STAND AND BE GRAND

 

STAND AND BE GRAND

The Lord is involved in everything we do, including our choices politically, socially, and emotionally. When we voice our choices publicly, we better be ready to be criticized. Nobody really likes criticism. It can be hurtful, but we need to learn to deal with it. It’s better to take a stand for something and be criticized than to remain apathetic and fearful. Even in olden times, kings respected strong enemies who were brave enough to stand tall for what they believed. God’s Word has a strong Word for those who He deems lukewarm:

 

“I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth” (Rev. 3:15-16).

 

Wow, that’s powerful!  I used to be more afraid of offending friends and family, than of offending God. I wanted people to like me, and I didn’t want to argue or get into any debates where I had to defend what I thought. But after a while, I learned that no matter what I did, I wasn’t going to please everyone.  There are many adult children who are still trying to please their parents, and it just isn’t happening.  I was one of them.

 

Finally, in my mid-forties, I realized I didn’t have to try to please my parents anymore. The very middle verse of the Bible says: “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man” (Ps. 118:8). When I changed my focus to pleasing God, it was shortly afterward that my parents began to totally respect me as an adult person and not as a needy child anymore.

 

I was taught to be polite (which I think is a good thing), but polite became timid, and timid became fearful. I’m not fearful now, and you don’t have to be either. We can speak our minds openly and disagree. Paul and Peter disagreed about certain things, but they didn’t hate each other. They were loud and proud. I’d rather say what I think and be criticized than be lukewarm and have God’s opinion be that I’m too “milk toast” to even swallow, but rather, as He says in Revelation 3:16: “I will spue thee out of my mouth.”

 

Peter was a bold guy. He boldly told Jesus that He shouldn’t have to die. Well, Jesus rebuked him. But Jesus didn’t forsake Peter. He just corrected him, and they went on being friends. If we think that not voicing what we think is going to make us a better person, it’s not. We all have opinions, and God knows what they are. When we don’t speak them out, we might not even be fully aware of what we really think.

 

Putting a pen to our thoughts, or a voice to our thoughts helps us to articulate what we think. When we know what we think, we can either keep thinking it or we can change it. Changing what we think is part of growth. People change what they think all the time.

 

But when our thoughts are fuzzy and unspoken, they aren’t clear, and they aren’t cold or hot. They become lukewarm like the Bible says. And that goes for what we say to ourselves as well as what we say to others. Our thoughts about ourselves need to be lined up with what God says about us. Isaiah 61 is a prophetic word about what Jesus Christ would do for those who believe. It’s our job to boldly declare His truth if we are to be true disciples of the Lord.

 

Verse 1 says he was anointed “to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.” So, if a person feels like they are bound to some addictive action, for instance, Jesus is here to set us free from that, and we must boldly claim ourselves free in Jesus’ name. Later, in verse 3, part of Jesus’s mission is “to give unto them beauty for ashes.” This gives us the right and responsibility to boldly declare to ourselves: “I am beautiful.” Or a person could boldly say: “I am not beautiful,” and in the 5-senses that may be true. But our mission is to get to where we are “hot” to God’s truths, helping others to do the same.

 

Taking a stand, hot or cold, on what we think, requires boldness in either case. Boldness is a quality God admires. Just take a look at your Concordance to see how many times the word “bold” is used in the Bible!

 

Let’s be brave. Let’s step out without fear. As Paul writes in Romans 13:11: “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation [wholeness] nearer than when we believed.”

 

We want to keep growing, “with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor, 3:18).

 

It’s time to Stand and be Grand!

 

Love, Carolyn

 

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