Keep Calm And Praise On

1 John 3:5 And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin.

In Him there is no sin and you are in Him.

That is why your sin was removed from you, cut off and discarded as far as the east is from the west, for you cannot identify yourself with both sin and Christ at the same time. That’s like trying to be completely wet and completely dry at the same time.

Anything you do now (now that you are in Christ) that resembles sin, is you acting contrary to your true self, your new nature. It’s choosing to live as a pauper knowing full well you have been made a king.

If you have lived as a pauper for many long years, getting adjusted and used to now being a king can also take some time. All who now believe were paupers once, but paupers you remain no longer. You have been made kings.

God knows that renewing your mind to this royal fact takes time, that there will be gains and losses, there will be victories and setbacks, that some things will be harder to let go of than others.

For that and other reasons we have been given the Holy Spirit who will guide us into all truth. Who will help us along the way, who will encourage us, build us up and empower us.

Sometimes renewing the mind will cause a lot of emotions inside us. It often causes us to be angry. Angry with God, angry with others, angry with ourselves. Especially when a certain area seems more difficult to renew. We get frustrated and think we will never be able to get our minds renewed in that area.

We make good progress and suddenly suffer a setback and immediately the accuser is there to show us that we have failed, that all we were working towards is now vain and useless. We feel like we have failed God, failed ourselves are nothing more than failures. We start to think like paupers.

For a moment we indulge these false feelings of failures as we revert back to our old pauper ways. We start to live again resembling the old, yet all the while we are still new. Throughout all this, our Father never leaves us. His voice is ever in our hearts saying ‘You are My beloved.’

His goodness ever draws us back, and the King of kings comes and picks us out of the dirt again. “You are a king my son, and dirt is no place for you. Come, let me show you. Come and rest again.” He cleans us off and dresses us again. Sorrow is exchanged for joy, ashes for beautify.

The things of the pauper world once again grow old as we embrace the all consuming love poured out unrestrained and we wonder why we ever desired it in the first place.

You are likely struggling with some sort of pauperish issue in some area of your life. I know I am. I want to encourage both you and myself by saying it is ok to struggle, because struggling shows you actually believe that this is not meant for you. You know dirt is not meant for you.

I have found that the best way to overcome a struggle is to rest. I stop trying and I just rest in the love of the Father. I let His love wash over me. I do this because somehow during the struggle I started to feel so utterly unworthy of His love. Once I rest and just look in His eyes I realize again that His love for me never diminished or wavered. In that moment a divine ‘NO!’ burst forth from my innermost being and peace floods my life again. NO to ungodliness. NO to the lusts of the old pauper world. (Titus 2:11-12)

Wherever and whatever you are struggling with, there is always hope, there is always love, there is always grace, there is always acceptance, there is always rest. Keep calm and praise on.

Cornel