Tue, Feb 12th - 4:58PM
The Problem With Baggage
Ask any newly married couple about baggage and you’ll hear about all the problems they faced early in their relationship due to the “baggage” they both brought into their relationship. The baggage problem seems to apply to all people, whether previously married or not. All of us have a problem with it. Even when we meet people for the first time we are prone to catalog them according to our previous experiences – sometimes to our embarrassment. A large percentage of “who we are” is affected by the bags of old garbage we bring to the table. If we “are what we eat”, it’s also true that “we are what eats us”. Sadly, when we approach God, that concept remains in place. Most of us, if we are honest, can admit to once thinking that the only difference between the Old and New Testaments/Covenants in the bible was the location in the book – closer to the front or to the back. Not a difference worth dying for, in my opinion. The cure for our baggage problem lies within the New Covenant, and is hidden in plain sight. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says: ‘Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.’ (NKJ, underlines are mine) If we can believe the bible, the cure works like this: WE ARE NOT OLD AND UNDER REPAIR; WE ARE NEW, AND UNDER CONTRUCTION My natural tendency is to view myself as under repair. I drag my baggage to the foot of the cross and ask for it to be removed. Tomorrow I’ll drag the same baggage to the cross and begin again. Ad nauseum. How radical would it be to try and re-focus on the bible’s words and believe that I’m a new creation? My eternal priesthood has already begun, and I am already functioning in that capacity – why not go the whole distance and conclude my old man doesn’t need fixing; he needs to die? My real problem with baggage is the way I let it barge into my new life. It is my responsibility now, and I can't blame anything, or anyone else for the intrusion. Today is barely half over for me and I’ve already disappointed myself. Seems like I habitually react the wrong way seconds before I realize I’ve been had. Ambushed again! If I’m honest, I have to admit that in most cases, the devil didn’t make me do it – I allowed it to happen by default. My prayer is that sometime in the near future, I’ll think before I react, and give myself time to react a new way – some way that is befitting my new life. I’m positive that the person I am today isn’t the same person the Lord had in mind before the world was created – I just have to allow the person in His mind to come forth. He can't do it for me. John
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Fri, Feb 8th - 6:40PM
Today I Search For You
Today I search for you and do not find you. Why do you hide yourself from me? I think back to the infrequent times when you let yourself be found – many times revealing yourself before I sought you. You have shown me enough of yourself to cause me constant dissatisfaction without you. Perhaps the growth in me is the result of the searching, rather than the finding. Maybe it cheers your heart to have me seek you, regardless of the outcome. Does my mounting frustration make you glad? Have I passed the test today? It is easy to seek you when my needs push all other solutions away. When I am afraid, I’ve promised to trust in you, and I must admit, over time and through many circumstances, remembering to turn to you in trust has become more natural – even though the circumstances are not mitigated. In fact, many circumstances have become more dire, more severe and more painful, at least emotionally. The hardest times are days like today. No dire threat seems eminent, no pain too severe, but just the humdrum of a potentially wasted day in my life. Even though I suspect times like today matter more, as far as my growth is concerned, it takes more of a choice to turn to the search for you. Today, it would be far easier for me to forestall the search for you, and bask in the mild depression of your perceived absence – but I’ve come too far to turn back. You’ve trapped me unto yourself by showing me how my only real life is enmeshed in yours. I can not survive without you – and sadly for me, I know it! Oh please come to me! Please don’t let me wallow in this wasteland – the wasteland that is the default of a life apart from your presence. Please help me pass the test today. Will I seek you? If so, will I find you? You’ve promised to never forsake me – a promise only you can keep – do not forsake me today! I long to walk and talk with you again. No fancy conversations, no scintillating revelations, just to be with you….
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Mon, Feb 4th - 11:40AM
The Most Important
I’m going to avoid propping up my ego with profundities and get right to the point. In church, yesterday, I discovered the most important “But”. It can be found as the first word of Ephesians 4, verse 2: “But God…”. I'm not the first to notice these words, or write about them, but yesterday was when I saw them for me. And seeing those words, I realized my whole life is squeezed between them. The list prior to those two words is a definition of my life before Christ – the list afterwards is comprised of my new life in Him. In fact, “But God” is the shortest, most accurate definition of GRACE I’ve ever seen. I suppose the tension that occurs in me is a result of my ongoing, daily decisions to attain a position on one of the two sides of that important “But”. My natural tendencies usually start me off on the “before” list, and the resultant scuffing usually requires me to seek the “after” list. And so, it would seem obvious that this most succinct definition is also the only doorway onto the second list, and only I have the choice to use that doorway in my life. So, in God’s mathematics, it sums up like this: if “But God” = God’s grace, and God’s grace saves me through faith, then the personification of “But God” is Jesus Christ Himself. He alone is the doorway (you already knew that!). Pretty important “But”! John
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Name: John Miltenberger
