Seeking Serenity…

seeking God...finding Self...

Matthew 5:23-23

“So when you offer your gift to God at the altar, and you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there at the altar. Go and make peace with that person, and then come and offer your gift. ”

First be reconciled…

Our offerings to God…our sacrifices to God, not our reasonable due…is accepted when we have done the ultimate sacrifice. What is that?

Reconciling ourselves to those who have perseved a wrong doing by us…whether real or imagined. We are not permitted to ask …but what about…them…this…what hand they had…We are expected to just go. If God saw fit to bring to your rememberance a thing that requires reconciliation you can bet your bippy that if left undone it will undo you…

Many a day…a week and month…I have sat in the miry clay bottom of what is Hopeannfaith’s emotional well asking just those futile questions…of God…of myself…of anything or anyone who would answer.

Note to self and readers!!! Be very aware of the ‘anyone’ who has the answer! be certain that the ‘anyone’ is God the Father!! Another voice do not give ear!!

Oswald Chambers, 1935 ~ “Our Lord’s direction is simple, “first be reconciled”. Go back the way you came, go the way indicated to you by the conviction given at the altar…”

Our sacrifices are not sacrifices if we ignore the hard or painful that comes with them. I cannot tell you the turmoil I have inflicted upon myself holding to these perceived wrongs held against me. Now the remembrance is brought to bring about reconciliation…what if that reconciliation is denied??? And it often is, in my life [family].

I have set out to reconcile to my mother, brother and sister…it was not well received by them, causing me concern and resentments. First off at the time I was walking in ‘confused’ obedience. I did not feel I had any hand in these things…what a laugh…

All I could do when the reaction or the retaliations were the result was to respond with ” I am sorry you feel that way…”   Was I? Sorry they felt that way? That is another post altogether!

I can say that now I am sorry that they feel that way…that they do not like the me I have become. A hypocrite to them…

A hypocrite because I found a truth and changed. Changed my mind, my behaviors, my beliefs…who I was, to who I am becoming. Simple reconciliation of self…

To go and reconcile has not a thing to do with the other person, in respect to the direct of the thing. There is no question of my rights in this. I must waive my rights, Chambers says, and obey Jesus, he says.

I have a friend, a quietly wise woman, her life not at all unlike mine. She battles cancer and pain, always. I long for her to understand the healing of Jesus Christ. The benefits of the Atonement. She says…

“When she feels a resentment, or a ‘not liking’ of someone, instantly, she knows that she must confront the issue within her. How does she do this. If this lovely woman feels a tension with someone, a preceived wrong in her, she speaks directly to the person. She brings about a reconciliation. It does not seem to matter if that person receives what she brings, what matters is the finality of the obedience. She is freed, unchained, unshackled by the person, situation, uncomfortablness of the thing.

She is then able to move on.

Amazing revelation…you would think that at 40 something I would know these things. I’m working on it, with God.

Chambers describes this process as this:

~ ” the heroic spirit of self-sacrifice, then the sudden checking of the Holy Spirit, and the stoppage at the point of conviction, then the way of obedience to the Word of God, constructing an unblameable attitude of mind and temper to the one with whom you have been in the wrong, then the glad, simple, unhindered offering of your gift to God.”

That may be one of the most runon of sentences you have seen, but clear and orderly directions is described just the same!

God is a God of order…all of the time…even in our obedience and offerings.

Good to know!

Blessings All…