<\/p>\n
1 Peter 2:21-25 <\/strong>– 21\u00a0To this\u00a0you were called,\u00a0because Christ suffered for you,\u00a0leaving you an example,\u00a0that you should follow in his steps.\u00a0 22\u00a0\u201cHe committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.\u201d\u00a0 23\u00a0When they hurled their insults at him,\u00a0he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats.\u00a0Instead, he entrusted himself\u00a0to him who judges justly.\u00a024\u00a0\u201cHe himself bore our sins\u201d\u00a0in his body on the cross,\u00a0so that we might die to sins\u00a0and live for righteousness; \u201cby his wounds you have been healed.\u201d\u00a025\u00a0For \u201cyou were like sheep going astray,\u201d\u00a0but now you have returned to the Shepherd\u00a0and Overseer of your souls.<\/span><\/p>\n Have we been insulted, taken advantage of or abused?\u00a0 Has someone spoken wrongly about us or told lies about us?\u00a0 Has someone actually hurt us? Maybe hurt us severely?\u00a0 Jesus is our complete example on how to live our lives.\u00a0 He set aside His divinity, not separating Himself from it, but refusing to walk in the powers of His divinity and rather to rely totally on the Father and the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 Scripture is clear that He prayed often to Father God and that He was led and encouraged by the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 Jesus led His life as an exact example of how we are to live.\u00a0 Oh, I, like all of us, fall so woefully short.\u00a0 When I am attacked, or if I feel attacked, my first instinct is to defend myself.\u00a0 This is strong within me.\u00a0 However, over the years, the Lord has been remaking me so that often, though not always, I don\u2019t defend myself.\u00a0 Firstly, it is in obedience to the Lord and best for me, and for all, that I do not.\u00a0 Secondly, because when I try to defend myself, I mess everything up.\u00a0 Oh, I can say strong words to defend myself but in the end, I will not have glorified God, but usually, quite the opposite.\u00a0 Whether I am right or wrong, if I defend myself, even if I present a strong defense, it is likely that hard and hurt feelings are what follows. Of course, then I have hurt my \u201cwitness\u201d before others.\u00a0 Usually I don\u2019t leave people with the feeling that they are loved, but instead have shown myself on par with the world, rather than someone who is different because I am a child of God, what follows me defending myself is hurt and anger.\u00a0 Me, defending myself, is not a good thing and does not glorify God. However, when I trust God to be the just adjudicator, then He is glorified and I am much more satisfied that I have, as Jesus always did, trusted in our Father.\u00a0 Then God is glorified.\u00a0 Maybe I don\u2019t see it, but I know it to be true, because He is faithful, He is good, and He loves me.\u00a0 It is enough.\u00a0 We don\u2019t ask God to prove Himself to us.\u00a0 And no, that is not what Gideon did.\u00a0 Gideon asked God to clearly show him what His will was.\u00a0 God never needs to prove Himself.\u00a0 Those who know Him well never ask Him to.\u00a0 The thought of doing that is horrid!<\/p>\n The reason that Jesus did not retaliate was because He trusted in God the Father.\u00a0 We need not retaliate for the same reason.\u00a0 Of course, we must know of Him, and know Him, to trust Him.\u00a0 We know of Him and we increasingly know Him through His Word as revealed by the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 This is God revealing God to us.\u00a0 Knowing God, we are confident that He is faithful to us.\u00a0 We are more confident that He is good, and that He loves us, and we are more confident of that than in anything else we know, or think we know, or are able to know.<\/p>\n God being creator of all, knows that we are a creation and nothing more (Psalm 103:14<\/strong>).\u00a0 Being our Creator He knows we are weak and not able to fully live up to the example Jesus gave us.\u00a0 Just as God has made a way back to Him when man appeared hopelessly lost, He makes a way for us to follow the example of Jesus.\u00a0 He Himself saved us.\u00a0 He Himself enables us. \u00a0Jon Courson, Pastor at Applegate Christian Fellowship, in his Application Commentary on the New Testament, related the following:<\/p>\n When my son Peter-John was about three years old, we were playing in the snow, and I said, \u201cCome on PJ, follow in my footprints if you can.\u201d\u00a0 He couldn\u2019t. My stride was too big. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n The stride of Jesus is too big for us to exactly follow in.\u00a0 Now read the end of our Brother Jon\u2019s story:<\/p>\n Peter John did indeed follow in my stops that day \u2013 as I lifted him into the air and back down again and again so that he could put his feet in each one.\u00a0 He followed in my footsteps not only because I gave him steps to follow, but because I also enabled him to do so by lifting Him up. <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Praise God!\u00a0 What a wonderful example of God\u2019s love and complete care for us.\u00a0 God calls us to do the seemingly impossible.\u00a0 In our own abilities and strength it is too much for us.\u00a0 But with faith in God, we move forward and it is God Himself who enables us.\u00a0 He lifts up into each pre-ordained step.\u00a0 And what a joy to serve the Lord.\u00a0 Now, it is not here being expressed that it is always easy.\u00a0 That would be silly.\u00a0 But always it is joy to know that what we are doing is in direct service to our God.\u00a0 What an honor!\u00a0 What a blessing!<\/p>\n Likewise, it is an honor to hand over the defense of ourselves to the Lord.\u00a0 We know He loves us and that He is just and that He will take care of the matter.\u00a0 We can hand it over and forget about it.\u00a0 If anything, I often worry over the person who would wrong me.\u00a0 I pray for them.\u00a0 If they are refuse the Lord, they will pay in hell for what they do to us.\u00a0 So, with that thought in mind, I pray for the Lord to forgive them and not hold what they have said about me, or done to me, against them.\u00a0 The unforgiven will suffer for all eternity and no matter what they have done to me, I have no desire for them to suffer any further on account of some offense against me.\u00a0 Oh my, the fate of the unforgiven is horrible enough, I release them from any offense against me.\u00a0 May God not hold it against them.\u00a0 It is best to leave all such things in the hands of our good, just and loving God.\u00a0 And leave it there!\u00a0 God will do what is just and right.\u00a0 I can\u2019t guarantee that is how I defend myself is.<\/p>\n God defends us, and He enables us, as He calls us into His fold.\u00a0 He begins to train us who and what His sheep are and do.\u00a0 Who they must become.\u00a0\u00a0 Family, may we always, every time, trust in God and in so doing, be at peace.\u00a0 May the peace of God be ours as we forgive others and trust God.\u00a0 Praise the Lord!<\/p>\n Psalm 150:6<\/strong> – Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.\u00a0 Praise the Lord!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Micah 7:7<\/strong> – But as for me, I watch\u00a0in hope\u00a0for the\u00a0Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear\u00a0me.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Micah 6:8<\/strong> – He has shown you, O man, what\u00a0is\u00a0good; And what does the\u00a0Lord\u00a0require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 1 Peter 2:21-25 – 21\u00a0To this\u00a0you were called,\u00a0because Christ suffered for you,\u00a0leaving you an example,\u00a0that you should follow in his steps.\u00a0 22\u00a0\u201cHe committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.\u201d\u00a0 23\u00a0When they hurled their insults at him,\u00a0he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats.\u00a0Instead, he entrusted himself\u00a0to him…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192],"tags":[1924,370,1914,1919,156,610,187,655,1916,1912,1923,1913,1909,982,120,23,1927,1918,1078,62,1915,1908,8,1921,1911,1019,212,94,1922,1917,1926,1910,90,17,186,1920,1156,287,115,779,1021,1858,1907,1925,1902],"class_list":["post-438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotion","tag-abilities","tag-anger","tag-attacked","tag-child-of-god","tag-christ","tag-committed","tag-confident","tag-deceit","tag-defend","tag-divinity","tag-enables","tag-encouraged","tag-entrusted","tag-example","tag-faithful","tag-father","tag-forgive","tag-glorified","tag-healed","tag-holy-spirit","tag-instinct","tag-insults","tag-jesus","tag-jon-courson","tag-lies","tag-lord","tag-loved","tag-micah","tag-new-testament","tag-obedience","tag-offense","tag-overseer","tag-peter","tag-psalm","tag-remaking","tag-retaliate","tag-righteousness","tag-sheep","tag-shepherd","tag-souls","tag-strength","tag-suffer","tag-suffered","tag-unforgiven","tag-wounds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=438"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":439,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438\/revisions\/439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}