Get Back Up And Go

[hldude]

YouTube Channel Video Devo

“Get Back Up And Go”
James 1:2-3 NIV
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.

Last week, I shared how I was moved by the numbers on the scale and I decided to get it in gear and start walking and jogging regularly again. Well, one of the days I got home from work and went for a jog, I must have stepped into a groove on the sidewalk at just the wrong time. Next thing I know, my body shot forward and I hit the ground. I ended up dropping my phone and breaking part of it (I don’t know why I didn’t just have it in my pocket!), skinning my left knee, left thigh, left elbow and right palm. It hurt bad, but I got up, took a little bit to regain my composure while limping. After a bit, I thought, “I think I can still do this”, and I started jogging again.

I was actually questioning myself in my head why I chose to continue to jog after I just got injured. I have motivation to keep jogging and getting exercise and I didn’t want the injury to stop me. I mean, if I had broken something, I probably would have stopped and limped my way home. But, I was determined to see how it felt to keep going. I got home, wiped my cuts off and went on with life. The next day, I was very sore and it hurt a lot to move my left leg. I was limping a bit for the next day or so, but got better soon. I’m still sore and healing from the wounds, but I’ve been out almost every day still jogging and walking. When I come to that place I fell, I go a bit slower and try to be more aware of the sidewalk so I don’t do it again!

Friends, we all have had numerous experiences where we fall in life. Sometimes, it’s just figuratively speaking with a bad decision we’ve made, or it could literally be physical where we experience an injury to our body. Either way, when we fall, it’s often scary and difficult in some ways to get back up and go again. We might think, “What if it happens again?” Well, the only way to know is try again. We can either be filled with the fear of it happening again or be confident that we’ll do our best to not let it happen again.

We all experience trials and hard times. God uses these times to strengthen us and help us to continue to live life. We gotta pick ourselves back up and keep going. Maybe not the same way we chose before, but we keep going again. I used to tell my girls years ago about how the gymnasts experience setback after setback and mistake after mistake for many years and you never see that. And, even though they become professionals in many ways, they STILL mess up! And, so will we!

We will continue to fall down, but how we handle that means everything! We gotta make the decision to get back up and keep going and let God guide us. I hope that we can all strive to move forward, regardless of the falls we experience in life. We will have them, but it’s our choice how we deal with them. Let our motivation for life keep us going!

 

[Clueless]

I heard a producer of TV show's and theater programs say the following, which I though about based on the post and video:

Everything should have gone totally different, but that's always the case.

 

[Tenchi]

We all experience trials and hard times. God uses these times to strengthen us and help us to continue to live life. We gotta pick ourselves back up and keep going. Maybe not the same way we chose before, but we keep going again. I used to tell my girls years ago about how the gymnasts experience setback after setback and mistake after mistake for many years and you never see that. And, even though they become professionals in many ways, they STILL mess up! And, so will we!

We will continue to fall down, but how we handle that means everything! We gotta make the decision to get back up and keep going and let God guide us. I hope that we can all strive to move forward, regardless of the falls we experience in life. We will have them, but it’s our choice how we deal with them. Let our motivation for life keep us going!

God is not merely our Helper; He is our very Life, right? Without him, without Christ the Vine, we "branches" in him can do NOTHING (John 15:4-5; Colossians 3:4; John 1:1-4; John 14:6, etc.). Spiritually, we can't even want to get back up and keep "running" when we've fallen without the life and work of God the Holy Spirit within us. As Paul wrote, "It is God who works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13). In other words, God gives us both the desire and the ability to do His will.

As you may know, a vital part of how God moves us toward Himself, toward greater fellowship with Himself and the spiritual growth that results, is showing us that, in-and-of ourselves, we don't have what is required to walk with God in the way He intends that we should. But believers try - sometimes for years - to do for God rather than letting Him do for them (which is how Christian living actually "works"). Christians, it seems, don't believe Philippians 2:13 and the many other verses that tell them that God changes them, they don't change themselves for Him. See: Philippians 1:6, Philippians 4:13, Ephesians 6:10, 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24, 2 Corinthians 3;18, 1 Corinthians 1:7-9, Jude 1:24-25, etc. .

Why am I responding along this line to your words above? Because the statement "We gotta pick ourselves back up and keep going" isn't actually what the Bible teaches about how the Christian person moves into the life for which God made them. As Jesus said in John 15, without him, we can do NOTHING. In context, Jesus was talking about spiritual fruitfulness:

John 15:4-5
4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.
5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

Christians take this to mean that Jesus is just an assistant, a helper or supporter, of their efforts to produce spiritual "fruit," to be who God has commanded them to be. But as I pointed out, God's word tells us that Jesus is our Life, both physically and spiritually. This is vitally important in view of the fact that like always begets like. A cat begets a cat, a dog begets a dog, an apple tree begets apples, a rose bush begets roses, and so on. This reproduction according to kind is true also spiritually. Our humanness only produces more humanness; our flesh can only beget more of the flesh; I can only produce more of me.

Romans 7:18-19
18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.
19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.

Romans 8:8
8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Galatians 5:17
17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.

As a born-again believer, I have, though, new life in Christ in the Person of the Holy Spirit who dwells within me (Romans 8:9-13; John 14:16-17; 1 John 4:13, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, etc.). Though I can't from my humanness produce godliness (like only begets like), God the Holy Spirit can produce godliness from my life.

Paul, though, wrote of "running the race" and of keeping his body "in subjection" by pummeling it, and of "pressing on toward the prize" - all statements describing DOING things, taking action as a follower of Christ. So, then, who does what, right? Does the Christian believer just sit on his hands, waiting for the Holy Spirit to move him, puppet-like, into proper Christian living? Or does the Christian man take hold of himself by his bootstraps and pull himself up into a godly life? Well, most Christians adopt a sort of blend of these two states: it's not all them, but it's not all God, either; which usually resolves down to "I do all that I can from my human powers to live God's way and when I run out of gas, then I turn to God for help to keep going."

Since this isn't God's way for His children to live, trying to do so produces the corruption God promises in His word it will (Galatians 6:7-8), a life that is plagued by regular collapse into sin. Over time, Christians who live in this persistent - and often very tight - cycle of "falling and getting back" up think this is normal Christian living!

Instead, God tells us very clearly in His word how to walk in the way He has commanded us to do:

I work out in my life only what God has first worked into me.

Philippians 2:12-13
12 ...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,
13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

I can only do what God has first strengthened me to do.

Philippians 4:13
13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

I can only be strong in the Lord if He has strengthened me to be.

Ephesians 6:10
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.

How does this work, exactly? By walking in the Spirit (Galatians 5:16, 25), which is, essentially, to live under the constant control of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:18; Romans 6:13-22; Romans 8:14; Romans 12:1; James 4:7, 10, 1 Peter 5:6, etc.). It is the Spirit who works into me the life of Christ that I then work out. It is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ (Romans 8:9) who strengthens me supernaturally with himself (Ephesians 3:16; Romans 8:13). But he does so only for those believers who are under his constant control. All other believers who have not consciously, explicitly submitted themselves to the Spirit's control throughout each day are rebels toward God and He simply won't fill rebels with Himself. Why would He? He wants to deal with us in a love-relationship and such a relationship requires that we freely choose to walk with Him as the God He is. If we dig in our heels and chart our own course, neglecting to daily, often many times a day, submit ourselves to His will and way, God will allow us to do so. This is what a love-relationship necessitates.

Anyway, I write all this after having lived for decades in the way you described in the quotation above. Thank God He showed me - after much failure, frustration and spiritual exhaustion - the way He intended me to live! I'm just wanting to benefit you with the knowledge He gave to me. I pray He'll lead you into the life I've described above. It is so different from the "skinned knees and elbows" of the stumbling "race" I used to run as Christian and so vastly better! Perhaps God will show you that it is, too.

 

[for_his_glory]

Matthew 24:13 But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.

What many are missing is the word "shall" in Matthew 24:13 as it's expressed as a future tense that indicates a promise.

For by grace, as it's only Gods favor extended to all who will receive it by faith, is a free gift as we become His workmanship created in Christ unto good works that God ordained that we should continue walking in the good works of Christ, Ephesians 2:8; Matthew 25:31-40. We can not earn our salvation by our own works nor do we even deserve Gods grace, Genesis 6:6-8. Only by a mustard seed of faith do we come to Christ and repent of our sins are we then only washed clean by the blood of Christ and become Spiritually reborn again (not saved) through the Spiritual rebirth of John 3:3-6 by that of Romans 10:9,10.

Matthew 24:13 says that those who endure until the end shall be saved. This means enduring all the trials and tribulations that this world will bring against us for the sake of our witness and testimony of Christ, Acts 14:22, Rev 2:10. The end means the end of our days here on this present earth when those in the grave and we who are still alive at His coming will then be caught up to Christ and are saved at that time as we have endured all things and never gave up our faith in Christ.

God's word never said we would not go through trials or tribulations, but through many trials and tribulations if we endure until the end then we will see the Kingdom of God, Acts 14:22, as we are all called into discipleship as we share our witness and testimony with those who have not yet repented and turned back to God. Below are twenty reasons why God allows us to go through trials and tribulations so that we will always remain in His will.


Why God allows us to go through trials and tribulations:
1. Training as God prepares us for the future
2. Patience as we rely and trust in God's timing
3. Perseverance through trials that we remain in Gods will
4. Trust as God's ways are not our ways and He has a better plan for us
5. To learn from our mistakes
6. To humble ourselves before Him
7. To discipline us
8. Teach us to be dependent on Him alone
9. To spend quiet time with God so He can speak to us
10. To teach us of His protection
11. That we also share in the sufferings of Christ that we be not ashamed
12. Strengthen us to become more like Christ
13. To develop character
14. Build up our faith in the Lord
15. For a testimony and witness to help others
16. To show us sin in our lives that we need to own up to having
17. To remind us that God is in control
18. Helps us gain knowledge and understanding God's word
19. Teaches us to be thankful
20. To take our mind off the things of the world and and put them back on God