Pain

While many of us have yet to experience excruciatingly painful suffering (however, some have…), I do not doubt that we’ve all experienced pain. Despite the source, we’ve all felt that deep sting of dark regret, conditional love, crude mistreatment, or miserable failure. But, praise God, we can know what to do about that pain because Jesus felt it, too:

“In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety. Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.” Hebrews 5:7-8.

There is so much we could learn from this passage. First, God sees our pain, hears our cries out to Him, and accepts our tears when we give them to Him. He is able to save us from this pain because of His great justice and mercy. Second, Jesus didn’t wallow in His pain but instead stood with great victory and learned obedience from the things that were causing Him pain. Because Christ is in us, we can do the same thing!

Are you feeling the pain of a broken relationship? Be obedient to our Jesus by loving Him more than any person or thing. Do you feel the nagging regret of slipping into sin that sin you’ve been trying to fight for so long? Be obedient to our Jesus by accepting His victory over sin through His blood. Are you the object of anyone’s harassment or discrimination? Be obedient to our Jesus by letting His love overflow your heart and pour onto His hurting people. Does the memory of a particular or reoccurring failure distress your thinking? Be obedient to our Jesus by striving towards the you of tomorrow.

So yes, we can choose to dwell upon the pain that may be in our lives but we can also decide to be like Jesus and learn obedience through the suffering we experience. Lets stand together as a body of believers who choose to be obedient despite our outward circumstances.

Also, GUESS WHAT?? Today marks the first day of our October month of fasting!! If you haven’t decided already, pray about picking something you can fast for our Jesus. If you forgot about this, that’s alright. : ) Today’s a new day! Let’s rejoice and be glad in it, praying and petitioning for the Holy Spirit to move in the hearts of His people and being on our tip toes asking Him to use us in this revival.