God wants all of me. He wants all of you. We don't have any leeway to compartmentalize our relationship with God. Perhaps it's the stage of life that I am in right now, but in my heart has been a desire for that "significant other" that's gotten my heart weary. I know, it's a very normal thing for a guy my age to desire a girlfriend, the "significant other." But to know that God wants every single part of my life, even my romantic desires of my heart. Understand, our relationship with God IS NOT compartmentalized. We can't just give Him certain things that we're comfortable with Him having. Even that desire for your prince charming/princess of your dreams is something you must give over to the Lord. This is where I'm at; in my heart, I've given all to the Lord, except for that. The romantic desires of my heart, I have not surrendered, thinking that it wouldn't be God to answer them, that "obviously" it was going to be my future wife's role. First off, that's heavy expectations for whomever God places in my path. Second, it's not their job to fulfill my needs, ultimately that is all up to God otherwise my relationship with the girl of my dreams will be all about "gimme, gimme, gimme." Selfishness is the number 1 killer of relationships.
For women, Maya Angelou said it best: "A woman's heart should be so lost in God that a man has to seek Him to find her." I think that's so true. For anybody, they must be most in love with their God than with their spouse. I know for me, if I don't love Jesus more than you, I'm in trouble. When I'm most in love with Jesus, my priorities are straight, and I have a proper vantage point and am able to see things in His light. Obviously, being a guy I cannot begin to fathom the inner workings of a ladies mind. What I do know, is that they're much more relational than men, and their desire is to be appreciated of, to be protected and to know that their prince will go through all lengths to provide for them, and to love them. (If I'm wrong, please chime in, always in for learning more.) Ultimately, Jesus is their Perfect Prince. Jesus already went to great lengths to show His great love and affection for you, dear women. He went to death and back just to win your heart. Your Prince Charming loves you more than any man on this earth and accepts you for all that you are. You don't need to pretty yourself up, try to "improve" yourself when God is already looking at you and saying, "How beautiful!" All that you are is all that He loves. The way you are right now is no accident and the He says, "Don't change who you are, because who you are is how I made you to discover Me." If ever you wanted and needed somebody to accept you for all that you are, it's Jesus.
For the men, we're more physical creatures, yes. But the desire is similar to woman's. We desire (or maybe, I should put I and just assume you all know that I'm talking about men collective as a whole and that deep in the heart of man, this is true, regardless if they show it or not) companionship. We long for somebody to be by our side and to stick it along with us through thick and thing. We may have our brothers by blood or by friendship who do this, but nothing compares to the love or companionship of a woman in that regard. However, ultimately, the One who desires our hearts, who went to hell and back just to win our hearts. Your heart. The reason He endured all of the beating and all of the pain? The face in your mirror. Gentlemen, can I stress it enough that we need to be more in love with our Savior than with the princess He brings into our lives? This is something that I'm still processing in. God wants all of us. ALL of us. There's no room for compartmentalizing. We can't put our romantic feelings in a box and say that "this is for the woman of my dreams to fulfill, not You, Lord." You can't expect her to fulfill your needs because she's not God, the One who created your needs. She can be used by God to fulfill a need in your life, such as companionship, but even that is ultimately found in the Lord. He never leaves us nor forsakes us.
As much as my desire for the princess God has for me, my desire must be, most of all, for my Savior. For I must seek Him to find her. And to this I say: take ALL of me, Lord. My desire for that dream girl You have for me, and fulfill everything that I am. Complete me Lord, because it's not two halves becoming one person, it's two becoming one, just as You say in Your word. May I seek You and love You more. You are the lover of my soul.
Friday, January 13, 2012
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Not Enough Hate
That's right, I said it. Criticize me, chastise me, do what you want. There's not enough hate in this world. Do you think I'm taking about hating each other? Hating a people group or society? Well, I probably got your attention by this title :) But seriously, there's not enough hate! But hate towards what? There we go, maybe I caught your attention now. There's not enough hate for sin in our lives. Sad to say, but we've becoming so comfortable with its sting that we like it and we would rather be comfortable in our death than free and being pruned in our Savior's hands. How can I see this as a truth right now? Look at our society. Look at the most popular musicians right now: Lady Gaga, T-Pain, Lil' John and so forth. What do they all have in common (other than being God's creation, of course)? They all glorify sin! It doesn't take long to see that all over the place sin is glorified and pushed in our faces. "Go have sex outside of marriage!" "Get drunk off your booty cuz it 'feels good!" "Go ahead, take that hit of heroine; it may hurt, but it feels good, so why not?" "Hey, the most important thing is the bottom line, isn't it? So why care about anyone? Let's neglect and gather things for us."
How on earth did we get to a place where sin became a bed fellow? How did we get so desensitized to sin that it no longer stings us like it used to? I have an answer: The fear of the LORD is in short supply. We've become so accustomed that God loves us so much and desires relationship with us that we've forgotten He's also the same God who parted the Red Sea, demolished the walls of Jericho, stilled the storm on Galilee with a word and created the entirety of the universe. He's not a mushy God. He loves us, yes, but God is not a soft God. Do we remember that He has hate, too? Not for His children, no. Nor even for Satan. Satan is one of His creations and He loves Him, but Satan chose his own fate when he rebelled against the Almighty. No, God HATES sin. Wanna know why? It gets between Him and His children! Ultimately, holiness cannot dwell in the same place as sin. The only reason we're able to be with God is because of Christ's sacrifice (and us accepting it... you know...) and making us holy. Sin is what separates us from God. And our Lord is a jealous God. Like a husband who sees his wife in the arms of another man, so God feels that way about sin when we're in the grips of sin.
Now listen, the fear of the LORD isn't being terrified of God. No, the real meaning of it is "a deep reverence and respect." Imagine standing before the Victoria Falls in Africa. You look at it and are in awe of the majesty of the tumbling water and by the sound of the water crashing. You have great respect for the falls and don't idly jump into the water because you know that if you hop on into it, you'll surely die. With God, the fear of the LORD is in result of His majesty. One only needs to look into the skies and see evidence of His marvelous power! Then take a gander into His word and you see all that He has done and His resume is quite extensive. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom. It is by the fear of the LORD that we begin to despise sin. We despise sin because we know that God hates sin and therefore, don't want to have anything to do with it. Take for instance this example: you have a small child. There's a big snake in your house that is threatening your child. You despise the snake because it desires to kill your child. What happens if the child decides to play with the snake? Uh oh. Think about it, sin is just like an anaconda that is wanting to devour you. Why would you go play with it? Why would you let it be in the same bed as you? No good. Stay away from sin.
Are there areas in your life where you've embraced sin? Whether it's lying, cheating, lust, murder (hate?), etc., it all separates us from God. Sin has this nasty way of skewing our view of humans (altering our horizontal relationships) and our view of God (our vertical relationship). It flaunts its instant gratification nature, because otherwise we wouldn't do it. If the temptation was like eating creamed spinach or liver, it would be easy to avoid sin! But the truth is that sin feels good for a season. but ultimately, "sin will take you farther than you wanted to go, keep you longer than you wanted to stay and cost you more than you wanted to pay" (quote courtesy of Jeremy Evans). Do you really want to get cozy with something that desires to devour your very being and rob you of all the life that God is offering you? It's time we all get in for a heart check and see if we've allowed sin to become a bed fellow, something we're comfortable with, instead of despising it by the fear of the LORD. I think if we understand how much God hates sin, but loves us, then it would be much easier for us to avoid sin. Then I have one place for you to look at: the cross. Where God's hatred for sin met His love for us. He hated sin so much, but loved us much greater that He would send His son to die for us so that we can live free without the sin that kills us. Ultimately, Christ paid the penalty of sin by His death so that we can enter into His life.
Do we get it? Lord, search our hearts and find if there be any wicked way in us. Test us, try us, prove us, refine us. Make me a sanctified people, set apart for Your work and totally imbibed in Your love. Guide us by Your Spirit, Lord. You know the way.
How on earth did we get to a place where sin became a bed fellow? How did we get so desensitized to sin that it no longer stings us like it used to? I have an answer: The fear of the LORD is in short supply. We've become so accustomed that God loves us so much and desires relationship with us that we've forgotten He's also the same God who parted the Red Sea, demolished the walls of Jericho, stilled the storm on Galilee with a word and created the entirety of the universe. He's not a mushy God. He loves us, yes, but God is not a soft God. Do we remember that He has hate, too? Not for His children, no. Nor even for Satan. Satan is one of His creations and He loves Him, but Satan chose his own fate when he rebelled against the Almighty. No, God HATES sin. Wanna know why? It gets between Him and His children! Ultimately, holiness cannot dwell in the same place as sin. The only reason we're able to be with God is because of Christ's sacrifice (and us accepting it... you know...) and making us holy. Sin is what separates us from God. And our Lord is a jealous God. Like a husband who sees his wife in the arms of another man, so God feels that way about sin when we're in the grips of sin.
Now listen, the fear of the LORD isn't being terrified of God. No, the real meaning of it is "a deep reverence and respect." Imagine standing before the Victoria Falls in Africa. You look at it and are in awe of the majesty of the tumbling water and by the sound of the water crashing. You have great respect for the falls and don't idly jump into the water because you know that if you hop on into it, you'll surely die. With God, the fear of the LORD is in result of His majesty. One only needs to look into the skies and see evidence of His marvelous power! Then take a gander into His word and you see all that He has done and His resume is quite extensive. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom. It is by the fear of the LORD that we begin to despise sin. We despise sin because we know that God hates sin and therefore, don't want to have anything to do with it. Take for instance this example: you have a small child. There's a big snake in your house that is threatening your child. You despise the snake because it desires to kill your child. What happens if the child decides to play with the snake? Uh oh. Think about it, sin is just like an anaconda that is wanting to devour you. Why would you go play with it? Why would you let it be in the same bed as you? No good. Stay away from sin.
Are there areas in your life where you've embraced sin? Whether it's lying, cheating, lust, murder (hate?), etc., it all separates us from God. Sin has this nasty way of skewing our view of humans (altering our horizontal relationships) and our view of God (our vertical relationship). It flaunts its instant gratification nature, because otherwise we wouldn't do it. If the temptation was like eating creamed spinach or liver, it would be easy to avoid sin! But the truth is that sin feels good for a season. but ultimately, "sin will take you farther than you wanted to go, keep you longer than you wanted to stay and cost you more than you wanted to pay" (quote courtesy of Jeremy Evans). Do you really want to get cozy with something that desires to devour your very being and rob you of all the life that God is offering you? It's time we all get in for a heart check and see if we've allowed sin to become a bed fellow, something we're comfortable with, instead of despising it by the fear of the LORD. I think if we understand how much God hates sin, but loves us, then it would be much easier for us to avoid sin. Then I have one place for you to look at: the cross. Where God's hatred for sin met His love for us. He hated sin so much, but loved us much greater that He would send His son to die for us so that we can live free without the sin that kills us. Ultimately, Christ paid the penalty of sin by His death so that we can enter into His life.
Do we get it? Lord, search our hearts and find if there be any wicked way in us. Test us, try us, prove us, refine us. Make me a sanctified people, set apart for Your work and totally imbibed in Your love. Guide us by Your Spirit, Lord. You know the way.
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