The ocean waves on the beach are a perfect example of Papas refining love. The waves are never ending and empowered by an unseen force. In every variation from gentle lapping to roaring thunderous destruction they clean away what is no longer needed to be perfect grains. Are we not being conformed into His perfect image, Jesus, more and more every day.

Can we as the sand on the beach ever escape the grinding and polishing action? Why would we want to do that?  Being removed from His continuous loving discipline would actually be more painful than any amount of discomfort as we are transformed into His likeness.

It’s just like Papa to use our brothers and sisters to grind off our rough edges.  We are to be sharpened by each other as iron on iron.  We are all transformed by our interactions with other believers in day to day life.  Holy Spirit transformed our inner man but we must work it out in the context of fellowship.   While this can lead to painful episodes it also provides us with many opportunities for joy and blessing.

The grinding prepares us for the refiners fire which does double action in us.  Burning off that which is not for our good and proving the precious gifts within.  So let’s always welcome the refining knowing it is ultimately for our good.

What do you do when a doctor decrees a terminal condition over you? It shakes you to the very core of your being at first. You feel numb for a while, but the dread and fear creeps in as the enemy of your soul whispers confirmations in your ears. It is so easy to fall directly into the mode where every twinge, every pain, every symptom from the list he gave you is used against you by the father of lies.  Fear festers and compounds as it draws terrible scenes on the ceiling of your bedroom at 3am.

But you are not bound to fear, you have been delivered from it into the reality of Jesus love. Through faith, you’re moved into the knowledge, that by His stripes you were healed at the whipping post.  Your overcoming that pronouncement of death because your deliverance was sealed by His precious blood poured out.

Nothing the enemy throws at you can overcome the finished work of Jesus. You can laugh in the face of fear because He has overcome all the plans of the evil against you through the shed blood and atonement made for you. Fear is simply a lie against the love of God in Christ Jesus. It seems like the biggest thing in your mind and it looms large in your current reality but It can never win against the immovable fortress of Father God’s relentless love and provision in Jesus.

“The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭6‬:‭22‬-‭23‬ ‭

Is the light within you darkness? That sounds like some kind of horrible description of hell doesn’t it?
But it has effectively been our state ever since the fall. We are convinced that we have light within, yes all the mystical religions teach us to seek the light within as a path to salvation. It is typically seen as some inanimate force or distant entity, not an infinite loving being who created us for love. But our religion only affirms our suspicion that we are inherently evil to the core.

In reality the “light” within us, apart from Jesus, is deep deadly darkness. It is the deception of our delusions about who God is. We were taught to see him as an absolute judge, who’s really disappointed and disgusted by who we became in our rebellion. We see Heaven, his home, as some place only earned by strenuous “good” works which outweigh our bad deeds, either in this life or over a long series of lives.

But, truth is, the Father, Son and Spirit came into our delusion of darkness to show us categorically that the light of their love cancels out our rebellion. And in seeking fellowship with them we will find the true light of life. Realizing that they’ve been patiently waiting for us to break through the fog of western Christianity. To break free from the lie that Jesus had to die to assuage God’s wrath. To see that our acceptance was settled in eternity past when the entire plan of salvation was laid out and actually accomplished.

Rest in the fact that we have the light of the Trinity in us and it was in there from the beginning.