How Does God Feel When People Hurt?

Illustration: Our spiritual life is like a fire burning. It’s our responsibility to keep our personal fire burning. Some people are in the business of going around putting out other Christian’s fires. And many times these people are very hard working church members, but they just have a knack for offending people. If we don’t have all the necessary elements on hand for our spiritual fires they are in danger of being put out by the water of other church members, or the natural conditions of the world. If we don’t keep on hand certain things for our fire such as: prayer, Bible study, praise, fellowship, and corporate worship we set our fire at serious risk. If you don’t constantly provide fuel for a fire it will soon go out, and the same is true for our spiritual fire as well.

Illustration: ILL. Drs. Minirth & Meyer have written a book about overcoming depression entitled "Happiness Is a Choice." They wrote, "As psychiatrists, we cringe whenever Christian patients use the words, `I can’t’ & `I’ve tried.’ Any good psychiatrist knows that `I can’t’ & `I’ve tried’ are merely lame excuses. We insist that our patients stop saying `can’t’ & say `won’t’ instead."

"They need to see what they are really doing, so we make them face up to it by saying, `I just won’t get along with my wife.’ `My husband & I won’t communicate.’ `I won’t discipline my kids the way I should.’ `I won’t find time to pray.’ `I won’t stop gossiping.’ When they change their "can’ts" to "won’ts" they stop avoiding the truth & start facing reality."

We need to determine what we really want, & as God’s people, learn to say with the apostle Paul, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" [Philippians 4:13].

4. God’s efforts are strongest when our efforts are useless. (v.8) God takes our ordinary efforts and does something extraordinary with them. The fact that our efforts are useless doesn’t exempt us from trying. Many times in the Bible God demands effort along with faith before a blessing can be given. To secure money for taxes Peter had to go and catch a fish. Matt 17:27 "But so that we may not offend them, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours." Jesus could’ve simply come up with tax money without any effort from Peter, but through Peter’s effort he learned obedience, involvement, and was blessed with more faith. Notice Jesus didn’t say anything about helping the invalid into the water. The man didn’t really need help to get into the water first what he really needed was to come face to face with Jesus.

5. Sometimes we put unnecessary restrictions on new Christians. (v.10) When a person is just coming out of the darkness and someone shines a spotlight into their face their natural response is going to be to look away. I have seen people who God had delivered out of sinful lifestyles get discouraged before they ever have a chance to get going good because of some rigid religious fanatic overloading them with all that was wrong with their faith, the church, and the Bible. And it was too much too fast and they just naturally turn away from the church and were totally turned off by anything remotely similar.