I was a whipping post last week. The old saying "People shoot the messenger" is dead on, as I was getting quite the beating for delivering a few messages. In several instances last week, I felt called by our Father to "stand in the gap" between the world and Scripture and provide some Godly counsel to friends. Fully armed with the Bible and fully confident that God was doing the nudging, I went in with my whole heart sharing what He asked me to say.
What I hadn't counted on was that perhaps those friends didn't necessarily want to hear it. The reactions weren't ones of "Wow, that's exactly what I needed to hear!" but rather more along the lines of "Mind your own business." I was surprised and took personally the rejection of the messages.
Not going to God with the "What's up with this?" I instead vented to my husband. He responded with some Godly counsel of his own. He said, "To whom are you accountable?"
That silenced my pity party. I had forgotten who those messages were from. I had spoken exactly as the Father instructed and delivered it with the love and grace He's shown me over and over again. That doesn't guarantee God's message is welcomed with open arms. I had to be reminded of the many times Christ spoke and was pushed out of town to the point of hanging on a cross outside of one. Or Paul spoke and was flogged or stoned. I was grateful for that reminder from my husband.
I can honestly say even after his reminder, I was persuaded to never deliver another such message because of the hurt feelings I was nursing. That's when another friend, who is in my Christian accountability group, spoke up and said, "Isn't that exactly what Satan was hoping you'd do?"
This is not new information to me, but it sure is nice to have Christian brothers and sisters remind us of it when we face the very persecution Christ warned us about. The world hates hearing the truth and will hate us for repeating it, whether God told us to say it or not.
Have you ever seen the T-shirt slogan, "I'm the Christian the devil warned you about?" Yeah, well that's me. I'm armed with the Word and fully prepared to share it. Or how about that other T-shirt that shows a person getting out of bed and Satan is saying, "Oh, crap, she's up!"
It took a couple days and it took a few shed tears, but world ... I'm up.
