Jelly Bean Rain

“My child, don’t ignore it when the Lord disciplines you, and don’t be discouraged when he corrects you. For the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes those he accepts as his children.” Hebrews 12:5-6

My friend Sammy called me on a Sunday afternoon on his way to the beach with his family and as we were talking, a bad thunderstorm was affecting our conversation. You could hear the rain slamming down on the windshield through the phone. His grandson, Canaan was with him and he could hear us talking about the rain from the backseat. All the sudden you heard his little voice in the background say, “Paw-Paw, it’s raining like little jelly beans on my window.” Sammy and I both chuckled at that precious little statement from a five year old. However, at that moment, something came to me. When it rains we see that as sort of a “set back”, especially when we are traveling. Why? It makes the roads slick, no one wants to walk in the rain, your feet get all soaked and if your need to walk outside or get out of the car…its just majorly inconvenient!

Well, can you think of a time that’ was an “inconvenience” in your spiritual walk, for you personally? I can! When I as a Christ follower, or Christian, has veered from the right path, which is following Christ. You see, the only solution when a child does something wrong, is to discipline them! Why, because you LOVE them. God states in his word in the scripture above, “don’t ignore the Lord, he only disciplines those he loves”. See as Christians, sometimes we see the Lord's discipline as an inconvenience to us. But, some, who are more mature spiritually, may only see his discipline as a simple correction, (just a shower of soft rain), however, others may see it as tough correction that hurts when it hits the skin or heart, like “jelly bean” rain. See Canaan described the rain on his window like jelly beans, which to me seems it was big drops, and loud when it hit the window. Although, Sammy and I just saw a slight shower of rain passing through. So plug yourself in now. If you were sitting in the spiritual seat of life looking out the window in the midst of your storm, what would you say about the rain? Is it a soft rain? The type when you’ll get wet, maybe some slush in your shoe, and a little irritated or do you see it as “jelly bean” rain, a loud, scary, pour down, completely soakin’ wet and a MAJOR disruption of your life.

Friend, I’m here to tell you something. When God brings about his discipline to our lives, usually it is because we didn’t take him very seriously to begin with or we seem to think we can handle what the enemy throws at us ourselves. So, because Christ loved us enough to walk up a hill and hang on a cross for us, so our sins can be forgiven, he deserves to orchestrate a little correction I think(John 3:16). If he didn’t care about each of us personally, he wouldn’t waste his time dealing with each of us personally. He would make one major correction to everyone. However, he cares enough to make it personal.

So, whether you think your traveling through soft rain, or the hard, loud rain, remember: If Christ didn’t love us, there would be no need for correction. He would let us go on about our lives. Next time the Lord sees fit to draw your attention or administer discipline, just be thankful you know you are a child of God, and its only because he LOVES you that much to see you stand corrected.

Real Christianity and Fake Christianity

You stand blamelessly in the grocery store asking yourself, “Should I buy ziplock brand or is the off brand just as durable? Ziplock’s commercials always show the bags holding stuff and they even have freezer bags…hummm, which one should I choose?” You decide to buy both bags and see which one does better. You will run testing at home and check the validity of these bags for yourself. You go home load up both bags with soup and toss them into the freezer.

Are we daily battling to choose the real GOD or to choose the cheaper version of Christianity? Do we load God up with wants of our flesh and then check back later to see if he withstood our needs? Do we decide to pick both and orchestrate when to use the REAL Christianity vs. the cheaper version of Christianity? In our walk with God, we believe we have it handled most of the time, but then trials come and we say, “OK God, your turn!” James 1:2-4 says, “Dear borthers and sisters, whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy. For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything. “

As Christ followers, when things are good, we are standing on the mountaintops. But when the trials/troubles come and break our pattern of peace or puts our faith to the test, we have trouble believing Christ can hold onto us. We act as though we received the off brand of Jesus. We decide to assist the situation for ourselves to find out what we believe in to protect us. We want to check the validity of our Lord. When we start testing the validity of our spiritual lives, we begin to fall into sin or temptation.

I remember being a college student, being invited to a party, knowing alcohol would be present. I would often think to myself, “I can go, I won’t drink!” I was checking the validity of relationship with Christ and eventually I failed the test. I put myself to the test, one too many times.

We have a choice to follow him, to ride the fence or reject him completely. Revelations 3:16 said, “But since you are like lukewarm water, I will vomit you out of my mouth.” God doesn’t want a forth, a half, or two-thirds, he wants all of us.He doesn’t want us to choose him one day and then try another god the next. When we endure whatever it is Christ brings into our lives, we will grow. Then our endurance is fully developed, we will be strong in character and ready for anything.

When ziplock first came out with their product they had no idea they would need specifically, freezer bags in the future to correct a problem. How did they determine this? They listened to buyer’s complaints and suggestions. When you face trials as a Christian, you don’t begin to conduct your own research methods to find a solution. You listen to your Heavenly Father, feel that deeper connection and communication and become dependent on the Lord. You can’t see the future, but God can. He wants to show his strength prevails over human strength.

God choose you friend. He will never leave you, nor forsake you. Christ only supplies the best. Will you depend on Christ to hold you during the tough times, or will you decide to conduct your own experiment to see what brand of Christ you will choose.

Snack Machine...

You put the money in the snack machine, feeling good about your desire to destroy a giant size kit kat, which will be happening in the next couple of seconds. So, you press B12, and wait for the little silver turning thingy to shoot down your candy bar and…

You have to be joking. The kit kat becomes lodged in the machine. You begin to shake, hit, kick; whatever is necessary to get it out. Only to find it truly is stuck. You turn to your friend and say; “I’m never putting my money in that silly machine again, for the rest of my life.”

Do you ever fill robbed in your Christian walk? Do you ever feel you’ve given your money, time, and talents, only to find the prize being delayed or seem impossible to drop down into your life?

The machine doesn’t have anything against you; it’s a problem between the machine and its technical functions. This parallels perfectly with the battle not being between Christ and you, it’s a battle between God and the enemy. In the book of Job, we see a tremendous battle in his walk with Christ taking place. Satan tells God in the beginning, they only want from you God because of what they can receive from you. How it saddens my heart that the enemy points out such a real truth in our lives today. Do you tithe because you trust God with your finances, or do you expect God to pay you back 10 times what you gave? Satan tempted Job with what was important to him in the world. Temptation came to him through his children, properties, family, and health. Job may have waivered for a certain time frame, but ultimately he came back to Jesus. Job’s wife even instructed him to curse God and die. However, Job says, “You talk like a godless woman. Should we accept only good things from the hand of God and never anything bad?”

We expect God to deliver in our timing and with our solution we believe is best. Although, 2 Corinthians 6:2 says, “At the acceptable time I listened to you, and on the day of salvation I helped you; behold now is the acceptable time, behold, now is “The day of salvation” God opens the door for us to share Christ. We put our effort to spread his name, just like putting money inside that machine expecting a candy bar to drop out. But as Christians do we share our Faith with confidence waiting for Christ to BIG in us? Do we share with the confidence that the Holy Spirit is there to clean up any fumble in our words? A final thought: Our candy may become jammed in a machine, but we will seek all effort to get it out, or sometimes, we may even put more money in and give it another shot. What an example of how our lives she become with Christ. Just because we set our focus on something, put the COST into it, doesn’t always mean it will fall immediately. We may have to put some more effort in…We may have to wait…We may need others to join in with us…With a little more effort we may see one of many prizes/blessings fall. Once they do, all we do is reach in and enjoy.

Interesting Facts:

In Hebrew the definition of job means, “persecuted”

Riding down the road...

Riding down road, my favorite CD blasting, windows rolled down and singing as loud as possible. Sound familiar? If you say no, I’ll be praying for you cause your lying. Everyone does it! Now, all of you may not receive the weird stares I do from surrounding vehicles, cause you can probably actually sing…me on the other hand, not so much! But sometimes when you’re just about to hit the soprano part, the CD starts skipping, repeating the same words over and over and over. How frustrating…right? Every person usually does one of two things. They throw away the CD at that moment thinking it ruined or they try to clean it off with something and try it again. But why was it skipping? Did you place it somewhere to scratch the surface? Is something wrong with the CD player? Did you spell something on the surface and it’s affecting it?

Psalm 147:3-5 say, “He heals the brokenhearted, binding up their wounds. He counts the stars and calls them by name. How great is our Lord! His power is absolute! His understanding is beyond comprehension!”

Does it seem as though your relationship with Christ has turned into the skipping CD? Is it because such deep pain has scratched your heart permanently inside? Did something in your life spill out onto the surface? Or is something wrong inside spiritually and you can’t find the wire that disconnected?

God wants to offer you his healing power. He wants to take your past and toss your sins as far as the east is from the west. He binds up your wounds. When you define the word “bind”, a definition states “a position or situation when one is hampered form moving about freely.” When someone is hurt by a past experience, death, etc, they become immobile sometimes. They stay what I like to call “in a pit”. But Christ tells us in his word, he binds up our wounds. When he heals your heart, you can become free to move about freely again. Ultimately, I think of salvation. When you experience accepting Christ, you feel free. Nothing is binding to you, no more chains. Jesus delivered us by paying the penalty on the cross for us, personally. When we accept him into our life, we still sin, but we don’t have the sins attached to us as we did. We don’t continue to repeat the same sins that bound us…because those chains fell off at the cross when we gave our lives to him. Think back to the CD that skipped, you took it out, realized you had spilt sticky liquid all over the backside. You think to yourself, Ill just clean that right off. You may can get it whipped off and you may not. Depends on how long the nasty liquid has been on there. See we come to God with a lot of sticky stuff. When we present ourselves before him, we are so unclean and we can try to clean ourselves up all day. We can feel it with stuff of the world, relationships, and even church stuff. But if you never receive him, you’ll never become clean. When you accept Christ he makes us white as snow. I didn’t say perfect, I said he cleans us up. We will still sin, but Christ is our clean up man!

You say, well I have accepted Christ, but I still feel like spiritually I keep going through the same thing. Well, are you spending time with God? Are your priorities in line spiritually? You may be placing the CD in a spot that can scratch the surface. Even as Christians, we can fall down in our spiritual walks. Yes, I just called us all sinners! If you put yourself in enough situations that you can be pulled down instead of up...Probably going to fall down more than stand up. We have to be more careful as Christians because Satan wants us to fail. We must stay on guard and follow the way God has directed us to go in. If you store something in the wrong container, more than likely it won’t stay fresh.

We should examine our loves daily, to prevent scratches from happening. God’s purpose for us is to tell others about him and learn his word, just as the CD’s purpose is to play music for people to hear. If CD’s didn’t have a purpose why would we need them? If people don’t have a purpose, why would God keep making them? Go and share today!