In My Weakness..

Weaknesses.
We all have them.
But most of us emphasize, exaggerate, and sometimes even try to sell ourselves with our strengths while hiding, denying, or trying to compensate for our weaknesses.
If we're honest with ourselves, we're probably pretty fearful of our weaknesses being exposed.
But what if...
What if they weren't just something we tried to hide because we thought that they would expose something about us that would make people not accept us for who we "really" are.
What if they were something we were actually supposed to embrace?
What if we have weaknesses for a reason?

"But He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong." - 2nd corinthians 12:9-10

Sometimes I can think "how could God use me, I'm so messed up."
But are my weaknesses above His power to use me? I think not. 

I must remember that He uses even my weakness for His glory.
So our weaknesses then can be embraced, they must be embraced, for they actually become opportunities for God to demonstrate His power and goodness through us.
In the letting go of our pride and admitting our weakness, our dependence makes room for God to come in and be what we couldn't be on our own.

In order to fully embrace God's grace for us, and Jesus' death on the cross, we must fully embrace our fallenness, our weakness, our need for a savior.
Like I wrote about in my "Liberating Love" post, our time on this earth is spent in a sanctification process. If we were perfect now, or could attain perfection in this lifetime, we wouldn't need the death of our Lord and King. We wouldn't need a savior.
And so we take away from the work of Christ if we don't let Him be what we can't be. He came to be everything we couldn't be and do everything we couldn't do.
We are all broken pieces waiting to be put back together by the only One who knows what we were meant to look like.
And so we must acknowledge our weakness with the next step of admitting our dependence, showing our trust in Him as our Redeemer.

Embracing weakness is also seriously instrumental for our growth.

When we pray and ask for change in our hearts and to be rid of a weakness like say selfishness for example, God doesn't just snap His fingers and make us selfless. He gives us a circumstance with the opportunity to choose to be selfless. And so you then ask "Well if I wasn't selfless before, how am I supposed to be selfless now if all I've been given is just another opportunity for me to be what I know will be selfish?" To which I would say "On your own, yes this is true"

The answer I think is this: first of all we must pray for our eyes to be open to the gift of a second chance. In that moment then, when we are aware of our choice to choose others or ourselves, we must pray and trust Him to be what we can't be. We must acknowledge our need of a strength not our own. What then was once just His selflessness we realize, has actually become ours too and we've just then taken on more of likeness of Christ. We've let the Redeemer give us the strength to be something we couldn't be before without Him. How beautiful, the fact that He alone gives us the strength to live the life He calls us to live!

"The promises of God give what His commands demand" - Martin Luther

And so we can only boast in Him.

"It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord." - 1st Corinthians 1:30

So what is it in your life that you are holding onto, and by doing so, with-holding from yourself the grace that is offered to cover that weakness?

I think it's time to give it up and let Him be in you what you can't be. Let Him be the Redeemer.

Let Him in

Let Him in

Let Him in

Father, grant me grace in my weakness to do Your will but also strength to accept Your sufficient grace in my weaknesses...

Reads...

The following are my current reads and why:

Simple Ways (Towards the Sacred) - Gunilla Norris - a book I read daily to get me in contemplation mode.

The Freedom of a Christian - Martin Luther - a book I'm reading because it was wrote many many years ago by an author who stood up against "religion".

Extravagant Worship - Darlene Zschech - a book I'm about to start reading because I'm a worship leader and Darlene is the founder of Hillsong Worship

When the Heart Waits - Sue Monk Kidd - a book I'm reading because I need to get better at waiting.

The Dialogue - Catherine of Siena - a book I'm reading because the author was the only other woman other than Teresa of Avila to be granted the title of Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church way back in the 1300's.

Taking & Giving

Continuing on from my last post... The more we grow in the recognition of God's love for us the more our response will be that of investing our hearts into His truth and grace and less into things that can't satisfy.
And when we start finding meaning in the right thing, in Him, old things that may have lost their shine, start to glisten again, things begin to regain their beauty. We start to see colors again. Life is restored. Created things that weren't made to and aren't able to stabilize our hearts on their own, that we took life from until their last breath, are resurrected. We then have the eyes to see creation and experience it in the reason it was made.
You see, when we invest too much into something created, something that is not capable of giving what we humans with our God-shaped hole's are expecting, we suck the life out of it.
This is why I think in our day and age we keep needing the new. We move from one shiny toy to the next taking and taking, stealing the life from each thing until it has nothing left to give us and so we advance to the next best thing, thinking and hoping it will satisfy and fulfill.

So you and I have 2 choices: To live a life of taking & giving or just taking.

When we seek to find our purpose in Christ we find the meaning of life. He offers His love to us to take it or leave it and if we take it, if we let Him love us with His liberating love, it satisfies us and we cease to just take from creation, draining the life from it, and begin to see it and care for it in the way it was meant to be seen and cared for. So when we lose our lives in Christ, we partner with God in His plan for the restoration and redeeming of this world. Amazing!
So you and I can either keep taking and taking, and investing too much only ending up in finding a non-existent life and nothing but unfulfillment and emptiness in something the Creator created; or we can embrace Christ the way we were created to and invest the deepest parts of ourselves into the never ending, life-giving love of God with which He fills us and overflows in us. We can't contain it, it pours out of us. His love can't help but be shared because it's so amazing. People feel and see it as it explodes from within our deepest selves and we can then give and give because we are taking from a never ending well of perfectly faithful love.
"Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." - John 4:13


"Most men are not satisfied with the permanent output of their lives. Nothing can wholly satisfy the life of Christ within his followers except the adoption of Christ’s purpose toward the world he came to redeem. Fame, pleasure and riches are but husks and ashes in contrast with the boundless and abiding joy of working with God for the fulfillment of his eternal plans. The men who are putting everything into Christ’s undertaking are getting out of life its sweetest and most priceless rewards."
- J. Campbell White


"The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want." - Psalm 23:1
This verse and really the rest of the chapter, is a really good example of a man who recognizes, knows, and lives in the perfect fulfilling love of God.
When we recognize God as our Shepherd, the one who feeds us, guides and leads us, grooms us, challenges us, and loves us with a perfect love, is when we learn that He is our ultimate source for life and when we learn to stop just taking and begin to take in order to give by living rooted in the endless love that the King of the universe has for us and for all creation.


Lord, hear my prayers:
"Turn my eyes from worthless things of this world, and give me life through You and your word." - Psalm 119:37
"Satisfy us each morning with your unfailing love, so we may sing for joy to the end of our lives." - Psalm 90:14

Wow

I saw this video on a buddy's blog of mine and was moved to tears...
To know there are so many people out there thinking they have no worth, or can't do any good..And then to know that Christ has called us each by name, affirming us as His children.
Look for that in this video...

Liberating Love

"If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." - John 8:31-32
His teaching, the truth; I think in essence is His love.
The more we realize that we are loved to the full, the less we then seek to find true life in anything but the One who's the only one who can actually give it. We are set free more and more from earthly strivance and begin to see things in the light of what they really are. When we experience His love, everything else pails in comparison. When we realize that we are already loved to the full, then we stop looking for created things to love us in a way that only God can. And until we realize that only God can love us the way we need to be loved, fully and perfectly at all times, we will put way too much hope and pressure in and on the people we care so much about, thinking they can give more than humanly possible.

God created us for relationship, and relationship'S. We must have the first relationship(the one with God) in highest priority in order to be able to do any other human relationships the right and created way. God is love and so all He does is in love and because of love and that's why He created us, to be in perfect union with Him. He is the only one who can love us like He does, the way we need, the way we were created for. We were created to be loved, and His love is the greatest because He is love, so it just makes sense that we need the Love Creator's love and that we were created to experience His love in full.

Jesus knew that choosing Him was going to be a very difficult choice with all the deceit that "looks" fulfilling, and that looks like "truth", and so He prayed for us in John 17:17 "Sanctify them by the truth."
The dictionary description of sanctification says: "The act of sanctifying or making holy; the act of God's grace by which the affections of men are purified, or alienated from sin and the world, and exalted to a supreme love to God."
I think sanctification is the process of being set free over and over, more and more, from the strong pull of worldly things that trick us into thinking we can find meaning in them. Sanctification is partnering with the holy spirit in training more and more of our daily breaths to be ones of worship to the Creator.
I think it's an on-going, rest of your life thing, where God consumes more and more of our hearts to love Him and recognize His love for us.
We never become perfect here on earth, but we can and should look much more like Christ on the day we die than the day we were born.

And so life must be this ever continual growing in the depths of His love for us. Why? Because the closer we are to letting His love shape us and change us and make us more like Him, the closer we are to being fully human, the closer we are to being how we were originally created to be, fully aware of His perfect love for us knowing that He is enough and has all we need.
"But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth." - 2nd Thessalonians 2:13
So every day we must learn to fight, for our wholness's sake, to grow in understanding of truth, which is His love reminding us Who's we are and so that our hearts can be enlightened to the things that can't satisfy us like God can, leading us to choosing Him over our selfishness more and more. And because the more we choose to trust Him and let His love for us be enough, the stronger we become against temptation experiencing His grace more and more.
"Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs." - Jonah 2:8
When we choose to embrace His love for us, when we recognize we are His, we release the grip of our lives and give the reigns back to Him, we begin to see that there is nothing more better than life in Him, and we accept His grace.


That and if it's true than we can't love until we've experienced love, how much more could we love others if we greatly pursued knowing more and more His love for us. Letting Him love through us is the only way to practice the love Jesus calls us to in Matthew 5:43-48, the love in which the world will recognize we are His.
Matthew 5:43-48 - "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?"


We must surrender our fallible love to Him to replace it with His infallible love in order to live the love He calls us to, in order to love the people we care about consistently how they need, and in order to love the people we once couldn't love because they were our enemies. And when we let Him make us more than we are without Him by admitting our fallenness and dependence on Him, we then can live kingdomly. - I think I just made up a word.


Here is a great poem I found that I've posted before but think really embodies a true and humble grasping of what we have in Christ as we become more like Him.


Father, I will give You a gift of love
But I have no love that's mine to give
The love I know is what I see in You
Yet I will write my name on it
I will pretend that I am rich in love
I will be Your child and You will be my daddy
And we will play a game together
A game of self giving love
I will sit on Your knee and pass out love
And You will give me more
I will pretend I am giving some to You
And You will smile at me
As though it were mine to give
I will give it out to everyone who passes by
And You will be very happy
Because You will know
It really has become mine to give

Lord we surrender to Your Spirit's sanctifying and desperately long to grow in Your love. Make our hearts malleable and teach us Your truth.

Nonsensical Love

The more we grow, the better we should understand grace; because we realize that we're still sinning and that He's still shapping us to look more like Him.
I'm still sinning and I'm still growing and I'm blown away by this.
It's what makes my heart beat fast for Him.
The fact the He has given me His love in FULL through His only Son's death despite knowing that I would throw His free gift of salvation back in His face when I try and earn by my own rights, on my own strength, His grace; astounds me.
His love has never changed and never will change even though I will still sometimes continue to choose other things over Him. Though I sometimes forget who created my heart and let it beat faster for something other than Him; He still loves me fully. Though I forget who created my longings and desires and try and find my meaning/purpose, fulfillment and self-worth in created things; He still loves me fully.
Though I repeatedly take control of my life and live it like I think I own myself; He still loves me fully.
Though most days I'm just plain terrible at loving Him back; He still loves me fully. God doesn't wait on reciprocity.
1 John 4:19 says "We love because he first loved us."
His love is without condition. He loves us fully whether we love Him or not.

It's been said that His love is folly. It's beyond reason. It's beyond understanding. It's beyond measure. It's limitless. It's infinite. It's endless. It's relentless. It's always. It outshines everything. There's nothing like it. Nothing compares. It's perfect.

I used to think that in order for God to "be right with" me, I had to "be right with" Him. When it's just my choosing selfishness that makes Him blurry and makes me forget He's all I need. The truth is that He's always right with me.

One of my favorite verses is Romans 5:8 (NIV) - "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
And in the Message version: "Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn't, and doesn't, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn't been so weak, we wouldn't have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him."

And get this:
There is no mistake, no sin too great, too far beyond the reach of His grace, His love.
"..But where sin increased, grace increased all the more." - Romans 5:20
Though our sin may be so great, His grace is always so much greater, His love is always so much bigger.

The difference in a life of someone who knows that they are loved by God no matter what is indescribable.
Are you seeking to grow in the depth and understanding of His love?..that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.


"I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." -Ephesians 3:16-19

A Love Like No Other

"When then, eternal Father, did You create this creature of Yours?
You show me that You made us for one reason only; in Your light You saw Yourself compelled by the fire of Your love to give us being in spite of the evil we would commit against You. Oh, unutterable love, even though You saw all the evils Your creatures would commit against Your infinite goodness, You acted as if You did not see and set Your eye only on the beauty of Your creature, with whom You had fallen in love like one drunk and crazy with love...You are the fire, nothing but a fire of love, crazy over what You have made. - Catherine of Siena

"I am my beloved’s, and his desire is for me."
- Song of Solomon 7:10

Sheltered

"But test everything; hold fast what is good." - 1st Thessalonians 5:21 

The things that make you a Christian, are they your own? 

By your own I mean this: Your faith, what you believe in; is it just something that you've taken from your parents or from just watching other people? Are you trying to live a Christianity that's not really your own, that you've maybe just heard from someone and believed every word of. Or, are you striving daily to seek for yourself the King of Kings a.k.a. Jesus Christ and the truth in His word? Are you working at developing every part of what makes you a Christian rock solid; strong enough to stand in the storm? 

Do you have a sheltered Christianity, one where you just have taken what you grew up with and are ok with mimicking what you saw your parents or friends do, or maybe just believing everything you hear from everyone who associates themselves with God. Or are you working for a well rounded, tested and tried faith, one that is so because you take everything you hear and line it up with the perfect truth in the Bible, and You've laid out all the options and studied both sides and lived in them for a good amount of time and prayed for insight and wisdom and have been led by the Holy Spirit in choosing things for your foundation that can go into the fire and come out unscathed.

I know some of these words may seem harsh, but I've seen very close people to me in the past come crashing down because they put their trust in the wrong things turning them away from the One thing that loves them most. And my heart breaks for them so much.

What's wrong with a sheltered Christianity is that when something outside everything you've ever known to be the truth challenges your beliefs and you find out that you've been mistaken and that your faith has been built on sand, your whole world then comes crashing down before you.

I've heard close friends in the past say things about their faith with such conviction and wondered how they could be so sure about something when that style is all they've known, when they've never stepped outside their whole growing up bubble or box to see what else God says. Their faith has never been tested, they've only seen their one view of God, and I fear that when the time comes for the stormy weather that their house of cards will blow right over.

When we invest too much into something without testing it against the Word of God, when we trust something just because we always have, we can set ourselves up for giving that thing more esteem than it should have. When we invest more than we should into something that is created, we forget that the created thing is nothing without it's Creator. And anything that we place in higher regard than God's truth, whether we know it or not, becomes a god. And when we blindly put so much of ourselves into a god, we face the threat of when it fails us blaming God for failing us when we are actually confusing the god for God. 

Matthew 7:24-27 - "These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock. Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit—but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock. But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don't work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach. When a storm rolled in and the waves came up, it collapsed like a house of cards."

Shelly Moore Band

Here is an artist that I am highly recommending.
Her name is Shelly Moore. You'll find her music searching for the Shelly Moore "Band".
The CD that I am very much liking the more I listen is called "Hope & Decay"
It's stirred my heart and made me yearn for Jesus.
I hope it does the same for you.

A Favorite Website of Mine

http://www.sacredspace.ie/
This website is a daily prayer site run by Irish Jesuits.
The website invites you to make a 'Sacred Space' in your day, and spend ten minutes, praying here and now, as you sit at your computer, with the help of on-screen guidance and scripture chosen specially every day.
If you scroll down to nearly the bottom of the front page you will find specific days to click on to start your prayer.
This has been especially good for me on days when I'm just running and flying through the day without thinking. It calms me and slows me down and makes me think.
Enjoy, I hope you do.

GSM

Pictures from tonights GSM.