Hiking in Pearls

Category: Commitment

  • Forgiveness – Part 1

    Forgiveness – Part 1

    The Silence

    In the quiet hours of the morning, I sat in solitude. Before the house began to stir, I thought about past wrongs done to me. I had already made the decision to forgive these trespasses. Yet, it was in this moment, that it occurred to me, I don’t have to talk about it anymore.

    I realized that silence, is the final act of forgiveness.

    The more I thought on this new concept the more that it made sense. If I have truly forgiven a wrong done to me, why would I continue to talk about it? My eyes were now open.

    When I choose to think on, or talk about a wrong done to me, it stirs up fresh pain and anger. New life is breathed into past hurts. The offense becomes just as raw as when it first happened. Fresh tears stream down my cheeks while hurt and anger wrestle in my heart. I have opened a time portal and stepped aside to allow things from the past to creep in and rob my present. Any joy that I should be experiencing in this moment is forfeited and exchanged for a tromp in the mud and muck of the past instead.

    But oh, what freedom is found in full forgiveness! (more on that next week) No longer bound by the past, I can now live fully in the gift of today! I don’t have to give my time, thoughts, and conversations to those things that now lay behind me.

    It is the same when we come to a place of repentance and confess our sins to Jesus. When we accept His work of forgiveness, through His death, burial, and resurrection, He casts our sins as far as the east is from the west. Never to be remembered again (Psalm 103:12).

    That is Good News!

    Once we are forgiven, Jesus NEVER brings up our sins again.

    He doesn’t talk about it!

    So why do we?

    The name, “Christian” means belonging to Christ. It was first intended to be derogatory to the “mini-Christs” that were living out Jesus’ teachings. This stirs me to challenge all Christians.

    Let us live up to our name!

    Let us forgive in the fullness of Christs love. Let us stop talking about the terrible things that have been done to us. Instead let us now place our efforts in forgetting those things that are forgiven and fully live in the abundant life Jesus offers us now.

    As I close for today, I want to remind you that Final Victory Comes In The Silence! Stay strong in the faith my friend, spurring each other on in love and good works (Hebrews 10:24).

    Continue in the Good Fight of Faith (1 Timothy 6:12)

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  • Lessons from the book of Ruth

    Lessons from the book of Ruth

    Part 1 – Commitment

    As I meditate on the four chapters contained in the book of Ruth, the Lord continues to show me truths that apply to what our life and relationship with Christ should look like, now, as we live for His kingdom purposes in this foreign land.

    The definition from Oxford Languages explains the word commitment as the state or quality of being dedicated to a cause, activity, etc.

    Back Story: The book of Ruth opens with a famine in the land of Israel. Preservation in mind, Elimelech gathers his wife Naomi and their two sons and journey to Moab. Moab was a pagan nation birthed from the incestuous relationship the daughters of Lot had with their father after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. (Genesis 19:29-38) The Moabites did not serve Yahweh the God of Israel but instead served the false gods Chemosh and Astarte. In the time span of about 10 years, Naomi’s husband and two sons die, leaving her and her two Moabite daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth widowed. With empty hands and a report that the famine in Israel is over, Naomi releases Orpah and Ruth to return to their families and to the gods of their land as she is resolved to return to Israel. Orpah kisses Naomi goodbye but Ruth clung to her mother-in-law.

    And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for wither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, if more also, if ought but death part thee and me. When she saw that she was steadfastly minded to go with her, then she left speaking unto her. (Ruth 1:16-18 KJV)

    What I see with Ruth is that her life was not altered until she made a commitment to Naomi that she would follow her, even to death. However, greater than her commitment to Naomi was her commitment to The One True God, The God of Israel. It was at this moment when she made a commitment to follow Him, that He became her God. Her life was radically altered, and she began to live in the blessings and favor of God.

    So, it is with us, we can live a mediocre life with the knowledge of who God is, but it isn’t until we make that full commitment, when we take a stance and say, “You alone God, will I serve. You alone, will I live for. You alone, will be my God,” that our life takes on new form. Once we make a steadfast declaration to God, to live this moment and every future moment dedicated to Him, we enter into a place where spiritually we begin to glean in the fields of The Lord Most High.

    I’d like to encourage you to evaluate where you stand before God, right now.

    Are you like Orpah, who knows of God but would rather return to the familiar things that this world has to offer, or are you like Ruth, who is ready to forsake all things to pursue the Living God, the True God Jehovah?

    As I think back, I can still clearly see the moment that I fully committed my life to the Lord God. When similar to Ruth, I made the decision that I would stand for God alone, that He would be my God. I drew my line in the sand, and nothing has been the same since. He is my All in All, everything else is dust. I implore you today, to make a commitment to the Lord, to pursue Him with every fiber of your being and to serve Him alone. I promise you this, you will never regret selling out for the Kingdom of God.

    And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life. (Matthew 19:29 KJV)