Chin Ups

Beloved,

This week when I was asking the Lord what to write about in our blog, He said, “chin ups.”  Immediately, without waiting for any further instruction, I thought, “Oh, good idea, God!  We’ll talk about building our spiritual muscles – prayer, standing on the Word, walking in faith, fighting the good fight, fellowshipping with other believers.”  He said to me, “Whoa, Lisa Marie, hold your horses!  Wait for the rest of the message.”  You see, I was getting out ahead of God.  In my enthusiasm, I needed to stop and listen to the rest of what He had to say.  Then he gave me a picture of someone doing chin up after chin up after chin and finally coming to the end of his strength and falling into the arms of the Lord.  Then I knew that this week God wanted us to focus not on the work but on the rest.

The Scripture says we can do all things through Christ, not ourselves, and it also says that when we have done all, we are to stand.  There is a time, when we have stood against the devil by standing on the Word, when we have stood on Scripture for the answer, and when we have prayed and are believing for God’s Word to accomplish what it has been sent forth to do that we must know that we know that we know that God is God -- and we are not.  

We must know that there comes a time to just stand with patience until we see the answer and rest in the loving arms of our Lord.  We have done what we are called to do, and we can’t make everything happen in our own strength, but nothing is impossible with God.  Because He loves us so, we can fall off of the chin up bar and land safely in His arms, and He will sustain us.  He will carry us when we feel we cannot take another step or do another chin up.  He has compassion on us, and His strength comes through to lift us up in our weakness.

God says to us, “Fear not, for I am with you.”

Let’s rest in the Lord,

Pastor Lisa Marie

If you have never made Jesus the Lord of your life and desire to, pray this:  Dear God, I believe that Jesus is your Son, that He died on the cross for me and was resurrected for my redemption.  I choose to make Jesus the Lord of my life.  I thank you for forgiving me and for filling me with Your Holy Spirit.  I thank You that I am Your child, that You are my Father, and that You have great things planned for me.  Amen.