way out of our cage. Even though we suspect sometimes that our life experiences aren't the best, we may not have the necessary information to know that some things we call normal are definitely not normal nor are they healthy. One form of abuse that we might minimize or fail to recognize is sexual abuse. Any sexual activity that we engage in without consent is sexual abuse. It doesn't have to require a physical touch. It can be visual or verbal. Remember that children are never able to consent. It is never okay to expose a child to conversations that include sexual content -- even innuendo. It's not right for children to have access to any observation of sexual activity -- whether it is in print or video or person. When children are exposed to sexual content it has serious consequences. Most sexual abuse of children is perpetrated by a family member or someone known to the child. 80,000 of these cases are reported each year. But I must hasten to add. In my many years of hearing people's narratives of their own abuse, and I've heard plenty, I've never heard one single story where the abuse was ever reported. Can you believe that? Thousands and thousands of life-altering sexual encounters are never reported. Is it possible that you have either been abused or have abused someone? In order to be done with the old tyranny, this is an area where we must seek out help for healing.

Recommended reading: 1 Samuel 16-18

- click on the word comments and join our conversation

© Copyright 2009 NorthStar Community

July 24 - Life saving resurrection

Scripture focus: So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving? I should hope not! If we've left the country where sin is sovereign, how can we still live in our old house there? Or didn't you realize we packed up and left there for good? That is what happened in baptism. When we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind; when we came up out of the water, we entered into the new country of grace--a new life in a new land! That's what baptism into the life of Jesus means. When we are lowered into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus; when we are raised up out of the water, it is like the resurrection of Jesus. Each of us is raised into a light-filled world by our Father so that we can see where we're going in our new grace-sovereign country. Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life--no longer at sin's every beck and call! What we believe is this: If we get included in Christ's sin-conquering death, we also get included in his life-saving resurrection. We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the last word. When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings God down to us. From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That's what Jesus did. That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don't give it the time of day. Don't even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time--remember, you've been raised from the dead!--into God's way of doing things. Sin can't tell you how to live. After all, you're not living under that old tyranny any longer. You're living in the freedom of God. Romans 6:1-14 (The Message)

Wow -- this is good news -- sin can't tell us how to live once we've entered this new country of grace. Does that mean that we can just forget about all the betrayal and suffering that we have experienced in a life lived independently of God? Are we saying that once we're accepted into the kingdom of God we will no longer experience trials and tribulations on planet earth?

Life saving resurrection is not suggesting that there is no more need to acknowledge and ask for healing from our suffering. A new way of life brings with it the promise and potential for healing from our past hurts. We can fail to experience this rebirth, even though we are in fact reborn, if we don't learn how to trust God with ourselves -- the good, the bad and even the ugly.

More on things we need to acknowledge and ask for help with in tomorrow's devotional.

Recommended reading: 1 Samuel 13-15

- click on the word comments and join our conversation

© Copyright 2009 NorthStar Community

July 23 - Hope in the face of hardship

Scripture focus: You know the story of how Adam landed us in the dilemma we're in-- first sin, then death, and no one exempt from either sin or death. That sin disturbed relations with God in everything and everyone, but the extent of the disturbance was not clear until God spelled it out in detail to Moses. So death, this huge abyss separating us from God, dominated the landscape from Adam to Moses. Even those who didn't sin precisely as Adam did by disobeying a specific command of God still had to experience this termination of life, this separation from God. But Adam, who got us into this, also points ahead to the One who will get us out of it. Yet the rescuing gift is not exactly parallel to the death-dealing sin. If one man's sin put crowds of people at the dead-end abyss of separation from God, just think what God's gift poured through one man, Jesus Christ, will do! There's no comparison between that death-dealing sin and this generous, life-giving gift. The verdict on that one sin was the death sentence; the verdict on the many sins that followed was this wonderful life sentence. If death got the upper hand through one man's wrongdoing, can you imagine the breathtaking recovery life makes, sovereign life, in those who grasp with both hands this wildly extravagant life-gift, this grand setting-everything-right, that the one man Jesus Christ provides? Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it. But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life! One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one man said yes to God and put many in the right. All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn't, and doesn't, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it's sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that's the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life--a life that goes on and on and on, world without end. Romans 5:12-21 (The Message)

In the next few devotionals, we're going to talk about some very difficult subjects. These are designed to help us see the truth of our current situation with regards to sin. But before we go to this dark place, let us not forget that all sin can do is threaten us. Grace invites us into life.

The bottom line is this: at some point those of us who are suffering must make a decision about whether or not we are going to choose life. So I ask you -- on this day, what do you choose? To be defined by your hardships, or by the hope that Jesus did it right and got us out of a world of hurt?

Recommended reading: 1 Samuel 10-12

- click on the word comments and join our conversation

© Copyright 2009 NorthStar Community