[walkinthespirit]

Remaining Vertical With God
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Friday, June 26, 2009

by Os Hillman

When they hurled their insults at Him, He did not retaliate; when He suffered, He made no threats. Instead, He entrusted Himself to Him who judges justly. ~ 1 Peter 2:23


Have you ever been wrongfully accused? Oh, the need to defend and justify becomes so great. "What will people think if they believe these things are true?" we reason. Imagine what Jesus thought as they hurled insults and threats upon Him. The God of the universe had visited planet earth only to be slandered and accused of blasphemy.

Jesus could have done two things in response. He could have used His power to put the people in their place. He could have responded "horizontally." He could have fixed the problem right then. However, He chose to respond in a different way. He chose to "entrust Himself to Him who judges justly." It requires great faith to entrust ourselves to God in the midst of personal assault. However, if we can do this, we will discover a level of grace and wisdom that will be birthed from this experience that we never thought possible. We will discover a freedom in God we never knew before. Whenever we suffer for righteousness without seeking to protect our reputation and rights, we are placing our total faith in the one who can redeem us. This activates God's grace in our lives and enables us to experience God's presence like never before.

Ask God to give you the grace to stay vertical with Him. Avoid the temptation of responding horizontally each time some event comes into your life that you want to "fix." Entrust yourself to the one who judges justly. It may be a divine appointment for your growth to another level in grace.

This is a word of great wisdom. It's one that is also easier to talk about than to live out! How we respond when we are literally confronted is where this fruit of the spirit really shows up and is observable! Amen? It's much, much harder to abase ourselves under persecution than it is to defend ourselves and rail back at our persecutors. Do we find ourselves defending ourselves here, in only word? What about when we are faced with such situations in real life? We can talk about it, but who has a testimony where they have "given place to wrath" because, "vengence is mine saith the Lord?" Who has a testimony of literally loving an enemy or enemies for the sake of Christ, and then seeing this great Grace you have spoken of? I believe there are some testimonies!

[Soulheart3]

Wise Words WalkintheSpirit, thanks for your post!