Have you ever had moments in your life when you wished someone would stand up for you? When I was a boy, I was constantly bullied because of my emotional sensitivity, my musical and artistic abilities, and my perceived sexual identity. Most of the bullying was of the verbal kind, but I was physically attacked on many occasions as well.
Of course, the bullies were mostly older boys and much bigger and stronger than me, so I took a lot of physical beatings which always took place when the bully and his ‘yes men’ managed to get me alone. After awhile, I learned to avoid being alone with those guys…went out of my way to avoid those types of encounters. Honestly, I felt so helpless and alone when I experienced those encounters…felt worthless and weak…and never spoke about them to anyone because I felt so ashamed that I could not stand up for myself.
What seemed worse to me were the countless episodes of verbal humiliation I had to endure while my friends were watching. While being verbally humiliated, I always hoped someone would step up to the bully and stand up for me verbally…but that never happened either. As I look back on those times, I know my friends were just as afraid of the bullies as I was.
The good news? God did not waste even those times of suffering at the hand of bullies. He used those times to make me understand the massive nature of His love and grace and the power of endurance I now enjoy today. I talk about this a lot, I know, but one of the ways in which God has taken those times of feeling helpless and alone and turned them around is in the way I approach my battle with Parkinson’s. Just as God took the bullying episodes of my life and replaced them with forgiveness and grace and joy and love, He is doing the same with Parkinson’s. If I can endure years upon years of being bullied, I can endure the physical reality of something like Parkinson’s Disease.
This week, I would like to share the story behind a song that reminds me of the fact that Jesus stood up for me…was standing with me and for me all along. The song is called, Stand up For Jesus, and it came to me on November 6, 1997.
After a very hard month in which I experienced many attacks from the enemy, I came to the point of feeling like I wanted to physically die. Hear me: I was not suicidal. I just wanted the pain to stop. Rather than allowing those attacks to dictate my feelings and overwhelm my thoughts, I began to take the attacks to Father and do something powerful yet surprisingly simple. I began to sing to Him. When I get squeezed, or oppressed, or feel the intense pressure of the barrage of the enemy’s lies, who I really am tends to come out…along with the junk of the old me that still lies undetected and needs to be pulled out by the roots!
This song became just that for me. It was a declaration to my own soul to put on the truth of my identity in Christ and it was my counter-attack on those very lies being launched at my mind by the enemy. The birthing of this song was a cleansing agent to my soul.
As I declared who I am and whose I am, the old response began to flow out and be replaced by the true responses of my born again nature. Jesus stood up for me. I am a joint heir with Christ, inheriting the very strength to stand that helped Him stand and accept the cross for me. I can stand because He stood. I will stand up for Jesus.
In the process of learning to stand up for Jesus, I discovered joy along the way and began to receive grace to endure even the most difficult episodes of life.
Consider it all joy, my brothers [and sisters,] when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have [its] perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. James 1:2-4 NASB
How can someone be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing while battling the lies of the enemy - or battling something like Parkinson’s? It helps if we understand the meaning of the word endurance.
According to the dictionary, endurance is “the fact or power of enduring an unpleasant or difficult process or situation without giving way.” How do we not give way to the enemy’s lies or to the very real symptoms of a disease? We trust in God’s Word. Simply put, His Word reminds me I am never alone and that He causes all things to work together for my good and for His glory.
Another way to look at endurance is to understand it can also mean “relating to a race or other sporting event that takes place over a long distance or otherwise demands great physical stamina.” We are running the race of life on two levels. We run a physical race since we live in earthly bodies and we run a spiritual race which is run by the very essence of who we are in the sense that we are spiritual beings. Basically, we are not running a sprint. We are running a marathon.
Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but [only] one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. 1 Corinthians 9:24 NASB
Therefore, since we also have such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let's rid ourselves of every obstacle and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let's run with endurance the race that is set before us… Hebrews 12:1 NASB
As a new creation in Christ, you and I have been granted the very grace of God to endure…to keep getting back up when we fall…to help us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. Let’s stand up for Jesus just as He stands up for us.
Dennis Jernigan
To hear The Dennis Jernigan Podcast version of this blog and to hear the very encouraging song, Stand Up For Jesus, go to http://podcast.dennisjernigan.com/e/stand-up-for-jesus/
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