May we never tire of doing what is good and right before our Lord because in His season we shall bring in a great harvest if we can just persist. Galatians 6:9 The Voice
A Season Of Hard Challenges
This is an offense ridden time. We face hard challenges in our walk of faith, in our journey with God, on the side of His truth. One of these is compassion fatigue which punches us in our gut and takes the air out of our spirit and the other is to diligently guard our heart from the bitterness of offense. We need a hard love to guard our hearts with diligence, because this is where our life issues flow out of and we need to maintain an atmosphere in our hearts of the purity of truth and love.
Then he asked them, “Who do you think I am?” Simon Peter answered, “The Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” “God has blessed you, Simon, son of Jonah,” Jesus said, “for my Father in heaven has personally revealed this to you—this is not from any human source. 1You are Peter, a stone; and upon this rock I will build my church; and all the powers of hell shall not prevail against it. Matthew 16:15-18 Living Bible
A Season Of Hateful Stereotyping
Offense picked up leads to a hate ridden spirit, pressing forward in typical human dysfunction as our human condition lashes out with horrendous labels, name calling with exaggerated stereotyping of others which inflicts personal reputation damage that is hard to repair. The worst part is, they have no actual proof, and don’t truly know the heart and life of the one they have accused. Common sense takes a back seat when hatred is driving a life. An example being how the mediatic frenzy of false narrative, the stereotyping of Republican Senators, led to an almost massacre of them. God intervened. Forgiveness happened, a hard love arose out of a difficult life challenge such as this. Hate begets hate, a hard love stops the hate cycle.
Let your roots grow down into Him, and let your lives be built on Him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness. Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world, rather than from Christ. For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body. Colossians 2:7-9 New Living Translation
A Season Of Soul-Sick Violence
Life is not easy in times such as these as hurting people, hurt people. Soul sick people recklessly, unjustly and irresponsibly defame other people, denigrating their reputation for some ill-gotten cause, caring nothing of the consequence. Sin ridden souls use false narratives propped up by assumptive-speculative lies, to crutch up their fake ideology with lawless violence. The proof that a cause has a false creed with dishonest motive, is in how much violence it has to extend to push it forward. Protests that violently destroy property and hurt people, these are protesters with a fake reality. We saw it recently where a young life was lost as many groups of hate-filled people battled it out on a city street and hate spiraled further than the people expressing it could have ever imagined. The truth is, hate spirals out of control because the people infected by it underestimate the evil power behind it. A hard love, walks completely away from the temptation of hate as a viable way of expressing opinion.
Since we are joined together in this ministry as a result of the mercy shown to all of us by God, we do not become discouraged. Instead, we have renounced all the things that hide in shame; we refuse to live deceptively or use trickery; we do not pollute God’s Word with any other agenda. Instead, we aim to tell the truth plainly, appealing to the conscience of every person under God’s watchful eye. But this beautiful treasure is contained in us—cracked pots made of earth and clay—so that the transcendent character of this power will be clearly seen as coming from God and not from us. 2 Corinthians 4:1-2 The Voice
A Season Of No Common Sense
A hate ridden spirit presses forward its offended heart in typical human dysfunction, as their human condition lashes out with horrendous labels, name calling and stereotyping others in very life damaging ways. They don’t know the person, they don’t know their heart or the true reality of their life, they put their cause first over responsible, accountable speech. Common sense takes a back seat when hatred is driving a life. Example being how the mediatic frenzy of the false narrative of the negative stereotyping of Republican Senators, almost led to a massacre of them at a baseball practice. God intervened and divinely thwarted that evil plan. All people are negatively soul influenced by false narrative. A hard love barricades their heart against false narrative and the fake reality that ensues.
We are cracked and chipped from our afflictions on all sides, but we are not crushed by them. We are bewildered at times, but we do not give in to despair. We are persecuted, but we have not been abandoned. We have been knocked down, but we are not destroyed. We always carry around in our bodies the reality of the brutal death and suffering of Jesus. As a result, His resurrection life rises and reveals its wondrous power in our bodies as well. 2 Corinthians 4:8-9 The Voice
A Season Of Blame
It is a firm love that gets back up by the power of God, to face the scorn when blame is flip-flopped from the reality of common sense, to the finger pointing of condemnation. An accuser, condemning others, points one finger and there are three fingers clearly pointing back, revealing the truth of a blurred denunciation. Cultural correctness is a stumbling block to truth, it must be taken captive in our mind and cast out. In today’s world, commons sense has taken a back seat to a mediatic political frenzy of false narrative. God has stepped in, divinely interrupting the finger pointer, by revealing truth, unearthing hidden deception, bringing it to the Light of Truth. Hypocrisy is being revealed as we see the accusers three fingers pointing back and God revealing the accuser is actually the guilty one. Flip-flopped mirror accusations. God is thwarting the evil behind these, unsecreting the hidden motives and evil deeds of the accuser. Followship of God, listening up to God first, this is how to strengthen your love into a hard love. The Holy Spirit is the Prover, we speak what He reveals.
But if someone responds to and obeys His word, then God’s love has truly taken root and filled him. This is how we know we are in an intimate relationship with Him: anyone who says, “I live in intimacy with Him,” should walk the path Jesus walked. 1 John 2:5-6 The Voice
A Season Of Followship And Hard Love
Wholly-Holy Followship. Yes, this is a new lesson, a new area of growth for us, in times such as these, we deal with accusation which mirrors the heart of the accuser, a two-way mirror of the inner heart, producing reflective indictment, creating a society that is lame and not able to heal. Exactly what our enemy ordered: killing, stealing and destroying two birds, the accuser and the accused, with one stone. Therefore, today, we pray for a hard love, that is nourished by our vital-vertical relationship with Jesus. May this love we receive from God, harden us from the compassion fatigue of a frustrated soul and revive the spirit of His mercy in us. When we get knocked down by those who damage our reputation with stereotyping, false narrative, and hatred, may we know the power of a hard love. The hard love of God never quits, may we be like this, having a rock-hard love that gets back up every time it is knocked down by the hindrance of the challenges of our time. We pray for a tough love that stands on the side of truth in followship of God, loving on and always living truly, speaking truly and loving truly.
The Worship SpotLIGHT “Hard Love” is an incredible song, perfect encouragement for times such as these. I hope you enjoyed your stay in The Bridegroom’s Café today and I pray your soul was fed by in that “Miraculously So” way of God. Please share this hope with others by using the social media buttons below. I would love, love to hear from you, so please leave a comment on how this post inspired you to “flesh out” and surrender to God. I highly encourage you to listen to The Bridegroom’s Voice. God bless you MUCH, KimberlyMac