Monday, September 2, 2013

Honesty is the Best Policy

Honest is the best policy...when spoken in love and in God's perfect timing!  As Christ's disciples, we are to model His character in all things.  Jesus modeled truth when relating to His Father and to others.  In relation to His Father and to His disciples, I am reminded of the time He spent with them in the Garden of Gethsemane.  'And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.” And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, “So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.” So, leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words again. Then he came to the disciples and said to them, “Sleep and take your rest later on. See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand.” ' (Matthew 26:37-42, 44-46 ESV)

Jesus was willing to share His emotions with His friends as He told them that His soul was sorrowful, even to death!  We all deal with emotions; in fact, they are God-given.  The rub is that we are not to be controlled by these emotions, but controlled by God the Holy Spirit, who empowers us and enables us to deal with these emotions in a Christlike way, and trust in His infallible Word as our standard of truth and not our fickle emotions!  The first thing that we are to do in dealing with negative emotions is to confess them to God.  He knows anyway and it is no secret to Him!   David was the perfect example in this as he was so transparent with God in the Psalms and shared his troubling (and encouraging) emotions.  John Calvin,  an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformatin, called the book of Psalms 'An Anatomy of  all the Parts of the Soul' as it deals with all of the distracting emotions that agitate our minds and hinder our walk with God and others.

As David exemplified in so many of the Psalms,  confess these emotions and weaknesses to God and allow them to become an avenue of worship rather than a distraction.  This last nugget of truth comes from the study that Beth Moore wrote (and I am just now beginning! :-D) entitled 'Stepping Up...a journey through the Psalms of the Ascent.'   We also see the apostle Paul use this approach in his life in the book of Romans:  'We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.'(Romans 7:14, 15, 18-21, 23, 25 NIV)  If it's good enough for two of the most noteworthy men of God, then it's a good enough practice for us!

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