Isaiah 61:1-3, “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion— to give them a beautiful garla nd of grace instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he may be glorified.”

In our season of grief, difficulty, possibly even working through catastrophic circumstances, i believe God has a word for you and you, yes you can be healed everywhere you hurt. If you’re sad and that sadness just invades your waking and sleeping, God can heal your sadness by the Blood of Jesus, and not only can He heal your sadness, but He’ll give you the courage and strength to get up off your sick bed and re-enter the land of the living.

i’ve wondered exactly why many folks think Jesus died for their sins,… it seems many times that’s as far as anyone thinks about it, He died for my sins and it stops there … was it only a salvation thing so we don’t have to go to hell like having fire insurance?  …  just – saved from our sins?. i believe, if we’ll take the Lord seriously, He wants so much more for us than that. He wants us to enjoy the road home and not just be Eyore all the way home. One lady said, God wants us to be whole, not full of holes.

This is Outposts, cool jazz and contemplative conversation that makes you say, “hmmmm…”, something smooth for the late night people, or maybe those on their way to work. i suppose some are sitting up late in their big arm chair, pondering the things which occurred today, or maybe the things which didn’t occur today. Others are just late night people, they seem to function better after the sun goes down… i have no idea why, your reasons are your own. Then there are the people who are up late because you can’t sleep … .stuck in that grey place between awake and asleep, that place …  where nothing hides, tossing and turning like a fish out of water. What’s on your mind that you can’t sleep?

i believe so so many folks are in pain, real pain. We may have learned to live with it, and some truly tolerate pain better than others and have learned to wear a good face, but it doesn’t mean the pain isn’t there. For years, i was in pain and i had no idea why, how it got to be there, or even what it was about … i gave it no identity and as a resulti was always acting out with no thought of questioning any of my actions.

When i had cattle, i grew to know they are usually pretty good down to about -25 … on particularly cold days i would chuckle to myself because their faces looked like they were saying, “Boy it sure is cold” and the other one would say, “Yea, it sure is but i don’t know what to do about it.” They’d munch more hay and just roll their big eyes around, appearing to think about being cold but clueless as to what to do about it. That was me when it came to pain … just clueless what to do about it. Our topic is beauty for ashes like a garland of grace … and the gold the Lord brings out in us when it appears all is burned to the ground.

In my little life, i know something, maybe not much according to some, but this i know, i can’t play hide and seek with my difficulties and expect them to simply go away. Just because we don’t deal with stuff doesn’t mean it’ll just disappear.

The Lord wants us to be more than survivors. In the last program it was mentioned that one day while out for my afternoon walk, the Lord made me to know that i was only surviving when i was supposed to be prospering. He said, “How is it you have fallen to only surviving when you should be prospering?” It was a good question, and at the end of His question there came a feeling like the earth plates in my heart were moving, repositioning themselves to align better with God. You know what i mean?

Here’s a question, if you knew it could happen, would you be willing for your circumstances to be your message and ministry?

John 6:12-13, “And when they had eaten their fill, he told his disciples, “Gather up the leftover fragments, that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten.”

i don’t know about you, but there have been terrible times when i felt like my entire life was just broken little pieces, just fragments. In John 6:12-13 i hear the Lord calling me to bring even my broken fragmented life to Him. He has healed the broken hearted and opened wide the prison doors and has the power to deliver forever more. We’ve all heard that God does more with nothing than we can do with something, and even if we’re sure we are on the negative side of zero, God can do something with even that.

i’ve got a few ideas of who i am, but i’ve got tons of ideas about who i’m not and i reckon it’s good to give Him not only who i am, but also all that i’m not … take it all captive.

2 Corinthians 10:5 says to take our thoughts captive. That word “thoughts” there in Greek means all your perception, purpose, all your academic thinking, and even your disposition, take it all prisoner by the word of God, and that’s not just the negative stuff either, that’s ALL of it, even the good things, take them ALL captive, like holding a prisoner of war at spear point.

We can’t be afraid to reveal to the Lord even the smallest details of our lives, you know, it’s not like He’s surprised. i believe God knew exactly what He was getting into when each one of us came in the door of the house by the Blood of the Lamb.

There is no time the Lord ever regrets forgiving your sins and transgressions. i believe the Lord has more hope for me than i have for me, and certainly more hope for me than any of my friends or relatives. i was the little boy who was never supposed to live past the age of seven, according to our neighbors. i was a dangerous kid, not because i was mean or tough, but i was so vastly ignorant of the repercussions of my actions, it’s the truth, my parents didn’t expect me to survive childhood.

i figure, if you are the meek, poor, wounded, depressed, if you’re the fearful, sad, conflicted, shamed and disqualified, if you’re the bankrupt and blind, one of the lost and unfortunate ones, you are exactly who Jesus came for. You are the very one He came to get eye level with. He was crucified, died and rose from the dead for you. You are the very one God came to rescue.

You and I both know what happens to unprocessed emotions: they get stored. i can’t remember who said it but they said, “What’s buried alive never dies.” That’s the truth. We’ve gotta deal with stuff, we can’t just bury it, or compartmentalize it and stuff it somewhere. Some folks compartmentalize their griefs so well, they can, with all confidence say they are “fine…totally fine”, but below street level all the wounds which have been buried are still active, affecting all they do. Honestly, I don’t see the Lord as someone who just throws “lessons” at us in the form of casualty, catastrophe or suffering as if we are hamsters just running on a wheel. But I do think we are all able to choose to have the power to mine gold from even the darkest of situations.

We need to be honest with ourselves and the Lord. Yea, i know we have to be people of faith, and faith will get us through, and by faith i am healed, but so many in leadership have gotten so they are dealing with other people’s stuff, but they’re not dealing with their own, even to the point of denying they even have woundedness going on. Believe me, if you’re in church leadership long enough, you WILL get hurt, sheep bites are painful. But i don’t think we should be wounded healers. Telling ourselves if we had enough faith we shouldn’t even be going through those things. If we feel like we can’t be honest over things, if we feel like we can’t bring our problems into the light, it’s the truth, everything we hide has power over us. That’s why a couple programs ago i made a call to deal with the hidden things in our backyard where no one can see, which is a metaphor for saying everything we hide has power over us.

That, by no means, says we should just dump all our dirty laundry onto anyone who comes along, we need to be a little more discretionary than that. But you’d be surprised how much help there is in having a safe person to simply verbalize things with. i call it “talk therapy” We need to talk about the things which hinder us so hell can’t continue to hold it over our heads anymore, making us a slave to what is hidden and compartmentalized.

We spend a lot of energy keeping things hidden. It reminds me of having a bicycle which only turns in one direction. Oh, you’re peddling and balancing alright, but you aren’t going anywhere. Every time you hearken back to a former time about the time so-and-so did that, or such-and-such happened, or you remember the disappointment or anger of a past thing that happened, get off that bicycle and deal with what’s holding you back.

Many years ago, i was angry and so disappointed it seemed life was just going in circles. i distinctly remember waking up one day and making a clear decision that i was not going to allow the past to keep dragging me backwards into a dark corner, getting suckered into a fight in the dark, and that from there on out, i was going to look up instead of down, afterall, when you’re always looking down, all you can see is the ground.

i was drawing a line in the sand that enough was enough, that’s it, i’m not looking back, obsessing about the past anymore, sitting in the middle of nowhere wishing i could just get a glimpse of destiny. i believe it’s a fact, we can’t do anything about what’s past, what’s done is done, but we can do a lot about cooperating with God about what’s ahead.

2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away; behold, the new has come.”  Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life, be renewed in the spirit of your minds, put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Let’s get motivated about that!

Philippians 3:12-14, “…but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Friends, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

“Press” is one of the key words i’m interested in. It means to push forward, pursue, take action, campaign and advance on. It’s not a timid, passive term, it is a verb that is present, active, indicative, meaning it is in the now, we are the ones doing the action, and it’s a statement of fact. Take note of these words also, “make it my own”, which is a now verb, “Forgetting what lies behind” as in the now, and “straining forward” is present tense, meaning now. Do you see it? Now, now, now!  In order to press onward, we’re going to have to learn to do it, even when we’re hurting, even when all odds say we should just quit, even when our closest friends tell us to just give up on our faith. We’re going to have to learn to do the right thing even when the wrong thing seems more just. You know, it’s always the right time to do the right thing, and we need to do it until doing the right thing just becomes second nature to us ‘cause doing the right thing is just the natural inclination of our heart. That’s called enduring and it’s one way of resisting the devil so he’ll run away, screaming into the distance, driven backwards into his own gates.

Friends, we need to know who we are in Christ and stop getting our identity from how we look, who we know, the job we have, what we own, what others say about us, and what spectacular things we may have done or not done. It’s been said before on this program, i don’t believe most of us really know what to make of ourselves, nor do we seem to know how to talk about ourselves. God wants to define us, and if we wait until some religious body defines us, we maybe waiting all our lives. God is our constant defining moment, now, now, now.

i don’t know about you, but i’m not satisfied to merely go to Heaven when i die. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a wonderful thing, of course, but i just don’t believe Jesus Christ, the son of God Almighty, died for me so i can just barely get through, just surviving, (Eeyore voice) “i guess everything will be great when we get to Heaven, but we’re just doing the best we can with what little we’ve got in the mean time, barely scraping through. i’ll probably enter Heaven with the faint smell of brimstone on me, but at least i’ll be in Heaven.”

          Jesus said He came that we would have life and have it more abundantly. Now listen, that doesn’t mean we won’t have problems, it doesn’t mean we won’t struggle, it doesn’t mean we will never weep over situations, or, that everything is just going to be moonbeams and merry-go-rounds either … but it does mean, by the blood of Jesus, we have a right to not be wounded all our lives, to not bleed all over everything over past hurts, we have a blood bought right to not get mired in the clay of what someone did to us.

You wouldn’t believe how often hell has come to me and told me i would never have anything more than a second-rate life, doing second-rate things, for second-rate reasons. It reminds me of the kids in high school who got D’s on their report card. They tended to do D things with D people going D places for D reasons yet were never able to lift up their heads enough to see that there was so much more life than what they had.

i am determined to not let the wounds of my past dictate the steps of my future, and to stop the bleeding of old hurts. The past belongs in the past, which is why it is past. Let … it … go.

Let us be reminded of God’s promise in Isaiah 61:7-8, “Instead of your shame there shall be a double portion; instead of dishonor they shall rejoice in their lot; therefore in their land they shall possess a double portion; they shall have everlasting joy. For I the LORD love justice; I hate robbery and wrong; I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.”

That’s joy, which is rejoicing and gladness with a shout in the middle … and that’s an everlasting joy too. The Lord rewards those who diligently seek Him and i must add that i have sought the Lord at His request for lo, all these years and i believe and am assured i am living in the reward. He didn’t persecute me for my wrongs, He corrected me to a better heading. He didn’t prosecute me as in a court of law, He took me to a place to heal the wounds which drove me off the deep end. So much of my life i’ve had to do things afraid. What is it one preacher says, “If you’re afraid, go forward afraid…go with God anyway. Go forward with Jesus and tell the truth, even if your voice shakes!”

If He did it for me, He’ll do it for you too. We don’t have to be wounded all the days of our lives. There is a choice to be made there. What do you want? Do you just want to make it through the muddle in the middle, merely surviving life? Regardless of all my confidence, i can safely say, from hard won experience, no one, nowhere, is able to run their lives by themselves. We can’t, simply can’t do it alone, as in “are not able”. There is no way anyone can escape the gravity of earth, the pull of this world, on their own. i have been abandoned, rejected, made to be isolated and isolated myself, and felt overwhelmingly alone, but through it all, God has been there, He and i have pressed forward, in the now, every step of the way. Regardless of who doesn’t like me, disagrees with me, won’t return my calls, or feigns to be my friend yet doesn’t speak to me at church or on the street, i have determined i am going on with God no matter what or who.

Check out another of God’s promises, Isaiah 54:4, “Do not fear, for you will not be ashamed; Neither be confounded, for you will not be put to shame; For you will forget the shame of your youth.” i love the part where He says, “neither be confounded” … meaning to not let yourself be insulted, offended, or wounded to the point of nearly bleeding to death. And then He says, “you will not be put to shame or disgraced,” basically meaning the Lord will lead us in a path which we don’t have to suffer the loss of honor due to humiliation, not that we will forget the stupid stuff we did when we were ignorant and young, but the shame of those days will be resolved unto strength, maturity, and faith. Friends, now there’s the word of the Lord to cling to.

i know of a fellow who was reminded by the enemy of all the dumb stuff he did as a young man, reminded so often it just seemed to be a probability that’s the way the rest of his life was going to go. He began to believe he was as terrible as hell would have him believe he was. He called me on the phone and asked me straight out if i thought he was a failure, and with all power i answered, Absolutely not, never, in the name of Jesus. The Lord said in Isaiah 54:17, “no weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed, and you shall refute every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD and their vindication from me, declares the LORD.”

Hell will bring against us all of our don’ts, won’ts, can’ts, and should’ve’s as judgments lodged against us to wound us to death, but God says we have the power, by the blood of Jesus, to refute those accusations because we are the children of light, servants of the most high God who sets our feet on firm footing and leads us beside still waters, meaning He is faithful to bring us to His Shalom. Even if your life is burned to the ground and there’s nothing but ashes and soot left, God knows how to build again, so from the sludge of a burned out life, new life springs forth like gold sticking out of the ground.

Stand up church, it ain’t over till it’s over. You may be down, but you’re not out. i’ve not heard the bell yet, so get up and fight. 1 Timothy 6:12, “Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” Think about it.

Stand up church, get to your feet. Your catastrophic circumstances are not the end of things, it is the beginning of excellence in Christ, it ain’t over till it’s over, and it’s not over yet. i know a man who has struggled with addiction, crime, and incarceration almost all his life, but then when Jesus took hold of him, things begin to change. Yes, he relapsed because that was his best self-medicating coping skills, yes, at first he still played out his criminal habits because that was all he’d ever known. But little by little, he became less and less of an addict, committed fewer and fewer crimes, and every time he got knocked down, he kept getting back up, and getting back up, determined to apprehend Christ, the prize who lay before him. Over time he got good at falling down and even better at getting back up, every time he got back up he was standing longer and more upright. The farther he got from addiction and crime, the less he was inclined to see himself as a failure with no hope. In him grew a hope that in Christ he really could be a son of the Most High, and he really was be an overcomer.

It’s great to be on the path, but we must actually move our feet. C’mon, let’s get on with it. There’s no time to sit and moan about old things that have passed away to the point we become inert. If we’ve nearly fainted in the heat of battle, weary from the pounding of life, Jesus is our refreshment. We don’t have to keep bleeding, we don’t have to keep weeping. There’s a choice there. John 10:10, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

Jesus came to give life to us over-the-top, more than we could imagine, better than our idea of good. We are called to do more than merely survive, and notice, Jesus used the word “abundantly” and we should take that seriously. True the devil comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but my Jesus stepped into the middle of all that and said, “I am here, and that ain’t happening to whomsoever will come to me.”

Come go with me, let us press on to know the Lord, for He will come, He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rains watering the earth. Be strong and courageous! Roll on little doggies, roll on happy trails. Amen!