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Left to Our Own Devices

When left to our own devices (meaning left separate from and ignorant of God and the truth of His design) every human is prone (not guaranteed) to the following, which are all based out of selfishness:
Hate
Division
Racism
Promiscuity
Self Righteousness
Homosexuality
etc.

The only qualification to this is that all of us can be presented with temptation for every vice, but there are only certain ones that are effective on each individual.

None of these things are rooted in truth, revealing man’s inability and lack of desire to submit to truth.

Romans 8:7 (AMP) says this, “The mind of the flesh [with its sinful pursuits] is actively hostile to God (and truth). It does not submit itself to God’s law since it cannot..”

The truth is always countercultural in some way or another. That’s just the way it is! Man is inconsistent and our hearts & minds are deceitfully wicked. I don’t even have to tell you this, you already know it!

Because of this, ANYTHING inconsistent with objective reality, our origin, or our purpose must be addressed and corrected if we want to walk in truth. Whether we like it or not. Whether it feels good or not. The truth can be hard to handle sometimes, but it’s worth fighting for!

To denounce every item on that list is to be aware of man’s complete rebellion towards truth. Lies can enrage or delight depending on the lie. Truth and deception are both double edged swords and the fight between them is a war! And only one side can and will win. The truth always marches on! It always has and it always will for it is in its very nature to win. What is right cannot be wrong, therefore it cannot lose. Now you can argue all day long about what is true, but only the truth knows what is true. We can only find it, we do not create it. There must be an authority on what is true and that authority only makes sense to be the Creator. God.

In fact, God is Truth itself. He manifested all things, nothing is true apart from him! What He has to say about what He has done is what goes. Lest you “find a loophole” about God lying, look at Numbers 23:19, “God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken and will He not make it good and fulfill it?” Truth can’t lie because God can’t lie.

Jesus even says in John 14:6, “I am The Way and The Truth and The Life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”

The truth is love as well since God is love. Truth is both loving and holy. You cannot separate the two. Nuance and complexity abound, are you brave enough to seek out the full truth?‬

“This is the judgment [that is, the cause for indictment, the test by which people are judged, the basis for the sentence]: the Light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For every wrongdoer hates the Light, and does not come to the Light [but shrinks from it] for fear that his [sinful, worthless] activities will be exposed and condemned. But whoever practices truth [and does what is right–morally, ethically, spiritually] comes to the Light, so that his works may be plainly shown to be what they are–accomplished in God [divinely prompted, done with God’s help, in dependence on Him].”‭‭ – John‬ ‭3:19-21‬ (AMP)

Only in God’s strength do we walk in the Light of Truth.

Contentment is Bliss

As I’ve been lending my ear to the Lord lately I’ve been hearing Him say “you need to be content to walk well with Me. Contentment is key to the faithfulness of your faith.” It’s actually something He’s been telling me for quite a while, like we’re talking years on end. And it’s the one thing I am constantly needing Him to remind me of. And I think I always will.

In particular, the Lord has recently been teaching me the need to be content through the The Blessing of Ordinary devotional plan on the YouVersion Bible App (a plan put together by Matt Orth, whose website can be found at lesswithoutyou.com). And as I’ve been reading through it, it has corresponded with and deepened some revelations I’ve been having about contentment. So I’d like to share with you what I’ve been discovering.

In The Blessing of Ordinary it has been discussed that Adam and Eve had perfect harmony with God in the midst of what would seem to be entirely unspectacular. This blissful life was enjoyed primarily through the simple menial tasks of tending the garden and taking care of the animals. The everyday was EVERYTHING. And that’s how it’s got be for us too, we may not like that, but we save ourselves an awful lot of wasted time and hurt when we choose to live according to this truth.

The devotions have also discussed that David only defeated Goliath because he was consistently faithful wherever God placed him. He was able and in the right mind of faith to enter that battle because he was joyfully committed to his food delivery duties. This is actually far more impressive because on paper that job is by no means enjoyable and the earthly accolades for it are somewhere in the none range! These regular daily routines are what most of life consists of for everyone, including those the likes of David. In the middle of each one we have the opportunity to decide whether we face them in either a Christ-like or despairing manner. These are the places and times where we receive more of God’s precious grace than anywhere else because this is where we need it most! It is here where Jesus reminds us that He is all we need and we have all we need in all things since, after all, we have Him!

We must learn to accept the reality of our own life. Each one of us. Own what is real in our personal circumstances, recognize what is necessary and available, and roll with it by leaning on the Lord. This is what it means to be content. To trust God in the current context that you happen to find yourself in. There is true liberty in our lives only when we have some sort of grasp on this. It is so much easier to have a confident reliance on the Savior when we believe we are right where we need to be and have all we require in order to do what we need to do! What I think the trick is (a difficult trick at that) is to do your best to ensure that you don’t desire what is outside your current means. That is in all categories of life: financial, physical, romantic, emotional, experiential, you name it. It’s all good and fine to aspire to “something more”, the problem is when you desire to the point of obsession, scrambling frantically to get something that isn’t even in your reach.

While we’re at it, let me tell you why I think it’s most important for us to choose contentment. And I doubt it will be why you’re thinking. Obviously there are plenty of benefits to being content, like: a peace that passes understanding, an unending joy, long-suffering patience, and a desire to give of yourself. And don’t get me wrong, those things are pretty great, like pretty the best! But what I actually find even more beneficial than those things is what contentment takes away from us, or rather, keeps us from. The thing is, when we are content it prevents us from taking out our irrational frustrations on the ones we love because we realize we don’t need more than we have and therefore have no reason for the frustrations in the first place.

When we are content it prevents us from cheating in competitions and financially because it is no longer necessary to claw our way to the top in order to get what we want. When we are content we do not curse our God or our sufferings, because we can afford to trust that all things will work out for good. When we are content it prevents us from lusting after what is not rightfully ours because we believe that we’ve already received what we require.. and I could literally go on forever with more examples. But to summarize, let’s be honest, we can all point to several times in our lives where we have lashed out or acted up only because (realizing this much later of course) we were unable to obtain something that we achingly desired. This type of failed contentment only ever leaves us in a world of pain and it’s something we all want to avoid.

Believe it or not, I actually have some Biblical support for this idea, and it’s found in James chapter 4. The first two verses say this, “What leads to strife and how do conflicts originate among you? Do they not arise from your sensual desires that are ever warring in your bodily members? You are jealous and covet and your desires go unfulfilled; so you become murderers. You burn with envy and anger and are not able to obtain the gratification and happiness that you seek, so you fight and war.” So there’s that, basically all of the world’s struggles stem from a lack of contentment. I’d say it’s something worth chasing after!

By the way, don’t take any of this as me claiming to have some magical formula to achieve being content, because I just don’t. Like at all. Seriously. In the middle of my struggles both related and unrelated to having Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, by no means have I reached a level anywhere near to maximum contentment! It is exponentially hard to even begin to reach that destination! Jesus is the only one to ever do it and if we want to get remotely close, we are only going to be able to do so by relying on Him. And I’m still not entirely sure how that looks, but I’m certainly going to aim for it. Maybe you ought to do the same!

So, yeah, contentment is bliss. The path to contentment won’t always be though. Nonetheless, the pursuit will always be worth it! So pursue being content!

Our Disorders DON’T Define Us

This is the perspective on Bruce Jenner (I can’t bring myself to call him Caitlyn and you’ll soon understand why) that I believe our world is in need of.

But let’s not just make this all about Bruce or transgenders, but instead about ALL of us. And so I’ll start with me, and then we’ll look at Bruce.

I prefer to not have muscular dystrophy, yet I have muscular dystrophy. Whether I believe I do not have muscular dystrophy, (and even claim Christ’s promise of healing as true) the fact is I have muscular dystrophy. I can lie myself into a delusion that I don’t have muscular dystrophy and in this current moment I would still have muscular dystrophy. Only a miracle of God could change those genetics, not any act of man’s pretense.

Bruce prefers to be a woman, yet he is a man. Whether he believes he is a woman, the fact is he’s a man. He can lie himself into a delusion that he is a woman and in this current moment he would still be a man. Only a miracle of God could change those genetics, not any act of man’s pretense.

Now there is a difference, a difference in what God’s first and final will was and is in each situation. God intended for me to not have muscular dystrophy, but I have muscular dystrophy. God intended for Bruce to be a man, but he feels like a woman. Or perhaps…
God intended for Bruce to not have gender dysphoria, but he has gender dysphoria…
hmm interesting.

I very well could sit here and let you know that what Bruce is doing is attempting to rewrite reality, which he is, and I’ve kinda made that point, but I won’t because you’ve already heard that from enough people in enough various arrangements of words. I agree with it, but that perspective has been adequately covered. I won’t beat that one in anymore because it’s so simple you either get it or you don’t. And forgive me if it irks, but you must be believing a lie if you can’t understand that argument; we can save that for another day though.

So, hey… let’s revamp this!

I prefer to not have muscular dystrophy, yet I have muscular dystrophy. Whether I believe I do not have muscular dystrophy, (and even claim Christ’s promise of healing as true) the fact is I have muscular dystrophy. I can lie myself into a delusion that I don’t have muscular dystrophy and in this current moment I would still have muscular dystrophy. Only a miracle of God could change those genetics, not any act of man’s pretense.

Bruce may prefer to not have gender dysphoria, yet he would still have gender dysphoria. Whether he believes he does not have gender dysphoria, (and even claims Christ’s promise of healing as true) the fact is he would still have gender dysphoria. He can lie himself into a delusion that he doesn’t have gender dysphoria and in this current moment he would still have gender dysphoria. Only a miracle of God could change those genetics, not any act of man’s pretense.

Don’t you see? Bruce and I both have our disorders, but God didn’t purpose that either of us would. That’s how far the fall of man beginning with Adam and Eve reaches. It resulted in us all having the spiritual disorder of sin, but it also resulted in death and every single genetic, physical, mental, and emotional disorder we are witness to as well.

(Sidebar: there are some forms of spiritual disorder that closely resemble some “physical” disorders. For example, the mental disorder of depression is separate from the sin of depression. You can behave depressed and still not be diagnosed with clinical depression. Likewise you can participate in homosexual activity and still not have gender dysphoria. Just a thing to consider.)

Got it? Our sins, mutations, and disorders all spring from our original disobedience toward God. None of that junk is of Him and His will! In fact that is entirely the evil, destructive will of Satan, Prince of Lies. Get that up outta here!

When you believe in Jesus as the Son of God and claim His shed blood for the forgiveness of your sins, no longer are you defined by your sins. Really you aren’t defined at all by your sins unless you choose to be, because, again, it never was God’s will for you to even know sin.

In just the same way, knowing the rest of the Messiah’s gracious promises, claiming Christ’s wounds as your source of physical, mental, and emotional healing leaves you no longer defined by your disorders and diseases. And as to ensure I’ve been clear enough, you were never really defined at all by those disorders, unless you choose to be, because His plan for you is and has been apart from them.

I believe God that for myself and Bruce (and the rest of the world) Jesus Christ died for and covers our sins if only we trust and believe. I also entirely believe that in God’s timing and power, through faith in Messiah, both of us can and will be fully healed by His wounds and are intrinsically what He purposed us to be.

We are not defined by our disorders and we never will be! That is what the voice of truth is crying out to all of us. Don’t believe the lie, don’t become and call yourself what you never were meant for!

Is not, perhaps, that far more courageous?! It’s always been courageous to choose the truth, not to choose a lie!

If anyone ever congratulated me on my muscular dystrophy and assured me that I am what it says I am I would stay far away from them and never listen to any of their advice. And that’s just what the majority of the media and world is doing to Bruce Jenner. They are congratulating him on his gender dysphoria and assuring him that he is indeed what it says he is.

Now before I get accused of comparing apples to oranges, let me say this: By no means are Bruce and my, or anyone else’s for that matter, situations exactly the same. They are actually far more different than I could ever describe or imagine, but the truth to be applied is still the same. I feel for Bruce as I feel for myself and anyone else dealing with any genetic disorder. None of us are the same, but we can’t afford to lie to each other. Those who believe a lie will lie until everyone else believes it.

OUR DISORDERS DON’T DEFINE US!

OUR FLAWS DON’T DEFINE US!

OUR SINS DON’T DEFINE US!