Rend your heart and not your garments.

Joel 1:20
Even the wild animals pant for you; the streams of water have dried up and fire has devoured the pastures in the wilderness.

Even the inferior creatures instinctively showed their suffering for the peoples’ transgression. And what better are we than beasts, if we never cry to God but for food and wine, and complain of the want of the delights of sense? Yet their crying to God in those cases, shames the stupidity of those who cry not to God in any case.

Joel 2:13      

 Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.

There must be outward expressions of sorrow and shame, fasting, weeping, and mourning; tears for trouble must be turned into tears and disgust for the sin that caused it. But rending the garments would be vain, except their hearts were rent by abasement and self-abhorrence; by sorrow for their sins, and separation from them. There is no question but that if we truly repent of our sins, God will forgive them; but whether he will remove affliction is not promised, yet the probability of it should encourage us to repent. His promises are real answers to the prayers of faith; with him saying and doing are not two things.

1. Is there a connection between the sense of pain and loss in our hearts as we are convicted of sin and the pain of Christ on the cross for the sins of the world?

2. Why are we allowed to feel pain for sin?

 3. Can the pain of sin be good?

The Habit of Recognizing God’s Provision

. . . you may be partakers of the divine nature . . . —2 Peter 1:4

We are made “partakers of the divine nature,” receiving and sharing God’s own nature through His promises. Then we have to work that divine nature into our human nature by developing godly habits. The first habit to develop is the habit of recognizing God’s provision for us.

We say, however, “Oh, I can’t afford it.” One of the worst lies is wrapped up in that statement. We talk as if our heavenly Father has cut us off without a penny! We think it is a sign of true humility to say at the end of the day, “Well, I just barely got by today, but it was a severe struggle.” And yet all of Almighty God is ours in the Lord Jesus! And He will reach to the last grain of sand and the remotest star to bless us if we will only obey Him.

Does it really matter that our circumstances are difficult? Why shouldn’t they be! If we give way to self-pity and indulge in the luxury of misery, we remove God’s riches from our lives and hinder others from entering into His provision.

No sin is worse than the sin of self-pity, because it removes God from the throne of our lives, replacing Him with our own self-interests. It causes us to open our mouths only to complain, and we simply become spiritual sponges— always absorbing, never giving, and never being satisfied. And there is nothing lovely or generous about our lives.

Before God becomes satisfied with us, He will take everything of our so-called wealth, until we learn that He is our Source; as the psalmist said, “All my springs are in You” (Psalm 87:7).

If the majesty, grace, and power of God are not being exhibited in us, God holds us responsible. “God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you . . . may have an abundance . . .”              (2 Corinthians 9:8) — then learn to lavish the grace of God on others, generously giving of yourself. Be marked and identified with God’s nature, and His blessing will flow through you all the time.                                                                                                           Oswald Chambers / My Utmost for His Highest 5/16

-Stay in the center of God’s provision

-Take on the difficult thing

-Do it and do not look back

-Forgive always as the Lord forgave you.

Here’s a quote in which C. S. Lewis corrects some common errors about motivation, self-denial, and rewards –

“The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself.

“We are told to deny ourselves and take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire.

“If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith .

“Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised to us in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak.

“We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a  holiday at the sea.

“We are far too easily pleased.”  C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory.

When we withhold forgiveness we fore-go the day at the beach and remain where we sit forming the muddy mess of our lives into pies which we would never dream of eating or offering to another for we know these only appeal to our imagination, not to our reality.

Forgive. Live in reality. Set your mind on the infinite joy God has provided.