Give it up, will you? Just give it up. Let's talk about it on this edition of Key Light. Hello, I'm Mike Kellogg, and this is Key Light, a program designed to tell Christians that God isn't mad at them. My will teaching to help get you home. Here's Steve. Thanks, Mike. I hope you had a great weekend, and I hope your time of worship and your past or sermon, ministered to you in the same way the worship at our church and my pastor's sermon ministered to me. By the way, I have mentioned this in a while, but we're still doing it. If you're listening from jail or prison, or you have a friend in jail or prison, if you'll let us know, and I'll give you the phone number and the address is at the end of the broadcast, we'd love to send you an application and get the process moving. It's absolutely free. Crossroads Bible Institute are people with whom we partnership, and they do an absolutely magnificent job of teaching the Bible in an intelligent and wise way to enable you to grow in grace. Now, if you're not in jail or prison, it's not for you. Even if you ought to be, it's still not for you. You've got to be in jail or prison, but if you let us know, we'll get the information to you and get the process growing. And as I said, I'll give you the phone number and the addresses right at the end of the broadcast. All right, it's our practice on Monday, before we study the book to go before the throne, let's do that. Father, we come before you, glad that we belong to you, and that most of the time. Father, we sometimes forget where you found us. We forget how lonely it was then, how without meaning we were then, how guilty we felt then. And so, Father, we ask that you would remind us of the place where you found us, but don't stop there, remind us of home when we're going to be just like Jesus. But in the between times, Father, it's sometimes really hard. Sometimes our hands shakes, the perspiration breaks out on our foreheads, the doubts come, and so come alongside and meet us at the point of our needs. Father, we're not here because we're good, we're here because we're yours. We confess that we've made all kinds of promises and then blown them, we confess the times when we had such good intentions and went in the other direction, the times when you told us to go and tell and we sat and watched. So we're here asking forgiveness again, God of the second changes, it's us again, Father, meet us and forgive us. And you know the people that are going through difficult times right now, come alongside as the encourager, meet them at the point of their needs. Father, we praise you and we worship you not just because of the good stuff you've done in our lives, but because of who you are. And then as we study your word on this broadcast, this week, we pray for the one who teaches, forgive him his sins for their many, we would see Jesus and Him only and we pray in Jesus name. Amen. All right, if you were just joining us, we're in the process of a rather long series, which we have interacted another long series to teach. We figured that the problems with the 9-11 thing is just about gotten to a place where we can look at things in perspective and a good time to sit down and do some talking from God's word about the problems that we face. I have a great point, by the way, I want to share it with you, it's from Mark Hutchison, who's a friend of mine in Georgia. And he writes wonderful poetry, he's not a professional poet, but some of it he's just profound. And right after 9-11-01, he wrote this point, grieving, spilling the soil with eight, what can become of a soul buried here, wandering and into the eyes so they are gone, the dust of the winds that were here, a moment blistering, a pain unknown, the infinite touch down in mass alone. Take my heart, if you will, beating alive, but let me leave the anger where it grows. A day is a thousand cries when wondering of the everlasting wise, reaching for the smoke filled unknown, the kingdoms of man shall fall, but woe is the spirit that seeks to know answers awaiting eternal ohms. Let me kiss the flowers that fall here, and God shall weep with His children. Is that good or what? Well, we're talking about that sort of thing, what happens when it gets really bad, and how does a Christian deal with it differently than a pagan? Now we spent last week, and I'm going to spend a little bit today, but then we'll get on to another subject as we get into the week about the people who feel guilty, where did I go wrong, and what did I do bad that gave me cancer? That is spurious, from the pit of hell, and it smells like smoke, but I don't want to get ahead of myself here, so let me review a little of what we saw last week. We talked to two kinds of people last week, those who haven't gone through a difficult time, and are not at the present time going through a difficult time at those who are. We saw that there are three things that you need to do when the clouds are not in the sky. The waters are not troubled, and there is no pain. You've got to have prayer before the panic, that's Daniel's sixth in. You've got to have knowledge before the kickoff, Proverbs 18, 15, and then you've got to have thanks before the tragedy of Ephesians 5, 18, through 20. In other words, thank God for the little bad things that happen to you, and when the big bad thing, it's the microphone. When the big bad things happen to you, you will be in a habit of doing that. Then I spend some time talking to people who are going through a very difficult time. We saw the first thing you've got to do when it really hurts really bad, and you weren't prepared before it happened, you've got to recognize the danger of the bitterness. If your rope is broken, make sure that you understand what the Bible says about the root of bitterness and how destructive it is. Then we saw on Thursday, when we ended this teaching, that it was very important that you confessed your tendency toward bitterness. You're not all together that spiritual or Jesus would not have had to worry about those Christians who pretend they've got it together. Worry about those Christians who seem to never have been within 100 miles of any known sin. Be very careful of those Christians who are always righteous and always faithful, because they're not that way. One of the great things about being a pastor for so many years are listening to confessions from very righteous Christians. And finding out they're just like me, they just hide it better than I do. So confess it. We have a tendency to do that when you're drawn into being bitter. When you're drawn to a claim first, John 1.9, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and the cleanses from all in righteousness. I do that a lot because I get irritated a lot. I mean, from big things and from little things. And I have a hit list on my prayer list and I go before God and I know the truth that I can't be bitter about these people, but I am. And I tell God that and say, if anything's going to happen in my heart, you're going to have to fix it because I've tried and I don't know how to do this. And God does, he answers that prayer. Now let me give you another lesson that when you're going through a really difficult time, learn to exercise the principle of relinquishment. What we relinquish to God, he accepts and he changes. We spoke of positive relinquishment a few weeks ago, but there's more to it to be perfectly honest. You can't turn bitterness on and off like a faucet. Bitterness is hard to get rid of. You know, I think, you know, I've dealt with that. And then that snake rears its ugly head and there he is again. God's spirit must be given the freedom to act and he can't act in you without your permission, but he could. But he generally doesn't. Paul wrote, let all bitterness put it be put away from you. That's a patient's 431. I'm sorry, but God gives us the power to do what he tells us to do. Let me give you a sample prayer. I don't try to write this down because you'll pray it differently, but this is a good way to pray, Father. Here I sit with my broken rope and my pain and I'm really, really angry. In fact, I'm bitter. And bitterness wells up in me and I don't know what to do about it or even if I want to do anything about it. I now take the situation I don't like and I give it to you. You deal with the situation as you see fit and you and you father deal with me as you see fit. I trust you to give me an explanation when I get to heaven if I need one. Now that kind of prayer is done, Mike. And through such prayer, God can give you a brand new attitude about your broken rope. Now, let me give you one of the lessons. You know, we'll move on to another subject or we'll at least do that tomorrow. I just looked at the clock. So we'll just mention this. Finally, just be still and wait. You say, what? Just be still and wait for light of God's grace and His presence to shine. Don't make what I've said to you a step by step system whereby you fix bitterness. Do I look like God third? If God is sovereign and he is, if he loves you and he does and if you've done everything you can do and sometimes you have, then don't do anything more. Just be still. I have a friend who refused to take drugs to dull his senses when he was dying. Stevie said, all of my life, I have faced whatever God has given, accepted it and experienced the depth of whatever he, from his loving hand, is melted out. I want to experience death in the same way, scares me, but what scares me more is that I should die without knowing and experiencing the fulness of death. Don't let him give me drugs that dull my senses. Now, that was an extremely brave thing to say, but in his braveness there was redemption. Jesus John 19.20 said it is finished. And so I know it hurts and I know it's hard but be still. God comes to those who wait and who are still. Trust me on this. The light will come. You think about that. I'm in.
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