When we don't get what we want . . . Part II

Loved ones, I don't know how else to explain it, but Christianity that revolves around chicken dinners and church socials doesn't mean that much. I hope that by now, you understand that I am not shunning fellowships with other believers; but it was when Jesus saw that the crowds were showing up to fill there bellies, that He told them that they would have to eat His flesh and drink His blood. He offended them, and many of them stopped following Him. But the same is true for us today. What Christ is challenging them to do, is to take Him from the outside to the inside. When a man eats bread, the bread disappears; and even a small child understands that the bread goes from the outside of a man to the inside. That, loved ones, is where the nourishing begins. When we imbibe Christ, He nourishes us from inside. It is only, Christ on the inside, that transforms a man into a servant of the Most High God.

It is then, dear souls, in the worst of it, that Christ becomes life and peace; not when He is one of a dozen things that we fancy, but when we can't breathe with out Him, because with out Him we do not know how we will make it to the next day. It is when our lives are broken into pieces, that we experience God. What do I mean by that? Even a novice can sail with a light breeze, but it takes stormy seas to make a sailor: experience. How are you ever going to learn what it means for God to do exceedingly and abundantly above all that we ask or think in love, unless you are so broken that only God can help you?

What are you doing, Father, that you would allow me to be hurt this way? I'm making you more like Jesus.

Listen to me, dear ones, God is working in us to make us more like His precious Son. It is the greatest love, that this Father allows His children to be hurt, not to their ruin, but to their benefit. When Christ fed the 5,000, He didn't wink at His disciples and say watch this: He was moved with compassion for them; and then He said bring me what you have, then He blessed it and fed them all. Are you moved with compassion to help others? My father, on one of our drives together, told me, "Son, you don't love people in spite of their weakness; you love them because of it." Where else will that compassion come from, unless you become so intimately aware of your own helpless state? But, it is here, loved ones, that God can be seen working through you. Look at Peter's answer when Christ asked if they would leave Him as well, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God." Bless you all.