Welcome to another Thursday UNFILTERED blog post, the only blog that believes the inventor of pop rocks thought to himself, “Sugar isn’t good enough. It also needs to detonate.”
We’ve all been there. You’re trying to stay tight with the Lord, but lately it feels like He’s blowing you off harder than your senile uncle at the family reunion.
What gives?
Well, here’s the deal. The solution is NOT to go AWOL on Jesus. Ignoring Him or going practical atheist isn’t going to fix the problem.
The move is to act like Jesus is right there with you, even if you can’t sense His presence.
Why? Because He IS with you as well as within you. Always.
Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
~ Hebrews 13:5
This is called faith, folks. You can’t see or feel Him, but you know He said He’d always be around and never leave you (and He’s not a liar). So you live accordingly.
As the Scripture says,
You can’t please God without faith because the one who comes to Him must believe that he exists and He rewards those who diligently seek Him.
~ Hebrews 11:6
The truth is, there are a number of things you can do to live in His conscious presence, apart from feelings, senses, or emotions. (Check out my conference message, Living in the Conscious Presence of God, for some practical hand rails on this.)
Now, if you’ve been tolerating some shoddy behavior, getting tighter with God means taking that sin out behind the woodshed. (This is what the Bible calls “repentance.”)
You’ve got to purge that nonsense from your life with the Holy Spirit’s aid.
James lays it out perfectly:
Draw close to God, and He will draw close to you … You sinners, get your hands clean again. You double-minded people, purify your hearts … Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up.
~ James 4:8-10
But even if you’re living as squeaky clean as a hand model, the Lord’s felt-absence is par for the course (just as His felt-presence is. Both aren’t permanent states).
The bottom line?
When Jesus seems MIA, don’t ghost Him back. Lean into Him by faith, ditch the sins that might be weighing you down (as well as the weights that aren’t sinful), and watch how fast things turn around.
Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us …
~ Hebrews 12:1
Until next Thursday,
fv
The Unapologetic God of Newness