Don't Fight The Tears!!

I read this today on Our Daily Bread and felt that I needed to share it. We all have emotions and sometimes we all feel bad for showing them. Should we really feel bad for that though??

Jesus groaned in the spirit and was troubled. —John 11:33

My friend was making a major change in her life—she was leaving her employer of 50 years for a new venture. She cried when she said her goodbyes. And as she did, she frequently said, “Sorry about the tears.”

Why do we sometimes feel the need to apologize for crying? Perhaps we look at tears as showing a weakness in our character or a vulnerability we don’t like. Maybe we’re uncomfortable or think our tears are making others uncomfortable.

Our emotions, however, are God-given. They’re a characteristic of our having been made in God’s image (Gen. 1:27). He grieves. In Genesis 6:6-7, He was sorrowful and angry about His people’s sin and the separation it caused between Him and them. Jesus, God in the flesh, joined His friends Mary and Martha in grieving over the loss of their brother Lazarus (John 11:28-44). “He groaned in the spirit and was troubled” (v.33). He “wept” (v.35). “Jesus, again groaning in Himself, came to the tomb” (v.38). I doubt that He apologized.

Someday when we get to heaven, there will be no more sorrow or separation or pain, and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes (Rev. 21:4). In the meantime, the tears may flow. No apologies needed. — Anne Cetas

He knows our burdens and our crosses,
Those things that hurt, our trials and losses,
He cares for every soul that cries,
God wipes the tears from weeping eyes. —Brandt

If you doubt that Jesus cares, remember His tears.

Love in Christ,
Cindy

Emotional Madness!

Sorry that I have not been posting much lately. My son has been ill but thank God he is all better now. I felt the need to share the Got Questions of the week. We all have trouble controlling our emotions sometimes, so what does God have to say about that??? Read on to find out!

Question: "What does the Bible say about managing/controlling emotions?"

Answer: What would humans be like if we never became emotional? Perhaps we would be like “Mr. Spock” on Star Trek, as his responses to all situations seem to be purely logical, never emotional. But God created us in His image and God’s emotions are revealed in the Scriptures; therefore God created us emotional beings. We feel love, joy, happiness, guilt, anger, disappointment, and fear, and sometimes these can be “false” feelings if they are based upon false premises. For example, if we falsely believe that God is not in control of the circumstances of our lives, we may experience the emotions of fear or despair or anger based on that false belief. True or not, emotions are very powerful and real to the one feeling them.

The Bible has much to say about the emotions we experience. Our emotions, like our minds and bodies, are influenced greatly by the fall of man into sin. As such, they are tainted by our sin natures. For the Christian, however, the Spirit of God who resides within us is capable of controlling our emotions and not allowing them to control us (Romans 8:9-11). From within believers, He directs, guides, comforts, and influences us, as well as producing in us the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). The emotions we experience are then His emotions, produced in us so that we exhibit the benefits of His presence in our hearts—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Out-of-control emotions are the product of a heart which is not saturated with Scripture. The way to control our emotions is to control our minds, renewing them by the daily input of scriptural principles, the knowledge of God, and meditation on His attributes. Then the Holy Spirit, along with the Word of God, will bring about appropriate emotions based on truth. When we immerse ourselves in the only means of our sanctification—the Bible—we arm ourselves with the only effective weapon against out-of-control emotions. Then we can control our emotions instead of them controlling us. In themselves, emotions are not unbiblical, but they are indications of what is in our hearts (Luke 6:45).

Map of America

Just had to share!!

A father wanted to read a magazine but was being bothered by his little girl, Shelby. She wanted to know what the United States looked like. Finally, he tore a sheet out of his new magazine on which was printed the map of the country. Tearing it into small pieces, he gave it to Shelby and said, 'Go into the other room and see if you can put this together. This will show you our whole country today..'

After a few minutes, Shelby returned and handed him the map, correctly fitted and taped together. The father was surprised and asked how she had finished so quickly. 'Oh,' she said, 'on the other side of the paper is a picture of Jesus. When I got all of Jesus back where He belonged, then our country just came together.'

Purifier of Silver

I received this by email today and felt the need to share it with you all.

Malachi 3:3 says: 'He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.'

This verse puzzled some women in a Bible study and they wondered what this statement meant about the character and nature of God.

One of the women offered to find out the process of refining silver and get back to the group at their next Bible Study.

That week, the woman called a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him at work. She didn't mention anything about the reason for her interest beyond her curiosity about the process of refining Silver.

As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest as to burn away all the impurities

The woman thought about God holding us in such a hot spot; then she thought again about the verse that says: 'He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver.' She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined.

The man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver was left a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed..

The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, 'How do you know when the silver is fully refined?'

He smiled at her and answered, 'Oh, that's easy -- when I see my image in it.'

If today you are feeling the heat of the fire , remember that God has his eye on you and will keep watching you until He sees His image in you..

My Thoughts: This is so true, we just need to know that no matter how hot (bad) things get for us, God is always there He is ALWAYS watching over us and will NEVER give us more than we can handle. He will see us through it all and we will grow in our relationship with Him through hard times! So, just hang on to that and know that no matter what you are going through, God is on your side and He is watching over your every move!

With Love in Christ,
Cindy

Evil . . . Did God Create It?

So many people "blame" God for evil. Since God created everything, he must have created evil as well, Right? Well that is not correct and this weeks Got Questions question of the week explains it all very well. So, I would like to share their answer with everyone. I pray that this will help clear this question up for those who might believe that it is "God's fault" we have evil in this world.

Question: "Did God create evil?"

Answer: At first it might seem that if God created all things, then evil must have been created by God. However, evil is not a “thing” like a rock or electricity. You cannot have a jar of evil. Evil has no existence of its own; it is really the absence of good. For example, holes are real but they only exist in something else. We call the absence of dirt a hole, but it cannot be separated from the dirt. So when God created, it is true that all He created was good. One of the good things God made was creatures who had the freedom to choose good. In order to have a real choice, God had to allow there to be something besides good to choose. So, God allowed these free angels and humans to choose good or reject good (evil). When a bad relationship exists between two good things we call that evil, but it does not become a “thing” that required God to create it.

Perhaps a further illustration will help. If a person is asked, “Does cold exist?” the answer would likely be “yes.” However, this is incorrect. Cold does not exist. Cold is the absence of heat. Similarly, darkness does not exist; it is the absence of light. Evil is the absence of good, or better, evil is the absence of God. God did not have to create evil, but rather only allow for the absence of good.

God did not create evil, but He does allow evil. If God had not allowed for the possibility of evil, both mankind and angels would be serving God out of obligation, not choice. He did not want “robots” that simply did what He wanted them to do because of their “programming.” God allowed for the possibility of evil so that we could genuinely have a free will and choose whether or not we wanted to serve Him.

As finite human beings, we can never fully understand an infinite God (Romans 11:33-34). Sometimes we think we understand why God is doing something, only to find out later that it was for a different purpose than we originally thought. God looks at things from a holy, eternal perspective. We look at things from a sinful, earthly, and temporal perspective. Why did God put man on earth knowing that Adam and Eve would sin and therefore bring evil, death, and suffering on all mankind? Why didn’t He just create us all and leave us in heaven where we would be perfect and without suffering? These questions cannot be adequately answered this side of eternity. What we can know is whatever God does is holy and perfect and ultimately will glorify Him. God allowed for the possibility of evil in order to give us a true choice in regards to whether we worship Him. God did not create evil, but He allowed it. If He had not allowed evil, we would be worshiping Him out of obligation, not by a choice of our own will.

Love in Christ,
Cindy Mae