Fighting the good fight.

Find it hard to be a Christian sometimes? Just wish you could let go and let your sinful nature take rule? To be completely honest, I've felt this way before...on several occasions too.

I think people often forget that Christians are human. That sometimes we want revenge. Sometimes we want to see people hurt like like they hurt us. Sometimes we don't want the best for people. Sometimes we want to see them suffer. 

Just because we are Christians doesn't mean that automatically all the desires of the flesh just  disappear! No, it's a fight. It's hard work. When someone hurts you, I mean really hurts you, it's hard at times to react in love. A lot of times our first reaction is to hurt them back...but to hurt them much worse. Those are characters of the flesh, things that come naturally to us and we, as Christians, have to work hard to overcome them and on our own, it's just not possible.

Jesus says we are to love our enemies. To pray for those who hurt us. To forgive. 

Forgiving is hard. We want to hold on to our grudges. We want to put them in jars and set them on the shelf and show everyone "See! See! This is how you hurt me. This is what you did to me." And the thought of forgiving someone sometimes makes us feel as though we are letting them get away with what they did. Like, if we don't forgive them then they would really be miserable and maybe hurt like they hurt us. But the truth is, the only person we hurt by not forgiving is ourselves. 

Jesus says to forgive as He has forgiven us and that if we don't forgive others then our Father wont forgive us. 

I've heard it said "I just can't forgive. This is too big. Too deep. Too hurtful" I'm here to tell you that no matter the hurt, no matter how deep the wound, no matter how hard the fall, forgiveness is something you CAN do. Why? Because Jesus would never, NEVER tell us to do something that isn't possible for us to achieve.

Can you do it alone? No. You need God's help. Will it happen instantly? Probably not. Does it mean you'll forget what happened? Nope. Will the pain go away instantly? Not always. But, when you forgive it's like you're cutting the chains that have been holding you down and you stand up and get back up. You're now free and now God can move in your life like never before. There is no unforgiveness taking up the space in your life so that leaves more room for God, more room for His healing love.

You know the Bible refers to our Christian life as a battle - 'fighting the good fight of faith. - So keep on fighting today and in Christ and in Him alone, victory is found. You can win.

Maybe...

Ever been at that place where you start to believe all the bad things people say about you? That maybe you are that horrible. Maybe you are fake. Maybe you only care about yourself. Maybe you are worthless. Maybe everyone would be better without you. Maybe....

If you're there I know how you feel, I so know how you feel.

All the bad things people say about us can really have an affect on us, even if they aren't true and we know it....well, especially if they aren't true. What people think about us often times really influences what we think about ourselves. We care about the opinions of other people and so many times we will try and change who we are to make others happy. Why do we do this? We want to be liked, loved, accepted and wanted. Every human craves those things and we search for them among other people when really where we should be looking is to Jesus.

I recently watched a show and they said something that really struck me -

"God made us and when we know what He thinks of us and how He sees us it doesn't matter what anyone else says."

Do you know what God thinks of you? He thinks you're beautiful, precious, a priceless treasure worth more than life.

But sometimes still with the knowledge of what God thinks about us, we find ourselves falling back into the trap of letting what others think about us affect what we think about us. That's when we really need to remember that the only opinion that matters is God's. He loves you for you. Not for what others say you are, but for what He knows you are.  He loves you no matter what.