After yesterday’s post I couldn’t stop, I had more to say about this shedding process! Change is not easy, it is uncomfortable (at least for me), but it is necessary if you want to grow. “Shed your skin and start again” is what it takes in order to grow. No matter how beautiful a garment is, it gets old and has to be replaced. That’s the way it is if you want a new life, a chapter has to be closed for another one to begin because you don’t want to drag old baggage into a new situation. Getting between that rock and hard place doesn’t feel good but it is something you should crave in order to clean up the old man (that would be you or me) before we can move on. A lot of times trials and temptations are the things that come to us to help us learn to make right choices and trust in God, not blame Him for our failures.
The following verses from James are good reading to help you be able to do this! I have printed it here from the Message because it makes it so plain, and I love it!
James 1:2-8, 12-16 “Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way. If you don’t know what you’re doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You’ll get his help, and won’t be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believing, without a second thought. People who “worry their prayers” are like wind-whipped waves. Don’t think you’re going to get anything from the Master that way, adrift at sea, keeping all your options open. Anyone who meets a testing challenge head-on and manages to stick it out is mighty fortunate. For such persons loyally in love with God, the reward is life and more life. Don’t let anyone under pressure to give in to evil say, “God is trying to trip me up.” God is impervious to evil, and puts evil in no one’s way. The temptation to give in to evil comes from us and only us. We have no one to blame but the leering, seducing flare-up of our own lust. Lust gets pregnant, and has a baby: sin! Sin grows up to adulthood, and becomes a real killer. So, my very dear friends don’t get thrown off course. Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light. There is nothing deceitful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle. He brought us to life using the true Word, showing us off as the crown of all his creatures.”
In the world we live in, I am personally glad to read in this verse that there is nothing deceitful in God, He is not two faced…at all! As a person who uses Facebook to keep up with old friends, I see people get their feelings hurt, and others delete their friends at a whim! What if God did that to YOU? You say something wrong, or do something you should not do today tomorrow you look in the “Face Book” of life and find that your picture is gone!
Come on, grow up, quit being self-righteous, after all the Lord’s prayer says that we are forgiven for our sins exactly the same way we forgive others! Maybe this happens to give you wisdom and help you learn how to make right choices! Where as you get upset at someone, who have YOU upset and been rude to? I am just tired of that fifth grade mentality, I am so glad that God forgives.
According to the above scripture we see that we can ask Him for wisdom to know how to act and react, read it again!
Don’t be deceitful or two-faced, seek the rough edges of life to help you get rid of the old man and make this half of 2015 a time of new beginnings!
Harolene.com 