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Frank Viola | Beyond Evangelical

Frank Viola | Beyond Evangelical

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When It Feels Like Jesus is Ghosting You

Welcome to another Thursday UNFILTERED blog post, the only blog that believes the inventor of pop rocks thought to himself, “Sugar isn’t good enough. It also needs to detonate.”

We’ve all been there. You’re trying to stay tight with the Lord, but lately it feels like He’s blowing you off harder than your senile uncle at the family reunion.

What gives?

Well, here’s the deal. The solution is NOT to go AWOL on Jesus. Ignoring Him or going practical atheist isn’t going to fix the problem.

The move is to act like Jesus is right there with you, even if you can’t sense His presence.

Why? Because He IS with you as well as within you. Always.

Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

~ Hebrews 13:5

This is called faith, folks. You can’t see or feel Him, but you know He said He’d always be around and never leave you (and He’s not a liar). So you live accordingly.

As the Scripture says,

You can’t please God without faith because the one who comes to Him must believe that he exists and He rewards those who diligently seek Him.

~ Hebrews 11:6

The truth is, there are a number of things you can do to live in His conscious presence, apart from feelings, senses, or emotions. (Check out my conference message, Living in the Conscious Presence of God, for some practical hand rails on this.)

Now, if you’ve been tolerating some shoddy behavior, getting tighter with God means taking that sin out behind the woodshed. (This is what the Bible calls “repentance.”)

You’ve got to purge that nonsense from your life with the Holy Spirit’s aid.

James lays it out perfectly:

Draw close to God, and He will draw close to you … You sinners, get your hands clean again. You double-minded people, purify your hearts … Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up.

~ James 4:8-10

But even if you’re living as squeaky clean as a hand model, the Lord’s felt-absence is par for the course (just as His felt-presence is. Both aren’t permanent states).

The bottom line?

When Jesus seems MIA, don’t ghost Him back. Lean into Him by faith, ditch the sins that might be weighing you down (as well as the weights that aren’t sinful), and watch how fast things turn around.

Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us …

~ Hebrews 12:1

Until next Thursday,

fv

Category: Spirituality

About Frank Viola

Frank Viola is a best-selling author, blogger, speaker, and consultant to authors and writers. His mission is to help serious followers of Jesus know their Lord more deeply so they can experience real transformation and make a lasting impact. To learn more about Frank and his work, go to 20 Years of Projects. To invite Frank to speak at your event, go to his Speaking Page. Due to a new problem with persistent spam that we haven’t figured out how to control, comments are closed for the present time. To contact Frank, use the “Contact” page in the top menu.

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Frank Viola

Frank is a bestselling author, speaker, podcaster, and blogger. He helps serious followers of Jesus know their Lord more deeply so they can experience real transformation and make a lasting impact. His blog – frankviola.org – is regularly ranked in the top 5 of all Christian blogs on the Web and his podcast – Christ is All – has ranked #1 in Canada and #2 in the USA on Apple Podcasts. He and his conversation partners also host The Insurgence Podcast. Frank’s books have sold over 600,000 copies and they’ve been translated into many languages.

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