Month: February 2016

Weighed Down

Posted on by Karyn Jeffrey

“That’s heavy, man!” I can just see a bedraggled hippie guy in embroidered bell-bottom Levis gazing at me with weed-blurred eyes, offering sympathy for my troubles. As a child of the 60’s and 70’s, that phrase comes to mind whenever I think of something that is serious, sad, or overwhelming. And back in the day, the culture offered its condolences with this phrase. Now, I am needing more than this vague expression of solidarity in my misery. So where do I look?

cast your burden

This promise of keeping comes in a Psalm that talks of the evil designs arrayed against God’s own children. I look around at the world situation—seeing every sort of trouble and turmoil—from life-threatening illness in the lives of people I love, to horrors of militant evil persecuting and beheading my fellow Christians. I look at the issues in my own daily situation and realize my long and tyrannous “to-do list” is also a heavy burden.

Oh, my. I am far more weighted down with earthly cares than I knew. I must stop here. I need to slow down. I need to turn my face to Jesus. I need to consciously give Him the things that burden me, the “heavy” things. They threaten to shake me, make me topple into fear. They undermine my trust in my God Who is powerful and able and Who will keep me.

I am helpless to deal with my troubles. But He is utterly capable. He is THE Almighty God. His power and love are everlasting. So why should I keep struggling to solve my problems and settle my anxieties with my own thoughts and ways?! I can turn to Him. I can give Him my troubles and anxieties. He will carry my load. He will keep me.

There is another Scripture that is quite similar to the promise here in chapter 55.

Psalm 37:23, 24. “The steps of a man are established by the LORD and He delights in his way. When he falls, he will not be hurled headlong, because the LORD is the One who holds his hand.”

Here the promise is “skin-to-skin”… the LORD is holding my hand! So, casting my burden on Him is the thing to do. But how?
Prayer and the constant discipline of my thought life- reminding myself of what I know is true of my God and His world. He is the Almighty. He loves me. He has promised to keep me. What comfort!

Question: What are your burdens? Will you give them to Jesus and receive the promise of God’s care and protection? Or would you rather sort out your troubles in your own strength?

Mattress Cooties and Makeovers

Posted on by Karyn Jeffrey

Those mattress ads that show you all the creepy cooties that lurk in your mattress give me the shivers. The magnifying glass graphic hovers over the little dust mite beasties and a solemn voice intones, “Dust mites and shed skin cells accumulate in your mattress…blah, blah, blah.” I shudder, change the channel and try to think of something clean and new. Truth is, though, we do shed cells all the time.

“I’m not the woman I used to be.” Almost every cell in my body gets cycled to the trash, so to speak, so that what made me up physically the day I was born is long gone. The “real me” is still there… but somehow the “housing” keeps changing.

In the spiritual realm it is a little more complicated. My soul –the “real me”—exists. It IS. It doesn’t alter. When I was conceived, I was conceived in sin. The “real me” was born spiritually DEAD. The weight of Adam’s sinful rebellion had fallen on me just like it has on every human being since the Garden. I was on my way to bearing the wrath of God Almighty on my sin. But, God in His mercy chose to give me spiritual LIFE. He raised the “real” me from spiritual death to eternal life.

That action was His alone. He worked in me to know and see my sinful and hopeless condition. He gave me the faith to believe that Jesus-God in the Flesh- died in my place under His holy wrath. He gave me a “makeover.” (2 Corinthians 5:17- “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold new things have come.”) And that is where this week’s promise comes in.

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God has covenanted—PROMISED—to make me know His law, to know His holiness. He has changed that old, dead “me” for an alive and new “me.”

Ezekiel 11: 19-20 explains this transaction so I can see that I really am new, not just “improved” or “revised.” It explains what being new gives me the power to do. Listen:

“And I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them. And I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes and keep My ordinances and do them. Then they will be My people and I shall be their God.”

“I am not the woman I used to be.” I have a new heart. It is written on with the finger of God. (2 Corinthians 3:2-3) It enables me to do what pleases Him. I don’t have to live under the tyranny of my sinful “old self” or the torment of the enemy of our souls. I am ALIVE! I am FREE! I am God’s child! He is my God! He did this for me! Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

Question: Are you the woman or man you used to be? Or are you God’s person, with His holiness written on your heart?