I heard a question this week that has started changing the way I think. Very simply, someone asked me, "what do you think God feels about you?" I know the "pat" scripture answers we shoot back without really thinking, but I had to answer what I believed He thinks about me--not what I "know" He thinks.
Knowing what He feels about me changes the way I think about myself and the way I treat other people. There is great confidence that comes when I recognized that I am truly loved. Proverbs talks about how the earth shakes under the weight of a woman who is married and not loved/valued the way God created her to feel love. If we are truly to be the Bride of Christ, we must understand that He is radically, passionately, persistently, excessively in love with us, and everything else we do (even down to signs, wonders, and miracles in His name) is simply an overflow that spills over out of the excess of that love.
I'm starting to get it I think, but it's a definite process. He loves me. HE loves ME--intimately, personally, and to depths I've never recognized. It's the ultimate love story where the beloved opens her eyes and comes to the realization that everything she's ever wanted has been there waiting for her the entire time.
Who am I? I am a lover...and a beloved...in the most life-changing love story ever penned. So do you know who you are?
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
snatching
Jude 1:22-23 And of some have compassion, making a difference: And others save with fear, pulling [them] out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.
Pulling here is the Greek word harpazō meaning "to carry off by force, to seize on, claim for one's self eagerly, to snatch out or away."
I read this verse today and it convicted me. There's urgency here. If we are "to carry off by force," it logically follows that we will face resistance. May God give us such an overwhelming compassion for people that we come back to this calling to plead with those falling away with groans and tears, not with judgment, anger, or condemnation--to love so deeply and so purely that we exhaust all areas of opportunity to call those around us back to holiness. To care less about our reputations than our relationships. To love as He loves.
My heart is too full to write more. God bless you guys.
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
life in disguise
I finally went to see "The Dark Knight" last night, and have felt somewhat "haunted" ever since. Today, I feel extra observant while performing the most mundane tasks, I hear drums and trombones when I walk, and I keep waiting for the Joker to pop out of a trash can and ask, “Why so serious?”
Stories of vigilantes in disguise touch such a sympathetic chord within us. They are unlikely heroes, struggling to establish a dual identity, unrecognized for the weight of responsibility they carry. Aragons suppressing nobility to fight for a people who do not recognize their need. Frodos allowing the war raging around them to explode within in a conflict of desires as they press forward into their calling. Bruce Waynes hiding strength behind the masks of arrogant fops to better protect a people who hate them. Heroes who persist in helping even when they're not wanted. Heroes who would somehow seem less heroic if they lost their mystery.
Why does the “secret warrior” hold such a sway over our imaginations? Perhaps because it is a concept that first came to us from the heart of God Himself. Daniel 10 shows us the intensity of warfare that takes place when we pray, with the angel Gabriel breaking away from warring with the prince of Persia just long enough to deliver a message before returning to the fight. The villains in “real life” are more malicious than those in the movies; the most developed and chilling antagonist pales to two-dimensional in comparison. They have interminable resources. They do not listen to reason. They have no compassion. They touch our deepest vulnerabilities, creating confusion with glee, breaking our ranks, turning us against ourselves. They never sleep. They never stop looking for the chinks in our armor.
It’s enough to make you want to whip swords around your head and scream like a banshee while tackling every innocent bystander you see to the floor in an effort to protect them. Yet, Jesus called us to do massive exploits in private, tucked away in prayer rooms, unsung and uncelebrated. Peter was well acquainted with the concept of a double-identity when he wrote about being a royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:9). Peter, tossed into a reeking prison, beaten, crucified upside down and writing in a time where Christians regularly faced martyrdom, probably didn’t look like a royal son of the ultimate King.
But that’s the way the kingdom works, isn’t it? The last become first. The good deeds done in secret are rewarded openly. True believers esteem others as better than themselves. The King of the ages washes feet.
When I think about the person who hurt me and choose to offer up a silent prayer of blessing over their lives, I’m taking up arms. When I pay my electric bill with gratefulness that God provided the resources I needed, I’m assaulting oppression. When I pass a stranger on the sidewalk and whisper a request that the eyes of their understanding would be enlightened and they would see Jesus for who He is, I’m wrestling for eternal life.
Today, I'm not simply one of millions of Americans working a nine-to-five in countless cities across the country. Nor am I "just" the damsel-in-distress waiting in peril for Batman/Superman/Spiderman to swoop in and save me just in time.
No. Today I am poised, alert, and fierce--with a touch of scorn for injustice. I am the defender. I am the warrior. You just can't see it on the outside.
Stories of vigilantes in disguise touch such a sympathetic chord within us. They are unlikely heroes, struggling to establish a dual identity, unrecognized for the weight of responsibility they carry. Aragons suppressing nobility to fight for a people who do not recognize their need. Frodos allowing the war raging around them to explode within in a conflict of desires as they press forward into their calling. Bruce Waynes hiding strength behind the masks of arrogant fops to better protect a people who hate them. Heroes who persist in helping even when they're not wanted. Heroes who would somehow seem less heroic if they lost their mystery.
Why does the “secret warrior” hold such a sway over our imaginations? Perhaps because it is a concept that first came to us from the heart of God Himself. Daniel 10 shows us the intensity of warfare that takes place when we pray, with the angel Gabriel breaking away from warring with the prince of Persia just long enough to deliver a message before returning to the fight. The villains in “real life” are more malicious than those in the movies; the most developed and chilling antagonist pales to two-dimensional in comparison. They have interminable resources. They do not listen to reason. They have no compassion. They touch our deepest vulnerabilities, creating confusion with glee, breaking our ranks, turning us against ourselves. They never sleep. They never stop looking for the chinks in our armor.
It’s enough to make you want to whip swords around your head and scream like a banshee while tackling every innocent bystander you see to the floor in an effort to protect them. Yet, Jesus called us to do massive exploits in private, tucked away in prayer rooms, unsung and uncelebrated. Peter was well acquainted with the concept of a double-identity when he wrote about being a royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:9). Peter, tossed into a reeking prison, beaten, crucified upside down and writing in a time where Christians regularly faced martyrdom, probably didn’t look like a royal son of the ultimate King.
But that’s the way the kingdom works, isn’t it? The last become first. The good deeds done in secret are rewarded openly. True believers esteem others as better than themselves. The King of the ages washes feet.
When I think about the person who hurt me and choose to offer up a silent prayer of blessing over their lives, I’m taking up arms. When I pay my electric bill with gratefulness that God provided the resources I needed, I’m assaulting oppression. When I pass a stranger on the sidewalk and whisper a request that the eyes of their understanding would be enlightened and they would see Jesus for who He is, I’m wrestling for eternal life.
Today, I'm not simply one of millions of Americans working a nine-to-five in countless cities across the country. Nor am I "just" the damsel-in-distress waiting in peril for Batman/Superman/Spiderman to swoop in and save me just in time.
No. Today I am poised, alert, and fierce--with a touch of scorn for injustice. I am the defender. I am the warrior. You just can't see it on the outside.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
speedy justice
So I'm listening to this wonderful teaching by Dwayne Roberts about persistence in prayer and how it often seems that we pray with no results. That is where I've felt I've been lately--praying and praying with no perceptible change in my environment (although, admittedly, there have been changes in myself). It gets tiring and I often struggle with the question, "what's the use?"
One of the passages in the message is that of the unjust judge in Luke 18, and the promise the Lord gives to "avenge" his chosen ones speedily. I like the way the New Living Translation puts verse 7:
What I fight the most in my times of prayer is the discouragement that comes from the lie of Satan that I'm not making any difference. Jesus promises us here that if we will press on and plead with Him day and night, through His mighty power and with signs and wonders He will justify our commitment to prayer and punish the enemy for the lies he whispers.
Press on, and God bless!
One of the passages in the message is that of the unjust judge in Luke 18, and the promise the Lord gives to "avenge" his chosen ones speedily. I like the way the New Living Translation puts verse 7:
"...don't you think God will surely give justice to his chosen people who plead
with him day and night?"
What I fight the most in my times of prayer is the discouragement that comes from the lie of Satan that I'm not making any difference. Jesus promises us here that if we will press on and plead with Him day and night, through His mighty power and with signs and wonders He will justify our commitment to prayer and punish the enemy for the lies he whispers.
Press on, and God bless!
Thursday, July 3, 2008
just a short thought on being grateful
Several of us at the church have been pushing for a greater awareness of what it means to be grateful lately. My brother has been especially pivotal in bringing this valuable lesson to the forefront, coupling it with the lessons on perspective that the Lord has been working in him for close to a year now.
I found a quote today, and the potential ramifications hit rather close to home. It simply states:
"No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the kingdom of
night." ~Elie Wiesel
When we pray for patience, God allows us to go through trials through teach us to push through. When we ask for more faith, sometimes He hides His face so that we have to lock into the last thing He said and trust in the face of all odds.
In the quest for grattitude, the choice is simple. We can either choose to be grateful in all things....or we can ask to be more grateful without practicing it and go through trials that will teach us to be more grateful until we finally learn the lesson.
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