It’s a military axiom: When you’re taking flak, you know you’re close to or over your target.
Planes would be sent to take out the enemy. When they started getting close to their intended target, the enemy would start shooting and the shells would explode around them, or flak. The enemy wanted to take them out before they could do damage.
Paul tells Timothy, “Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” Not might be, will be. The enemy doesn’t want you to do any damage, like people seeing Jesus in you and wanting a relationship with Him.
Feeling defeated? You’re already victorious, so keep moving toward Jesus. Going through a rough patch in the road? Give thanks and keep walking. Yes, it’s unpleasant at the moment, but something and/or someone pleasant is just up ahead.

“Let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of lips that confess His name.”
The context, Jesus was killed outside Jerusalem in order to make us holy, helps us understand this phrase. The writer refers to Leviticus 7 and the thank offering associated with the peace offering. Jesus was killed to give us peace with God, which should give us pause throughout our day to give thanks or praise to God for making this happen.
God is no longer angry with you because He sent Jesus to be slaughtered for you. God is no longer going to whack you because He whacked Jesus for you. You are forgiven because God put all your sins upon Jesus nailed to the cross.
Do we deserve peace with God? No. Can we do “good Christian things” to be released from punishment? Nope. Was anything we’ve done, are doing or will do outside the scope of His forgiveness? Absolutely not.
Therefore, instead of sweating the mistakes of life (ours and/or others), start acknowledging who God is and what He has done, is going and will do for you. Can’t think of anything? Go back to a road outside Jerusalem almost 2,000 years ago.

It’s called the Tale of Two Flies. One day two flies nosedive into a bowl of cream. One of them believed in God and one didn’t. I know, God believing flies! Hold on, the story gets better. The cream made their wings sticky; thus, making it impossible to get out of the bowl.
The one who didn’t believe in God decided to drink the cream and die. While the one who believed in God kept flapping his wings until butter was made and flew out.
We live in a world that needs Jesus more than ever. And yet, statistics show that less than 10% those who call themselves “born again” are making butter or experiencing Jesus change their lives so that Jesus can be seen in and through their lives. The rest have given up.
It was Gandhi who said, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” Let’s pray for the world to see and hear Jesus in His Bride, the Church. It’s drinking the cream, but needs to see and taste the butter!

“We do it because it’s hard, not because it’s easy,” I heard the speaker say. This statement resonated within me as I thought about my walk with Jesus. I want to be so near the giver of true living (versus existing); and yet, it seems I’m constantly picking myself off the ground.
It’s at times like these that my Father reminds me that I live in a fallen world and have a sin stained flesh, both of which resist change big time! I wish I could be like the pastor who said, “Just stop!” in mimicking an old sitcom TV counselor. I’m glad it works that way for him, but that sure hasn’t been the reality in my life.
Though it’s no easy task to screen out the thousands of voices, including my own, I hear each day to hear and follow the only one that counts, the Shepherd’s (Jn. 10:27); it’s the only task that brings real peace and life.
Yes, it is hard. Yes, it takes a tremendous Spirit empowered faith effort to do it. But as a Jesus lover, what choice do I have, quit? It’s the hope in the promises and truths of Scripture that keep me getting up and trying again as one day He will finish the job He started (Heb. 12:2).
My fellow Jesus sheep, never give up yourself, your Shepherd doesn’t, no matter how hard it gets.

A doctor friend once said, “Doctors are not to cause harm, but they may hurt.” I had to pause and think about that for a moment. Surgeons cause pain when they cut through tissue to fix a problem. Hurt leads to healing. Harm leads to damage.
This brought to mind what the writer of Hebrews stated in 12:6, when he quoted Proverbs 3:11, “For the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and chastises every son whom He receives.” The writer goes on to say that God allows challenges as discipline in order to make us more like Jesus or holy.
God allows challenges, hurt, to draw us closer to Him and away from stuff that will damage our lives, sin/harm. Discipline hurts but does no harm. The Proverbs passage goes on to say, “Do not be weary of His reproof, for the LORD reproves him whom He loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.”
Challenges are a sign of love. Your loving Father simply wants to cut out the damage of sin to allow the healing of His love to make your life better, which is being like Jesus. Don’t resent challenges, embrace them as a way of surrender.