When i'm weak, your strength Lord is complete.

We never stop worshipping. For we are worshippers every one of us. But sin causes us to worship anything and everything other than God. We tend to exalt a substance, an experience, a person* or a dream to the level of a God. We define life by it's attainment, and we feel like dying when it is gone (when we lose it). Whatever we are worshipping becomes bigger in our eyes then the one and only God, and our idols become our God.

This is idolatry...

Redemption has come thru Jesus Christ. Redemption is to be liberated, freed, rescued from bondage and slavery to a person* or thing*.

Your life has been out of control, dominated by your addictions. Perhaps, despite your desire to be free, you've gone back again and again...& again... It has cost you dearly and has left you miserable. You are beneath the load of guilt and shame.

This is slavery...yet it's slavery you've chosen.

It is voluntary slavery.

We were in bondage until Jesus came as our ransom...
Now we are redeemed, well in the process.
We are not fully there yet, but the process has begun in us.

Something that pierced my heart today as I was reading is the following segment from the book "Redemption" by Mike Wilkerson. He says,

"Desires for God and desires for sin cannot COEXIST in our hearts with one another.

They are two OPPOSING affections. One will always push the other out.

When you worship something you cannot simply "stop it" on command.

The person or thing you are worhsipping is rooted deep within you.

It has your affections and your emotions.

That is why we must slowly replace our sinful worship with the worship

of our LORD. By His grace we will be changed..."

"Being free to worship God, doesnt necessarily mean that we will."

In the middle of our suffering it feels as though God is absent.

As if He has abandoned us.

Watched from the sideline, deciding not to intervene.

When we are in the "thickest part" of it,

We are unable to see the truth.

We are blinded to the truth...

"God is not a silent, detached, distant, disapassionate diety. He hears His children's cries. He knows their suffering. He will keep His promises. He will rescue them."

 -Redemption by Mike Wilkerson

Jesus also begged the Lord to take it all away, but God did not. -Luke 22:42

Jesus lived the kind of pain you & I are experiencing today.

Hostility, despised, rejected, alone, abandoned, oppressed, crushed, betrayed.

Jesus didnt ignore his pain. He didn't drown it out with addiction.

He didn't deny it- HE FACED IT.

He ran to God with it.

He called out "ABBA"-FATHER...

Sometimes God just needs us to face our pain with Him.

Sometimes we create barriers between us & God.

Sometimes it is the very experiences that threaten to drive us the farthest from God that actually bring us closest to Him.

Sometimes we feel such a deep grief while still feeling closer to God than ever before...

I love you all...