Warning this post isn’t for kids!
This was just going to be in two parts but it’s now going to be in 3 parts as I really want to concentrate today on a point I just touched on last time. I want to do this as I know sometimes I need this visualisation and I don’t want to sanitise it up like Christians are apt to do, so warning it’s more graphic than last time.
We read “while we were still sinners Christ died for us” and the verse is so well known we don’t stop and really think about what it means, how horrible sin is to God – so in the last entry I was trying to give an image that may stick – to insert ‘zombie’ instead of the word ‘sinners.’ We also sanitise what Jesus went through in the hours before he died and how horrific it was, but a lot of movies just have a clean white towel around his waist and a bit of sweat on him. When in reality he would be so disfigured, covered in blood from the crown of thorns and the loads of lashings he suffered on his body among many other things.
Yesterday we looked at the state of the non believer. Today I want to look at the unsanitised concept of dissatisfaction or slight envy Christians can have in looking at others.
“But God..” in his mercy, love and grace we are saved, born again. We are alive in Christ, we are no longer that zombie. We are no longer spiritually blind (2Corinthians 4:3-4) and we also begin to think differently as God works in us.(Romans 12:2) But sometimes we have hiccups and temptations along the road, so I want to give you an added practical thing to help today to get our eyes focused on God when it happens.
Previously I said about non Christians “No one would envy them, want what they have, they would see how pathetic and lost they really were.” I want to explore that more today as I think sometimes we don’t see them like that and sometimes think that their lives look good! - The actor in Hollywood with homes around the world and personal chefs, or the super rich that a million dollars would be pocket change to them.
You may think, “I’m not like that.” Great! But have you ever wished you could have what another Christian has? Ever thought, ‘I can’t have people around to my home as a lot of Christians in my church have lovely homes and I’m a bit ashamed of mine?’ Or ‘that Christian has a good job or can afford to go to luxury places for a holiday, why can’t I?’
I once saw a scene on TV of a deformed zombie, with skin falling off him, limbs deformed and broken, blood everywhere eating a cow. I had to stop watching it as it was so horrible. I hope by now you have stopped reading for a bit being really grossed out as that was the point. If it didn’t gross you out, take the scene or any other that you can think of and go further. Why? So when we start thinking like that, or are disappointed that we didn’t get that job promotion, raise etc, we can visualise putting on ‘spiritual’ glasses and see the thing we envy or wanted as that cow. Often it’s not even a material thing. Sometimes in those deeply disappointing moments the only thing that works quickly is something as shocking as that. So we can snap out of it quickly, turning to God. If we let weed seeds roam in our mind, they can take route and start pushing out the good things.
If you are walking closely with God, and God has said ‘no’ to you regards something, then be glad! God wants the best for you, and if you got that promotion or whatever you were envious of and it wasn’t the right timing or right for you at all, then it would be like that scene. It would have hurt you in some way. If it’s not in God’s plan for our lives, or we don’t trust God for where we are in life, then we are like that zombie – not as the living dead, but slowly destroying ourselves with desires and hunger after things that God has said no to. God may say yes to something later when it would be a blessing to us but we have to trust God when he says no, that it wouldn’t be good for us.
God has a plan for YOUR life, tailor made for you, perfect for you. Money, spouse etc there is nothing wrong with them, and can be a very good thing if God chooses to bless you with them. But if you hunger after it, wanting it more than God and even bypass God when he says no, then it will be very destructive.
Trust God He wants the best for you! (Jeremiah 29:11)
I know I need to see my sin, if I would give into temptation, as something as reviling as that zombie scene. As it is just like that to God. And when God says no, when I’m tempted to feel sorry for myself and start feeding myself ‘weed seeds’ in my mind and heart, I need to see that as destructive to me as that scene. I will never be that zombie as God has saved me, but I don’t want to act like that zombie again, do you?
This was just going to be in two parts but it’s now going to be in 3 parts as I really want to concentrate today on a point I just touched on last time. I want to do this as I know sometimes I need this visualisation and I don’t want to sanitise it up like Christians are apt to do, so warning it’s more graphic than last time.
We read “while we were still sinners Christ died for us” and the verse is so well known we don’t stop and really think about what it means, how horrible sin is to God – so in the last entry I was trying to give an image that may stick – to insert ‘zombie’ instead of the word ‘sinners.’ We also sanitise what Jesus went through in the hours before he died and how horrific it was, but a lot of movies just have a clean white towel around his waist and a bit of sweat on him. When in reality he would be so disfigured, covered in blood from the crown of thorns and the loads of lashings he suffered on his body among many other things.
Yesterday we looked at the state of the non believer. Today I want to look at the unsanitised concept of dissatisfaction or slight envy Christians can have in looking at others.
“But God..” in his mercy, love and grace we are saved, born again. We are alive in Christ, we are no longer that zombie. We are no longer spiritually blind (2Corinthians 4:3-4) and we also begin to think differently as God works in us.(Romans 12:2) But sometimes we have hiccups and temptations along the road, so I want to give you an added practical thing to help today to get our eyes focused on God when it happens.
Previously I said about non Christians “No one would envy them, want what they have, they would see how pathetic and lost they really were.” I want to explore that more today as I think sometimes we don’t see them like that and sometimes think that their lives look good! - The actor in Hollywood with homes around the world and personal chefs, or the super rich that a million dollars would be pocket change to them.
You may think, “I’m not like that.” Great! But have you ever wished you could have what another Christian has? Ever thought, ‘I can’t have people around to my home as a lot of Christians in my church have lovely homes and I’m a bit ashamed of mine?’ Or ‘that Christian has a good job or can afford to go to luxury places for a holiday, why can’t I?’
I once saw a scene on TV of a deformed zombie, with skin falling off him, limbs deformed and broken, blood everywhere eating a cow. I had to stop watching it as it was so horrible. I hope by now you have stopped reading for a bit being really grossed out as that was the point. If it didn’t gross you out, take the scene or any other that you can think of and go further. Why? So when we start thinking like that, or are disappointed that we didn’t get that job promotion, raise etc, we can visualise putting on ‘spiritual’ glasses and see the thing we envy or wanted as that cow. Often it’s not even a material thing. Sometimes in those deeply disappointing moments the only thing that works quickly is something as shocking as that. So we can snap out of it quickly, turning to God. If we let weed seeds roam in our mind, they can take route and start pushing out the good things.
If you are walking closely with God, and God has said ‘no’ to you regards something, then be glad! God wants the best for you, and if you got that promotion or whatever you were envious of and it wasn’t the right timing or right for you at all, then it would be like that scene. It would have hurt you in some way. If it’s not in God’s plan for our lives, or we don’t trust God for where we are in life, then we are like that zombie – not as the living dead, but slowly destroying ourselves with desires and hunger after things that God has said no to. God may say yes to something later when it would be a blessing to us but we have to trust God when he says no, that it wouldn’t be good for us.
God has a plan for YOUR life, tailor made for you, perfect for you. Money, spouse etc there is nothing wrong with them, and can be a very good thing if God chooses to bless you with them. But if you hunger after it, wanting it more than God and even bypass God when he says no, then it will be very destructive.
Trust God He wants the best for you! (Jeremiah 29:11)
I know I need to see my sin, if I would give into temptation, as something as reviling as that zombie scene. As it is just like that to God. And when God says no, when I’m tempted to feel sorry for myself and start feeding myself ‘weed seeds’ in my mind and heart, I need to see that as destructive to me as that scene. I will never be that zombie as God has saved me, but I don’t want to act like that zombie again, do you?
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