September 22, 2013 … Our perception or God's reality?!

Daily Berry Patch Devotions in 2013 - Day 265

Devotional Song: Go to this link -  Please take the time to meditate on this poignant song, sung by Morgan Cryar, entitled What Sin?, reminding Christians that can’t let our perception of our sinfulness or weakness cloud us from seeing the reality that WE ARE SAVED; and God sees only the blood of His Son covering our sins.

Highlight meditation passage – 1st Kings 19: 3-4 [NLT]: …  
3 Elijah was afraid and fled for his life. He went to Beersheba, a town in Judah, and he left his servant there. 4 Then he went on alone into the wilderness, traveling all day. He sat down under a solitary broom tree and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, LORD,” he said. “Take my life, for I am no better than my ancestors who have already died.”
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 Highlight reading study of 1st Kings, Chapters 19`: Go to this link …

Reference Passage #1: Proverbs 3: 5-6 [Beware of our own perceptions!] … [NLT] …  
5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. 6 Seek His will in all you do, and He will direct your paths.

Reference Passage #2: Jeremiah 17: 9 [Remember, what our senses feel may be deceiving us from the truth.] … [NLT] …  
9 “The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is? ..." 

Reference Passage #3: 1st John 1: 9 [Confession and repentance can make a new reality by God’s cleansing of our sin.] … [NLT] …  
7 But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. 9 But if we confess our sins to Him, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.

Reference Passage #4: John 8: 31-32 [God’s reality!] … [NLT] …  
31 Jesus said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly My disciples if you remain faithful to My teachings. 32 And you will know The Truth, and The Truth will set you free.”

My Journal for Today: It is not uncommon for believers – i.e., born-again, saved Christians – to become so blinded by their own weakness and their feelings of self-pity that they can’t see reality in the fog of their own perceptions. That was the case for the great Prophet Elijah just after he had brought down fire and rain from heaven with his prayers. Yet, in today’s highlight reading passage, from 1st Kings, Chapter 19 linked above, Elijah had gotten so tired and confused from trying to escape Jezebel, who was pursuing him, that he just wanted to die.

And so, here was the anointed one, Elijah, exhausted, sitting under a broom tree, so discouraged and depressed in his self-pity that his faith was gone in the very God Who had just delivered him with fire and rain. And his self-pity was so great in that moment of misperceived weakness that he, Elijah, just wanted to die to escape the pain of Jezebel’s wrath and his exhaustion. And if you read in today’s highlight passage, copied above, Elijah, in his self-pity, cries out for God to take his life. But God is having none of Elijah’s confused perceptions and feelings; and the Lord delivers Elijah back into the reality of The Truth of Whom God really is for His children; and that is our deliverer, … our redeemer, … our Savior.

And my friend, that is the also the message of the song to which I’ve linked any reader here with me today. We can, in our humanness and personal weakness, especially after we’ve experienced some spiritual high, get our human perceptions distorted by our pride or sometimes from the physical exhaustion of going through some great and wonderful spiritual experience. In other words, beware of our feelings and perceptions when we’ve gone through some mountain-top spiritual experience.

Satan, knows that we’re vulnerable when we’re feeling prideful or when we’re physically or emotionally exhausted; and he will do all he can to get us to feel like we’re weak or unworthy, fogging us from the truth of 1st John 1: 7-9, also copied above. And as Morgan Cryar sings in today’s devotional song, when we confess our sins of pride or anxiety before God, He will say, “What sin?” And like Elijah we will be healed and brought back to reality – the reality of God’s cleansing blood.

 So, my fellow Christian, if today I’ve happened to catch you in the midst of some self-perceived unworthiness or a pity-party brought on by emotional exhaustion, … take a step back and meditate on the truth Morgan Cryar sings about in his song; or … languish in the healing truth of the 1st John passage above. Because, you may now be having trouble seeing or feeling the truth; but God’s truth, i.e., His promise, is THE ONLY REALITY; and when we know and can see The Truth, He will set us free [see John 8: 32].

My Prayer for Today … Lord, thank You for taking me out from the darkness of my self-perceptions into the reality of Your Truth. … Amen
 
Blogger Note: Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online blog entitled Today God Is First [TGIF], authored by Os Hillman. If you GO TO THIS LINK  on the date of my blog, you’ll find a link to read Hillman’s TGIF blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.