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Finding the heart…

August 23, 2013 By Christina Cook Lee Leave a Comment

AUGUST 23

Focus: Not making excuses

James 4:17 (NKJV) Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.

Knowing right from wrong should be obvious, right? But it’s not always. Sometimes we don’t want to make the effort to check out the facts to know whether a particular thing is okay. We go by our ‘gut’ and follow our feelings. Knowing to do right involves knowing the Word of God…or at least taking the time to search scripture and see what it has to say.

James 4:17 is a sobering verse—or at least it should be. There are different ways of looking at the meaning. In one way, it says, if a person knows what is right and doesn’t do it—the fact that they didn’t do what they knew was right makes it a sin. You may have heard of ‘a sin of omission’. It’s when somebody ‘omits’ doing something right—and that’s what this kind of interpretation refers to.

The other meaning is pretty obvious, too. ‘When you know something is wrong and you do it anyway, it is sin.’ This meaning is derived by inverting the principle. Either way you look at it, the knowledge of right or wrong is what we are concerned about.

A person with access to the Word of God can’t really claim ignorance in matters that pertain to right and wrong—and sin. Someone who didn’t bother to seek for wisdom isn’t free from accountability to the Word. If you know the answers are available and you don’t search them out, you can’t say—‘Well, I didn’t know any better.’

It all goes back to James 4:17 again. If you are faced with making an important decision that could be right or wrong and you know the answers are in the Word, yet you don’t seek them and you decide to do the wrong thing and then claim ignorance—that doesn’t excuse the wrong.

The only thing that excuses our wrongs is the grace and mercy of God through the Blood of Jesus Christ.

When we try to defend ourselves from sin we committed before we knew the Lord ‘because of ignorance’, that is no excuse, either. The whole point of the matter is, we are without excuse. Sin is sin…and when we sin, we really ought to admit it and plead for grace and mercy through the Blood of Jesus and not make excuses about not realizing we did something wrong. That only compounds the issues.

Human nature wants to look right, sound right, feel right, and smell right. It’s hard to admit when we’re wrong. The difficulty of admitting when we’re wrong is the problem that stands in the way of millions of people being able to find the heart to start on the road to recovery.

Even after some of us started on the journey, we wanted to continue justifying our reasons for allowing our lives to go in the direction they did. It’s easy to blame others for our own choices. It makes us feel better when we think what we did wasn’t totally our own fault. But as long as we place the blame on anyone else but ourselves, we are not truly taking responsibility for our actions. In order for your recovery to ever work, you have to be willing to say that the choices you made were your own. Someone may have influenced you—but you agreed.

It’s not easy to admit anything was ‘all your fault.’ It seems much more honorable to think that ‘the devil made you do it’ or another person was the culprit. Sugar coating or glossing over your own guilt is sin, too. The only thing that saves us is admitting we were wrong and pleading the Blood of Jesus Christ.

There will not be true and full forgiveness for our sin until we are able to admit we were fully at fault—no matter how hard that may be. But finally reaching that point is a wonderful day of discovery. Coming to that inevitable conclusion is the beginning of all things in your search for real freedom and peace.

Romans 5:1-5 says, ‘Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit Who was given to us.

Declaration: I will find new strength by taking full responsibility for all of the wrongs I have committed in my life. I will not try to excuse myself or blame anyone else. I will search the scriptures for the truth in my particular situation and humbly claim the Blood of Jesus Christ as my only pardon.

All NEW STRENGTH posts are Copyright by Christina Cook Lee as of the date they were written and posted. Please request permission to re-post or re-blog. This material will be published as a book in 2013, by the grace of God. To subscribe to New Strength, select ‘follow’ in the upper left corner of this page.

For music selections that will help bring hope and encouragement during your recovery from depression and addiction, browse: http://www.youtube.com/user/NewStrengthMusic/videos?view=1&flow=grid

OCTOBER 13

October 13, 2012 By Christina Cook Lee Leave a Comment

Focus: Finding purpose in pain

Romans 8:37 (NKJV) Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

I experienced a lot of pain during the recovery of a traumatic head injury in a car accident that happened when I was 21. I felt robbed in many ways—due to the facial disfigurement that resulted. Today, not many people would ever guess my nose was totally smashed and my cheekbones were riddled with fractures. Reconstructive plastic surgery gave me a new, smaller nose.

To most people, I had nothing to complain about. Surely, other people have had much harder things to bear—and that’s true. I don’t have a debilitating handicap like some people, but I’ll never forget the stares from people during the period of time it took for the jagged scars on my nose to heal and for the swelling and bruises on my face to go away.

During the year following the accident, my sinuses progressively shut down, because my fractured cheekbones were over-calcifying in an attempt to heal. More surgery had to be done to open my airways so I could breathe normally again. It took a long time for me to accept my appearance…and it was hard dealing with people who said I didn’t look that bad. To me, it wasn’t a question of ‘looking good or bad’—it was my own loss of identity that I was dealing with.

Close to a year after the accident, I had the opportunity to go to a foreign country and spend a little time with a man who was clearly poverty stricken. He wore a soiled patch of cloth tied around his head to cover the fact that he had no nose at all. I was sure that God had arranged our meeting. It was completely obvious that he had it so much worse than I did.

From that time on, I tried to accept what had happened to me and be grateful in spite of everything. Up until then, all I could see was what I had lost—instead of what I still had left.

I have to admire our many veterans who have gone off to war and come home forever changed, whether their injuries are visible or invisible. I can’t help but look at any soldier who has seen active duty and not wonder what trauma he or she is working through. Just because you can’t see any physical change in them, doesn’t mean they aren’t suffering emotionally because of what they may have witnessed.

Just because an injury can’t be seen—or isn’t as bad as it ‘could have been’—doesn’t mean it wasn’t and isn’t catastrophic to the individual. Any injury is serious to the person who receives it. Post-traumatic stress syndrome and panic attacks are common and potentially devastating to people who have experienced a violent physical injury—and also to those who have been forced to live in highly dangerous circumstances and observe others being wounded or killed.

It’s hard to understand why we have to go through some of the things we do in life. It might be harder still, to believe that a loving God would allow anybody to live through some of the things our veterans have. I don’t have all the answers—but I know that God can help any person to find peace.

If you’ve had some kind of traumatic experience—war or otherwise—you might still be trying to figure out how you’ll ever be able to live a normal life again. For many people, things will not return to ‘normal’ in comparison to the past…but life can go on, by drawing new strength from the power of God.

Jesus Christ, Who according to historical record, was tortured to the point of being unrecognizable as a man preceding His brutal crucifixion—is a model to any person who is struggling from the effects of disfigurement and trauma. His resurrection from the dead and glorified body, can give us the hope that one day—we will be like Him.

Philippians 3:20-21 says, ‘For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, Who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.’

There were times I wished I had died during the aftermath of my head injuries. It took a few years before I felt like living was actually a good idea. I know God had a purpose in letting me go through what I did. He has given me peace, and He can help you, too.

Declaration: I will find peace and purpose as I draw new strength from the power of God. His love and friendship will see me through my trials day by day…and someday I will understand.

All NEW STRENGTH posts are Copyright by Christina Cook Lee as of the date they were written and posted. Please request permission to re-post or re-blog. This material will be published as a book at the end of 2012, by the grace of God.To subscribe to New Strength, select ‘follow’ in the upper left corner of this page.

For music selections that will help bring hope and encouragement during your recovery from depression and addiction, browse:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW5unzXXC0k

JUNE 11

June 11, 2012 By Christina Cook Lee Leave a Comment

Focus: Bitterness and prayer

Matthew 5:44-45a (NKJV) But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven…

When someone has deeply offended you, or when you live in an offensive relationship—finding relief from the words or actions that caused the pain can be hard. If the battle is ongoing, you may barely have time to catch your breath before you’re faced with another reason to be bitter…

If it was just once, it would be bad enough—but our minds have that awful tendency to instantly ‘replay’ hurtful moments over and over. You wish there was a way to just hit the ‘stop’ button—you can’t help feeling like you’re trapped.

In the act of replaying the event in your mind, you imagine things you might have done or said—if you had the chance to. Every time you replay the scene—the feelings all come flooding back. The more painful the episode, the more times you seem to play it back. You don’t really mean to keep going back there, but you do.

Re-examining a hurtful experience is one of our mind’s ways of processing the information. It doesn’t have to be a bad thing, if it doesn’t get out of control—but if you’re allowing yourself to be obsessed by it—then it is a bad thing.

Nobody wants to think they’re obsessed with anything—but you might want to think about how much time you spend a day ‘out there in video land’, replaying events in your mind that you can’t relive in reality. A painful experience has a way of always being in the back of your mind. If there’s something else going on—you might be able to be ‘present’ in the moment—but as soon as things slow down and you have some free time, there it is again. It’s something you ‘work on’, when there isn’t anything else to take your attention.

If the event was a long time ago—you might have clocked hours, days, maybe even weeks of your life—as you’ve replayed it over and over. If the situation is current and ongoing—your preoccupation could be pretty much ‘where you live’…as every free moment is spent rehashing the latest chapter of the saga.

You might not think of this kind of replaying as an addiction—but it is. If it’s something you ‘pick up’ each day where you left off the day before…it’s ‘your dwelling place’. If it takes up more of your time than prayer—you may not want to hear this, but it’s an idol. If an obsession with painful events or a person who was involved in them has caused your thoughts to become out of control, it’s time for change.

If you feel like your hands are tied and you have no choice, you do. God is bigger than any problem you or I have. He wants you to be free from emotional addictions, just as much as He wants every person to be free from physical addictions. The process for healing begins the same way—by admitting you have a problem. Until you can honestly say you do—you won’t get over it.

It’s easy to look at other people’s problems and know exactly what they should do to find the help they need—it’s a lot harder when the problem is our own. We spend so much time going over the wrong things people have done to us—all the while not giving a thought as to how wrong it is for us to be replaying that person’s actions and words in our imagination.

There is nowhere in the Bible where we are told to meditate day and night on the wrong things people have done to us, is there? But if the pain was deep—that’s usually what we do, isn’t it?

In order to recover from an emotional addiction that involves our imagination—we need to call to mind what the Word of God says about our situation. 2 Corinthians 10:5-6 says, (NAS) …casting down imaginations, and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ; and being in readiness to avenge all disobedience, when your obedience shall be made full.

It’s humbling to have to realize that the time we spend in our vain imagination is disobedience—but it is. The way to revenge it, is to make the decision to stop ’living there’ in your mind and become obedient by taking your thoughts captive. The ultimate revenge and act of obedience would be to spend the time we’ve been spending replaying—praying, instead.

Declaration: I will find new strength by taking my thought life more seriously. I commit to praying instead of replaying. When I find myself caught up in my imagination—I will pray a blessing on the one who hurt me because I am Your child—and it’s what You would want me to do.

To subscribe to New Strength, select ‘follow’ in the upper left corner of this page.

For music selections that will help bring hope and encouragement during your recovery from depression and addiction, browse: http://www.youtube.com/user/NewStrengthMusic/videos?view=1

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