I've been really frustrated recently. Partly because people who I care about are struggling, partly because I'm struggling, and I just want to hear the truth! Its like I'm standing in a crowded room trying to listen to one voice, yet the others are so overwhelming and loud I can't hear.
Its like I want to just scream "Shut UP!" I miss talking to my dad. I miss cuddling up in his lap and having him read to me from his word and teach me new things. I love hanging out with him, I love being with him and I love how he constantly meets me every day with something new!
Yet in the craziness of my own life, in the craziness of our lives, we forget. We get wrapped up in what church we go to, what things we say, how we present ourselves, what we are doing so share the gospel, how we are moving forward, who is mentoring us, who we are discipling, etc. And don't get me wrong those things are important, but thet are second! The first and biggest thing we need to be focused on is our relationship with Christ. Afterall he is the only one who can put us back together. He is the only one who can meet our needs. We can't do anything unless he is moving through us. Yet we forget that. It's what am I doing, when it should be "God what do you want to teach me today?"
We are mirrors that reflect both the light and life of Christ. Yet because we are fallen, our mirror is cracked and chipped all over the place. When we focus first on reflecting before we allow God to fix some of those cracks, we don't display the glory of God. However, when we take the time to allow God to patch us up, fillin some of those cracks, spray a little windex on us...thats when we start reflecting the imense glory of who God is. And the crazy thing is that, when we are allowing God to move in our lives first, thats when we shine the brightest! It's not about us...it never was and never will be. Its also not about what we can do because we are completly and totally inadequate without the Holy Spirit. Some people might not like that because it means that somehow they aren't good enough. But I love it! I'm not good enough! YES! I'm inadequet, yet in my inadequacy, God's grace allows me to be used! Holy cow is that humbling. We can't choose God, but he chose us! He chose me to be his daughter and he chose you to be his child. How loving, how crazy and insanely amazing does that make God. He cares about us so much! He died because he cared so much!
What have you forgotten? Have you forgotten what his arms feel like, or what his voice sound like? Have you forgotten that you need him or that your inadequate without his divine intervention? Have you gone at it alone, trusting in your own power rather then his? Or have you forgotten his love?
I want to challenge all of you, and I am lumping myself in also, but I challenge everyone one of you for a week to stop doing...stop talking...and just listen. Ask God what he wants to teach you and how he wants to grow you, and then wait on him. I don't know what that looks like in each of your lives, and I don't know how God is going to respond. But one thing I do know is that God answers those who call on him and he blesses them. Some things are gonna be hard to hear, convicting, loving, teaching, rebuking...but God wants to show each one of you something. So stop looking out into the world for what you can do, and look up at the one who created you.
"For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' made his light shine in our hearts to give us the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us." - 2Corinthians 4:6-7
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Abide in my Love
Its funny how the first thing we thing about when we think of God is love. When asked to define a characteristic of God we say that he is love, yet do any of us really understand this aspect of God? I think we want to believe it means that he loves us with this fluffy kind of love, but when you really look into it you begin to see that he loves us with an everlastingly perfect love. Most of us agree that when we are walking with God we feel loved, we feel close to him and we feel safe, and therefore we love him back. It is also interesting to note that we often love God the most when we feel his love the most. Therfore our love for the creator is most often times conditional. Whenever our world gets rocked we turn into two year olds and think God is being mean and doesn't love us.
But God says "abide in my love." Again I ask, what does this mean? Well when I hear the word abide I think of rest. So rest in his love. That sounds so peaceful, just to crawl into Gods lap and feel his love surround me. And thats really what it means, but how do we do that? How do we abide regardless of the circumstances?
God gives us promise after promise in the Bible. "Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you." "I have a plan for you declares the lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."
God is patient, he waits for us as we do our own thing. It says in Isaiah that God waitied in quietness. "This is what the Lord says 'I will remain quiet and look on from my dwelling place.'" An army was moving against Isreal. In my mind this would not have been the time for God to sit back and be quiet. But God was being patient with Isreal; he was waiting for them to turn thier eyes upon him and trust in him for delieverance.
Gods love is kind. I think this is the love we talk about the most but rarely acknowledge. When our day is hard, his love is the rainbow we see in the sky, or a smile from a friend, or a hug from a family member. I remeber that someone told me "anytime someone shows you love, that is God showing you love through that person." I think back to every time someone has written something nice to me or given me encouragement when felt down...Gods love is kind!
Now in Corinthians 13 it says that love is not jealous or boastful. However, since Gods love is perfect, he is jealous us of. God created us, he knows us perfectly and intimatly. When we fix our eyes on someone or something else he becomes jealous. When we become jealous we often say, "What does that person have that I don't?" God says, "I wish they could see that what they are running after has no lasting value."
God also boasts about us. The clearest picture we have of this is when God boasts about Job. Satan comes into God court after wandering across the world. God says, "Have you considered my sevant Job?" He brags about him saying, "Ther is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil." See when God brags, he tells the truth. His bragging brings our best to light.
God also delights in us. When I think about that I think back to the passage that says, "he delights over us with singing." I think of a father dancing with his younger daughter or playing catch with his son and the joy in his face when we look up at him with innocent eyes.
God is not rude, he is not self-seeking, and he is not easily angered. I want to stop at the last one and define it more. God is not easily angered; but how can this be true when it says that God is a God of wrath? That is entirely true, however his anger and wrath don't come on the moment you first sin. Infact it says in Exodus 34:6 "The Lord is a commpassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness." In Psalms 30:5 is says "For his anger only lasts a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime." Gods anger is very real, but he does not become angry quickly.
God love keeps no record of wrongs. This is unbelievably true although often times impossible for us to understand. Romans 8:1 says, "Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Once we place our faith in him, our sin is gone. Now this doesn't mean we never sin, but when we do God looks at us through the lense of Christs body. He knows we sin, but he doesn't tally our failures so that when we come back to him after walking away he says "well I don't know if I can forgive you, afer all you have done that 15 times already..." Its a hard concept to grasp, but as soon as we are forgiven, it is forgotten! He casts our sin as far as the east is from the west...which when you stop and thiink about that is infinatly far.
Gods love always protects, always trusts, always hopes and always perserveres. Humanly it is impssible to protect the way God protects us. Humanly it is impossible for us to perserver the way God does after us.
So abide in his love, find rest and comfort in his perfect promise to love, teach and guide you.
"Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatestof these is love."
~Catie
But God says "abide in my love." Again I ask, what does this mean? Well when I hear the word abide I think of rest. So rest in his love. That sounds so peaceful, just to crawl into Gods lap and feel his love surround me. And thats really what it means, but how do we do that? How do we abide regardless of the circumstances?
God gives us promise after promise in the Bible. "Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you." "I have a plan for you declares the lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."
God is patient, he waits for us as we do our own thing. It says in Isaiah that God waitied in quietness. "This is what the Lord says 'I will remain quiet and look on from my dwelling place.'" An army was moving against Isreal. In my mind this would not have been the time for God to sit back and be quiet. But God was being patient with Isreal; he was waiting for them to turn thier eyes upon him and trust in him for delieverance.
Gods love is kind. I think this is the love we talk about the most but rarely acknowledge. When our day is hard, his love is the rainbow we see in the sky, or a smile from a friend, or a hug from a family member. I remeber that someone told me "anytime someone shows you love, that is God showing you love through that person." I think back to every time someone has written something nice to me or given me encouragement when felt down...Gods love is kind!
Now in Corinthians 13 it says that love is not jealous or boastful. However, since Gods love is perfect, he is jealous us of. God created us, he knows us perfectly and intimatly. When we fix our eyes on someone or something else he becomes jealous. When we become jealous we often say, "What does that person have that I don't?" God says, "I wish they could see that what they are running after has no lasting value."
God also boasts about us. The clearest picture we have of this is when God boasts about Job. Satan comes into God court after wandering across the world. God says, "Have you considered my sevant Job?" He brags about him saying, "Ther is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil." See when God brags, he tells the truth. His bragging brings our best to light.
God also delights in us. When I think about that I think back to the passage that says, "he delights over us with singing." I think of a father dancing with his younger daughter or playing catch with his son and the joy in his face when we look up at him with innocent eyes.
God is not rude, he is not self-seeking, and he is not easily angered. I want to stop at the last one and define it more. God is not easily angered; but how can this be true when it says that God is a God of wrath? That is entirely true, however his anger and wrath don't come on the moment you first sin. Infact it says in Exodus 34:6 "The Lord is a commpassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness." In Psalms 30:5 is says "For his anger only lasts a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime." Gods anger is very real, but he does not become angry quickly.
God love keeps no record of wrongs. This is unbelievably true although often times impossible for us to understand. Romans 8:1 says, "Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." Once we place our faith in him, our sin is gone. Now this doesn't mean we never sin, but when we do God looks at us through the lense of Christs body. He knows we sin, but he doesn't tally our failures so that when we come back to him after walking away he says "well I don't know if I can forgive you, afer all you have done that 15 times already..." Its a hard concept to grasp, but as soon as we are forgiven, it is forgotten! He casts our sin as far as the east is from the west...which when you stop and thiink about that is infinatly far.
Gods love always protects, always trusts, always hopes and always perserveres. Humanly it is impssible to protect the way God protects us. Humanly it is impossible for us to perserver the way God does after us.
So abide in his love, find rest and comfort in his perfect promise to love, teach and guide you.
"Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatestof these is love."
~Catie
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Abiding Comfort
Sometimes when I'm spending time with God, he shares something with me which I am completely ovewhelmed by and can't wait to share with others!
"But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possesion of is a land of mountins and valleys that drinks rain from heaven. It is a land the Lord your God cares for; the eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end." - Deuteronomy 11:11-12
We are beginning a new year; crossing over from last year to this one. Each year is full of promise. God has amazing plans in store and he wants to lead us individually down a path of teaching and blessing. It says that the land is a land of mountains and valleys. There will be highs this year and lows this year. We will struggle spiritually, emotionally, physically, mentally, socially....in every way possible we will face some type of struggle. Yet it also says that the land drinks rain from heaven. Jesus tells us that he is the wellspring of life and David writes that his soul pants for living water. We need water to sustain us physically and in the same way we need Gods word to sustain us spiritually, emotionally, and mentally. If we cease to go to him and drink up his word then we forget what clean, pure water tastes like.
It says that the land we are lead into is the land that the Lord God cares for. Imagine that? God leading us into a land that he has created and cares for. It also says that his eyes are on it from the beginning of the year to its end.
"For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future."
I know that verse is used so many times. But that verse is a promise. God has laid out that path we will tred on for the next year. He knows the mountains we will face, and the valleys we will be lost in. But he also knows the meadows we will walk through with him.
I take so much comfort and hope in these verses. No matter where I go, God has a plan. He knows me, he knows his will for me and because of that I truely take peace and comfort in his arms.
"Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you decalres the Lord." - Jeremiah 29:12-14
"But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possesion of is a land of mountins and valleys that drinks rain from heaven. It is a land the Lord your God cares for; the eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end." - Deuteronomy 11:11-12
We are beginning a new year; crossing over from last year to this one. Each year is full of promise. God has amazing plans in store and he wants to lead us individually down a path of teaching and blessing. It says that the land is a land of mountains and valleys. There will be highs this year and lows this year. We will struggle spiritually, emotionally, physically, mentally, socially....in every way possible we will face some type of struggle. Yet it also says that the land drinks rain from heaven. Jesus tells us that he is the wellspring of life and David writes that his soul pants for living water. We need water to sustain us physically and in the same way we need Gods word to sustain us spiritually, emotionally, and mentally. If we cease to go to him and drink up his word then we forget what clean, pure water tastes like.
It says that the land we are lead into is the land that the Lord God cares for. Imagine that? God leading us into a land that he has created and cares for. It also says that his eyes are on it from the beginning of the year to its end.
"For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future."
I know that verse is used so many times. But that verse is a promise. God has laid out that path we will tred on for the next year. He knows the mountains we will face, and the valleys we will be lost in. But he also knows the meadows we will walk through with him.
I take so much comfort and hope in these verses. No matter where I go, God has a plan. He knows me, he knows his will for me and because of that I truely take peace and comfort in his arms.
"Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you decalres the Lord." - Jeremiah 29:12-14
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