But none of these things move me; nor do I count my life dear to myself, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel. Acts 20:24
“Do you also want to go away?” John 6:67
I saw a post yesterday which hit me, and the first thing this morning it was on my mind again, Then the Lord started tying a few things he has been showing me together. With the main thing being to make the point of how you learn Yashua, because as Paul wrote in Ephesians 4:21 “that is if you have learned and been taught by Yashua as the truth is in him.”
It is one thing to read your bible and maybe come to understand a few things of God, but highly unlikely. We get so caught up in what the worldly preachers tell us about what the bible says we really do not understand the words written. But when the Son of God gets a hold of you and teaches you, then everything starts to work together. The son may use the bible, or something someone said. He can use creation, basically anything and everything you encounter is something the Lord will use to teach you. But you must have eyes to see and ears to hear in order to receive the things of God. Most people are simply religious and do not have either, having the blind teachers of the world lead the blind sheep.
So first the thing I read. It said “Being married is hard. Divorce is hard, choose your hard. Being rich is hard, being poor is hard. Choose your hard.” And they gave many additional examples. But the point the Lord made to me was life is hard with or without him, with many choices to make. There will be trials and tribulations and suffering with or without him. So make your choice, do you want to do life with him and choose his path of suffering where you have the confidence he will be there to build you up through the suffering? Or do you want to do it alone and or with human people during your suffering, which may build you up with self confidence, but it may also defeat you?
The suffering in the Lord is different than without him, and if you choose to do it his way, he makes sure the suffering works for the good of those who love and serve him.
This message is very different than what I believed because of teachings from men, or maybe just my own lack of understanding. But when I came to know Yashua as my true Lord at first, long before I was set free from my sin. I thought now I made it and life will be easy because God is in charge. You can take a verse like “take on my yoke, my burden is easy, my yoke is light.” And you make it sound as if following Yashua is a breeze.
But what I found out was very different. The woman I started dating was a so called “christian” so I thought for sure we would have a good life together without problems. But was I wrong! We faced all the same problems any normal person is facing. Where it was obvious to me from things Yashua showed me it should not be that way. A true believer would not have the same divorce rate, same health issues rate, same financial problems… So why were we having these same issues?
The short of the story happened towards the end of our relationship. I caught her cheating on me, (which should never happen in a true God fearing relationship of a true believer set free in Yashua, and wouldn’t). The story is not about what she did or did not do but one of what the Lord taught me through it. I was upset as anyone of the flesh would have been and was seeking what God wanted me to do about it. I was very certain he would side with me against her, and my attitude and thoughts got in the way. After about 1 month, after cooling down a lot. I finally heard the Lord speak to me about it. And he said “what about you? Did you act in love, where you patient and kind…” He went through the definition of love as written in 1 Corinthians 13 to which I was basically guilty of all of the points. This very difficult situation I went through taught me that God does not care about what people will do to you, he cares about how you will act when it happens. What she did is between her and God and what I do is between God and me. He may or may not perfect her that depends on her. But if I want to be perfect in Yashua, I must walk according to the trials he puts me through and remain in his love.
He then made it clear I was not to be the one who left her, to work on it. So I did with a new attitude, but a few months later she left me, which all of it is a long story and not of importance. But two points which are important. The first one is she went to the preacher we both knew and went to his church. He asked me to come in and long story short, he told me to end the relationship with irreconcilable differences. To which I said, and where is that in the bible? He could not come up with anything and just said the same thing.
Immediately I knew (because Yashua showed me) how worldly the preachers can be. They speak of things written in the bible but then do not practice them, making up their own grace doctrine which when the truth comes they do not recognize. Because their lies or how they twist the bible do not match up with the things Yashua will show you. I already had been shown many things of fraud and corruption in the government and money system, but now Yashua was teaching me about the fraud and corruption in the religious system. It was not many years, and after trying almost all “Christian” religions that I understood they all were wrong. Not one was preaching about hearing the voice of God and obeying him. Most were preaching a story of grace and how we will keep sinning, and it is OK with god because he is love. But obviously they did not know what love really is according to God because they do not know God and have been taught by him. They were men living in the flesh pretending to be in the Spirit because of a prayer or some tradition. Being taught by other men who also were in bondage of sin, because they all read their bibles and come up with their own doctrine, instead of knowing Yashua and letting him teach you using both the bible and your circumstances along with everything else the Lord wants you to know and learn.
The reason is simple, they do not like to be shown their sinful ugly human nature which is in us. And as mentioned many times, that is our judgment according to John 3:19-21. Back to choices, it is our choice to be saved or not, both ways are hard, and no one likes to be shown who they really are. But if you do not let the Lord show you, and then change and obey what he shows you. You will never learn his truth and be perfected in his sight.
God does NOT honor your beliefs and religious doctrine. Never has and never will. He has his “ways” and does not veer from them. No man is good in his eyes, none. Even Yashua had to be made perfect in the things he suffered, so if the son of God had to be, how much more do we need to be.
The second part of this is how we go through the suffering. Most men in the flesh go through problems crying about them. Maybe physically crying or just complaining to anyone who will listen. I also did this back in my day, much injustice was done onto me by my ex and I felt I had to justify myself and hope someone would help me. No one did, nor should they have. And now I am glad they did not because any help from men would have gotten in the way of what God was showing me. We must get to the point where we are like Paul and we run the race and finish it with joy. It is not that we love to suffer if we are in Yashua, but it is we love the outcome from the suffering so the trials bring a certain joy or acceptance of it being good for us and not the attitude of poor little old me. God wants and expects us to go through the things we must go through in life to become the man he expects us to be with a grateful heart and not one of being a victim. We do not seem to understand when we complain about things it is complaining to God indirectly because he is in charge of everything. Nothing happens to anyone without first going through him. And he only puts us through things which are for our good, not evil and bad. We are the ones who see it as bad because we do not like to suffer and be shown how bad we are in the flesh.
One other thing I have seen in people as God has shown me. Is there are really two types of people. The aggressive and the passive. Those who give and those who take. satan has us believing this is righteous. But in the eyes of God neither is. We do many things to enable people to remain in their sin, or the opposite we let people do things for us so we can remain in our sin. This is something the world calls co-dependence. All of us have it to some extent.
When you come to know God you find he is the biggest enabler, but the way he does it is very different. He combines the best parts of both the giver and receiver, and eliminates the bad of both. He will give you the wisdom to do things you never thought possible for yourself and the good of others. But he also will tell you who to help and how, and when to stay out of it and let the suffering have its way with people. His way is not to make the life of the people easy and full of enjoyment and fun. Here in Mexico I see the dysfunction at new levels, and it appears the same these days in the US, it is just I have not lived in the US for over 15 years and things are different in Iowa than California. But the laziness I see in people, just always wanting to have fun and not work, expecting everyone else to pay the way for you so you can enjoy your life.
And somehow we see enjoyment and joy as the same word, but they are completely different. Enjoyment is having fun by doing something you enjoy. Joy is more like appreciating the things you encounter in life, which can be through suffering or good times.
Last point today, which is in everything we go through no matter if good or bad. It has some things which are not so enjoyable and things which are. It is just to what extent. For example I love our view and the weather here in Baja, the Lord has blessed us beyond measure. But there are times where it is nice to go into the ocean and here it is too cold. Because we sit up high on a bluff the views in both directions are amazing, but it also allows more wind than normal to blow here.
Our land in Guerro is kind of the opposite, it is hot always, the ocean water is amazing to go into. But a lot of bugs that bite and really hot when sleeping or just hanging out more or less working out in it.
I love both places and see myself living in both places easily. Taking the bad with the good. The hope is we can enjoy both places at different times of the year, like winters down there when you want it warmer and the sun to be out longer, and summers up here when it gets to hot down there.
Now regarding this, my wife and I suffered many things, gave up many things others have not given up to achieve these two properties. While everyone else was going on vacations and buying new cars and iPhone… We saved and built homes which at times really pushed our budgets to the limit. We are now bearing the fruit of our sowing, which would have never happened if we did it the same way everyone else did it, and how I did it in my old life before knowing the truth in Yashua. We did suffer and sacrifice a lot over the years to obtain what we have now both Spiritually in Yashua and the good things of the world. It gives much JOY to experience this through the things we suffered. The growth is all around amazing.
