Hi everyone!
First off, thanks for your patience whilst I took the time away from my blog, I needed that break more than I would probably care to admit. Yes, it was longer than I anticipated to be away from blogging, but that's just the way it goes sometimes; you realise that you need more space than you thought you needed at the time.
Anyway, I'm back now so whilst the quantity might drop over the next few weeks, aside from my weekly series celebrating classical music, I want to aim for the quality to remain the same as it was before I took my break...
Two Months Away and Still Going Strong
Yes, I took two months as opposed to my anticipated one month, but that's what happens sometimes when you realise that so much dedication, applied over such a small space (my blog in this case), can actually begin to have detrimental effects to your psyche.
In my case, as long-time readers know, as someone who regularly struggles with the dragon of depression, it meant stepping back from my commitments here to focus on making personal progress in my walk with Jesus.
Depression doesn't define me. Who God says I am is what defines me.
Sometimes I forget that. Know what I mean?
Sometimes, when the clouds set in and the first rumbles of depressive thunder roll, I lose sight of my Saviour. But you know what I do during those times, as the skies darken and everything seems to lose its sheen? I remind myself that God is still there (Psalm 46:1), even if the clouds cover my perception of Him.
God is like the sunshine of my life; always shining, but I'm not always quick enough to pick up on when and where He shines. Yet still I know He does, simply because of who He says He is (John 8:12).
Focusing on John chapter 8 for a little while, we see that a woman caught in the act of adultery is brought before Jesus to see if He could be trapped into condemning her, just as the law of the land said she should be condemned.
Focus on God's Glory, Not Your Sin
Instead of picking up the proverbial magnifying glass to take a closer look and focus upon this woman's sin, for the act of adultery is just that, Jesus flips it around and simply asks those who were without sin to be the first to pick up a stone to throw at her.
Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.John 8:5-7 (KJV)
Do you see what Jesus did there?
In saying that he who was without sin could be first to cast a stone, He was in actual fact talking of Himself as Jesus took no part in sin, yet knew that those gathered around certainly did. If anything, He was reserving the right to condemn her. Yet a mere 4 verses later refused to condemn her Himself having seen those do the same by walking away. Yes, their refusal to condemn her was a clear recognition of the hypocrisy an act like that would be upon them, but Jesus' refusal to condemn her was because it was the right thing to do!
He took the focus of the people off the woman's sin, and shone it back upon those who were her accusers. This was not done, I believe, to make them feel guilty, but to remind them that there walked no man, apart from Jesus, who hadn't sinned in the eyes of God.
This is where my battle gets personal because the more I focus on my sins and upon my mistakes I am making the gospel of Christ of no effect, just like Paul said in Hebrews 6. Here he's reminding those he's writing to of the sheer futility of abandoning the Gospel they once believed as it would be akin to crucifying Jesus all over again (Hebrews 6:6) when, further into God's Word, we are told in 1 Peter 3:18 that it's been done once for all.
In other words, my greatest challenge comes, in those depressive seasons, in keeping my eyes upon Jesus, the Author and Perfector of my faith (Hebrews 12:2). It gets harder the darker that it gets, but sometimes, as Jefferson Bethke once said in one of his videos, it takes the darkness for God's glory to be truly seen: -
Coming back to the book of John and at this point, having their consciences pricked, each of her accusers left her as they were reminded that they too had sinned at one point or another so would be wielding hypocrisy as a weapon rather than the grace of God.
So, in being more aware of their sin, they actually realised that they too were guilty in the eyes of God, when if they truly knew who stood amongst them, they would see that where God once saw judgement and condemnation over sin, He would soon see His Son's blood covering all the sins of all of the world.
God is still good, even when people aren't!
That's a hard pill to swallow because there truly are heinous crimes committed out there every single day and I'm not trying to diminish their effect upon the people they happen to. The simple observation I'm making here is that none of us are completely innocent before God when we have all sinned. Sin is still sin, no matter the apparent weight or size of it. But it is not about maintaining our focus upon our guilt; it's about switching our focus to the redemptive sacrifice of Jesus at the cross. This way we can begin to understand the magnitude of His sacrifice and thus what a great covering we have in the Name of Jesus and of His precious blood: -
Final Thought
I hope that you can see the distinction that I am trying to make here because I have been on a really bumpy road and it is my Bible and my relationship with Jesus that has kept me going even if parts of my life have had to be burnt away. In fact I'm like a phoenix rising from the flames caused by the ashes of the past burning up around me.
It had to be burnt up to help me to see, by those very flames that I thought were bringing destruction when they came, that God's glory is still all around me, even when I cannot see it!
Until next time...
Peace!
===TLP===
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