FOODFORTHOUGHT

Looking through a camera lens clarifies what is needed to zoom in on
a central theme of what is trying to be pictured. I recently heard a
photography analogy. "Depression is the dark room Satan takes us to
develop our negatives."

Depression over my daily problems or world events can send me into a
downward spiral of negativism. It hinders the joy I could be
experiencing in my daily walk with Jesus. It can develop into a
chronic, debilitating physical,spiritual and emotional sickness
requiring medical intervention.

To carry the photography analogy further, the positive light of
Jesus, filtered through the developing fluid of His powerful shed
blood can develop those negatives into the positive image of us
transformed by the way Christ handles those negatives in our lives.
We need to take our negatives in for Jesus to cleanse. Jesus is our
cleansing solution for a positive life. 1 John 1:9 in the Bible
says, "If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us
our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." He suffered and
died on the cross for our negative sinful lives, was buried and rose
again to show us He won the victory.

We may have reasons to be sad or even depressed, but we have a
choice. We can take those negatives into God's photography studio.
We can have a transformed print of our life and even have a positive
impact on others as we portray this to them. We become vulnerable
when we are transparent like this, but our transparency lets God's
light shine through us to reflect Himself to others. We need to let
our light so shine before men that they see our Father which is in
heaven and glorify Him.

Once we have the solution, in Christ, we picture what God did in our
lives to others. Then these others turn to God to let Him develop
their negative lives into positive ones in Him. God can give us a
vision of people transformed by Jesus and His shed blood as a form
of "developing solution". That is how Jesus helps us love the
unlovable.

Once we have become believers we need to choose each day to have
access to God through Jesus by praying and reading his Word in the
Bible to find His solutions for our negatives and downward spirals.
The rewards include victory over sin, joy and peace, and a wonderful
eternity in Heaven.

PRAYER
"May the Lord Jesus put his hands on our eyes also, for then we too shall begin to look not at what is seen but at what is not seen. May he open the eyes that are concerned not with the present but with what is yet to come, may he unseal the heart's vision, that we may gaze on God in the Spirit, through the same Lord, Jesus Christ, whose glory and power will endure throughout the unending succession of ages." (Prayer of Origen, c. 185-254)

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