Becoming A Christian Jedi Knight (Part 2)....Radical Christianity....Don't Give In to the Dark Side

Have you heard the term “love the devil” out of a person?  Many times in life that is exactly what we need to do with some people.  I’ve worked on jobs with difficult people, and I find that there is that expression, “kill them with kindness.” It does work.  I don’t have to like you, but I am commanded to love you.

The Emperor to Luke:  The alliance... will die. As will your friends. Good, I can feel your anger. I am defenseless. Take your weapon. Strike me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!

Yoda:  Remember, a Jedi's strength flows from the Force. But beware. Anger, fear, aggression. The dark side are they.

A Christian Jedi Knight Must Let Go Of His Anger and Hatred

I came out of the Jesus movement, which had a rather shotgun approach to witnessing, which is basically “shoot them with the gospel gun.”  Some Christians still have this attitude when I attend single Bible studies in that they will announce that it is a safe group where you can share, but then I’ve spoken to many unbelievers and believers that have been run off by people at single’s groups.  It’s because people do not use wisdom on how to reach a person with a different belief system.  You can be sitting at a table, and when you go and discuss your beliefs and answer a question, you have a group of five or six Christians who “jump down your throat” about your answer.  Many Christians are downright offensive.  You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar:”  You can win people to your side more easily by gentle persuasion and flattery than by hostile confrontation.

Hatred stirs up dissension (strife), but love covers over all wrongs. Proverbs 10:12

I have experienced it, and other women have told me the same thing.  When do Christian single groups make you feel welcomed?  I’ve been told by people that they don’t feel welcomed, because there are too many clicks, and it becomes like high school.   So what is the problem?  Some women are plain mean/ornery.  They remind me of an abused race horse!  People who are abused may take their problems out on other people.  People seem to have a need to control others with their belief system.  They definitely don’t “live and let live” as far as work on their own issues, and let others be.  I believe being friendly is the best honey one can put out there. 

The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise."-Proverbs 11:30

How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,' when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.  Luke 6:42

What honey bee, Sugar Plum fairy, Pooh Bear lead me to accept Jesus into my heart?   It happened to be in the form of some long-haired (cute to me) Christian male Jesus freaks who told me about God’s love for me.  It was the love of Jesus that lead me to the Lord, not the fear of going to hell.  Jesus is the man of my dreams, and he also gave me a husband who was the man of dreams, because Jesus was in him!  Like James Taylor sang, “How Sweet It Is to Be Loved by You!”  How sweet it is to be loved by Jesus.  When are Christians going to learn to love on one another?  I fell in love with Jesus, because he was the sweetest man I ever knew.  Those Christian Jesus freak men were not too bad either.  After I had problems with my boyfriend I was engaged to, broke up with him, because he would not become a Christian, I decided to get water baptized in the wedding dress I hand made since I realized at the time I was getting married to Jesus.

Jesus is the sweetest name I know,

And He's just the same as His lovely Name,

And that's the reason why I love Him so;

Oh, Jesus is the sweetest name I know.

As the scripture talks about below no unwholesome talk that will not benefit other’s needs who listen.  It reminds me of Yoda…you have to let go of your hatred and anger in order to be a Christian Jedi Knight.  Unless a person let’s go of the bitterness, anger and hatred, it’s hard to fellowship with a Christian who allows darkness in his/her life.   Fear, anger, hate, bitterness leads to the dark side.  I doubt I would have been attracted to want Jesus if these men were talking bad about an ex-wife or ex-girlfriend.

Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. Ephesians 4:29

If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin 1 John 1:6 
If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 1 John 4:20

It is one thing for me to be an overcomer of the death of my husband as an adult, it’s been another thing for me to understand what it is like for the victims of 9/11 who had children.  When I lost my husband my grandson was five years old when the paramedics took my husband on a stretcher in the ambulance.  My grandson would not leave the room where I was (always had to keep me in his eye sight), left every light on in the house, because he was afraid at night, every time an ambulance siren went off, he thought someone had died, and he slept with me in bed for several months at night out of fear.   My grandson was supposed to play with my husband that morning when he passed way with a heart attack.  My husband and my grandson were like peanut butter and jelly.  Where my husband went, my grandson was there. I’ve been thinking about my husband and my grandson being peanut butter and jelly and that is how I want my relationship to be with my father God.  God and I are peanut butter and jelly. 

When I heard that couple who lost their son, who was attending Purdue University, drove his car into a retention pond and drowned, I cried and cried and interceded in prayer for that couple for 15 minutes…a giant prayer burden came on my heart.  I would have never had that type of prayer burden if it were not for the tragedy in my life and seeing what my grandson goes through each day in missing his grandfather even after three years.  Much of our personality is formed at the ages of four and five years old and my grandson experienced trauma early in life. 

Jesus learned obedience by the things he suffered so I’ve learned the prayer of intercession for victims of tragedy, and I can minister now in a greater way to those with loss, because of a tragedy (death of my husband in front of me).  I heard the same thing from a woman who lost one of her twin babies at birth who had complications and died in a few days.  It bothers her to hear anything bad on the news about twins.  There was a woman pregnant with twins who was harassed by a bank robber and that bothered her to hear that on the television news.  Some people who lost a child to kidnapping, changed laws related to kidnapping, and they created the Amber Alert.  I know a person at my work university who lost his son to sniffing harmful car anti-freeze at 16 years old, when he dove later into a pool and drowned.  Since this couple lost their son, they lecture around and try to reach out to other parents who have teens with drug addiction problems.

Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered. Hebrews 5:8

Jeremiah was known as the “weeping prophet.”  That best describes my life when I hear someone’s loved one is terminally ill.   The book of Lamentations was during the time of Jeremiah. I never cried until I was 16 years old from childhood.  I was cold as an iceberg during those years, and I think it was my mom’s comment of not being such a cry baby when I was little girl.  When Jesus came into my heart, I cried and cried like the woman who washed Jesus feet with her hair about my sins before God.  Jeremiah cried over the sin of Israel in leaving God.  In the same way, as the calamities come on this earth…..it is time of weeping and travail….Jeremiah 9:1. Some think weeping proves a man is weak, but Jeremiah was not weak. How many of us could persevere for more than forty years without seeing any lasting results of our work? Real men are sensitive; they can cry.   

I had a great time at a singles retreat last weekend despite myself.  I was a “fish out of water.” Once in awhile, Satan reminds me that I’m back on start in the Monopoly game of life….I’m not sitting in jail waiting for my “get out of jail card” like Joseph waited for which was the interpretation of dreams, but I’m back on square one again.  I have friends that the enemy will put bad memories of things every so often that their ex-wife or ex-husband did to them and my suggestion is right then ask God to “bless your ex-husband or ex-wife.”  That rejection and hurt 18 years ago from a divorce came back on me at the single’s retreat.  It was Satan’s attack and his reminder of my past.  It first started with a comment a friend said in the car driving down to the retreat, “Your single now, you better get used to it.” 

By going to that retreat, I realized I “bit off more than I could chew” in my own emotional ability.  God’s grace got me through that retreat.  I’m depending on God’s amazing grace the rest of my life.  “It’s grace that got me safe thus far and grace will lead me home. 

I was in a car accident last week, and I saw God’s grace in that car accident that it was not worse than it could have been for the person who hit me, and my friend, and I in the car.  I spoke to the speaker of the retreat who leads singles at his church, and he said that he understood why I would not be comfortable going to a single’s group when I was widowed.  I know that many Christian single’s try to lump everyone together, but God did not lump people into the same categories.  God makes several references to widows over and over in the Bible. 

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1:27

I was lying in bed I thought, “Wow God, why on earth did I come to his retreat?”  I was trying to show my support for the group I did music worship for two years, but I knew I would be the only widow besides one much younger person there. I wanted to make like a tree and leave on Friday night, but I brought two people so I knew I had to stay because of them.  I asked the Lord to help me be “more than a conqueror in Jesus” and help me conquer the single's retreat.  These types of scriptures have been a daily confession in my life. 

My comfort zone is not doing anything in life right now…do absolutely nothing, and it would be stay in bed every day.   If it were not for that I needed to provide for a family and myself and if I would have been retired I may have been in bed.  Many widows have spoken to me that I was very fortunate that I “had” to go to work and keep going, because for those who worked a home business with their spouse, they said they did not have much motivation to do anything for quite some time in life.  Another scripture I have prayed and said in the morning when I get up to go to work is “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

I woke up the next day, and had a great day, and enjoyed playing Euchre cards and talking to two single woman never married with no children.  I believe it was because Jesus was living the day with me, and giving me his strength and comfort.  It’s not based on that I have to relate to single people, or they have to accept me.  In Jesus Christ, I’m accepted in the beloved, whether singles never married, or divorced accept me or not.  I know if I go to a widow’s group, I’ll be accepted, and loved so I’m not out of my comfort zone.  I noticed when I have single parties at my house, most people sit with their church group, and few people rotate around, because it seems that everyone likes to be in their comfort zones.  

To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.  Ephesians 1:6     

Thank you God for allowing me to be a young widow.  If any friends or family understand this experience or not, I thank you Lord for this cross.  I realize you want me to pick it up, and carry it each day and at other times in life, you give me a person who helps me carry this same cross like someone helped you carry your cross.  Right now I’m carrying this particular cross mostly on my own, but you have never left me nor forsaken me.

And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:27

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,    “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you, Hebrews 13:5

I have decided to follow Jesus, though none go with me...still I will follow.

The Bible “does” make reference to singles and then it does make reference to widows so although Christians try to lump everyone all together we are different.  When I was divorced with children I claimed every scripture in the Bible for widows, because I was a single parent trying to make ends meet with four little mouths to feed with little child support and no emotional support from my ex so it was like I was widowed.  I was formerly “accustomed” to many things in being married for nine years.  Single never married is not the same as widowed or divorced with children.   

Brethren, let every man, wherein he is called, therein abide with God. 1 Cor. 7:24

What I do know is that Jesus is in this single or widow/divorced boat with all of us, and during the retreat that was the book I was reading by Max Lucado on fear about the horrible tempest (violent windstorm) that came up on Jesus disciples while Jesus was fast asleep in the boat.  Some of us have had a horrible tempest in our life. In a former blog, I spoke about being up the creek without a paddle.

I find outreaches to the lost like the homeless, in prisons, leading worship at church (God opened a recent door), talking to other widows and joining several secular groups like I joined a scuba diving club that takes out handicap people to teach them to scuba dive…gets my mind off of being widowed/single and on the Lord to finding the true calling of God in my life. Many Christian woman and men don’t find the “high calling of God” in their life.  I believe finding the high calling is related to doing more service and evangelism.  It’s getting our minds off ourselves.  

I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Philip 3:4. 

Before I leave this earthly planet, my goal is to make my calling and election sure.

Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ 2 Peter 1:10-11