With all we have going on around us at present, and certainly over the past few years, it is easy to fall into dismay at the world around us – via what we are seeing and what we are being shown.
As a Christian who has been saved by Grace just over two years now, it is both a blessing and a burden -an irony is not lost on me. The world is awash with stories in the media that continually incites rage and anger, despair and confusion. An overall feeling of loss accompanies accounts of the insanity in the world, the wars, the weather. It’s almost like it’s intentional (I’ll leave that for another blog)!
It really brings you down. Perhaps we feel shame from what we are exposed to, perhaps we feel helplessness, some guilt and consternation. In short, we feel can feel inept and ill equipped to deal with it all, if we forget who we are as children of God. So, then to feel to feel any sense of joy, much less peace at this time, is almost an act of rebellion.
It can feel insensitive, and irresponsible to be focusing on the joy we have in our hearts, to rejoice and be jubilant at the prospect of being saved, versus what those who can’t see experience. Worse for those who cannot connect with God. It feels like its the ‘responsible thing to do’, indeed this is what the world demands of us a lot of time as we watch their responses to the ways of this world. Their suffering, and their blindness can be challenging.
But as I was saying to a friend the other day – there are parts of the Bible that command we rejoice, regardless! We only have to cast our minds back to another very difficult time on Earth, when Christians were being mocked, teased, bullied, marginalised, being persecuted, tortured and murdered for their faith in a pagan world, literally devoid of Christ. It can’t have been easy. Life was hard, no question. And Peter challenged them to keep on rejoicing “
In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which perishes though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. ~ 1 Peter 1 3-9
This is an invitation to dare to allow joy into our being.
Rather than allow the frustrations of this hostile world and its oppressive culture we are able to be continually filled with the joy of heaven. We can feel validated and
“And He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like lightning. 19 Behold, I have given you authority to walk on snakes and scorpions, andauthority over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you. 20 Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven.”
We have reason good reason to feel Joy. In fact, Thomas Brooks who wrote the book ‘Heaven on Earth’ writes that the greatest thing on Earth that we can desire, next to the glory of God is our own salvation – in this life, we cannot go higher, than be assured of that which in the next life will be enjoyed. Living a life in true grace rendering our life sweet and comfortable that will yield us, he says, a heaven here and a heaven thereafter. It is known as assurance.
Assurance flows through certainty and provides the most enormous peace – and this has certainly happened in my life. “His state is safe and happy” says Brooks, “whose soul is adorned with grace, though he sees it not, through he knows it not. in fact, assurance is not the essence of a Christian per se – and while it provides enormous comfort, a person can be saved and not know it.”
And this is what I have found – that any doubt and fear has been replaced with peace and anxiety – in a period on Earth where everything else poing to the exact opposite.
There are false religions on Earth pulling at the conscience of good people everywhere, stating that you can never be secure, never sure and that you can somehow do something to lose your salvation and incite God’s wrath. This crushes the believers, and is what is literally known as the sewing of the seed of doubt. Just as we are born with no involvement of our own doing, so it is, we are reborn, at a spiritual level, with no involvement from our own doing. All of it is an act of God.
So how do you know? As a Christian follower of Christ the essence of your salvation is based on just two things: what you believe and who you love.
In Hebrews 10:22, the Bible speaks of the ‘full assurance of faith’ – we could do with that right now, don’t you think? And I learned there are five basic assurances
The Assurance of Salvation
The Assurance of Answered Prayer
The Assurance of Victory
The Assurance of Forgiveness
The Assurance of Guidance
Turns out there is an essential oil for assurance – the oil I want to call upon here is Bergamot. So While I reflect on those assurances, I will place 3-5 drops in a diffuser to help transform the mood and bring about calm while I write and contemplate. While nothing takes the place of the Word or God’s assurance, I know if I was to look for an essential oil that would help me understand assurance more deeply and open to the grace of God’s love, it would be the beautiful Citrus Bergamia – a scent that impacts the mind and the body gracefully. It lifts away the uncertainty and anxiety that many of us might feel as we face uncertainties of the world.
16 Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus. Do not quench the Spirit, do not utterly reject prophecies, but examine everything; hold firmly to that which is good, abstain from every form of evil.
We love God because He first loved us. If you know you are saved you have enjoyed the believer’s highest earthly joy, being confident of your salvation you can then be confident of every blessing with it.
Let me know how you go while you read Hebrews and diffuse Bergamot. If you’d like to find some blends, you can try them here.
Blessings, always.
PJ