“When Jesus was moved with compassion, the ground of all being shook, the source of all life trembled, the heart of all love burst open, and the unfathomable depth of his relentless tenderness was laid bare.”
– Brennan Manning
Archives for category: Jesus
A guest post from my wife, Sandra…
I love my kids. I know that may seem obvious, but I do. I think they are adorable and beautiful and amazing. Sometimes I have these perfect little moments where I see how wonderful they are and my heart becomes so full with love for them that I feel it might burst! I know that I am not the first to feel this way about their kids; probably every mom does, but for me, it’s real now.
The reality and certainty of my love for my kids, the affection, the generous praise of them has made me think of how God loves us.
Before I had children, the concept that God could love me was hard to understand; it was elusive. It was a battle to believe that God wanted to love me. I always felt like if I did the wrong thing, God would disown me. I put a lot of pressure on myself to be the good girl and do the right thing. When I didn’t, I felt guilty and ashamed that I couldn’t live up to my own expectations. I felt unloveable.
The day my kids were born, something else was born in me too. It grew as the kids grew. It was unconditional love for them. When I look at them, I think, they can’t do anything to make me love them more. And I have my bad days, but at the end of the day, my love for them remains the same, unchanged. I look at them and I am sincerely happy. I am happy that they are here, I am happy to get to see them grow up as time goes by. With each day, I love them more.
When I feel this way about my kids, it’s as if God says, “Remember, I love you this way, and so much more!”
At first, it was like a foreign language, but the more I heard it, the more I began to understand. It became familiar to me. It shifted my way of thinking. This knowledge that God loves me was giving me strength and courage and confidence… something I have lacked all of my life. There’s something encouraging in being loved this way. You feel safe and at peace. In your heart of hearts, you can look at God, no matter what the circumstance may be, and say, “God, I trust you.” It doesn’t mean that I have the answers to problems, but it does mean that I know God will always come through and make things right. He comes to our rescue when we need Him.
I know I will continue to grow in this area all my life, and there are times when, like my kids do with me, I fail to trust my Loving Father. When I fail, it doesn’t mean that He will disown me and stop loving me altogether. I know that I am safe and secure in His love for me, and that He will never leave me, He will never forsake me. I finally believe it.
To all who may need it today, know that God loves you like a Father. You may have had a great dad, or maybe the absence of a dad, or at worse a bad dad. But no matter what has happened in the past with fathers, know that God is always good, and He has always been good to you. God loves you more than words can express. He sent Jesus to die on your behalf so you could be reunited with your Heavenly Father. He loves you with a great love and he wants you to know it. There’s great freedom when you understand of His love for you.
Well-meaning people tell us that the Christian gospel will put us in charge of life, will bring us happiness and bounty. So we go out and buy a Bible. We adapt, edit, sift, summarize. We then use whatever seems useful and apply it in our circumstances however we see fit. We take charge of the Christian gospel, using it as a toolbox to repair our lives, or as a guidebook for getting what we want, or as an inspirational handbook to enliven a dull day. But we aren’t smart enough to do that; nor can we be trusted to do that. The Holy Spirit is writing us into the revelation, the story of salvation. We find ourselves in the story as followers of Jesus. Jesus calls us to follow him and we obey – or we do not. This is an immense world of God’s salvation that we are entering; we don’t know enough to use or apply anything. Our task is to obey – believingly, trustingly obey. Simply obey in a ‘long obedience.’
– Eugene Peterson, The Pastor
“Gather up now the fragments, so that nothing may be lost and wasted” (John 6:12)
All my worries all my cares
All the pitfalls and the snares
All my struggles all my pain
All the things that I can’t change
I bring them all to Your feet
All my history, all my past All the things that never last
All my sorrows all my sins
All my chasing earthly things
I bring them all to Your feet
I lay them down so I can meet with You
Because I long for You
Because I long for You
All my wisdom, all my plans
All that I hold in my hands
All my living, all my ways
All the moments of my days
I bring them all to Your feet
I lay them down so I can meet with You
Because I long for You
Because I long for You
Jesus, I long for You
Jesus, I long for You
Because I long for You
Because I long for You
Jesus, I long for You
Jesus, I long for You
“It is not enough to want to get rid of one’s sins. We also need to believe in the One who saves us from our sins. Not only do we need to recognize that we are sinners; we need to believe in a Savior who takes away sin. Matthew Arnold once wrote, ‘Nor does the being hungry prove that we have bread.’ Because we know we are sinners, it does not follow that we are saved.”
– C.S. Lewis, from his final interview with Sherwood Eliot Wirt
Today is a guest post from my wife, Sandra:
I’m currently pregnant with our second child, and I’ve been put on bedrest by my physician. It’s been hard to sit around a lot. Netflix has been great because they have such a variety of things to watch. I came across Hoarders: Season 1, and thought, “I have nothing else to watch, this might be interesting.” It’s a show about people who refuse to throw things away, and how this affects the way they live.
It was not at all what I thought it would be. I was equal parts horrified, confused, saddened and convicted while watching these people suffer with this illness. The problem is not just the mess, but what is in the mind that keeps people in this state. They may even recognize the problem and want to be free, but the prison is so strong that many feel they can’t beat it. They may have help, but being so overwhelmed with the task at hand, and finding themselves “empty” in the process, not much gets done.
The more I thought about this condition, the more I saw that I do this so much in my heart. I hoard things that are trash for the soul; they are unhealthy, and sicken my heart by keeping them. Eventually they weaken me, my relationships and friendships, and my relationship with God. I need to regularly clean my heart of pride, hurts, fear, mistrust, anger, resentment, and unforgiveness.
Jesus gave us a warning that you can’t just cast out a demon from someone – they also must be filled with the Spirit of God. If not, then seven more will come and make their home in a man’s heart, leaving him worse than before.
We must all be careful to not just “clean out our heart” but to allow it to be filled with God’s Spirit. In this way, we will be on a long, but good journey towards God’s heart, not just leaving a hole exposed. This is one of the real reasons why there is the physical/mental problem of hoarding and the spiritual/emotional kind as well. It is because, as fallen humans, we naturally seek for things outside of God to fill our need. It is a need that is a vacuum. It cannot be filled by natural, earthly things – they fade, wear away, get destroyed. Instead, we must fill it with the everlasting God, who can and will satisfy every single need, and will fill the hole in our hearts better than any other thing could.
Jesus made it possible. We don’t have to be in bondage to feelings, anger, and hurts. Jesus died on the cross to free us from the bondage sin has in our hearts. We can be free, if we trust God enough to take the junk from our hearts. He is a good Father, and gives gifts to His children. What He asks us to throw out, He replaces with even better things than we could ever imagine!
The will of God is a strange thing, in that it very often contradicts what we think is good, safe, or right for us. God calls us to a kind of obedience that leads us in directions we’re not always sure of. He asks us to place our faith, trust, and hope in Him. However, at the point of decision, we can find ourselves asking, “can I trust God”?
Abraham asked the same question. God called him to leave his home and go to a land He had prepared for Him. Abraham wanted to know if He could trust what God was saying. He wanted assurances.
Genesis 15:7 And He said to him, “I am the LORD who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.” 8 But he said, “O Lord GOD, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” 9 He said to him, “Bring Me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” 10 And he brought Him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. (ESV)
You might find this strange. Why would God ask Abraham to bring the animals, and why would Abraham cut them in half? This was how vows, contracts, or covenant agreements were made in Abraham’s day. Instead of a signature on a piece of paper, they would cut the animals in half, and the parties involved would walk between the animals saying what they agreed to do. The symbolism was that if any of the parties broke their agreement, they should become like the animals, cut up and thrown to the side. So, Abraham gets ready to make vows with God. But then, something incredible happens:
Genesis 15:17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram… (ESV)
Rather than walking between the animals with Abraham, God does it Himself. Whereas humans are flawed and often break their promises, God does not. God required no vow from Abraham, but showed Abraham that He would fulfill all that He said He would. Years later, without us asking or promising Him anything, God made an even greater covenant by sending Jesus to die for us to fulfill His promises of forgiveness, grace, adoption, and empowerment.
Can we trust God? Yes. God covenants with Himself that He will go with you as you follow Him. God promises that if He calls you towards the seemingly uncertain, He will never leave or forsake You. God demonstrates that, even when You fail, He still works His purposes in your life. With God’s word of promise, the safest direction you can walk is the one He points you in.
“As to what spiritual rebirth is, however, we can say that persons reborn in the Spirit are characterized by their single-mindedness. They have only one desire: to do God’s will in all things, or – to put it in Jesus’ words to Nicodemus – to “do the truth” and thus “to come out into the light so that what they are doing may plainly appear as done in God” (John 3:21). They are so caught up in God’s love that everything else can only receive its meaning and purpose in the context of that love. They ask only one question: “What is pleasing to the Spirit of God?” And as soon as they have heard the sound of the Spirit, they follow its promptings even when it upsets their friends, disturbs their environment, and confuses their admirers.”
| — | Henri Nouwen, The Only Necessary Thing |
During a recent sermon series on Sanctification, our Pastor asked my friend Shawn and I to answer some questions about our experience of being saved and set apart for the purposes of God. Here are the links to the 3 videos:
Question 1: “Was there a time in your life when you did not fully understand what it meant to be set apart?”
Question 2: “Can you describe the moment you saw things from God’s perspective instead of your own?”
Question 3: “How did you respond to God’s call to be sanctified for Him?”
