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Face It and Get Up!

Guilt. Shame. Insignificant. Unworthy. Flat- out filthy.

Those words hit and they hit home hard. Every moment someone gets caught up in their flesh and stumble into things that they wish they would never have wanted to.

You know those things that make a person stumble and fall? I think we call it, uh-um (as we clear our voice) a mistake? I think we call it a slip- up? A poor decision?

COME ON PEOPLE! Let’s call it what it is. It is just some good ole SIN.

Say it 3x with me. Sin… sin… one last time…sin.

I am glad we got that out of our systems. Now we can begin to face it head on with absolutely no intention to turn and retreat.

Recently, I have been learning just how this thing called repentance really works and what amazing power is in the power of the cross.

HE HAS ALREADY WON THE VICTORY!

I have been challenged lately in my life to live at a level where abusing grace is not an option, but running after living whole in Jesus in every thing I do. I understand that I am human and things are going to come my way. Small, big, even devastating things, because I lose the sight of where I am supposed to be heading! I fall into my flesh. Grace is not a pass card, but a demand for us to strive for greater things.

(Side note: If you are in a drought of your faith go to the Hebrews 12:1-3 and read the message version. Nice little kick in the fanny)

Sin is real and it is what Jesus came to claim victory over through the most atrocious death of all time. However, sin is a moment for us to turn our dirt into a miracle.  The instant that realization takes place is the first step to true repentance.

I WANT TO FACE MY FAILURES HEAD ON AND NEVER LOOK BACK AT THEM.

The first step is coming clean. Facing the facts.  Calling sin a sin.

Followed by asking the Lord to heal and forgive. Declaring what happened was not what He desires for us.

Then, and this is so vitally important, we NEVER look back.  We never live there. We never stay there. We stand up!

Joshua 7:10 – “The Lord said to Joshua, ‘Stand up! What are you doing down on your face?”

Get up. Fight. Stand Strong. Live in His grace. Never look back.

Declare these words today.

I must admit that for some odd, grotesque, way I embrace films depicting the real deal blood and guts. Would I want to see my next door neighbor shot in the face, hell no! Would I rewind to watch the “Bear Jew” (10 sec clip) from Inglorious Bastards beat a Nazi soldier till his brains spray out of his skull like Buckingham Fountain: You better believe I would! But watch a young kid in a GSX-R 1000 run a red light at 60 mph and find himself underneath a semi truck: hell no!

Why would my brain look forward to the next Ridley Scott bloodbath and not a local mystery murder? Why do I watch so closely for edits in the film Expendables to locate how they made the knife blade decapitate a mans head? Weird, considering I have trouble taking the guts (ie, heart, liver) out of a chicken before tying it up and roasting.

Somehow I have become desensitized when it comes in the form of media. I can imagine it the same way when you ask people who have worked in the emergency room how they do it. How do you handle every day or night going into work knowing people will die? You will know some you can help and others you cannot. You will watch some scream in pain and others too far gone to grasp any pain.

Maybe that is how I imagine my visual taste in movies at times. I guess you see something enough, it becomes normal. You hear something enough and it becomes exchanged as the new norm. You hear people say, “Well, that is just the way it is now”. I guess it is the way it is but I still wonder how?

My brain tried to jump out of my skull as I watched doctors tactfully demonstrate abortions. Ya, that #### is heavy. This isn’t a post to cause some huge Pro-Life, Pro-Choice debate as much as it is a thought (Check out this post concerning Pro-Life, Pro-Choice debate in the NY Times). I mentioned a literal loss of sense concerning violent films. They have become a fascination. Literally, an exit wound fascination, but like I said; only on TV. You won’t be catching me looking up some alley way for the latest gunshot wound on the South Side of Chicago.

I’m not focusing on the reasons of why someone would not want to keep a child but instead the procedure. I’ll include a few videos below just because it is so bananas. Not sure how many of you have children, nephews, cousins, nieces, aunts or whatever you call them. It is a tough thought for me to have to watch a doctor hold the back of a child, insert a sharp enough object to puncture a hole in the base of their tiny, skull (watch video #3 below) and suck out their brains with a mini Dyson vacuum. That #### is crazy.

My thing was the violence on TV; but abortion is potentially (depending if you’re Pro-Choice or Pro-Life) real lives. You can check the reports of doctors vacuuming baby brains up in their mini Dyson’s while the baby’s heart is still pumping away. How does a sense become numb? Once numb can you retrain to feel again?

I’ll never know the feelings of a woman who feels she must eliminate a child but what I do know is how amazing a child is. I will never know what is is like to be raped and carry that rape for the rest of your life but I do know the decision can run around and become the greatest excitement in your life. I’ll never know how embarrassed, used, neglected, dejected, effed up, fearful, broke or lonely it is to carry a child but I do know there is the grace of God to cover and position your gift with divine influence.

What other elements of life have become numb and senseless?

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A behind the scenes look from a Father Pavone, advocate of Priests for Life.

by heesterbeek ineke

Location: Tinley Park, IL
Read Time: 4 minutes
Podcast: 32 minutes

I was caught recently by a podcast from Pastor Phil Pringle, founding pastor of Christian City Church, Oxford Falls, Sydney, Australia.  The discussion focused on the story concerning the woman caught in adultery – or the modern day Desperate Housewives.  The story wasn’t what grabbed me, but what he introduced were the historical facts concerning Christian martyrs.

Another random thought to chew on: have we allowed cheating to being ok and almost humorous?

During the first few hundreds years after Christ, there was heaps of persecution against Christians.  Many of them were publicly slaughtered at the Roman Collisseum and even burned on crosses for professing Christ.  Massive amounts of blood were spilled, skin burned, skulls crushed… simply because of their faith in someone other than Caesar.  Imagine watching the following films in sequence to get an idea of what kind of mutilation was taking place: 300, Braveheart, Gladiator, Rambo 1, 2, 3, and some bits of Goodfellas.  What we forget to mention is how many of these Christians decided to renounce Christ at the last moment before death.  I don’t think any one of us could possibly imagine the horrific images these people were seeing as followers of Christ.

Can you imagine these men and woman, who were being screamed at and beaten, all being told that all they had to do was renounce Christ and they could go home?  They could go home to their children, their husbands, wives, friends and family… all with a few simple words.  They needed only claim Caesar as God, and light a candle in worship; just like that – death would pass.  Well, this seemed so easy that many of the professed Christians renounced Christ. Many of them said the simple words, claimed Caesar as God and went home.  What they were not prepared for was the continued persecution – only this time – from those who said they loved them.

Many of these (almost) martyrs would head home, stricken with guilt and search to meet with their local church leaders. The pain, anguish and agony they must have felt from the pressures of life must have been soul shattering.  Once home and seeing their families – the mind torment they must have endured for forsaking Christ probably seemed unbearable.  What was worse was how many of them were persecuted by fellow followers of Christ for having renounced.  They had made a mistake and instead of grace, these people were doubly disgraced from those who they thought would love.

How do we treat the fallen?  How do we react to the broken and the weak in spirit?  Have a read at the text below.   I hope this is illumination for you, as it was for me.  Do we allow grace in our lives, and have we forgotten how much Christ loves us?

John 8:1-11: 1 Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, 2 but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. 3 As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd. 4 “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?” 6 They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. 7 They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” 8 Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust. 9 When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. 10 Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?” 11 “No, Lord,” she said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”