Tag Archives: difficulty

Meet God In The Fire

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Meet God In The Fire

Is God not real to you?

Does God seem more like a lofty concept than a real person you can walk with through life?

Do you want to see God?

Meet Him in the fire.

“Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished; and he rose in haste and spoke, saying to his counselors, ‘Did we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?’ They answered and said to the king, ‘True, O king.’ ‘Look!’ he answered, ‘I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire; and they are not hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.’
– Daniel 3:24-25

Fire brings God’s shape into view when, in humility, we desire Him more than we desire to escape the flames of adversity of this life through safety and comfort elsewhere.

When we abide in His love through obedience, stand firm on the hope of His appearing, and do not abandon the eternal for the temporary, He appears.

I don’t like hardship, but it is often in the midst of difficulty, at the edge of our ability—where we don’t know what, why, when, or how—that causes us to question and cry out in faith, and there He meets us.

“My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.”
– James 1:2-5

It is there, in the fire, where it gets real, where His presence is often most keenly felt, where He grants us wisdom and a grace to go on that we did not previously have. What is more real than that?

It is in the fire that God is a very real comfort for me. It’s more than head knowledge; it’s a presence like being braced by an arm to keep me from falling.

In my own words, I echo the words of the Psalmist, David, in Psalm 23:4,

“As I walk through the seemingly existential threats of this life,
You protect me from the death of separation from You,
You keep me in The Way of life.
‘You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me'”

This is the God I’ve met—and the One you can meet too—in the fire.

Realignment

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Realignment

Am I experiencing anything less than love, joy and peace?

The ultimate realignment question is:

WHERE ARE YOU?

“Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, ‘Where are you?'”
— Genesis 3:9

WHAT IS THE LIE BLOCKING GOD’S LOVE?

“So he said, ‘I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.'”
— Genesis 3:10

WHO AM I BELIEVING?

“And He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?'”
— Genesis 3:11

HAVE I BELIEVED ANOTHER VOICE? GOD IS THE ONLY SOURCE OF GOODNESS AND TRUTH. EVERYTHING ELSE IS HARMFUL LIES AND BELIEVING IT RESULTS IN CORRUPTION WHICH CAUSES ME TO RELATE TO EVERYTHING IN A HARMFUL WAY (EVIL), INCLUDING LIGHT—THE RESPONSE BEING TO HIDE.

“And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”
— John 3:19-21

GOD LOVES US. BELIEVING GOD IS THE WAY TO LIFE.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
— John 3:16

BELIEVING GOD IS THE WAY TO ENJOY GOD’S LOVE.

“for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from God.”
— John 16:27

BE AMAZED: GOD LOVES US AS HE LOVES HIS SON JESUS! ENTER INTO THE COMMUNION AND WONDER OF GOD’S LOVE.

“I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.”
— John 17:23

HOW WE LOVE—THE DEFINITION: OBEY GOD.

“This is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it.”
— 2 John 1:6

WHAT IS GOD’S COMMANDMENT? LOVE GOD. LOVE FOR EACH OTHER IS IN THAT LOVE.

“‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?’

Jesus said to him, ‘”You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.'”
— Matthew 22:36-40

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
— John 13:34-35

“If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?”
— 1 John 4:20

WHERE AM I? AM I IN CHRIST—GOD’S LOVE?

“If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.

If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.

By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.

As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.

If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.

These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.

This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.

You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.”
— John 15:6-14

REST IN THE PLACE OF PERFECTED LOVE THAT COMES WITH BELIEVING GOD.

“And we have known and believed the love that God has for us.

God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.

Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.”
— 1 John 4:16-18

So, am I experiencing anything less than love, joy and peace?

Where am I?

I’m believing You, God.

I am resting in Your love through obedience.

#perfectourlove

Stress Test

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Stress Test

Under what conditions does love stop being love?

This is what this life is designed to test:

our love for God,

and under what conditions does the love we have fail? What thing, if lost, would cause our love to end?

We are not subjected to fiery trials to test our love for God because God is a sadistic megalomaniac,

but because the first commandment:

‘And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’
— Mark 12:30

is necessary to perform the second commandment:

‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
— Mark 12:31

and is the only bond strong enough to accomplish God’s grand design: His ever increasing glory through Oneness, making us inseparably one with God.

“Jesus answered him, ‘The first of all the commandments is: “Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one.”‘”
— Mark 12:29

“I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.”
— John 17:23

The love that you love God with is the source of the love for everyone else, and however strong your love for God is, it is the limit of how strong your connection is to the person dearest to you.

If the love you have is less than God’s love, everything supported by it, everything built around it and everything connected to it will fail at some point.

There are some weights in life that anything less than love will not survive.

And there’s a coming day, the great and terrible day of the Lord, where whatever is within anything less than love will be destroyed.

So, our love is tested FOR OUR GOOD, so that our love is perfected,

because God’s love never fails
— 1 Corinthians 13:8

so that we, and everything built on and connected to that love lives and not dies, that our communion as One may be perfect

all for the wonderful glory of God.

What an amazing thing it is that we can be a part of that!

So, I encourage you to count every hardship you’re enduring as all joy! Remembering the point of the test.

Dealing With Feelings Of Failure

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Feelings of Failure Paul Luckett playing building with Legos at his desk

I don’t feel like I’m doing a great job, right now.

It’s a good thing that the work my Father has called me to do isn’t about good, better, or best in a moment in time.

It’s about finishing.

“But he who endures to the end shall be saved.”
— Matthew 24:13

If I can just continue in His process to the end, I will be perfected. I will become the finished product, identical to the Picture according to His plan.

“being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ”
— Philippians 1:6

So, if all I can do is take another step, I press. And, if I can’t even do that, I look to Him and I trust.

#struggle

Thank God For Pressure

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Thank God For Pressure

“You don’t really know what you’ve got until it’s under pressure.”

“So, I thank God for pressure.”

It’s been a difficult season.

God’s getting me right this summer.

I am being prepared for the next assignment. He’s transforming me from glory to glory, more and more into the image of Christ (2 Corinthians 3:18).

I shouldn’t expect promotion without preparation.

Even Jesus learned obedience by the things that He suffered (Hebrews 5:8)

It’s been rough. I don’t like it.

But, I’m thankful.

Peace

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Peace

Peace is not the absence of difficulty.

Peace is stability in the midst of it.

We can have peace because of the soundness of our vessel and confidence in the Captain.

Jesus is the ark.
Jesus is the Captain.

Everyone in Him has eternal life. We will never sink.
He will not lose one soul for everyone who trusts Him to guide them through this life.

From the moment we’re saved out of the waters of the shadow of death, separation from God, and accept His salvation, we enter His ship, we enter Life.

Where are we going in His ship? More abundant Life —deeper intimacy with God (John 17:3).

We’re going from Life to Life.

Nevertheless, the storms continue to rage.

But, since the day I met Him, I have never again been at risk of dying. I have inextinguishable life now, no matter how hard things get, because I am no longer separated from God.

My soul is anchored.

So, even while life can be difficult.

I have peace.

The Ministry Of Everything

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - The Ministry Of Everything

Every situation and circumstance is an opportunity to glorify God.

We give others and each other a real good look at Him from many countless, varied and obscure angles,

by manifesting His character, demonstrating His life in us through how we, by His grace, handle the many countless, varied and obscure circumstances of our lives.

In doing so, we give a fuller picture of Him.

But not only by how we reflect Him, but perhaps even more importantly, by admitting how, in any given circumstance, we have failed to,

by admitting how we have fallen short of the glory of God, by being honest about the unbridgeable gap by any natural means between where I am and His high calling, thereby declaring His excellence and glory: His goodness, His holiness, His righteousness, His justice, His love,

by confessing our sin so we can be healed and obtain the prize, striving to attain to the supernatural power of His resurrection, dying to sin: this world’s way of operating, and rising to life in Christ: the nature of the Father revealed and given to us through Jesus, the only begotten Son of God.

So, whether in life or death, success or failure, we can show people God, by His power and His faithfulness in which He works all things together for good.

Every circumstance and situation; good times, bad, plenty, lack, health, sickness, hardship, prosperity are all opportunities to manifest and glorify God, and to be co-laborers with Christ in the wonderful ministry of making God known.

“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.

Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we do not lose heart.”
— 2 Corinthians 3:18-4:1

“For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus’ sake.

For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.

We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed— always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.

For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

So then death is working in us, but life in you.

And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I believed and therefore I spoke,” we also believe and therefore speak, knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus, and will present us with you.

For all things are for your sakes, that grace, having spread through the many, may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God.

Therefore we do not lose heart.

Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory,

while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.

For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
— 2 Corinthians 4:5-18

We Must Fight And Fighting Never Stops Being Hard

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com - Fighting Never Stops Being Hard

This is something every believer needs to know.

The chipper, everybody’s happy, dry tooth Christianity milled by the industrial church does not prepare believers for the reality and horrors of war they WILL face everyday.

In the world we are always in enemy territory and we are always under attack.

“We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.”
—1 John 5:19

The lies of the world hurt.

And those lies come through real hurtful events and real hurtful statements at the hands of real people with an aim to establish real hurtful outcomes that contradict the truth of what God says, how His kingdom operates and His desire for our lives.

So, we fight.

In the world, Satan’s kingdom is the default, and we are in the world, so we fight to establish God’s kingdom -in our hearts, in our homes, in the church, in our spheres and in every interaction that we have with others.

Faith in Christ is an embassy in hostile enemy territory. We can run to it and find shelter in it, BUT IT DOES NOT STOP THE PAIN of the lies or the difficulty of warfare that we must face every day.

Without knowing this, a believer could be tricked into thinking that God is not with them, that He’s displeased with them, that they’ve not done something right or that faith in Christ is not real.

No, beloved.

We’re in enemy territory.

We must fight.

Fighting is hard.

It never stops being hard.

But, there is power available to us.

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
—Philippians 4:13

But above all, we win.

We who are in Christ always win because He has won.

“Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.”
—2 Corinthians 2:14

As we speak, the enemies of the kingdom of God are being subdued where there will be no kingdom besides His and where our King, Christ, is fully established as Lord of all.

“For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet.

The last enemy that will be destroyed is death.

For ‘He has put all things under His feet.’

But when He says ‘all things are put under Him,’ it is evident that He who put all things under Him is excepted.

Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.”
—1 Corinthians 15:25-28

Then, finally, we can rest and war no more.

Until then, we must fight.

Fighting never stops being hard.

Life can be hard and good.

Unsatisfied With Daily Bread

Paul Luckett | Brainflurry.com Unsatisfied With Daily Bread

It’s been hard recently.

All summer, God has been feeding me with bread and meat brought by filthy ravens.

I hated it.

I wanted the king’s delicacies served at a grand banquet table.

I thought I deserved more than daily bread.

He used my difficulty to show me what was in my heart: that He was not enough.

Oh dear God, I’m sorry!

Lord, I repent. Give me a heart that is satisfied with You, alone.