Mirrors by Sue Stahl

[James 1:23-25 ESV] 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. 25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

Though I have sung along and been touched by the beautiful song “Waymaker” I have paused sometimes at the chorus lyrics and asked myself if I really believe that God has never stopped working “even when I don’t see it or feel it’.

This happens only when I have been carrying around the reflection of my ‘natural face in the mirror’ and the discouragement that comes with that. This has been one of my biggest and long lasting spiritual battles. 

May I share with you a testimony of God speaking into my life through the Sunday teaching and review from the book of James regarding this struggle?

If anyone is a hearer of the word…

I get that. I am a hearer of the word. I am certain that it is my foundation, my revelation, my guidance, my truth of which stems any and all hope. It is the Gospel. 

It is the powerful voice of the living and active Almighty God. It is the joy of meeting God again and again and knowing Him as bigger, greater and holier than the moment before.

It is the sword of the Spirit that pierces the division of soul and spirit, light and darkness, good and evil. Yes, I get excited about the Word!

And even when I can see only words on a page, the experiences and reminders of His faithfulness sustain me. Thank You Lord. 

If anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer…

Yes, I am good on this too. I know how to be a ‘doer’. Obviously I am not perfected but a work in process. Failure and falling and sin often obstructing my path but God’s grace and forgiveness forever lifting me. I am continually learning and growing and trusting that He is leading me into more refinement, more obedience and greater faith.

For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.

Oh yeah, straight A student on this one. 

Yes, I do look intently (with great effort, attention, or concentration) into that spiritual mirror and it isn’t very pretty. The debasing adjectives of how I see my reflection then become fodder for the enemy’s accusations and condemnation. My battle becomes not just about overcoming the sin but seeking relief from the emotional turmoil of finding the real truth- that I am a beloved and beautiful child of God. 

Then I noticed something I hadn’t seen before. Verse 24 never commands us to look intently at our natural face in the mirror. Though, we are exhorted in scripture to examine ourselves this mirror analogy is of the natural man not responding to what the mirror has reflected as is also the condition of the Spiritual man with no response to what has been revealed in the spiritual.

Not only that but James states in verse 25 that as Christians we have a new a mirror to ‘look into” that produces a hearer who responds and is blessed in his doing!

25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

The natural man’s mirror is held by satan’s hand and can reflect only the darkness. 

The mirror of grace God holds for us reflects His son. I am a born again new creation and the law of liberty in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. This is where I look to find my true reflection. 

[2Co 3:17NKJV] 18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

The discouragement may still come with the desire not yet fulfilled to know His love is flowing in me and through me Yet, may I now see that even this desire is from Him and the transformation from glory to glory is His work. He is teaching me to trust Him, to know Him, to love Him. 

So can I sing the song without a pause?  Yes, because all He has asked me to do (v 25) is look to Him and ‘persevere’. (abiding, remaining in) The rest He will do even if I can’t see or feel it because He is the miracle worker!

Prayer: 

Father, Help us whose thoughts are in bondage to the natural man’s reflection be set free to walk in the glorious liberty of the children of God for Your Glory and purpose.

Thank you Jesus for your fulfillment in proclaiming this liberty and coming to bring our rescue and release. In Your Mighty Name, Amen

Grace in All Things by Sue Stahl

2 Cor 9:8 “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.”

Lately I have been overwhelmed by the grace that the Holy Spirit brings into my life.

It comes in ways unexpected and I am humbled and grateful and reminded of who I am….a child of God, a new creation in Christ, a light in the darkness.

Two recent experiences were reminders of this. The circumstances not hard and pressing but still profound in what they represent as my identity in Christ is built and confirmed.

One of these events was when Eric and I were traveling and my luggage was lost. 

After the reality sunk in and the agent of the airlines brought us into the ‘lost luggage office’, my immediate response was the ‘oh no, you must be kidding’ attitude along with feelings of disgust, but then within seconds I felt the presence of the Spirit saying ‘don’t worry about it’ and His peace came upon me.I didn’t ask Him. He just came. In that moment I knew who I was. My response to the agent was then kind, sweet and joking around…Thank you Lord! That is Christ in me.

Now as I write this, I am at my daughter’s house getting things ready for her wedding in a few days. I put on praise and worship music as I sorted through the décor and checked off the things to do list. In the midst of it I thought about the two sets of parents of the groom that I hadn’t met or didn’t know well. The biological ‘mom’ at one point had circumstances happen in her life that lead to her son (the groom) spending his high school years being raised by a new ‘mom’ and family that adopted him for those years.

In that moment, I knew the Spirit was speaking. I was to send the distant mom a word of encouragement about how great a job she did raising her son. No judgment, nothing I need to know, just a sincere welcome and appreciation that she could join in the celebration with us. 

God’s pure and perfect love sent forth by His Spirit for His purposes. A prayer lifted for God to let her know His love.

Again His grace upon me. My personality and busyness to get this list done first would be my natural inclination, but now my supernatural inclination was to stop and send that word. 

The rivers of living water flowing brought again a peace and perspective so that I could put things aside and write this as my place of praise, my reminder of the grace and goodness of our God!

Yes, in many areas I still feel like it’s all about my flesh leading but from grace to grace He leads.

In my places where I struggle I can call on to the same Abba Father in a place of hope knowing that  change will come because that is what He does! I am a new creation in Christ. Thank you Lord.

Thank You Jesus for the excitement in the forever growing in grace and knowledge of who You are which changes who we are. Thank you for a grace the not only opens the door to the Father but creates us to become as You were in this world. One day face to face we look forward to meeting You in fullness Jesus. The bride awaits your return. Amen

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” -2 Cor 5:17

Jesus We Love You by Sue Stahl

Jesus we love You…oh how we love You. You are the one that our hearts adore…

Last night was a praise and worship night where we joined together with another church. 

It was wonderful. 

From the beginning the Spirit’s presence was manifested. You know those chills you get, the smile that comes across your face, the joy, the victory, the hope we receive as we corporately gather together to recognize and praise our God.

Yet towards the end of the night and in the midst of telling Jesus how much I love and adore Him, I was drawn back to my own reality and the question that seems to steal away my intimacy with God. 

Do I really know the love of God? 

Meditating on this and seeking His word brought up two distinctions regarding God’s love.

The first belief without a doubt is that God is love.

His mercy, grace, forgiveness, and our very breath of life is because of His love.

Unchanging and steadfast, a love that nothing can separate us from!

A love that brought redemption and reconciliation and allows us the blessing of knowing Elohim, God Almighty as our Abba Father. Yes, I believe this!

Knowing that truth then lead me to then ask what I am looking for to determine if I know ‘the love of God’.

Many like myself, have grown up with brokenness in our families. Absent or unloving parents, mistakes made, and wounds unhealed have left a ‘longing for love’. In the flesh, my defensive responses of pride and entitlement or hurt and anger can even now arise as idols that compete and rob me of relational intimacy with God and others. 

God has been continual healing me and I am grateful to say that the break in that moment of worship was by His grace. I knew to go to His word to allow Him to give the answers that I could now receive in His timing. 

1 John 4 brought me to the truths that set captives free. Please walk with me through my thoughts as the Spirit did His transforming work:

8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Woah, that was right to the point and my first response was this doesn’t sound like the unconditional love I expect from God. God is telling me I need to do something to know Him and His love.

12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

‘If we love another’, there it was again, a condition and one that I don’t do well with. Is God then not abiding in me? Would not this thinking cause me to question God’s love for me?

15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 

Wait, that is me, I have made that confession and God is abiding in me and I in Him. 

And there it was that God’s living, acting, mighty and powerful word spoke to me. 

It was no longer about what I needed to do, but what God has already done. We love because He first loved us. (v19) and He who is in me is greater than he who is in the world. (v4)

These truths about love were not warnings and condemnation for my failure to love but instead a reminder that I am born again by His Spirit to love as He does(v7) and that as He is, so also are we in this world. (V17)

He reminds me His love will be perfected in me, (v12 and V17) and His love will cast out fears that are against His love. (v18) 

His grace and faithfulness revealing His love as His prophetic word now answers my longing soul:

16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. 

God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

Thank you Jesus that You are Love. May we continue to abide in love, love as You loved, and know and believe the love God has for us. Amen

A Jealous God by Sue Stahl

"You shall have no other gods before me. - You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.” -Ex 20:3-6

I never really dwelt on this title of God and didn’t fully understand it.
Jealousy as I knew it didn’t seem to be a character I could associate with God.
Jealous people bear bad fruit. They are insecure, angry, envious. They want what someone else has. They will do foolish things to get what they want. They ruin relationships.
If anyone has felt the jealousy over a relationship where one has been rejected, cheated on, betrayed and ultimately replaced by another you can understand the strength of those feelings and may have seen some of the bad results of jealousy as mentioned above.

Through our recent church reading on Hosea I began to see God as a ‘jealous God’ but in a new light that would move my heart to say I am glad God has proclaimed Himself to be a ‘jealous God’.

Hosea is told by God ‘take a wife of harlotry’. (adultery, fornication, prostitution) (Hosea 1:2)
In reading Hosea, God parallels a defiled marriage relationship with the Israelites’ relationship to Him. (forsaking Him and following idolatrous practices) Relevant to the gospel is the parallel of Christ’s relationship to the church (his bride) and the same spirit of idolatry that is present today.
However, what stood out for me was God’s heart; the thread of His steadfast love throughout the story. Love is the motivation. His intense passion is for us to know Him and be known by Him. He is love and we are the object of that! The breadth and length and height and depth of that love He wants us to know! (Eph 3:18)
Wow, that is why God wants no other God’s before Him; no idols that we turn to instead of Him. His jealousy is our grace for He will let nothing separate us from His love.

In Hosea, the disciplines, punishments and consequences of forsaking God are evident which only seemed to make God’s steadfast love more profound.
This jealous God never stops pursuing us, never stops loving us. He stays in the details of our lives even when we are not in obedience. He stays to bring us back, to rescue, to redeem.

But they do not consider that I remember all their evil. Now their deeds surround them; they are before my face. -Hosea 7:2

And in the midst of it all with His alluring words and reminders, God’s thoughts towards us are revealed. His plans, His promises, His purposes will prevail. His steadfast love and faithfulness are unchanging. His jealousy has its cause.

past, Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. - Hosea 11:3

present, "Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. - Hosea 2:14

future. For you also, O Judah, a harvest is appointed, when I restore the fortunes of my people. - Hosea 6:11

Prayer:

Thank you Lord, that You are a jealous God. Let us respond to how great a love you have for us and help us to recognize and remove idols from our hidden places.

Little children, keep yourselves from idols. -1 John 5:21