I have experienced a few confusing moments over the past few weeks, I mean straight out of left field stuff. All I have been able to do is look up and ask God for clarity and strength to not confront and create a worse situation. I keep asking, "What just happened?" and "Why did it happen?" I keep wondering, "What role did I play in it happening?" "What lesson am I to learn from it?" "Is it my fault?" "What happens now?"
God's clarity and calmness is really needed because I desire to confront, check and correct. God has not given me permission to confront, instead he has said to me, be still, slow to speak and in place of seeking to confront another, confront yourself. What?
To make sure we are walking in right relationship with God, we must take time daily to confront ourselves. We dare not begin to confront another if we fail to self-check. Its in confronting ourselves we begin to change our perspective and the motivation in wanting to confront another person shifts from a negative to a positive.
Confrontation by definition is viewed as a negative action.
Normally, when you “confront” someone, you instantly place the other person on
defense which in turn creates a negative or uncomfortable exchange. However,
confrontation in itself is not a negative or bad thing...it’s just how it is
used or should I say abused that makes it seem bad. Confrontation can be good
and necessary. When one confronts, one is looking to illuminate a subject,
concern or issue, often with the desire to rebuke, reveal or reconcile. It’s
through confrontation truth is recognized.
Many don’t realize it, but, Jesus was confrontational. Think
about it, in correcting the naysayers and instructing others, Jesus often used
strong language and tone to rebuke, reveal and restore.
“Get behind me Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not
have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” Matthew 16:23 NIV
Here Jesus is rebuking
Satan in response to Peter’s refusal to accept Jesus’ predicting His death.
In the story of Jesus healing a crippled woman on the Sabbath,
Jesus was confrontational when he responded to the synagogue leader’s objection
to His healing. “The Lord answered him, ‘You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on
the Sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it
water? Then should not this woman a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept
bound for eighteen years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?’”
Luke 13: 15-16 NIV
Jesus confronted, revealing
inconsistency in religious practices.
“For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the
unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made
alive by the Spirit, through whom also he went and preached to the spirits in
prison...” 1 Peter 3:18-19 NIV
Jesus being crucified and defeating death is the greatest
confrontation reconciling us with
God, taking the sting out of death and giving us the opportunity to have
eternal life through Jesus.
Today, God confronts us in how we are living, thinking and
believing; reminding us through His word that we cannot live like the world if
we say we are living for Him. “Do not love the world or anything in the world.
If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything
in the world - the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the
boasting of what he has and does - comes not from the Father but from the
world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of
God lives forever.” 1 John 2:15-17 NIV
Walk in faith. Live in love.
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