Measuring your closeness with God

"Your every action must be done with love."

1 Corinthians 16:14

That alone shows me how far I fall from holiness, but also how rich I am in grace! 

It's a good litmus test, these sorts of directives (the book of James is one of many to measure holiness and grace as well).  They help keep me in step with the Spirit when things get a bit muddled.  

They're also a good reality check for what love is.  I have to ask myself what love looks like for me, as in when have I felt and been assured most that I was loved by someone.  Thats honestly the best and only measure we have in giving love as well.  If I say that I believe God loves me, and I give reason for it in the cross (the death of His Son for me) then love to me means laying down my life for the other.  It means being humiliated or rejected by someone and still laying my life down for them.  That's love.  And that's a reminder to me for how far I fall from true holiness, but simultaneously how deeply steeped I am in God's vibrant life-giving grace. 

When I consider verses like these, I also keep in mind where actual transformation has taken place in my life.  Just going to church or praying more or being in seminary have nothing to do with change.  Anyone could do those things and still be as unchanged and cold hearted and apathetic towards God as someone who didn't do those things.

"But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peace-loving, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, without favoritism and hypocrisy."

James 3:17 

So then I take a moment to quiet my mind and examine the small turns and indents of my attitude towards others, my reactions, my feelings, my desires, and my discontents.  What was driving me at some given moment that I may have experienced disappointment or anger?  Those are the areas still in need of the transforming gift of the Holy Spirit. 

And who are some people for which I genuinely feel compliant for, meaning I agree and desire to see their desires met with my help?  

Who am I full of real mercy and not arrogance towards?  Who owes me kindness or money or respect or something, yet all of sudden I can be with them and enjoy being with them without having been given those things?

Who do I now spend quality time with that I didn't before- without favoritism, or in other words I feel the same love for them as those I have naturally loved and naturally spent time with to grab lunch or watch a movie?  

Who are some people that I have noticed, through examination of the past to now, that have gone from someone who annoyed me or angered me to someone who is now a peaceful and loving person to be around?  

When I consider these things I realize NOT MUCH has changed! 

Hahaha but a very small percentage of who I was to who I am now is different in those aspects, and it may feel like a tremendous transformation because going from any pitch black dark to glorious light is so noticeable to oneself; especially as one starts outwardly showing these things via prayer, church attendance, and so forth.   These outward expressions of our faith are indeed good and helpful indicators of change, but they are certainly not where our confidence should be.  Anyone can kneel down and say a prayer or put on a pretty dress and go to church or volunteer to feed the homeless.  But it takes something more to do those things with actual excitement and genuine love--love that would that would take criticism and judgment by others and still love!  Love that would understand when someone else is being cruel or hurtful to them due to an area of that person's heart that has not experienced the love that you have from God when you were in your sin, and therefore instead of indifference you feel compassion towards them and ask God how you can gently respond with the same kind of love God responds to us in our fits of anger or cruelty.  That kind of love!  The kind that often takes me a while to give because I have to think about it.  The kind that is always met with an initial desire to get indignant or upset or annoyed!...the kind that requires thoughtful prayer on the spot.  That kind of love.  

These verses help us from deceiving ourselves into thinking we've made it as perfect Christians or even as better Christians than before.  

If anything they show us how far we really fall from where we need to be in order to be with God, but yet they fill us with the profound depth of how much grace God lavishes on us as we boldly approach Him in the righteousness and perfect holiness of Jesus, His Son.  We fall short and yet we have God in us, with us, as our Father!  How?  Only because of what Christ did for us.  So then, these verses show us, more than our feelings and external behaviors, what we have been given not how far we have come.  

The Word of God is not meant to pat us on the back or kick us in the rears to make us obey, but rather it is the light that shows us how loved we are despite ourselves.  

Instead, you should say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 

James 4:15

Which is glorious good news for the person that knows with a twinkle in their eye that the Lord who wills is the very Lord who loves them. 

I am praying that today more people surrender to verses like these and know the grace and love of God our Father. 

Jmegrey. 

A Felt Presence to Faith in His Presence

The gospel--"which He promised long ago through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures —" (Romans 1:2)

How long ago?  1000+years ago, since Adam bit the apple-long ago.  God's plan has and is always being carried out.  There's no other will that is being fulfilled besides His.  We participate, by free will, an undeserved entrance given us by our substitute, Jesus, who died in our place for our sins because of God's love and holiness.  Holiness in that He cannot let sin go unpunished; Love in that He paid the penalty for which our sins required.  

Sometimes I wake up really early in a gradual sort of gentle poke by God's spirit in me.  I look at the time and it's about 5am, and I wait another 50 minutes or so to actually get up.  During those 50 minutes I'm listening.  I hear the thoughts in my head being addressed and it is God speaking to me.  I know it's God because of 3 things:  

1.  I know when God is speaking because I know Him!  Kinda like when someone calls you and you already know who it is by the sound of their voice.  

"My sheep hear My voice, I know them, and they follow Me." John 10:27

2.  The things He says are so genius and reassuring and concrete.  They are things that once either puzzled or disoriented me, but now seem so secure and easy.  For example this morning I was hurting with cramps, which usually send me into fits of painful cries in the fetal position, but this morning when they began knotting my stomach I knew that even this was an act of God's love for me and I started laughing! Haha I might sound crazy, but don't get me wrong, the cramps still hurt just as they always do, but I was also in joy at knowing God speaks to me in EVERYTHING.  This was just another word from Him, using my cramps, that spoke life into me, and I started laughing because I was supposed to be writhing in pain alone, and instead I was listening through it.  But man it hurts, I'm not gonna lie!  It hurts like a beast.  And physical pain is painful.  I don't ever doubt it, especially when I am the one feeling it! Haha.  But God is in everything, meaning that He does not cause the pain, but He certainly is present in it for the sake of His children.  And where God is, there is safety and a warm assurance that all will be well.  This is especially powerful in moments more detrimental such as a death in the family, a sickness or disease in the family, friends that are hurting, or personal sufferings.  For me, this morning, it was during my physically pain-inducing cramps.  Which, by the way, still hurt right now...haha.  

"For as heaven is higher than earth, so My ways are higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:9

"The Lord is good,

a stronghold in a day of distress;
He cares for those who take refuge in Him."

Nahum 1:7

3.  I actually didn't have 3, but only 2, but I can think up a third reason for why I know it's God.  I would never choose to wake up that early especially when I didn't get a full 7-9 hours of sleep!  Haha.  So I know it's God because there is a desire to wake up and continue talking and listening to Him.

"Take delight in the LORD, and He will give you your heart's desires." Psalm 37:4

The mundane becomes, now, a filing spendor that makes my eyes light up, my feet to move in dance, and my voice to sing songs of praise.  When I wake up it's because I WANT to wake up not because I should or must, and therein lies the glorious change from dull to delight. 

I must say that this is indeed a feeling with knowledge.  Sometimes I only have the knowledge of God but without any feelings.  Or sometimes I may experience feelings with a fuzzy understanding of what God is doing or saying to me.  God is present, always, so that much is sure.  It is my mind that wanders away at times from His presence that causes me to think about other things so much less than Him!  Of course I think about taking the trash out, baking some sweet potatoes, perhaps making plans to watch a movie with a friend, all of these are not bad thoughts to have.  But they do not compare to the thoughts that remind me that God Almighty is right there in the room or in the car with me.  It's a giddy feeling, very childlike and magical.  Suddenly everything is at my fingertips, but this treasure I hold in myself like jars of clay...

"But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us." 2 Corinthians 4:7

It's in me, His power, just waiting to put me in awe and wonder....and many times I have stopped short of what I was doing at some moment in time with wide-eyed wonder and joy at what God showed me.  It's God!  I mean, He made the mountains I love so much--with one word He just spoke them into existence.  And when He speaks to me I see something of that same creation unfolding before me like rolling clouds!

Now, some of what I just wrote stemmed from a sudden and strange distillation in my feelings of joy as I began to write.  I mentioned earlier how delighted I was to wake up and hear more and talk with God, but the thing about such certain joys is how certain you are when it goes even slightly faded/awry/tainted/questionable.  I notice every little change when that kind of joy suddenly shifts (heightened even more because of my womanliness at the moment), but the point is that I bring that before God, of course I do!  It's as if I was running through waterfalls, and then like a faucet they turned off.  I ask Him, "what was that?"

As I also mentioned earlier, I know it like an anchor in my soul that God is never "gone" from me, He is present in everything, even in the distillation.  Perhaps especially in the distillation. Those feelings of childlike wonder running through waterfalls is not God Himself, but gifts from God.  I used to think His gifts (of feelings) identified Himself, but after having gone through years of distillation and no feelings of that sort, it just clicked that those feelings were gifts.  Clearly God has not gone MIA.  The feelings had, but that wouldn't make sense to say that God had.  It sure felt like it, and some of you will remember a post I wrote asking God "Where are You right now?!" Because His absence was exactly what it felt like.  

So this morning when I noticed the shift in my heart at His felt presence, I asked Him, almost immediately, "what was that?" To which He reassured me that it was now a faith presence, meant to set the anchor deeper in the bedrock of His love for me.   

"We have this hope as an anchor for our lives, safe and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain"  Hebrews 6:19

I used to feel like an illegitimate child of God, as if somehow I had been adopted by mere accident or disapproving inclusion that was hoping for me to change and be better, but it's different now.  When you're a child, a real child and not some distant cousin or friend of a real child of God, you know it because you bother God for every little thing and you know He cares.  As the saying goes: only a daughter would wake her father up at 3am to ask for a glass of water.  No one else could do that with a guilt free conscious.  I know I'm a daughter of God because nothing I do or say bothers Him, but when something is bad for me He gently let's me know when I question Him about it, and does whatever it takes to save me from it.  I trust Him, and when I don't trust Him I talk to Him to convince me to trust Him, and He speaks to me the words of life--and I store them up in me like jars of clay.  

So yea, sometimes a felt presence feels like the best thing in the world, but a faith in His presence, when the feelings fade, is how I have come to recognize His soft whisper most. 

"Then He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the Lord’s presence.” At that moment, the Lord passed by. A great and mighty wind was tearing at the mountains and was shattering cliffs before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was a voice, a soft whisper. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Suddenly, a voice came to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah? ” (1 Kings 19:11-13)

Perhaps God wants to bring something of importance to your attention in the stillness you might be experiencing.  I hope and pray you listen for His whisper, it is life-giving, love in action, and the anchor in the soul. 

Jmegrey

Held, albeit moldy

Do you know the gospel?  

How sweet it makes the law of God?

How meaningful and rich and deep it is to the soul that hungers for that stuff!

Imagine you have the most incredible genius idea about how to spend the perfect day with someone.  Like a date.  You know a lot of about this person from friends and you are definitely attracted.  So you got the most incredible day planned out, I'm talking great new restaurant on a hilltop with outdoor tables that have telescopes for star viewing, then hopping over to the new starfish exhibit to pet live ones, riding a hot air balloon in the evening where you might float into the stars, and ending with a very corny short but sweet poem that you recite to your date to tie in every single thing that happened with how much this person's brightness is like the stars in the sky and how their presence is as surreal as the petting of the starfish, so on and so forth.  

For me, when I want to share the gospel with the people I love most or with someone I see has so much to flourish in, or with someone that is visibly hurting or heavy with going nowhere, it's like preparing and doing the date described above, but there is one problem:  we don't speak the same language.  There is a staunch language barrier.  The words I so cherish to bring me clarity are like puffs of smoke that vanish in an instant for the other, useless.  So then all I have are the actions, but the message I want to convey is so limited, the connection to hear, share and exchange conversations is lost, and the words we do say are crippled.  Sigh.  Yes actions will speak loudly, and it will be quite a shift to speak only with the actions, and yes it will take 5 times more work to even get close the message I want to convey had we been able to speak the same language, but I yearn to use the words that I know have grasped me in such a dazzling way!  Yet in this scenario I cannot.  I simply can not.  

That's what it is like, I think, for me when I want to share the gospel good news of Jesus Christ with someone.  I know I'm still learning, and it only takes a day with people to realize how far I still fall short, but I do want to try with whatever means available to share how great the gospel is.  I'm seeing now how not easy it's going to be.  

It's reassuring to remember that I never did anything to get to where I am except be a receiver of help, and to hurt with my heart open to God.  

I want to share the gospel, but I know I could be wrong in what or why I may want to share.  So if I sit back or if I speak up, I'll know that the gospel will reach someone if God wills it, and it will be my freedom to know that He uses my weaknesses and failures to make Himself mighty to me and others.  This is something I have to remember, because I naturally feel like feeling wrong is wrong, but feeling wrong is not wrong (assuming it's in line with God's Word and not a blatant sin like feeling wrong to rob a store), what I mean is that feeling wrong is not wrong in the sense that you shouldn't be feeling that way.  Feeling wrong is not wrong if that's how you really feel.  Just because something feels wrong does not make it an illegitimate feeling.  It must be surrendered and held by God for His love to heal and redeem it.  

The gospel is good news for the wrong feeling person.  To know that you feel wrong and to open that truth to God with so many tears at the apparent inadequacy is giving God more of the opportunity to make known to you that He deeply loves you.  If God can love you in being wrong without a thing to do about it, it is an acceptance on a level beyond petty friendships.  It's a covenant love, one that protects the parts of you that are inherently wrong with love and support to free you up in letting Him aid that inadequacy--not because only He can do it, because that's a known fact about God in being God, but because you know from having done it that the part of you that is so wrong is not thrown away or trampled on or judged even, but held with so much love.  God created every human being and every thing that makes up who you are is made by Him.  When a part of you is inherently wrong (mostly from all mankind having inherited sin), it's not something to be thrown away, it's something to be redeemed and restored to its rightful function.  So then every dysfunction, every corrupt thought, every blatant rebellion can be safely held by Him who loves all that He made.  

I want so badly for certain people in my life right now to know the gospel I have in my heart, but I know that even if I don't see them change by my words or actions or my prayers, God will have His way.  Perhaps ... In such a deep and incomprehensible love it is love in action for me to face these sort of frustrations with others. 

I have seen that I still need freedom in other areas, and yet there is very little I have in my ability to get it, and this has me falling in love with God and His Great Grace and Great love for me all over again and ever deeper.  

If you don't get the gospel now or it isn't as great as you think I make it sound, then don't lose hope.  God knows what He's doing, and when you let Him in on your less lovely parts He will hold them and speak to you the way you will really hear.  Be candid with God.

Jmegrey

Theology nerd

This made me laugh, maybe cry a little inside, but mostly it's just silly and true and kind of not true, but sometimes, maybe more times than not.  

http://adam4d.com/theology-nerd/

The Dragon King

The Dragon King

       --a short story for Sarah--

       Once upon a time there ruled a dragon King.  So mighty was he that the people trembled at the sight of his enormous wings.  So vastly different were they from he.  He had deep brown eyes with a straight silver line down the middle of them, a beautiful armor of almond red as hard as marble stone, a long strong neck that he turned to look down at the people below when he flew over their homes.  His body was heavy with armor yet not a chink was exposed.  He was feared by the people wherever he would go, just looking at Him was enough to stop what one was doing and watch as the dragon King flew by in some majestic juxtapose.  

An outbreak had come over the town and everyone was in a panic.  The dragon King had landed and was after a young girl.  A brave girl was she who was much smaller than he.  She had a small shield made of metal and gold and a sharp wooden spear was in the strongest of her hold.  She was ready to bear the brunt of whatever the dragon King would throw.  But they did a violent dance as she got in several good stabs.  Sweat dripping from her face made her hair matted and tangled, but the look on her face was fierce.  The dragon circled the girl and she knew the battle was coming to a close.  The townsmen screamed not having a clue how to help, for the dragon was much too strong for even them to lay hold.  They had rallied together and were throwing giant stones that would bruise the dragon king's body, but would not stop him going straight for a bite in the girl.  They watched in horror as the young girl fought with fire and getting good stabs in the dragon king's neck as He got close.  The dragon King was bloody from head to toe but finally held the fighting girl down with a slight shift of His body on hers. The pressure was too great and the girl burst into frightful tears, screaming and calling to the people to free her from the dragon king's hold. 

As the people tried they had been blocked by the line of fire from the dragon King's blow.  There was nothing to be done but watch as the dragon King went for the plunge, he bit straight into her heart in a delicate way.  The strangest sense of quiet rose as the dragon King unhooked his mouth from her chest revealing two small holes not wide enough for death.  The girl opened her eyes as the dragon King lifted off her body, and to everyone's surprise collapsed in a writhing motion right by her side.  

The dragon King had died?  The people were in wonder.  How could such a beast of magnificent splendor be writhing with pain on the ground when it had the power to sweep away the entire town?  As the people were staring they suddenly heard a small sound.  

"I can't believe it." The young girl was looking down.  

"I can't believe it."  Once more from the girl.

The people were confused, and they waited for her to explain.

"I was lying in bed last night like all of us do, when suddenly a darkness was at my window and had come through.  I didn't notice anything at first, thought it was  just some cold wind, but as I went to lay down again my chest began to turn a dark midnight hue.  Therein I knew that the darkness had entered my heart, and I silently wondered what to make of such a strange and terrifying alert.  So I whispered a small prayer ....to...to....the dragon King we all see fly by.  I felt he was the only one who might know whether or not I would die from the cold dark hue in my chest as I began to cry."  

A pair of tears rolled down the girls eyes.

"Then before I knew it there he was, the dragon King flew by!  It startled me to see him stop in the middle of the sky, and watched him move fast towards the place where i cried.  It was all so sudden!  I ran down the stairs, I tripped on a blanket and bruised my chin, but I gathered my wits and grabbed what I could.  The dragon King tore through the roof and he demolished the home!  I was scared, you all saw!"

The tears continued to roll down.

"I ran and ran as he chased me down, and I knew I couldn't win so I turned and made up my mind to fight him."

She placed a hand on the marks left by the Dragon King, and broke out in soft sobs.

"I thought he was trying to kill me!  You all saw the way he merely circled me, but I didn't know!"

"When he held me down with his body I thought surely this was it, I was about to die!"

"But the darkness in my heart is no longer there, I know it because it's warm and not cold like before.  The difference is true!  I would not have lied to you!"

Just then the dragon King began to move.  The writhing had stopped and he began to slowly rise to his feet.  The sight of his size next to the girl was mysteriously epic.  He spit a vile blackness into his hand and it dried up like futile sand.  It fell to the ground and disappeared without a sound.  

Then the dragon King gave the girl a look of some kind.  And flew back up into the sky!  It was a glorious launch with the golden dust rising like a ring where he left and pieces of it formed what look like a crown. 

The dragon King resumed flying here and there over His beloved town. 

--------------------------------

Hello readers, I don't normally write my stories on this blog (or anywhere but my private spaces), but this story I got in my head from today (after a nap! Haha) was too precious to hold back.  Sometimes it can be frustrating when we can't physically see or audibly hear or even sensationally feel the presence of God.  Life can be scary and worry can choke us, and sometimes we don't understand what's really going on.  I know I didn't when God was the dragon King tearing down some of my things.  It wasn't until after I was healed that I realized it was God in an action of love for me all along.  He had heard my prayers and those nights when I cried.  He heard my voice immediately but what I thought was a threat was actually the dragon King coming down.  I fought against God even though I knew that deep down I was wrong. 

That never stops God, because we will always be wrong. :). But I want to encourage whoever reads this that God will pin you down until he gets what's been killing you out.  It may not be pretty and it surely wasn't fun, but the darkness in us is much deeper than we know.  There are layers of pain and corrosive strongholds that are making our hearts cold.  God sent His only Son to die for that which hurts us: sin.  It corrupts every good thing.  He died to take away its power of death, and while we live on this earth and it pretends to be a threat God will do a great thing and chase us down, pin us down, to show us His love.  He wants us to know that look in His eye, the look that He's the King and your His child who doesn't need to fear and worry.   It will hurt because it's a sickness of the heart, but if you surrender and let Him take it out you'll see that look in His eye.  

You'll never forget it when you see Him fly by. 

Jmegrey. 

Free to mess up.

Speak and act as those who will be judged by the law of freedom. 

-James 2:12

Today.  Freely you received so now freely give and show to others what you yourself have been shown in a measure far greater than any offense someone could cause you! 

If you're free to mess up, so are others. Don't turn into a judge, otherwise you place yourself back under the law and not the beautiful gospel. 

You're free to mess up, and they are too.  

That's freedom.  To know you have it all, all the freedom you ever desired.  

I still struggle with this.  To have the freedom to be gentle and kind to myself when I screw up.  This shows in my preconceived garble of thoughts trying to build a good defense against anxiety or possibly screwing up.  And then I remember I'm really bad at building defenses against something that no longer exists in my freedom.  If I'm free then I'm free.  There is no defending or protecting on my part.  Only living it out in faith.  So, I throw up my metaphorical, sometimes actual, hands and tell God exactly what I think, and He responds so that I understand more and more. 

He already knows what you're really thinking, but you tell him anyway because you don't always believe that He knows or that He actually cares.  

He cares, if He didn't care He wouldn't have died for that freedom. 

Jmegrey

Heaven is knowing God

Some guy named Alastair Campbell wrote this about the beautiful and invigorating gospel:

The gospel, that Jesus took all our sins and swapped it with His perfection, in the church nowadays "resembles a man o'war that has stuck fast on a reef.  It is still capable of defending itself and will if necessary go down with all guns blazing, but it is not able to make any further progress and is afraid that if pulled off it will begin to sink below the waves.  The reef in this case is the doctrine (double swap) to which we cling in sermon and song but which we no longer truly believe in our hearts."

This knowing and not believing is not a matter of not knowing fully every detail of what it means to be forgiven, for everyone knows that "Jesus died for my sins", yet why do we feel guilty or surprised when sin happens again?  

Do we fail to see our current state clearly? 

That God, the Son came down because no one in the history of all humanity could pay for what Adam brought upon all humanity except a perfect being.  Perhaps you might feel so bold to say that had it been you in the garden you would certainly (or probably) not have made the same mistake, or you might be so pointless as to just fester in blame towards Adam as a distraction from what the solution is.  

What Alastair is saying is that for whatever personal reasons, we cling to the knowledge of Christ having died for our sins, but we do not believe it in our hearts. 

We know the gospel, we hear the gospel, we desire the gospel, and we are grateful for it, but it is something we cling to like stale toast. Stagnant and unchanged.  Burnt. Waiting for something to happen after the gospel rather than within the gospel.  

Waiting for circumstances to change, healings to occur, people and relationships to transform, money, comfort to come, peace of mind, maybe we are waiting for something to happen as we do our best to keep a tight grip on the gospel, lest we fall away from it and perish in the sin we know crouches at the corner of our lives. 

Oh my gosh, the gospel is deeper! Richer! More beautiful! Higher and so much more than words or minds could ever fully comprehend with only 90 or so years!  It would take forever to experience all that the gospel gives us. 

We all know the infamous john 3:16, that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son to die for us so that whoever believes in Him would have eternal life.  

Eternal life. 

What is life?  If it's an eternity of what I had prior to the gospel than I don't want that! 

Life is hard!  Life get boring, it gets frustrating and so much hurt and fear lurks in life.  God would not give up His child to give us a sub par eternity.  So it can't be that...it can't even be money or comfort or healing...those are all great and well, but even that...if you think about it, let's say you got all the money in the world, your cancer was gone or you grew that missing leg, .....there are still the next x amount of days you will be living, which if you're honest you must admit will likely still consist of a new set of problems and issues.  

So what is this "life" that the gospel opened for us?

Heaven? That's pretty much another word for life except without end of time.  

It's not some mystical magical idea made real with abstract ambiguities of a big fat sign saying "THIS IS NOT HELL" or "HAPPY ALL THE TIME FOR NO REASON"

Maybe your mind would prefer to dwell on one of those signs as the heaven you look forward to after death whether due to fear or confusion, but it's what makes man (or woman) cling to the knowledge of the gospel as their lives run a saddening and staling course like a man clenching onto a reed amidst the vast ocean.  

Oh the gospel is far too amazing just to know in full yet not believe!  It is letting your hands loosen from the reed, facing the waves and soaring with wings!  Bounding with speed and laughter, letting  your toes glide above the waters and diving below to let the waters be calm or rapturous as you move about it.  It is crying with an overwhelming fullness of love and mystery that both silences and causes praise -in forms of song or dance, words or expressions, or something- to rise from within and burst forth like a million excellencies--surprising you, your friends, and strangers.  The gospel is not a reed to be clenched, it is life eternal made exceedingly beautiful by belief.

This is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and the One You have sent — Jesus Christ.

-John 17:3 

The relationship we get with God!  To talk to and be met with an actual response, to question and spend time with, to interrupt and be interrupted by, to joke and laugh and be known by, accepted by, comfortable with, --but most of all to fall in love.  Fall in love with Him that knows love best in that He is love in constant action.   God is love, not loving. To be loving implies a chance of being unloving.  God is love.  He is always in action and that action is love.  

Yes He really did die to take away all your sins! 

Yes that really means you are seen by Him as perfectly sinless even when you sin! 

Yes it's free.  (Because if it wasn't there'd be no chance for anyone to earn it!  You'd have to be the fourth person of the Trinity to earn what only a God could afford!!!)

Yes it's free.

Yes it's free. 

Yes He knows you still sin, and yes it's still free.

You feel guilty and ashamed in your sin? That indicates the difficulty in you to believe what you know.  

You're sins are forgiven.  For free. 

Because Jesus died as God who never sinned, paying the blood price with His life.  His life is THAT expensive since He is God.  Only He could do for us what we never could, and He chose to lay down His will and leave His kingdom and perfect joy and became like one of us.  He became less than a God in order to meet us where we are only to be met with sneers and cruelty.  But Jesus went to the cross and with His perfect life died a humiliating and tortuous death so that by His pain and by His lowering of Self, that though He was rich, He became poor, so that through His pain and poverty we might believe in Him and see how amazing the love of the Father is for us! 

He took our place!  He is our substitute for the penalty we were all condemned to pay.  Pay because of sin.  Through one man, Adam, we all inherited sin, but through one Jesus we all inherit perfect righteousness.  

Yes it's free.

No it doesn't mean you have to try harder or work to keep what was free.

Yes it's very crazy and unbelievable.

But believe it! Believe in Jesus!

Do nothing.

And get your wings.  

When you and God are super close like that....everything else is seen in the light for what they are and they are stiff, stale, and uneventful. 

This is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and the One You have sent — Jesus Christ. 

John 17:3

Heaven is about everything God can do, give, be, and create for those that know Him in a deep and beautiful personal relationship. 

Heaven starts now. 

Perhaps...

Perhaps, like me not too long ago, you cannot now believe because you don't think your sins deserve to have you crucified.  You don't want to accept that there's nothing you can do.  You don't want to accept that the real villain deserving death was yourself!  That is unbelievable to you.  You sin but your sins don't deserve to be killed!  Maybe to you Jesus is more of a role model or example of what "good Christians" live like--not what a perfect man who is also God lives like, you think you can live like Jesus??  Like a God?  Perhaps you see the cross as less of a punishment and more of an inevitable setting right of the consequences of sin. Or you see the cross as your restoration and healing.  You see the cross where you don't look that bad.  It's a "yea, of course" to you as if Jesus had to do it without no ifs ands or buts because Adam screwed things up.  That would be true if....what?  If we were loved?  If God were just?  

And what about our sins that we are probably well aware of at this point in life.  Those are just minor mistakes?  Then what God's holiness in that sin must be burned in hell because of it?  Do you know who God is?  Do you know about God?  What defines Him?  Which is more honest, that you're doing okay right now in terms of living righteously before God's perfect law (who is by title the only One who can create the Law of life since He knows best as the Creator of it)?  Or to say you're struggling and it's so hard!??  The law was never intended to save you. It was there to show you sin.  You fail utterly.  Maybe that's hard to accept.  But the truth will set you free as it did for me. 

We have so much slack for ourselves and as such we also blur the atrocious punishment demanded from our sins.  Jesus isn't an example that we try and mimic to be "good", Jesus was a perfect Son of God that became a criminal nailed to a cross with our sins as the crime demanding punishment.  Your life's crimes were punished already.  Just because you didn't pay for them doesn't mean someone else didn't.  

The next time the guilt and shame of your sins weigh heavy on you, look at the cross where Jesus substituted Himself for what you did wrong.  This all because of the deep unquestionable love for you.  If you were the only human being on the earth who screwed up, He would still have died.  That kind of sacrifice isn't about the quantity of people, it's about the immeasurable depth of the Father's love for you. 

Everyday is seen from that love within and suddenly every second is saturated with God's grace!  

Jmegrey 

Is God angry at me?

The short answer to that question, assuming you are asking it (as I once did) based on the guilt you feel from your sinning behaviors, is a definite Yes or a definite No depending on one thing. 

In the Old Testament there's a story of Achan's sin (see Joshua 7) that made me think that God was angry with me. 

The conviction birthed out of the guilt I felt for the sin I knew I was committing. I was aware of my sin, and this awareness meant I also knew I was choosing to sin. 

I was to blame for my sin, and when I read Joshua 7, about how Achan directly disobeyed God despite having been told what not to do, I saw myself in Achan.  

I remember tha horror I felt within me when that correlation was made.  It was awful and I dreaded to know the truth. 

But I had come so far in my search for real answers and the real God that this was something I knew I couldn't ignore no matter how horrific it felt to know so well that I was Achan. 

That I sinned willfully.  

Achan even confessed his sin later on and he and his family were not spared because of his confession.

20 Achan replied, “It is true! I have sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel. This is what I have done: 21 When I saw in the plunder a beautiful robe from Babylonia, two hundred shekels of silver and a bar of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. They are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath

Achan confessed that he coveted or saw something he wanted so badly that he was willing to disobey God to have it!

He knew it was wrong and that's why he hid his disobedience from the others.  But he could not hide it from God. 

I read this and remember feeling like ....yes!  I know what you feel Achan!  I sin willfully because I want something so badly that I'll even disobey God to try and get what I want!  It's terrible, but the reality of my life exposes that that is what happens.  I covet people's lives, relationships, beauty, achievements, styles and homes that I will disobey God's ways in order to get closer to having what I want, and usually my methods of disobedience are hidden from the eyes of the church.  But they are never hidden from God. 

The truth in this passage is that Achan, like myself, had a desire that was stronger than the desire to glorify God. 

And then it says that because of this they not only killed him, but they killed his animals, his children and everything he had taken in disobedience and burned it all along with him. 

24 Then Joshua, together with all Israel, took Achan son of Zerah, the silver, the robe, the gold bar, his sons and daughters, his cattle, donkeys and sheep, his tent and all that he had, to the Valley of Achor. 25 Joshua said, “Why have you brought this trouble on us? The Lord will bring trouble on you today.”

Then all Israel stoned him, and after they had stoned the rest, they burned them. 26 Over Achan they heaped up a large pile of rocks, which remains to this day. Then the Lord turned from his fierce anger. Therefore that place has been called the Valley of Achor[f] ever since.

When I read this I remember thinking....if God was angry at Achan for what he did, and if this God is unchanging that that meant God should be angry at me in the same exact way and intensity that He was with Achan.

Furthermore, if that was how God felt then I was going to die at any second! 

I remember reading this and being afraid of God -- not that He was powerful but that He was angry with me for my intentional sins.  I remember asking someone in the church, "is God angry at me?" And pressing the question further,  "Does my sin make God angry?"

I was terrified and angry myself all at once.  How could a gracious and loving God be so angry like that?!  How could God not care that Achan confessed and that Achan had fell prey to his weak sinful desires?  I was angry because I was Achan, and that didn't feel good.  

I remember this was when I was in Cambodia (doing YWAM--which by the way I never completed because the mission portion was too hard on me physically and mentally) but somewhere in the archives of this blog I mention this moment.  I mention my turmoil at the thought of God being angry at me after having read about Achan's sin.  I remember my eyes stinging with tears as I tried to convey my thoughts to the Ywam person (We had just finished a string of lectures on the attributes of God).  I was asking if God was angry at me, not so much because I felt bad at having offended God (although guilt would have made me come to that defensive conclusion), but more so because that meant He was going to strike me down at any second!  I was on the verge of tears because in that moment I felt so helpless!  If that's who God is then there was no chance for me!  The Ywam leader probably thought my tears were drawn from a repentant heart, but the truth of the matter is that in that moment I was so perplexed and angry at God for being God (someone angry enough to kill not only Acahn but his children too) and at myself for being myself (someone who coveted the things of this world more than the things of God).  Achan knew that if he sinned his whole household would pay for it too!  He knew because that was the cultural custom back then.  So it wasn't like he sinned thinking it was just himself that might suffer.  He knew, but yet he still did it.

I knew too. 

The tears were evidence that I knew my sin.  

God was angry at Achan's sin, which Achan knew and still chose to do.  

I remember just wrestling with this.  I was so torn and hurt and felt so abandoned by the love of God.  I remember every leader I spoke to tried to steer me back to how "God loves me" but their words did nothing to resolve the tension in my heart when I reflected back on Achan's sin.  How could a loving God do something like that?  More pointedly, how could God love someone like me who is just like Achan?  For a while I tried to ignore it and just saturate my thoughts with how much God loves me, which seemed to work for a while, but it wasn't until today that I look back on that time with so much more clarity and adoration and awe at how God was speaking to me. 

To me.

Not to the leaders or the people who read my blog, but to me.  The wrestle within me was real, the tears testified of my pain at being just like Achan, and the hopelessness of my state of being.  I could try harder to be better, but all it took was one sin.  And I had more than enough to be stoned and burned 500 times over, so I knew I definitely used up my quota, especially if the quota was zero! 

And then the gospel happened to me. 

God would be angry at my sin had it not been for the sacrifice of Jesus.  The gospel is a beautiful Redeemer, it is the help from One who did what u could not.  I could never appease God's righteous and just anger at the sin I chose and continue to choose to do, and God knew that about fallen humanity.  Therefore he sent His one and only Son to pay the price of blood!  Where I should have suffered death as Achan did, Christ took my place.  Christ died for sins committed by the world, but some will still try and justify themselves rather than believing in His work on the cross.  

I'm reading the book of Acts now, and I'm reminded of how people will choose the pull of the world, which is that riches, comfort and personal gain are what will sustain you in life.  Rather than choosing life which is believing in Jesus that He died for all of your sins, some will reject this in favor of trying to justify themselves with appearances of life.  "Look at me I'm rich!" or "look at me I'm admired by millions!", "look at me, I worked hard to have everything I want in life!", so on and so forth. 

When you choose life you choose repentance.  You choose acknowledgment of your complete failure to win God over, you choose your weakness and your inability to save yourself.  You choose to look at the cross of Jesus and behold how beautiful it is that God showed us mercy by sending His Son to die in our place.  You choose to know the truth, which is that you deserved death, not just because of your sins today but because of the very first sin...it only takes one sin to forfeit holiness.  You choose the truth of that.  

  

However, this gospel that is beautiful to me will look disdainful or boring to the person who chooses the pulls that come from this world.  The pulls that say to make it on your own.  In the first chapter of Acts, Luke (the writer) reminds us of what happens to all those who choose their own way over the way through Jesus.

"to take the place in this apostolic service that Judas left to go to his own place.” 

(Acts 1:25 HCSB)

I'm reminded of the choice.  To go to Jesus or to go to my own place.

Some will choose death!  And a good litmus test of this is to examine and see what you do when you sin.  Do you run to the cross or do you start thinking that next time you'll do better, you'll work harder?  As much as the latter sounds noble or even intentionally good, if it omits the gospel it is presumptuous.  You can't do better and try as you might you will never attain the perfection necessary to be justified and United with God.  Aka: you will never be able to be where God is, meaning you will not be able to enter into His rest when you die. 

Your place is death, but in Christ is life!

Christ was perfect, He lived a sinless life, which made Him eligible for the atonement He made on our behalf.  He died so that we might live in Him.  

The gospel is offensive to those who are adamant on justifying themselves.  

Hosea 2:15 (a prophet in the Old Testament) mirrors this coming covenant when he says that

"There I will give her vineyards back to her and make the Valley of Achor into a gateway of hope."

The valley of Achor was where Achan was burned with all his household due to the wrath of God! 

This valley, this reality of God's anger against sin, and the offensiveness of sin would be a door of hope for us in Jesus! Why?  Because Jesus would be the one to die so that we would have life.  The reality of our sins would point us to the hope we have in Jesus who took away those very sins that once burned Achan! 

It is not that God has changed, He cannot change because perfection cannot be made more perfect. 

Numbers 23:19 states,

"God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?"

 Sin is still as atrociously offensive to Him as it was when Achan committed them by disobeying God's orders.  

What has changed our situation then?  

Jesus changed our situation. 

How is it that God's anger is turned away from the stench of my rebellious sins? 

Jesus took my sin and clothed me in His perfect righteousness so that my stench went down with Him in the grave where it remained, while He was raised and did not remain in the grave.  

1 Thessalonians 5:9 says,

"For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,"

"And what if God, desiring to display His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience objects of wrath ready for destruction? And what if He did this to make known the riches of His glory on objects of mercy that He prepared beforehand for glory — (Romans 9:22-23 HCSB)

Honestly I still don't quite understand with precise clarity what Paul was saying in Romans regarding these "objects of wrath" and "objects of mercy," (albeit I may have a pretty good idea or ideas) but I have a lingering hunch that it will be clear to me when it needs to be clear to me.  So I want to have it in this blog to look back on with even deeper appreciation for the way in which God speaks to me personally. 

I pray that God used me today, right now, to deliver the gospel to you in the deepest most sincere parts of your heart.   The gospel of the beauty of Jesus who took your penalty and gave you Life.  Believe in Jesus and you will live. 

It's not about what you do on earth (how you continue to sin), but about what He has done and finished for you on the cross.  Live by The Truth of this gospel, and you will be set free from the power of sin.  Run to Him, run to the cross, and believe in the love of our Father, when sin wraps it's nasty arms around your arms and legs, head and feet, in that very moment remember that you were once to pay for that, but instead Jesus paid the price of your death.  Why?  Because God so loved the world that He gave His One and only Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall have everlasting life. 

Yes God will always be angry at the offensive reek of sin's deathness, because He is life.  But God loves us far more than the hatred He has for sin in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us!  Jesus is the proof in the pudding.

"But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us!" 

(Romans 5:8)

Ahhhh.  

When you feel God should be angry at you, run to the cross, and let it be known that He loves you more than He hates your sin. 

It's shocking and crazy, and sometimes I can't seem to wrap my presumptuous little head around such a great love, but the proof is there.  It's in the story of Achan, it's in the experience I had in Cambodia, it's in the book of Acts and Romans, it's in all those dark moments when I felt the weight and agony of my sins, it's in today's reflection, and it's in every passage of scripture leading up the present time, it's everywhere.  

God is fully righteous in that His holiness will not stand sin and must punish it, and God is fully love in that His love was to take that punishment on Himself for our sake.  The only thing we offer is the sin that required Him to be our substitute for the penalty we ensued.  We live by grace, and boast only in the cross of Jesus, who is One with the Father.  In essence it is the Father's love that took our place. 

The full blown incomprehensible truth of God's love.  A mighty rushing wind.  

Be swept into it.

Jmegrey