Filling the Void

By Anthony Acevedo

    When I started college, I had baggage. Worse yet, I was yearning for something I had lost in my recent past, prior to starting college—my faith. In actuality, it’s three things though: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest is love. And I couldn’t grasp the difference between going along with a crowd and who I was. I knew something was missing, and I knew things going on around me were wrong too, but my mind was a soup of mulch.

   My experience was one of confusion, as I had little direction. Most of that is attributed to my own indecision on what to do with myself though. There was also a lack of confidence and even assurance that I was on the right path. However, that even applies to my search. Right now I am a born again Christian. But before I made that choice, I did not know how to even seek answers to a lot of the difficult questions I had. Nor did I feel I was the man I was supposed to be. I felt eerily like internally I was set on a dark path, unable to rectify iniquities of my character.

   The uniqueness of Jesus Christ is that He doesn’t fit into a box; living and fluid in how He directs us via the Holy Spirit. Jesus commands us to love God and to treat others as we’d treat ourselves. This is how we are to live out a life with Christ Jesus. Love God and love your neighbor. Prayer is simple, but at times difficult. Neglecting our relationship with God can be painful.

   Neglecting our relationship with God is painful because it’s like running a marathon without drinking water. Dehydration quenches the Holy Spirit and our heart becomes disheveled. We’ll lose hope and possibly more. It depends on the extent to which we were to choose this and “where we’re at” or our understanding of Christ too. Also, quenching the Holy Spirit, if prolonged, can lead to being lost again. It’s like being stressed versus depressed; being stressed is like the common cold but being depressed is like the flu or influenza. Another way to understand it is a recession lasts short period of time (an economy busts but only for a few months) versus a depression which is for a prolonged period of time.  

   However, following Jesus is a narrow path, and that’s a good thing. Because I couldn’t follow Jesus today as the same man I was when I first started college. That guy had more baggage than I have today. Why’s that though? As I sought Christ more, there were things happening in my heart, that were changing un-be-knownst to me consciously. Over time I would discover each thing consciously and that I agreed with Jesus’ teachings more. Soon I even understood the aspects of nurturing a personal relationship with Him. The question ultimately became do I really believe in Him?

   The delivery system through that time, as Christians that loved Jesus on a personal level, would be through love. Only through love can the Gospel be shared and received. Only through love can life with Christ Jesus be lived out.

   I know there’s a lot that seems contradictory or even confusing based off of preconceptions. I implore you to consider something. Out of all the people that genuinely love Jesus and live out a personal relationship with Him, I’ve never met anyone who stated they regret loving Jesus. Loving Jesus is an active thing and believing in Him is a passive thing. Both are needed to be in the company of Christ, ergo being a Christian (which translates to in the company of Christ) is all about.

   To clarify some may claim to love Jesus but as a fan, not in a relationship where they’ll commune with Him (or the father). That’s usually due to lack of belief somewhere. However, there’s also some who may just commune but may not understand the Bible. Then there’s just believing in Him, but it’s more religious and there’s not a nine-inch difference with the heart. The latter can be more painful because there maybe a quenching of the Holy Spirit in that person’s life. Quenching of the Spirit may even be in such a way that there’s just no active growth, that person may go to church but again fail to make the changes in their heart. Truth is, we have no ability to make the changes ourselves without God. Pride does not mix with God or living out a life with Him.

Either way, even if the person is completely unsaved and doesn’t believe, it could be a completely contradictory lifestyle too, God commands you and me to love that person on par with how He loves us all.

   That means, without condition, God wants us to be willing to be used to share His message of love—Jesus died for all our sins, because God loves us all. However, just like telling that special someone you love them, God builds to it with us in our search. Maybe that person at work or school needs a friend. Maybe they need someone to just listen to them. Maybe they do need some intercession. Maybe by offering someone you know to God in prayer, what ever the need, is important. Often prayer for people is a stepping stone. Maybe God uses us or maybe He’ll use another to water the seeds. Either way, prayer is critical not just for ourselves and our relationship with Jesus, but crucial in relations with others too. Especially when sharing the Gospel.

   I can’t tell how many times I prayed and the prayer not only worked to prepare my heart but the other person’s too. Prayer is the air we breathe and God’s word is the lifeblood of a Christian’s life. Prayer is not a repetitive thing or redundancy of some saying. It’s not a religious thing. Prayer with Jesus is a communication with God. It’s apart of that personal relationship with Him. What it means is just honestly opening up our hearts to God.

   God’s word (the Bible) is a living breathing way to hear God’s voice (sometimes we as believers can “feel Him” in prayer too, but that’s different conversation. Just be honest and open your heart. Ask, be patient, and you’ll receive.) His word is spiritual food that digests and is spread throughout our body. And not just our own Spiritual self but even our body or the body of Christ (meaning collection of believers we’re apart of). There’s a lot God has confirmed in His word to myself and others in our walks. Even me, I can be a schmuck sometimes. Perhaps God is trying to tell me something but maybe I’m being too dense. Jonah could not prevent God’s will nor can I, no matter how dense or cowardly we can be. God still loves us and by the Holy Spirit’s presence we cannot ignore Him. For those not sure in belief or love toward Christ: don’t run from Jesus, run toward Him. Even if you’re not sure, start small. And for those who are saved: we have to ask God to prune us first before we help our neighbor (don’t be a hypocrite), and be patient. God expects us to treat our neighbors with love, but also be humble. Be humble for there is never a prideful servant of the Lord, not in truth. Some may be prideful or have iniquity peak over onto brother or sister, but that is their failing in their relationship with Christ Jesus. They need prayer because a labor that does not do the work in the fields they were asked to do risks losing their job. How can a farmer keep a farm hand employed if they refuse to do certain tasks the way instructed? Or worse yet if they mistreat their co-workers? Truth is the Farmer with a stubborn worker who wants to do things their way or worse mistreats co-workers, cannot use those workers to get the work done that he needs done. God is the same way; He resists the proud, because He cannot use them. They insist on themselves, not God’s love.

    Jesus used several parables, one included the servant who had a debt redeemed by his master and was forgiven. However, the same servant had another servant owe him a debt. Instead of forgiving the debt like the master did to him, he beat the other servant up. This is much like how some misbehave; they’ll mistreat other servants or people. (Even in subtle passive aggressive ways, manipulating people in a negative way just to get what we want from them—even for something small like attention—is wrong. Small wrongs unchecked leave windows open for larger issues. And it hurts others involved too.  Honesty before God, in our alone time, and making the nine-inch difference between head & heart [pruning the heart] are paramount to applying His changes to our lives.)

Our master is God and He loves us unconditionally. That’s a true example or standard to live by.

     The void in my life is filled by the message of love that Jesus’ sacrifice represents. So too does God’s every action, even after creating us. What people often forget are two things: (1) Our choices can force God’s hand, often in a negative way or even defer what good He has, (2) God didn’t originally create this earth, this earth is the result of the fall from grace after Adam and Eve ate of the fruit. Another way to look at it is this phrase: “99.9% of the evil on earth is by man, the other .1% is the other guy down stairs.” That’s an original, but according to God’s word it’s true. When ever God’s creation, man, got out of control with various evils He’d be forced to take action. Evil is opposite to who God is. God, as difficult to imagine, has had mercy on the devil himself too. That’s part of why the devil is defeated and judged last. And the book of Revelation means that not only does Jesus win in the end, but there’ll be a new heaven and earth. Also take into consideration this, the devil’s fall from heaven took 1/3 of the angels with him. And statistically, 1/3 of the world’s population is considered Christian. I find this fascinating (maybe we’re meant to replace those angels lost?), but in all honesty also sad. I do feel pity for those that do not know Jesus as savior, but even on a personal level too. However, I won’t divulge into that, instead I wanted to express that it seems to me that God the Father most definitely has had His reasons for still putting up with us after all this time, for sending His only Son to pay a debt we never could on our own, and to ultimately defeat the one enemy we always had (though sometimes we are our worst enemy too, but He prunes us to be more like Him)—God loves us. How much? It’s enough to fill any void a person could have. Given the time by that person, by that person’s whole hearted choice, God can move mountains too. No matter what troubles they are, He can do it.