Faces of Pain

Look around you today. Notice the faces of people.  See them with new eyes.  Look at your friends.  Look at the people you worship with each week.  Notice the people you work with each day. How about the greeter at walmart or the cashier who rings up your purchases.  The mechanic who services your vehicle or the teacher who educates your children. These are real people living real lives.  Their lives are not much different then the life you live.  For each day, they awake, eat, work, sleep, and interact with others around them.  Some are believers and follows of the Lord Jesus Christ and some are not.  Some of you reading this blog are believers and followers of Christ and some are not.  As I interact with more and more people I see a common thread running through each and every life, believer or not, yours and mine included.

This common thread in the lives around us is pain.  Pain has many faces.  Just look around you.  The type of pain I want to discuss today is emotional pain.  Emotional pain is the hidden secret pain that we stuff deep down into our hearts. The avenue of this emotional pain can be resulted from others implicating their sin upon us or by our own attempt of satisfying our fleshing desires.  But either way it hurts and it runs deep.  These people above that are mentioned are walking around with this pain.  You, my friend, if you have lived on this earth for any length of time have experienced emotional pain as well. 

The enemy so desires you to be chained in bondage to this pain.  He whispers in your ear, "you are so unworthy of love and acceptance because of ........"(you fill in the blank)  "The sin you commit or the sin committed against you is is unforgivable."  "It really is your fault."  If others knew of this horrendous act, they would abandoned you, gossip about you, shame you."  Shame, condemnation, and guilt is piled upon you.  In the attempt of peace and acceptance you stuff the pain deep down in your heart.  If this pain cannot be ignored, you may turn to several different vices of comfort and physical acts to numb the pain.  Drugs, alcoholic, sex, self inflicting wounds, suicide, work alcoholic  people pleaser,gluttony the list could go on and on.  We attempt to stuff and we attempt to please others with the hope of finding peace and quiet into our souls.

It is the enemy that comes to steal, kill, and destroy. But Jesus came to give life and have it more abundantly. John 10:10  This is such a large issue and the Bible has much to say to it.  My encouragement to you...be aware of the pain, bow the knee before the throne room and cry out to the Lord.  Share with Him all the details of the pain.  Yes, it will hurt and yes, it is very difficult, but God is the only one who can heal the heart.  Then find a mature Christian.  Be honest and open with this friend about all the emotions and pain.  Once this pain is in the open, the enemy has been exposed.  He can no longer hold the sin over your head and the friend can help carry your burden as you walk through this time.  There is healing.  This healing comes with being honest with the Lord, ourselves, and others. 

And guess what it is true, we are unworthy!  We do deserve judgement and hell.

 But we are all like an unclean thing,

And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags;

We all fade as a leaf,   And our iniquities,

like the wind, Have taken us away.

Isaiah 65:6

There is none righteous, no,not one.

There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God.  All have turned away,
   they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.

“Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.
“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”“Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.
“Their feet are swift to shed blood;  ruin and misery mark their ways,
and the way of peace they do not know.“There is no fear of God before their eyes.

Romans 3:10-18

But exciting news is ahead.  Jesus took ALL our sin, guilt, condemnation, unworldliness...all those things the enemy is throwing at you...Jesus took them upon Himself as He hung on the cross.  Yes, we were unworthy and He took them upon Himself anyway!  He replaced those things in your life with His RIGHTEOUSNESS.   That my friend, is the very reason is why we worship Him!  Let this truth set in!

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,  made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.  And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.  For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:4-10

Friend, live in His truth and find someone to help you walk this out by faith.

I think of the purposes of this blog is to help you become aware of the behaviors we observe in people's lives, including our own, is an outflow of the condemnation, shame, and pain that people are struggling with.  There is a reason for behaviors.  This is NOT an excuse for the behavior, just an awareness for the behavior.  In helping another person deal with these issues, we must understand the root cause.  Otherwise we will treat the systems, which is like putting a band aid on the punctured carotid artery. 

The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water,
   but a man of understanding will draw it out.

Proverbs 20:5

Walk in freedom today!