Tag Archives: scripture

every cut is the deepest

1Corinthians 13:4

 

“to be patient in bearing the offenses and injuries of others; to be mild and slow in avenging; to be long-suffering, slow to anger, slow to punish.” (Strongs)

musical notesI wanna know what love is
I want you to show me*

Lyrics to a song from my younger years. Lyrics that describe my younger years and by younger I mean all my years.

And while I was searching in all the wrong places and all the wrong people, it was here all along. Ancient words that tell me that true love is not of this world. It is other than. More than. Better than.

“God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.” (1John 4:16)

I wish I had known. Maybe if I had known that God is the very thing I spent so much of my time and dignity trying to find, I wouldn’t have spent so much. If I had known, things would have been different.

But now I know and it is different. So very. But not enough. It is not enough, because I have been acting  like Jesus, or at least trying —

to be patient in bearing the offenses and injuries of others; to be mild and slow in avenging; to be long-suffering, slow to anger, slow to punish.

And acting like Jesus exhausts me because it’s me. Because my strength, patience, and kindness are all feeble and not enough to be what love is. Acting like Jesus requires a lot of me.

Being like Jesus requires heart surgery.

And you know, every cut is always the deepest. God makes no superficial cuts. Deep is what it takes to remove a heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh. Deep is where He finds the bitterness, not the bearing, of offenses and injuries, the desire to get even and the flashes of anger we think we’re hiding as we passively punish those around us with our silence or thinly veiled words. The word of God is sharp and when it cuts it exposes the truth. I am not love.

Love was wounded for my transgressions. Love made a way for me to draw near to God, not just to bask in His presence, but to be transformed in it.

“For those He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son…” Romans 8:29

My destiny was never to act like Jesus, but to be like Jesus.

Lord, Your cut is deep, but keep cutting. I will continue to act like Jesus, mostly. Because acting like Him is better than not acting like Him. But I will lay here, under Your word…

until what has performed for You has become conformed to You.

 

*Foreigner – I Want to Know What Love Is. For all those my age, good luck getting it out of your head today. And you’re welcome.

in search of a wilderness

“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.  After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.  The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”” (Matthew 4:1-3)

This taking to the wilderness fascinates me. Maybe because I feel like I’ve stumbled my way through the desert a time or two.

OR

Maybe I’m fascinated because I need a wilderness experience right about now. Maybe my faith feels dull like a butter knife and maybe I pretend there is no war and maybe this lethargy is making me sick. Maybe.

“Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.”  And in that dry, lonely place, faith and temptation and hunger would collide and it had purpose and was on purpose and He was led there. He didn’t wonder why. He didn’t try to turn around and find His way back to comfort. He followed.

God, make me brave like that. Lead me to what I need and give me courage to follow.

” After fasting forty days and forty nights, He was hungry. The tempter came to him…”  The tempter came when the hunger came. But it wasn’t physical fullness that prepared Jesus for the face off, it was the spiritual fullness that came from forty days and forty nights of denying His flesh. 

And I know that I have been physically full and spiritually hungry for far too long.

 “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.  Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

The devil is many things, but dumb is not one of them. This was not an identity issue. He knew Jesus was the Son of God, and so did Jesus. He was tempting Him to fill His own need. To provide for His own hunger, without seeking His Father’s will first. Later, Jesus would tell His disciples “the Son can do nothing by Himself; He can do only what He sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does.” (John 5:19) So the way I see it, Satan is tempting Jesus to do it by Himself and for Himself. 

And so I say to myself:  This is not an identity issue. You know you are a child of God, and so does the devil. Stop going around in circles trying to prove that you know who you are. Stop ringing that bell, and wake up to the real issue. 

BECAUSE of your identity, the tempter is trying to get you to do it by yourself, and for yourself. 

To meet your own need. Fill your own hunger. To make your identity about you, instead of about the One who gave it to you.

Four verses from easily my favorite book in the Bible, and one of my favorite passages from that book. A passage I have read hundreds of times. Really. But today four verses have me undone. Today, four verses brought an answer to a problem that I’ve been ignoring.

I have been physically full and spiritually hungry, and, from a biblical standpoint, this is backwards. It has made me dull. Spiritually lazy. Selfish. (Oh. So very selfish.) I’ve just gotten self-consumed, and frankly, I’m a little sick of me.

Today, four verses confirmed my suspicions.

I need a wilderness.Autosave-File vom d-lab2/3 der AgfaPhoto GmbH

bathsheba and the whole story

“David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife”  Matthew 1:6

062-Widow-Mourning-q75-500x317I didn’t see it at first, even though that one sentence seemed to stand alone on the page. I read it, and went on with my day, but my mind kept repeating the words. “…whose mother had been Uriah’s wife.” Why did He breathe those words? Why didn’t He call her by name? There were other women listed in the who-belonged-to-who section, why not hers? Her name was Bathsheba. Why didn’t He say it? It felt almost offensive, this dismissal of a woman.Continue reading “bathsheba and the whole story”

Holy Spirit, who are You?

In my quest to go deeper, to know the heart of God more, it was inevitable that I would find my way here. Because after almost 24 years of relationship, I still find the Holy Spirit to be a mystery. I’ve been taught much, heard much, and have even sensed His presence many times, and I still feel as though I need to stick out my hand, introduce myself and ask Him that question.

Just who are You, really?

I am filled with the urge to search, and I know of only one place to search for God; only one place that I know for sure He will be found.  And I remember that “In the beginning“, the Spirit of God was there, so that is where I turn. And I find the first glimpse of the Holy Spirit.

“Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep,and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” {Genesis 1:2}

Hovering. Rachaph is the Hebrew word. It means to brood, like a mother bird broods over her young.

It also means “to cherish”.

The exact same word is used in Deuteronomy 32:11, describing God’s care for Israel ~

“like an eagle that stirs up its nest
    and hovers over its young,
that spreads its wings to catch them
    and carries them on its pinions.”

He cherishes.

And I am reminded ~

“And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us.” {Romans 5:5}

I sat back and closed my bible, closed my notebook and put down my pen. And then I chose to believe what I had found.

The Holy Spirit of God is not just a vaporous mystery. He’s not just power and strength, worker of signs and wonders, and Giver of gifts.

Suddenly the fact that I am indwelt by the Holy Spirit looks different to me.

“In the beginning…”  became “Here is the first thing I want to tell you about Myself. You are cherished by Me.”

Holy Spirit of God…

It’s so nice to meet You.

measuring grace

Measuring-TapeI didn’t measure up again today. Yesterday I fell really, really short. In fact, the measuring tape hasn’t delivered good news for me in quite a long time, and today I just woke up feelin’ it, very aware of the heaviness of it.

I think God knew.

He’s been whispering “grace” to me for weeks, in various forms. Doing battle for me behind my back. This morning He thrust the sword into my own hand.

“You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? Have you suffered so much for nothing—if it really was for nothing? Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?” (Galatians 3:1-5, emphasis mine)

Faith in grace. That’s where it began. It didn’t begin with me measuring up, nor will it end that way. It is by faith, from first to last.

“For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.” (Romans 1:17)

Why is grace so hard for us? Why do we chase our tails trying to be good enough when we were never good enough to begin with and that’s why this whole thing started? That’s why “it is finished” was ever spoken in the first place.

I pondered all of it this morning, as I let God remove the heaviness like we remove a winter coat. I retraced back to grace and all is well because I can’t earn what is free. And it seemed good. Seemed done. But it wasn’t.

Because sometimes we drink down His grace and something in us still says “more”. Because sometimes bewitching looks different than we expect, especially when it looks like I’m not trying to measure up to God at all. I’m trying to measure up to you.

To the ones who do it all and do it well. Those of you who have self-control in spades and never struggle with sin. You, with your perfect life, perfect happiness, perfect job, perfect hair, perfect spouse, perfect everything.

You, the one who doesn’t exist, except in my wildly rampant imagination on days when the feeling of failure is exceptionally present. The days when my usual pep talk to self turns downright abusive. The days when I want to slap you, you non-existent perfect person, but instead I spend the day crying and binge eating.

And to this God still whispers grace, it is finished. On my worst bewitched days, He leads me right back to the cross, where all measuring ends, and grace begins.

Everything begins and ends at the cross. And there’s just no measuring grace.