I always caution the new enthusiastic believer to take time to fall in Love with the Living Christ, to literally be "selfish" with that time. You only get one chance to fall in love with Him (IMHO), and that's at the beginning of the relationship. Allow me to elaborate. I know there are open objections to this train of thought, mostly leaning on the side of "what do you mean 'one chance', anyone can fall in love with jesus at any time?" True, anyone can fall in love with Him anytime, but there is something special at the beginning of a relationship where you get to be lost in someone else's life. That singular instant doesn't last forever, soon there comes relational difficulties, frustrations, obligations, maintenance, and endless distractions. He spent three years face to face with the disciples showing them how to live in God relationaly and not religiously. He allowed them to make mistakes and forgave them and built them up, just like falling in love. Out of that simple devotion came the most powerful change the world has ever seen, the creation of romantisicm falls on the shoulders of the christian church. Look for romance for the sake of romance in history before Christ; you can literally count the epic romances on one hand, but soon after the Christos it becomes the central theme of all story. It's because up until then God was trying to groom a child but In Christ he woos a bride. The response to that wooing changes the world.
Take the time, before ministry, before obligation, before failure, to just love Him. If His purposes and example revolve around relationship and the building of that relationship we MUST commit to that development, not the act of service but the reality of falling in love.
Showing posts with label God Love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God Love. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
a letter to an unconcerned heart
majestic is his forgiveness. . .
my dear friend, CS Lewis said, "we need to be reminded more than we need to be instructed".
If his words are true (and most of them are) we suffer from an awkward case of seeking instruction and avoiding remembrance. We seem to have a genuine disdain for tradition, which is fine if you know the reality that sits behind the tradition, literally extracting the truth from tradition. Some people do this fine, and in doing so find an even deeper more powerful meaning in the text, or in the practice of faith. Most of us are not that person, we "give up" on the faith at the exact moment when it matters to have faith, not when we are impressionable youth who think we can change the world but when we are on the cusp of manhood finding that God wasn't trying to change the world through us instead he was attempting to change us, and not to reconcile us to the world or better explain him to the earth but to reconcile us (insert your name here) to himself. He wants our hearts, not our brilliance (which you have no lacking of, bruce said so himself) or our wit and humor, he doesn't even want our feeble attempts to appease him (really shameful attempts actually). He wants us, not a tithe or a law or a commitment, he wants our hearts and it's no secret that he is relentless.
It's actually kinda funny that we so effortlessly and consistently say things like, "i wanna give you my heart" or "my heart is yours God", because the fact is we don't even hold that much sway over our ever wandering hearts to begin with. The real miracle and "good news" isn't that we can feebly offer broken hearts to God our Father and he accepts them, its the reverse; God offers us his mighty, fully healing, fully self-sustained heart to us to be trodded, spat, and relied upon. That is the beauty of God, not that I am cleasned but that he cleanses me. it's the heart of the gospel that God meets me, even pursues me, wherever i roam without glancing back at what is lost or given or sacrficed in the process.
my dear friend, CS Lewis said, "we need to be reminded more than we need to be instructed".
If his words are true (and most of them are) we suffer from an awkward case of seeking instruction and avoiding remembrance. We seem to have a genuine disdain for tradition, which is fine if you know the reality that sits behind the tradition, literally extracting the truth from tradition. Some people do this fine, and in doing so find an even deeper more powerful meaning in the text, or in the practice of faith. Most of us are not that person, we "give up" on the faith at the exact moment when it matters to have faith, not when we are impressionable youth who think we can change the world but when we are on the cusp of manhood finding that God wasn't trying to change the world through us instead he was attempting to change us, and not to reconcile us to the world or better explain him to the earth but to reconcile us (insert your name here) to himself. He wants our hearts, not our brilliance (which you have no lacking of, bruce said so himself) or our wit and humor, he doesn't even want our feeble attempts to appease him (really shameful attempts actually). He wants us, not a tithe or a law or a commitment, he wants our hearts and it's no secret that he is relentless.
It's actually kinda funny that we so effortlessly and consistently say things like, "i wanna give you my heart" or "my heart is yours God", because the fact is we don't even hold that much sway over our ever wandering hearts to begin with. The real miracle and "good news" isn't that we can feebly offer broken hearts to God our Father and he accepts them, its the reverse; God offers us his mighty, fully healing, fully self-sustained heart to us to be trodded, spat, and relied upon. That is the beauty of God, not that I am cleasned but that he cleanses me. it's the heart of the gospel that God meets me, even pursues me, wherever i roam without glancing back at what is lost or given or sacrficed in the process.
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