I just wanted to follow up Monday’s post with maybe some clarification and expand on “battles” we face.

Mountains and Molehills

I’m sure almost everyone has heard the idiom “making a mountain out of a molehill” before. This is true! We often do that with little things in life. We make the small things the big things in our lives (which would actually make the real big things HUGE..).

We create our own battles. Have you ever thought about that? Our actions and words led us to that point, not God. God tells us what to do, we just don’t listen. We go astray, we stop listening, we think we know more than God (ha).

Sometimes the battles are just so minor, they are molehills. How we react to the difficulties in our lives is key to the resolution. A molehill is so easy to get over in comparison to a mountain. Do you think of it that way? Have you ever gone up a mountain in any way? It takes a while! Especially if you’re walking, you’re talking a full day trip at least.

So think about this. God can move mountains. Our troubles and struggles are these mountains. Does God not care about our molehills? Of course He does. Does that mean we should dwell on the molehills as long as the mountains in our lives? No.

What if we could actually make our mountains into molehills? (Zechariah 4:7 /Matthew 17:20 / Psalm 97:5 / Jeremiah 51:25)

Look At Those Mountains

How we look at the obstacles in our lives matter. Sometimes it’s just retraining the brain and not letting things that only affect one second of our day or life actually make an impact on a whole week or something to that extent.

• What level of importance is the issue?
• How easily can this be solved?
• Is this effecting my relationship with Jesus?
• Am I feeling like Jesus wouldn’t understand?
• Have I been praying about it?
• Am I letting it go after prayer?

A good way to think about importance is to actually think about Jesus. Seriously, WHAT WOULD JESUS DO? Is the issue something that would trouble Jesus? Is this a ME issue, is this a LACK OF FAITH issue? Maybe it actually is something that is important to Jesus and something you can’t just ignore and should for sure be on your radar.

Other times, we corner ourselves into a box, kind of like how we put God in a box (far too small obviously for our Mighty God) and we sit there feeling like no one understands, Jesus wouldn’t even understand – He didn’t have technology, He didn’t have 3k followers on WordPress to keep entertained and inspired… (I don’t have anything close by the way, LOL). The truth is, HE DOES UNDERSTAND. It’s a blessing and relief to have JESUS. Why don’t we lean on Him this week when we’re tempted to put ourselves in a pity box. Let HIM fight our battles, whether mountains OR molehills. Pray and let it go.

---

Old & New

I also wanted to touch on the Old and New Testaments and what I meant that we can’t be so focused on what was in the Old Testament.

I don’t mean, hey, we need to abandon the OT. No, not at all. We obviously can’t have the New Testament without the old. It wouldn’t make sense and it wouldn’t matter so much to us if we only had the New Testament with no real backstory or anything to compare it back to. The New Testament is showing us the prophecies of OT fulfilled and revealed to us. There was persecution, lack of understanding, struggles, the power revealed all in this New Testament. How do we know? We know because we have the Old Testament.

The Old Testament is important, but we shouldn’t LIVE there and justify actions TODAY on what’s now unnecessary. For example, we no longer have to kill an animal as a sacrifice. We also no longer have to look for the Messiah. He has come, He has risen and He is still alive! We are changed because of Jesus and that’s all revealed in the New Testament BECAUSE of the Old Testament.

Don’t misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose.

Matthew 5:17

(Other translations say He came to fulfill the law and prophecies.)

But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it and are no longer captive to its power. Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit.

Romans 7:6

For Christ has already accomplished the purpose for which the law was given. As a result, all who believe in him are made right with God.

Romans 10:4

Will you take this truth with you the rest of this week and remember that it is by grace we have been saved by a merciful God and Savior?