Fear of messing up

Fear of being wrong is a fear of messing up.  I only defined it at the deeper level when you peel back the first fear. 

"so My word that comes from My mouth will not return to Me empty, but it will accomplish what I please and will prosper in what I send it to do.”  

-Isaiah 55:11 

I think the most confronting truth is how wrong we are ...about everything.  (I bet some of you might be reading this thinking, "no, that's not my problem" or maybe thinking "that WAS my problem" or, heck, maybe you think "yea, that's a problem and I'm right about that"...if you are the last statement and you aren't bothered by being wrong then something is wrong with you.  And the following will also show that the first two statements are wrong as well.  In other words, regardless you are wrong.) 

Whenever I hear people talk I automatically, as if it's so natural, can think of a reason for why what that person is saying is wrong.  I used to think my problem was with being argumentative (which is one of my problems) but the problem goes deeper than that.  The real issue at the root of that desire to rebuttal or contradict the other person is my own fear of being wrong.  I want to come at the world as mighty me, as someone who can think outside the box and intellectually work my way around anything, and when I can't I then take that, too, to be my own humility of acceptance rather than as defeat or weakness.  Do you see how I twist things in my head so that the fear of being wrong, or my desire to be right is protected?  

The passage above states that what God says will be right.  

"so My word that comes from My mouth will not return to Me empty, but it will accomplish what I please and will prosper in what I send it to do.” (Isaiah 55:11 HCSB)

So there are several questions we can consider when thinking about God being right. 

1.  If His words are right, how do I know what His words are?  (Easy: the Bible)

2.  If it must come from His mouth how do we know the interpretation we gather from the bible is actually from His mouth and not ours? 

3.  What does it mean for someone's words to be empty?

4. If His words will accomplish what He pleases do we have a choice in being a part of what He wants versus having a choice in accomplishing what He wants?  There is a subtle difference between the two.  One is about our ability to get something done, the other is about our humility in recognizing that we are graciously invited to be associated with someone who is always going to be right while we remain wrong. 

5.  Lastly, do we have any way of predicting God's will and what it was sent to do? 

Depending on how you answer those questions see if you come out right or if you stumble backwards like an idiot. 

(If you don't think about the answers at all because you just don't want to think about it, then someone who has no opinion is just as wrong as someone who has the wrong opinion.  I'm not talking to someone who won't listen and think, that's like talking to an inanimate object.)

When I read that passage in Isaiah I am confronted by how much I expect things to go a certain way in my life over how much I look at God with gratefulness that He is my God who never fails at accomplishing what He wants done.  In other words, not even I can stop Him from doing something good in my life, even if to me that is getting cancer, losing my mom, being cheated on by my future husband, losing a child at birth, or being raped.  

Confronting or what?! 

I said that very bluntly and simple-minded on purpose.  Because many of us think up to a certain point or in a certain way in order to get what we want or to protect what we want.  If we want comfort then we will mangle the prospects of our real discomfort into being wrong, and the times when it is inevitably uncomfortable we will mangle it again to make ourselves look better or somehow be comforted in the midst of discomfort.  

Is that wrong?  Is it wrong to feel comforted by Jesus when things are hard?  Well, in one sense the answer to that question can be no, but it can also be yes.  In other words, what if the reason you wanted to be "comforted by Jesus" in a season of trial was so that your addiction to comfort needed it's fix?  What does "comforted by Jesus" mean to you?  

Does it mean He hears you and gives you a sense of peace?  Or does it mean you rest in His promises and rely on Him being good?  

One definition is about you, the other is about God.  Likewise, one leads to an expected outcome, the other leads to faith.  More so, the former will want to be satisfied or eased in a very specific way (feel better, see healing, see fruit), while the latter will not see anything but the glory of God.  Dying relatives, cancer, rape, and all of those terrible things will fall under the category of necessary and right if the truth that God is real, good, and loving is held above all else.  

Our heart towards God will either be in submission to Him being right (where nothing sways you from obedience, not even bankruptcy or rape or loss of a child), or it will be in resistance to Him being right (where you find yourself angry at God for being so wrong towards you.). 

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure we are all wrong, because we all find that at times we are angry or upset at a situation in our lives that reveal how wrong it feels to us, rather than how wrong it must feel to God.

In other words, what Christian is fuming at God with resentment or bitterness for sending His Son to die for our sins and give us eternal life?

No one, because we benefit from that injustice.  But when we are in a circumstance that is not beneficial for us, whether we are still single or our spouse is hell or we just got ransacked, raped, bullied, or cheated on, then suddenly it's not about God....although we say that we believe God's words and ways will accomplish His will no matter what, we don't think about that part in a bad situation.  We just think about ourselves.  And by thinking about ourselves we are placing our glory above God's.  When it is all about our being right and good, it will automatically red flag every situation where we are wronged or bad.  

My spouse is a cheating lazy idiot, or my 10 year old just died from a car accident, I have no income, or some other terrible thing--all such things are bad in one sense alone:  in MY sense.

However, do the above situations make God wrong?  If so, how?  Because of justice?  Because of evil? Because of suffering? If you answered yes to any of those, you have to admit that you are basing it from a human's perspective (whether yours or the world's).  You put a human on the throne and you say that whatever happens to this human must go according the words and ways of him or her or them.  

So their words coming from their mouths will not return to them empty, but will accomplish what they please and will prosper in what they set out to do.

Sound familiar? 

"so My word that comes from My mouth will not return to Me empty, but it will accomplish what I please and will prosper in what I send it to do.” (Isaiah 55:11 HCSB)

Do you see the contradiction here?  There can only be one God, one way, one right, and one person who will get what they want.  

You can bitch and moan and run intellectual marathons around and around, but you will never be right, because you will never be above God.  I'm not saying that being sad or feeling pain and suffering is wrong, if being those things are wrong but make God right then they are right.  That may take some thinking to understand.   But if being those things make God wrong then they are wrong!  I might feel sad and in pain when I realize how much I love sin and much I resist God, and in that pain I desire for God to change my heart because I can not--I am at His mercy and grace.  But when I feel hurt when my ministry looks futile or dry it's not because I think God's glory is in jeopardy (since I'm presuming that what I do for God can hinder or enhance His will from being done!) but I'm more about my glory in that situation.  It has nothing to do with God because the passage in Isaiah says that God's way will be done, period.  I am merely invited to be His friend and child despite myself. 

So will I mess up?  Will I get hurt?  Will pain happen to me?  Will I fail?  Will my motives be wrong?  Will I sin?  Yes.  And amidst all of that there will either be one of two outcomes:

1.  I will find joy in giving God the glory in good and hard times

Or

2.  I will find dissatisfaction in God having all the glory by fighting to have my own in hard times

The bottom line is that at the end of it all we fall flat on our faces and desperately ask for God to give us the grace to see how wrong we are in everything and how right He is in everything. 

Because we won't know unless it's His will for us to know.  We are powerless.  And then through gracious acts of kindness He will let things happen in our lives that lead us more and more toward this truth.  Where He becomes more our God and we become less, but our satisfaction in that becomes great. 

It sounds crazy.  It should because from King Human, it is preposterous!  But from the beggar's point of view it is an honor to be embraced by the King and adopted by Him.  If we don't see what sort of person we are we will not see who God is either.  But this too is a grace from God, He is the only one who can open our eyes to see and our ears to hear.  So we stand from a place of desperation and trembling because our only Hope is Jesus.   There is no methodology or wise counsel that we can run to in this regard.  There is only Jesus.  

When there is no other way but Jesus it also means that I am not the way, and therefore the fear of messing up or being wrong diminishes, because I start out as a mess up and wrong person until the day I die and resurrect with Jesus, the only way to my being right and winning.   

“If you know Me, you will also know My Father. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him.” Said Jesus.

 “Lord,” said Philip, “show us the Father, and that’s enough for us.” 

Jesus said to him, “Have I been among you all this time without your knowing Me, Philip? (Phillip is wrong about what he says)

The one who has seen Me has seen the Father. 

How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 

(Jesus is right about what He says) 

Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? 

(In other words, the problem is not what you think you see or don't see, it's who you believe--your words or mine)

The words I speak to you I do not speak on My own. 

The Father who lives in Me does His works. 

(Even Jesus does not say He says anything of His own, but that the will of the Father is what is being said and done, even if that meant death by crucifixion for Jesus)

Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me. Otherwise, believe because of the works themselves. (John 14:7-11 HCSB)

Jesus always pointed to God the Father.  

Otherwise believe with whatever you can.  It is belief that must take place.  That is all.  And that one thing is something we cannot but rely on God to provide for us.  By faith we believe, all because of God's grace in allowing us to. 

God's words will accomplish His will, but either you will or you won't believe that.  Wrestle with that thought until you fight yourself into self defeat.  Until you die to yourself, and then from the ground look up at Jesus and beg, because you are a beggar, and Jesus is the eternal bread. 

Rightfully wrong, 

Jmegrey 

Bitter Tears

Piper writes, 

"Ordinarily weaknesses and insults are occasions for shame. But for Paul they are occasions for exultation.

Why? Because the power of Christ is perfected in Paul’s weakness."

I read that and got that it is about the beauty and honor of Christ who suffered first as our example for the way to salvation.  Christ wore the clothes of weakness and insults in order to give glory to God.   I wonder if His tears on the night he prayed in Gethsemane were bitter ones.  

A crucifying of the self for the glory and honor of God is indeed the Royal stamp of all of God's children.  We feel the pain of shame rising when we screw up, sin again, or when people view us as weak and incapable, however if what we are doing makes God look powerful, merciful, kind, awesome, Royal, and loving, then it is a pain that is killing the part of us that wants glory from men rather than living lives that make God more glorious.  When God is big we look small.  When we look big, God looks small.  Only one of those scenarios is the truth by which we will live by.  One of those is a lie.  We do not look big and make God look big, nor do we look small and make God look small.  The words "big" or "small" would more accurately be described as sufficient.  We cannot look BIG and sufficient and still make God look like He is our source of sufficiency.  And we cannot look small and insufficient making God look insufficient to meet our needs unless He really was unable to meet our needs.

In the end it is about faith in who we believe God to be.  Sufficient and Big or small and insufficient.  

If we do not see God as sufficient for us we will not go to Him in our time of need, but rather we will cling to our self-sufficiency even if that, too, is crumbling before our eyes.  It's about our view of God and where God stands in any given moment.  Is he standing in a place of high Honor and greatness in your eyes or in a place of far away ambiguity? 

How do you see God as big and sufficient? 

By looking at Jesus to give you the water when you realize your true stance as becoming weak and insufficient. 

Hmmm so honoring God is something that will make you look weak and wrong at times?

When I think of honoring God I think of my good deeds like going on missions, feeding the homeless, abstaining from addictions, and leading bible study groups.  I think about worship and prayer and dressing modestly.  I think about loving and serving others.  Smiling.  Being clean. 

So what does this me-ugly, God-beautiful scenario look like? 

I imagine it most vividly when I actually feel ugly, such as either when I am deep in bad habitual addicting sin, or when someone has a low view of me as a person because I did something I was unaware of as wrong, like offending someone with the intention of being honest and loving.  Or when someone is disappointed in my actions (like if I skip a meeting out of tiredness or when I refuse to worship with zeal out of sorrow and guilt in my heart from sinning just prior.)

That's when I feel ugly.  Oh well I also feel ugly when I have pimples, gain weight, can't shower, my clothes look frumpy, or I'm hanging around a bunch of losers.  

The first examples feel more like they are me feeling ugly before God while the second set are definitely me feeling ugly before people.  

Yet where do my loyalties lie?  What actions do I take to counteract the times I feel ugly?  Do I remedy the ugly me before God more or the ugly me before other people more? 

From a sobering stance, I put much more action into remedying the ugly me in the second set than I do in the first.  Meaning my ugliness is about me feeling ugly and not about God being beautiful.  

If I break out and gain weight and spend my days with the socially awkward and friendless people does that make God less honored? I certainly find it easier to think that it does if I twist the perspective just right. 

What if I broke out and gained weight because I wasn't able to shower as much or eat the foods I wanted or exercise BECAUSE I was too preoccupied in loving the homeless and friendless and spending time with them to care or even really notice?  Is that taking honor away or bringing it to God?  Sigh.  The truth confronts me and I see that my life is about me.  It's not about the pimples or the weight, but it is about the honor that God is getting by what is happening.  I may be looking ugly but God is looking darn amazing.  

In summary, Our battle with sin is not about us, but about Jesus who gives us the drink that satisfies our souls.  Seek and pray after God to remove the poison in our minds if you notice that what you know is not what you are doing or if what you are doing is not satisfying you enough to keep you from sinning.  The diagnosis is that I am a sinner.  The cure is that Jesus gives us the drink that we so desperately need.  Only from Him giving it to us will we receive it. 

If you don't have it now it means perhaps God is drawing you to Him as you go through this season of dissatisfaction.  The desire for water that satisfies and breaks us free from sin is from God, and we must recognize that we are at His mercy and grace.  Understand that wanting to change is God working in you, and nothing stops God from accomplishing His will.  So rest in His power to change you.  Rest in His Grace.  Have faith in His promises.  That even though it hurts now it will bring you to everlasting glory in due time. 

And for me it definitely does hurt.  Hurts to the point of freaking bitter weeping in the night, the kind that does not always feel good but painful, as if the pressure in my eyes will cause them to pop right out.  Hahaha.  It sounds funny but it's my personal testimony.  There may be weeping in the night, but joy comes in the morning.  If joy is absent God is still present and He desires to ultimately become our fullest joy every morning and every night. 

Jmegrey

God is beautiful

When sin gets the upper hand in my life I begin to feel disgustingly hopeless and futile for God's purposes.

Maybe this thing inside of me that keeps running back to my old ways is actually the mold from a seed of bitter disappointment that needs to be taken out.  Maybe traces of it start to spread like cancer.  I need to get it all out.  Bitter disappointment in my present circumstances, past circumstances and fear of not getting future circumstances the way I want them.  Bitter disappointment or fear.  Fear of bitter disappointment, perhaps.  Or maybe it has nothing to do with me at all.  I mean the part about healing.  Maybe it's not about looking inward but about looking out and up. 

I get anxious when I sin too much, and I start to feel the heavy cloak of self pity take me in and wrap around me, zapping me of all energy to delight in God.  Why is it that when I am weak I am sometimes JUST WEAK and nothing more?  

“Humble yourselves … [by] casting all your anxieties on him.”

By casting my anxieties on Him? 

So when I'm weak and anxious, throw that at God? 

Would it make sense for me to throw anxiety at my mom or dad if I wanted love in return? Or do I feel more loved when I give them love and my good side, my selfless side?  My clean side.  That would require a deeper understanding of love.  If I am to throw God my anxieties in return for love....how can I do that?  I feel that at times when the temptation to sin is so strong I am unable to resist it.  Simply saying I feel this or that to God does not suffice, there must be something deeper at work in me that overpowers my ability to throw my anxieties to God.  Something in me that is keeping me from casting myself to His disposal and presence.   Why don't I believe Him, and His Word, and cave into sin? 

"How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?" (John 5:44 ESV)

I cannot believe God and His power if I am not seeking that as my goal.  The deeper issue within me when I fall into sin is that I want glory from others more than I want to give glory to God.  First, my goal in temptation must be to consider who is going to get glory from this particular situation, if not God then who?  Myself.  But do I really ever get glory?  Maybe I get a copycat version of it, but history and experience has always shown me that the glory I get never lasts or satisfies.  So how can I begin choosing to give God glory before a temptation to sin? 

"but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:14 ESV)

I need to drink from this well and only after having drank from this well will I be able to choose God's glory over my own because it will satisfy me. But it says that it "will become" implying a kind of process or moment in time that it will occur.  "Welling up to eternal life," also implies that it'll steadily rise and rise and rise until I drop dead in the physical and my spirit ascends to the eternal.  So is the goal to be bubbling or to be dead and in eternity?  The goal is neither to be bubbling or to be in eternal life because we can do neither since it is a drink we receive. 

So where do we get this drink?!?!?  

Who gives us this water?  The person speaking said "I will give..." in that passage, which is Jesus. 

But I already KNEW THIS. 

Of course the answer is Jesus. 

So the knowledge is not the problem then. 

So here I am, feeling uncontrollable about my sins and my habits that are not centered on giving honor to God, but rather are centered on giving me what I want (honor to self).  I always think, what could I do to resist this temptation?  How could I convince myself that God is greater and be more satisfied in Him?  So that I choose to live a God honoring life over a self honoring one?  Because I do hate the sin, yet I keep falling into it.  I don't want to be in a sea of my anxiety, weakness and ugliness!  So what can be done for someone like me who feels like I am failing, perhaps even failing without the ability to choose anything else?!  This sinfulness is a part of me, it is mixed in with my soul so that I cannot escape it.  I admit that I'm weak all the time, I feel it, I see it in the face of my failure, but that is not the solution.  I admit that I even KNOW Jesus is the answer but what is causing me not to turn to Jesus then?  I'm a sinner.  That's just the diagnosis.  Jesus is the cure and Jesus is the solution.  So what's the bridge between the two? 

Answer: GRACE

Utter and complete, unfathomable, too remarkable, bright as sunlight grace --this blinding and painful grace to behold is the bridge between our sin and faith in Jesus.  So stop thinking about what you need to do and think about what He has done for you!  Think about what the words "my grace is enough for you" means. If His grace is not enough for you bring that anxiety to God!  

John Piper's book, Battling Unbelief, said:

"Anxiety does not look like pride. It looks weak. It looks as though you admit you don’t control the future. Yes, in a sense the proud admit that. 

But the admission does not kill pride until the proud heart is willing to look to the one who does control the future and rest in him. 

Until then, the proud are hanging onto their right of self- sufficiency even as it crumbles on the horizon of the future."

I was shocked and blown away by understanding when I read this simple logical truth about what weakness is.  Weakness is not a state of mind, it is a reality.  The mental poison we delude ourselves with is the pride of either self sufficiency or self pity.  Neither are from the attitude and belief (faith) that Jesus has the drink we need for our cure.  Whether you feel strong or weak is besides the point.  The central issue is where God stands in the midst of your position.  In my case it is in the midst of my doubting if God is really there for me after I have once again sinned against him.  I start to ask God what's wrong with ME?  I use self pity and the acknowledgment of my weakness as the solution (or means of getting to it) rather than on faith in Jesus who has the water I need to open my eyes to see how satisfying it is to honor God more than myself. 

Prior to sin (during the peak of temptation) I feel almost nothing but the strong urge to sin.  I have tunnel vision and sin is all I see, all I want, and nothing else exists in that moment, at least nothing big enough to veer my attention from the sin I crave.  I have a craving and it must be satisfied.  If I am craving self approval I will go to whatever lengths to get it, and anyone or anything that gets in my way will get trampled--other people, my own health, my ministry, my time or my money, all depending on my type of self approval that I feel is most satisfying to me.  (For some this is looks, money, awards, relationships, recognition, or Facebook friends).  

So the diagnosis is me, and the solution is Jesus.  The diagnosis is me, but so naturally I want to think the solution is me too.  Me working harder, me trying harder, me praying harder, me wallowing in my weakness longer, or me thinking about me.  

When this distinction of problem and solution become murky, there is a helpful way to discern the separation (given in the Word of God). 

In suffering ask: is this shameful feeling (anger, humiliation, weakness) honoring God or not? And how might it be giving honor to God?  Sometimes anger is righteous and honoring to God, but sometimes it is not.  How might it be about my image and how others are perceiving me rather than about God's image and how others will see God from this?  Where is shame God-honoring and where is it self-honoring?

When I feel the shame of my actions at night to an addiction or to an omission of doing something I felt I should have done, I need to ask is that shame God-honoring?  Yes, because it is shame from recognizing that by my sin I am smudging the honor due to God in my mind.  It is feeling the shame of how ugly sin is, and that God cannot be with sin because He is beautiful. 

When I feel the shame of unworthiness to approach God for full forgiveness and restoration and even consolation is this God honoring?  No, because this shame is actually belittling the mercy and grace that belong to God.  This kind of shame is misplaced in that it does not bring honor to God's kindness, goodness, love, patience, faithfulness, and acceptance. 

So is it okay to feel weak?  Not only is it okay, it is the true disposition of every human being under the Creator and Almighty God!  

What is weakness? 

Our inability.

Our anxiety.

Our sin.

Our pain and desperation.

Our threshold.

Our lame and crippled legs.

Our lack of endurance or strength.

Our tiredness.

Our humiliation.

Those are all true.  And it is a shame that we exist!  We are so ugly after inheriting sin!  

In those times, grace abounds in a glorious display of the beautiful gospel, for which we recognize as the power of God for our salvation.

To blindly, led by grace, walk in faith of the unseen but believed beauty of Christ, THEN I will be content for His power will rest on me during hardships and the heartbreaking pain of losing things I so strongly feel are what make me valuable, beautiful and loved: things like accomplishments, beauty, relationships, marriage, children, work, money, wisdom, endurance, and reputation.  To ask God for the grace to believe that He is more worthy and more beautiful to choose to give honor to.  

For the sake of Christ.  Believing that if what is happening is God honoring, meaning it makes God look beautiful while I look ugly, then that is the beauty which is more true than the one I feel I am losing.  That is the beauty of which I will inherit in the kingdom of eternal life. 

Jmegrey

Today in Him

I will extol you, O Lord, 

for you have drawn me up 

and have not let my foes rejoice over me. 

O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, 

and you have healed me. 

O Lord, you have brought up my soul from Sheol; you restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit. 

Sing praises to the Lord, 

O you his saints, 

and give thanks to his holy name. 

For his anger is but for a moment, 

and his favor is for a lifetime. 

Weeping may tarry for the night, 

but joy comes with the morning. 

(Psalm 30:1-5 ESV)

I have few words, (and only a few minutes) to write a short expression of thanks and awe to God for what He showed me yesterday from morning til late into the following wee hours of 2am.  I had been having a really bad morning yesterday, waking up with physical discomfort, anxiety, and worries about future plans and things that were about to take place, but God took care of all of it in such an intimate way.  He met me in my need so powerfully and convincingly.  He eased my flurry of thoughts with a gentle reminder that all would accomplish what He intended it to accomplish so that I should not fear what I might do or not do to botch up His glorious plans.  He chuckled with me when I began to see my worry as a threat to His loving plans for me.  He empowered me with meekness to be still and let Him be made known.  

I want to thank God for making me feel validated as royalty.  I want to thank God for proving my fears wrong and putting my doubts to silence. 

I want to thank God for the awestruck wonder and amazement in my heart that bloomed mightily into the night as I stood and sat in His presence as a daughter of His.  I watched Him work.  I sat there taking it all in like a child in amazement at the work of their Father.  He spoke things into being, moved mountains, created winds, and poured out amazing love into my heart like waterfalls. 

Already the gloom of harder days looms in the back of my mind, hardship will be just around the corner again, but with every passing season I have come to see God with me.  I may not immediately acknowledge Him with me, but never have my fears or worries stopped His plans in my life from unfolding into beautiful miracles.   So whether I am in the light or in the dark, All days are light to Him--and that is my joy through the suffering.  That I am His and He is mine, and no greater love exists. 

I thank God for every rescue, but I thank Him for every hardship, too, that reveals His grace for me.  I thank Him for all the tears, for every healing in my body and soul, and for choosing me for restoration from among those going down to the pit.

I thank God, my Father, for all things in every day.  I am in His love that is forever high and forever deep.  

May today be in Him more than yesterday! 

Jmegrey

A life of Royalty lived on earth

What do the eyes of Royal sons and daughters see that others cannot (and that we cannot expect them to see)?  

By what appearances do we experience God on earth?  

And why does God use a different appearance than the one He will reveal in the final days of glory? 

Tell Daughter Zion, 

“Look, your King is coming to you, 

gentle, and mounted on a donkey, 

even on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.” (Matthew 21:5 HCSB)

I think that for many of us it's hard to imagine that someone riding in a beat up used car would roll up to us claiming to be rich.  We'd all probably laugh and think "yea right."  Because appearances hold so much power in our physical worlds.  The physical upholds the physical, and that's one way we might see something for what it is, namely its physical appearance.  A King riding up on a donkey is just as strange as a billionaire riding up in beat up used car.  

We look at clean clothes and think "comfortable, stylish, beautiful, clean."  Whereas we look at hobos on the street and think "uncomfortable, ugly, dirty, and marginal."  This is all true from the physical appearance.

Therefore by physical appearances we desire that which is good and not bad.  We would all prefer clean clothes as opposed to those on the backs of hobos, would you not? 

Understanding that there is a powerful meaning to what physical appearances do to us is important because it gives us wisdom to understand what spiritual appearances are up against.  Don't miss the point and let your minds shut down the further thinking process by merely concluding that we all need to wear hobo clothes and drive beat up used cars.  Don't be an idiot.  It has nothing to do with physical appearances in and of themselves, but rather it is about understanding the spiritual appearance better so that as sons and daughters of the King we hold on to the truth of living by the Spirit and not by the physical appearances.  It's not so much about not living by physical appearances as it is all about living FOR the spiritual appearances.  We tend to want to shift our focus off of the physical by sheer will power, but the only way to fully pull your focus off of the physical is to set your focus onto the spiritual. 

Perhaps you see a lot of the physical, and perhaps that is how you live day to day.  You see something bad or uncomfortable or dirty or sinful and you try to be in Christ, repenting and receiving forgiveness, in order to be clean.  That is a part of the process, but the real meat of living Royal spiritual lives is not in the repentance, but in the ability to see beyond the physical.  

"a woman came up to him with an alabaster flask of very expensive ointment, and she poured it on his head as he reclined at table.

And when the disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, “Why this waste? For this could have been sold for a large sum and given to the poor.” 

But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me." 

(Matthew 26:7-10 ESV)

This woman saw Jesus for who He was: a royal person, and not just some man of honor or power or wealth.  Jesus, the donkey rider, had very little physically, but this woman came and poured her most expensive perfume on His head.  The disciples saw this and thought: "ahhh!  What a waste of money that could have been spent doing (physically) good things for the poor who are (physically) suffering!"  It's like...going to Africa to build a church when your two kids are suffering from a fatal disease.  It would appear ridiculous and wrongful, UNLESS, God had revealed it to you that going to Africa was His plan for you.  In that case the death of your children would no longer be your concern, because spiritually they do not belong to you but to God.  I know that's hard to swallow, and it may even come off as another black and white scenario, but before you decide to abandon your kids or abstain from helping the poor keep in mind that Jesus also said: 

"For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?" (Matthew 25:35-39 ESV)

In other words, when we feed the hungry or help the poor it is more than just doing a physically good deed.  It is doing a good deed TO Jesus.  He is the hobo on the side of the freeway, the crying child at an orphanage, the murderer sitting in his cell all day in wrinkled orange clothes, and the newcomer at church who is socially awkward.  There is Jesus.  Not physically, but spiritually.  

We all naturally want to follow up on our physical appearances.  Good deeds, good looks, good days.  The moment our physical world starts to crumble we consider that to mean our spiritual world is crumbling as well.  However, instead of defining our spiritual by our physical we should be shifting our focus on the spiritual defining our physical.  

So then, this is a brief introduction on what it means to be a daughter of spiritual royalty while living in a physical world.  I am writing this out to help myself and others shift their focus onto the spiritual richness that precedes fullest richness in every aspect in the Kingdom we inherit.   In other words, I am writing this from the glass half full perspective rather than from the ways in which we suffer physically.  While we all do indeed suffer physically, the perspective of Christians that see this life as a glass half empty, I want to shift our view of God from that to the Royal lens. I want God to open the eyes and ears of the Royal ones because seeing our treasure is the best way to leave behind our trash. 

What it means to be a royal daughter or son. 

A few questions to think about:

What does is mean, AS CONCRETE AS POSSIBLE, to be a son or daughter of God?  Without being vague or passive, think about what specific truths belong to your identity if God is your real Father and you are His real heir to the throne.  How much exactly do you get?  How powerful does that make you exactly?  

What does it mean, in as much detail as possible, to one day own the entire universe and rule it?  What exactly will you be owning?  What sort of things will you be ruling?  

What does it mean that God loves me?  What is so good about being loved by God?  How much exactly does God love you? 

What is it like to be God's daughter?  What does that say about your worth exactly?  How valuable are you?  What sort of rights does a princess have over her kingdom?  What belongs to the heirs of the universe? 

The following are some personal reminders for me regarding my Royal identity.  This is not to brag or boast about what I have in Christ, but to encourage and refuel the hope that that is true and in God's promises that I have in Christ--my truth amidst the physical appearances that lie to me in this life. 

What does being a daughter have to do with my love for writing?  

Isaiah 55:11. “So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”

This means that whatever I write I write with the knowledge that it is going to be for God's purposes no matter what.  So throwing aside the physical expectations of "success" I look at the spiritual truth of Isaiah 55:11 knowing that It shall succeed 100% for the reason God has for it, not my own or the physical world's idea of success.  Whether I get published and become physically successful, or never get published or if I get published but severely ridiculed--all of that will be a physical appearance and therefore futile to my Royal success.  I win, because I'm God's daughter....and no one trumps the King's orders. 

What does is mean when I fail in life (sin) as a daughter of God?

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Looking at sin is hard, but looking at Christ is harder because it requires our Royal identity to outshine our sinner one.  It means we become physically appearing weak while spiritually becoming strong.  Weakness does not mean we sin more and more and pile on the guilt and shame.  It does not mean that at all.  Weakness is a feeling and a disposition of inability and a crippled self.  Weaksauce.  The unable ones.  Once we reach this place openly by our failure to do well, we will begin to rely on Christ alone to carry us through our failures.  As a Royal child that is how we deal with failures in this life.  Not by doing better or trying harder, but by getting into the strong arms of Christ to carry us.  Just as when a child gets hurt on the playground and is carried by someone else to the hospital.  We must live out our weaknesses royally. 

Another way to deal with weaknesses is in trusting through sorrow and tears. 

"Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?”

Yes, God could fix your problems with a single word, just as He could have sent legions of angels to grab Jesus from the men who were about to kill Him, but then how would God's purposes be done then?  Your problems are not just your problems, though they physically appear to be just that, but your problems as Royalty are more so God's purposes being done.   

So God could totally fix your problems, and all would be physically fine and dandy, money, looks, reputation, health, all of that could be fine and dandy, but all of that has nothing to do with your royalty and everything to do with physical appearances.

Again, with sorrow and tears...

"And Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly." (Matthew 26:53-54, 75 ESV)

Dealing with weakness and failures means crying bitterly at times.  Crying is a grace from God, because it actually feels good afterwards unlike a hangover or numbing addiction.  Crying keeps us alert to the condition of our heart.  

What does a daughter of the King do while living in a temporary place, not the kingdom yet?

"And everyone who has left houses, brothers or sisters, father or mother, children, or fields because of My name will receive 100 times more and will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first."

Matthew 19:29-30 HCSB

They go last.  They do crazy things by physical appearances when God tells them to.  They don't just leave children and houses and things randomly, they do it because of the Name of Jesus.  In other words, our sacrifices are not based on how much we love something or how hard it is to let go of something!!!!   

Our sacrifices are based on how it will bring the Name of Jesus to a higher, brighter and more beautiful position.  A Royal person knows this best because they have an allegiance to the honor of God their King, and their actions become a means of bringing God's reputation higher, regardless of what it does to their own.  

This is so crucial because everyone wants to take "sacrifice" as a one size fits all, but sacrifices are the means to bringing God's purposes honor.  Purposes of loving others, uniting with one another, and becoming about our Royal family.  What makes you love more powerfully as a last person or weak person?  That is God-honoring.  

--

I don't have time to finish the rest but here are some other words spoken and given by God about our royalty lived out on earth:

"It must not be like that among you. On the contrary, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life — a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:26-28 HCSB)

“Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. (Matthew 24:45-46 ESV)

He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. (Matthew 25:16-17 ESV)

"And Jesus came and said to them, 

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 

(Not to the Royal sons and daughters, but to Jesus) 

Go therefore and 

make disciples of all nations, 

baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 

teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. 

And behold, I am with you always, 

to the end of the age.” 

(Matthew 28:18-20 ESV)

How do the Royal sons and daughter differentiate from the others?

But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, (Matthew 24:48-49 ESV)

(In other words, they think this food is mine, these things are mine, and I will use them to impress my friends and gain their approval of me)

But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money.

(This is the coward or the inactive person.  They hide and cover what God gives them because they do not want to think about or go through the motions of what looks so physically difficult)

He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ (Matthew 25:18, 24-25 ESV)

(The one who forgets that EVERYTHING is His.) 

"For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ (Matthew 25:42-45 ESV)

(This is the person who only looks at physical appearances.) 

How does the Father view His sons and daughters still living on earth?

"Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my business? Are you jealous because I’m generous? ’ 

“So the last will be first, and the first last.” 

(Matthew 20:15-16 HCSB)

All of God's Royal sons and daughters are equal in His sight.  There is none better or worse, but only He is more generous and more kind than when we lack or fail.  There is no competition or ranking in His sight.  We all receive the same inheritance regardless of how much we have done or not done, because everything we do is what God has given us to do.  So as royalty we don't look at the work of others compared to ours, but we look at the Father who loves us and gives us our work to do for Him.  We have everything we need in life to live, so let's live royally.

Jmegrey

Mental violence

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, 

and all these things will be provided for you. 

Therefore don’t worry about tomorrow, 

because tomorrow will worry about itself. 

Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6:33-34)

Seek first the kingdom of God?

Seek His righteousness?

What does it mean to seek the kingdom?

How do we seek righteousness that isn't ours?

Seeking is a journey both mental and physical of finding the kingdom and discovering a foreign righteousness. 

Clearly the kingdom is not physical so we must find the mental seeking part mostly utilized.

So mentally speaking, how can we seek the kingdom?  By our thoughts and logical reasonings.  By knowledge and by understanding. By meditation and fighting for the right answers to smash doubt and fear.  Maybe.  That is definitely PART of it.

Let's see how this might work by understanding how we seek anything, such as a bargain deal.  We ask around.  We get a general idea and from there we sift through the details.  Quality.  Price.  Value.  Availability.  Distance or time to getting what we want.  Of course the effort we put it is only on par with the degree or intensity of our desire to get what we want.   In other words, if you have to have something enough you will do whatever is within your human strength and capability to get it, and if wanted enough you may even risk your very life for it--like in the movie with Denzel Washington who took a hospital hostage in order to get his dying son treated when he didn't have enough money.  He risked his life to get what he wanted.  Love is very valuable.

When I want to eat something I'm particularly craving, like veggie grill or a soy flat white from Starbucks, I will sacrifice a few things and not others.

I will sacrifice my hygiene, my money, and my desire to stay home in order to get up without showering and dish out the ridiculous amount of money in order to go get what I am craving or desiring at that moment. 

I might sacrifice my time, my plans, or my image too if my craving for the food or drink was high enough, but I would NOT sacrifice a person's life to eat or drink something.

In other words, there's a limit as to how far I will go to get what I want.  Now if I wanted to catch a non refundable flight to Ireland where my five star hotel and traveling expenses had already been paid for, then I'd sacrifice a heck of a lot more to be on that flight.  The sacrifice would only go so far as the reward at the end, but if the sacrifice exceeded the reward then that's when I'd stop seeking.  For example, I would not pass up seeing my mom or dad in the hospital if I heard they got into a major accident and were in critical condition.  They matter way more to me than a million trips or a million dollars.  I would go to the hospital and let the plane to Ireland with all expenses paid for (by my heard earned wages at work) go down the drain, why?  Because I value the love of my parents more than I value the love of money, Ireland, or five star hotels.  

Hmm, so it seems from my train of thought that seeking and sacrifice go hand in hand. 

Perhaps seeking is not JUST looking for something, but seeking is fueled by seeing something as more valuable than another thing, because otherwise why would we seek it?  In the example above I was not seeking the love of my parents, but when I was seeking my vacation in Ireland with everything prepaid something happened to my parents which averted my eyes away from my initial desire and took them toward the greater desire of suddenly seeking the higher value of the lives of my parents.   

It would be strange if nothing happened to my parents and yet I skipped my flight and my plans to Ireland to seek after their love for me.  I could just call them from my five star hotel and in fact my happiness would make them happy as well because I know they love me.  

They are not suffering or being threatened.  They are alive and well.  And in such a condition I feel fine and great about leaving them to go to Ireland. 

We might see the kingdom of God as such.  It is there waiting for us, just fine and dandy and so we go about our day without looking at it much.  We just carry the kingdom around in some mental pocket of ours as if nothing is happening to it.

When Jesus says to seek first the kingdom of God and everything else will be added to you, I imagine that to be quite difficult to do unless the kingdom of God was suffering some kind of violence.

And then I remembered something:

From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been suffering violence, and the violent have been seizing it by force. (Matthew 11:12 HCSB)

That passage came to mind and I couldn't quite wrap my mind around the connection it had to what I was thinking in regards to how we are to seek the kingdom.  

"From the days of John the Baptist 

until now, 

the kingdom of heaven has been suffering violence, 

and the violent 

have been seizing it by force." 

(Matthew 11:12 HCSB)

If that's true then all my other desires and plans and valuable things will be put on their scale compared to the value I place on the kingdom of God. 

Is the kingdom suffering violence?

What does that mean? 

How could it be suffering violence?

I thought everything was just find and dandy up there after Jesus died and took care of my sins, and I was just trying to enjoy myself in the meantime within a decent moral boundary that looked acceptable to God as He waved from His big throne in the sky.  

If my parents were in the hospital and I got the call that they were in critical condition while I was in line at the airport check-in, I'd get myself out of line and get myself to them as soon as I could.  But if I never got the call, if no one ever told me anything, even if my parents had been in an accident, I would be mentally unaware and unconvinced that they were suffering and in life threatening condition.  I would be getting on that plane, making plans and day dreaming about how wonderful it was going to be, all the while the ones I loved could be breathing their last breath.  The moment I would hear about it would be the moment that my entire trip would no longer matter or have any value for me.  It would be ruined, and all I would want would be to see my parents on the first flight out of there!  I'd have no mood or emotional stability to just go shopping or sight seeing if I became aware of my parents' condition back home. 

"...and the violent have been seizing it by force."

I would do whatever it took to get to that hospital where my parents were, and more so if I had the ability to save their life though some sort of transplant or blood diffusion.  I would be a bulldozer seizing my way to them by force in order to keep them alive.  Because losing them would be more awful than losing a trip to Ireland or a million dollars.  

The kingdom of God is not fine and dandy because Jesus says that it has been suffering violence ever since John the Baptist came on the scene.  It suffers violence in regards to our having it.  Just as the scenario of my parents in the hospital revealed that in regards to me they would be gone if I did not reach them in time, meaning they would not be with me or mine any longer.  We must understand that the kingdom is something we seize violently, because the sin in our lives is deadly, deadly to try and make the kingdom of God a fake or fraud.  So how on earth can we fight sin so that we believe in the reality of the Kingdom of God? 

It is only by the grace and power of God, through Jesus who died to cleanse us from our sins, that we fight sin by the Spirit.  We don't fight sin because it makes us a better person or because the bible says so, but we fight sin because our most precious and valuable asset is suffering violence and we must seize it by force.  In other words, we have all that we need in Christ to fight sin, but the desire to do so will only come when we realize that the Kingdom of God is suffering violence by our sins.  One perspective, namely the sight of our guilt and shame, is not enough to fill us with the desire to fight sin.  It must be the glorious love of our Father that we long to keep and have forever that matters to us.  When we see the glory of being heirs to the kingdom of God as Royal sons and daughters of God the King, we then also see our sin as the thing that is making us to be unaware of this beautiful truth.  Every time we sin we are battling unbelief, succumbing to our desires for sin above our desire for holiness.  This is not so much because sin is so irresistible, but because we do not see our inheritance as that which is more valuable.  We might see our inheritance as some vague or ambiguous nice thing that we get when we kick the bucket.  Or maybe we might see it as fine and ready for us whenever we get done with our short lived pleasures.  It is not just sitting around waiting for us like that.  Jesus says that it is suffering violence, and that the violent are seizing it by force.  This indicates a type of person who will grab heaven.  The violence of battling unbelief is no light matter. 

There are two competing desires in every human being.  One for the self (which is laden with sin) and one for the kingdom of God (which is laden with God's presence and love).  As we pursue or go after desires of the world, allowing sin to happen, we must remember that all the while the greater Kingdom of God is suffering violence.  

We are not fighting sin, Christ fought and defeated sin, we are fighting for the kingdom of God.  Because though Christ defeated sin, we are grasping the divine kingdom by force through His death and resurrection.  By a violent faith we are called to believe the unbelievable.  It is a mentally and physically violent fight that we take on because we are believing that Christ set us free, and that though sin still entangles us we are holding on to what Jesus did as fiercely as one would hold on to the ones they loved.  It is not a walk in the park to have heaven, nothing is fine and dandy, but it is a violent and forceful grab of faith that we trust in what Christ really accomplished for us.  That Christ opened the door to the Kingdom of God, and only those that see the freaking Kingdom of God as such, beckoning us to come in and be with God our Maker forever, will believe in Jesus and violently put off the deeds of the flesh in the only way they can be put off: with an even more violent cry for help to God who gives us His strength by His Spirit in us to sever the sins that entangle us from Him.  We have the power to put off sin not by our willpower but by His Spirit in us.

Let's get real for a minute.

You battle sin, wherever it's a sin of doing something you shouldn't or not doing something you should.  You really battle both, but you're probably only conscience of one or the other at any given time.  Unbelief is sin.  Not forgiving someone is sin.  Laziness is sin.  Not thinking about God and praising Him 24/7 is sin. Anything that is not 100% perfectly holy, like Jesus, is sin.  

I'm eating fruit and I'm in sin.  I struggle with fear and anxiety about my self and my future and that feels like the greater sin, but both eating fruit and being anxious is sin, why?  Because I am a sinner.  No matter what I do I'm sinning.  

Poor me, I basically can do nothing then.  Literally I can't do anything if even eating fruit becomes an act of sin.  Breathing becomes an act of sin.  My existence is sin.  I am incapable of fighting sin.

So then I look at Jesus, and He says that He wiped away my sins and gave me His obedience.  He says that by faith, if I believe in Him, He clothes me in His righteousness.  This means that by faith I believe that although I am a sinner, in Christ I have perfect obedience and I'm holy just like God.  

And then I steal something. 

Sin.

Wreaking filthy sin is right in front of me, under my nose.  That's when the guilt and the shame sets in.  I start to doubt and worry and fear my real acceptance by God because of the evident sin I see at that sin.  All the while forgetting that I was always sinning, even before and now after I had stolen something. 

So what is my battle.  My battle is not that I keep sinning.  My battle is that I don't believe that the door Jesus opened to me, to take hold of the kingdom of God and be an heir and His beloved daughter, is actually really open to me.  Why?  Because I'm a sinner.  I sin.  I don't deserve such a valuable gift.  I'm battling unbelief with the wrong weapon.  Instead of violently crying out for the Spirit of God to save me from my unbelief, I am grasping ...my sin!  And when you grab sin to fight sin, you end up with more sin.

Battle unbelief with God.  Have a relationship of violently crying out to Him to help you understand and see sin for what it is and to save you from its temptations.  But always look up at what is yours in Christ, namely the kingdom of God laden with love and glory.  The value of God must exceed the value of all other things, and since we are sinners we will be battling sin until the day we die.  That is how the kingdom of God suffers violence, but the violent seize it by force.  The force of the Spirit of God in us who is the only force powerful enough to overcome all things and bring us into the love and glory of the kingdom of God.

Seek the kingdom of God first.

Seeking, sacrificing when seeing value, violently calling upon the Spirit to be our force of power to get in.  

And seize it. (This is by doing everything and anything, like a bulldozer, that the Spirit says for us to do according to the Word of God given to us)

By faith, through grace, in the power of the Holy Spirit within us,

Be violent about your inheritance,

Jmegrey. 

Is not life more?

What if I'm wrong about all of this.

That's not a question, but a thought.  A recurring thought that often nags and gnaws at my heart when I am at the precipice of surrender or shamefully sitting in the sinking ship of my sins.  

Thoughts like, "is God really there?" 

What is going on right now, and how come it feels as though God is not there?  How come the vague notion that He does not exist begin to pop up in my head like a cockroach's antennas under a bathroom counter.  It's a grotesque accusation against what my heart wholeheartedly believes.  Yet it pops up when I am about to surrender to love--when I am about to walk through suffering and brokenness of heart prompted by faith, hope and love.  But it also pops up after I've already sinned, the deed has been done, repeated, finished, and I had let self-control go.  Then I think..."I'm hopeless."  And the situation looks bad, my circumstances look pitiful, and my transformation seems impossible.  All I see is nasty grossness.  

I've killed so many thick and nasty black spiders in my room this past week.  The sight of them is so offensive and disgusting because I can't help but feel that I deserve them when I see them.  They find their way to me as if the nasty black sin of mine is luring them in.  I hate them.  I hate finding them and I also hate killing them because it's gross and messy, and their guts spill out and I can never be sure that their friends or eggs are not lying around nearby in a hidden part of my room.  

When things look and feel bad, then I feel wrong.  I feel like a big failure.  I feel hopeless and inadequate.  I begin to see the days ahead of me and it looks very difficult.  Worry, mingled with fear and doubt, set in and toss my mind about.  I can't do this.  What the heck am I doing?  I won't be able to be the person I want to be.  I'll eventually fail just like I always do.  What I see defines everything all of a sudden.  The days ahead of me look dismal and that's when I weakly look at God with tears in my eyes, stinging and dropping down my cheeks as I ask God if this is all true.  If He is all true.  "Are You really there?"  Am I really clean when what I see is dirty? 

So what if I'm all wrong about God? 

What if this is all actually false?

What if me thinking God is real is wrong, and that means I'm not actually forgiven or free from my sins.  

What if my life is this bad and dirty?

If I am wrong....then I'm the biggest idiot for not chasing after all the pleasures of this world as a means to more in my life.  (1 Cor. 15:20, If we have put our hope in Christ for this life only, we should be pitied more than anyone.)

Humans are all made up of hopes and desires that bring about our decisions.  Decisions are handled by desires, and desires are handled by hopes.  So look at your decision and see your desire.  Look at your desire and see your hope.  This is scary when you see sin, and this is beautiful when you see God. 

So then, on the one hand my sins show me how my desire is for the world, while my decision to have hope in the gospel is my desire to have God.  It's strange to want the world and to want God, but what is that?  That is me saying that if I am wrong then I wouldn't know it unless something or someone were able to uproot one of the desires, either for the world or for God, in me.  What if one desire is slowly diminishing?   

I do desire the world, and I hate that, but clearly I also like the world because I desire it.  However, the miraculous thing is the desire in me for God, and how I so hungrily desire to know and be close to God.  Where did that come from?  I understand my desire for the world, because I see how things are, but My desire for God is a complete grace.  Whether I have too much and find it all meaningless or if I am utterly incapable of having what I want and so turn to God to soothe me, both cases point to God as the desire that can fully satisfy me.  It's strange and amazing, but I desire God regardless of my disposition of much or little, pain or comfort, calm or confused.  I desire God more than I desire the world.  

So then I see that two desires are within me: 

one for the world and one for God.

But sometimes I take my eyes off of God and I forget how much more I have in Him, especially when my eyes have narrowed in on myself and my sins.

"Much-Afraid trembled and looked at him shamefacedly. “I don’t think— I want— hinds’ feet, if it means I have to go on a path like that,” she said slowly and painfully. 

The Shepherd was a very surprising person. Instead of looking either disappointed or disapproving, he actually laughed again. “Oh, yes you do,” he said cheerfully. “I know you better than you know yourself, Much- Afraid. You want it very much indeed, and I promise you these hinds’ feet."

-Hinds Feet on High Places, by Hannah H.

God reminds me that doubt, worry, fear and anxiety--even my present struggle with sins--are not an indication for who I am.  They are a reminder for who He is.  

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. 

Is not life more than food, 

and the body more than clothing?"

-Matthew 6:25 

Is not life more than this?   More than me.  

He is more, He is most, and He is the only One who can be what I am looking for. 

Is not my body more than how hard I'm trying to tame it? Self control is only as good as what it will be rewarded.  If I merely practice self-control for the sake of discipline that would be stupid and futile like a person who buys a bunch of yoga videos but never watches them to reap the benefits.  I don't want to be disciplined unless there is a reward for it in the end.  I don't want to do anything hard unless I have to in order for something more.   

For life.  

For a more life. 

My focus and attention starts filling up with the fixing process that I lose sight of the goal at the end: more life. 

Is not life more than food?  

Is not life more than money?

Is not life more than a temporary buzz or high?

Is not life more than one good thing? 

Is not the body more than for clothes?

Is not the body more than just to stare at?

Is not the body for more than just one thing?

What is more? 

I find that what I really want is something more than what I have.  I want something more than what I'm doing.  I want my life to be more like a life worth living.  And I want my body to be more for me than what it currently is.  I want my body to be for my more awesome life, not a separate entity that has one purpose like clothes to look good or strength to take me to places, but I want it to be a body for more, for hugging the ones I love, for worshipping God through a posture of surrender to His acceptance of me, for flying, for helping my grander thoughts pour into action, for more than just one thing.  I want my life and body to be for everything more than just this one or even two things. I want more.

And God totally gets me on this! 

"Is not life more than food, 

and the body more than clothing?" 

-Matthew 6:25b

It is!  It definitely has to be more than this.  Otherwise what the heck man.  This life has to be more, it has to be epic and great!  This body of mine has to be more, it has to be an eternal flying machine!  A powerhouse of hugs and laughter, beauty and strength, clothed in righteousness.  This life is more.  This body is more. 

God has more and in this passage He is reminding us that He knows we want more.  This isn't just some disciplined duty we are given, but this is about the MORE we desire.  

In other words, snap out of it.  

You think what you want is that great?  Nope.  There's more.  Look at Jesus.

You think what you can do is it?  Nope.

There's more.  Look at Jesus.

You think having money, clothes, or food is great?  Nope.  There's more!  Look at Jesus.

You think you have figured it all out?  Nope.

There's more.  Look at Jesus.

You think you know what you want?  Nope.  There's more.  Look at Jesus. 

You think there's no hope for you?  Nope.

There's plenty more.  Look at Jesus.

You think you're out of strength to continue?  Nope.  There's more.  Look at Jesus.

You think you don't have enough?  RIGHT! haha there's MORE.  Look at Jesus. 

I know you want more.  You want life to be more than what it is and so you strive to have this or that, but God knows we want more because there is more.  There is eternity more.  

So you know you want more, but who will you look to for that more?  Yourself and your finite bodily desires or God and His infinite pleasures unending.  Remember that there are always two realities within you: the body and eternity.  

But one has more life than the other.  

What if I'm wrong about God?  What if there isn't more than this life?  Well, if that's the case then what the hell, I should just do what I want and chase after all the pleasures this world has to offer!  Many will do that.  Chase and chase after short lived pleasures one after the other until they die.  But some of us folk will stop to look at Jesus and the hope of eternal glory, and this glimpse will change how we live in this life.

That is why I believe in Jesus.  Because He is more than anything else I know.  He is more beautiful, more powerful, more lasting, more epic, more passionate, more loving, more forgiving, more intelligent, more kind, more comforting, more exciting, and more infinitely the life in whom I find myself in.  I am more when I am in Him.  

So while the spiders creep--the desire for more of Christ is still in me.  I smash those spiders and I'll keep smashing them because I know that one day I won't need to smash any spiders because I'll be able to live where they cannot come.  

Right now I see the bad and I see the good.  

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. 

Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? (Matthew 6:25 ESV)

Is it not?  

Or is it?

God is asking me tonight, is not life more than what you're worried about dear Jamie?  Is not your body more than what you look like in style?  Or is it not more than those things?

It is more, Father.  It is more.  It is so much more.

I forget so easily that You have promised me more because what I see becomes everything to me.  

Help me see You more. 

Jmegrey 

Just a glimpse of the invisible God

What a glimpse does to us.

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, 

and His robe filled the temple. 

Seraphim were standing above Him; each one had six wings: 

with two he covered his face, 

with two he covered his feet, 

and with two he flew. 

--Note: With their faces and feet covered from the too-bright and too-powerfully awesome vision of God on His throne, they were flying with conviction and passion declaring the holiness of God to all--

And one called to another: 

"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts; His glory fills the whole earth."

The foundations of the doorways shook at the sound of their voices, and the temple was filled with smoke. 

Then I said: "Woe is me for I am ruined because I am a man of unclean lips and live among a people of unclean lips, and because my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts." 

Then one of the seraphim flew to me, and in his hand was a glowing coal that he had taken from the altar with tongs. He touched my mouth with it and said: "Now that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is removed and your sin is atoned for." 

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying: 

"Who should I send? 

Who will go for Us?"

 

I said: "Here I am. Send me."

And He replied: 

"Go! 

Say to these people: 

Keep listening, but do not understand; 

keep looking, but do not perceive. 

Dull the minds of these people; 

deafen their ears and blind their eyes; 

otherwise they might see with their eyes 

and hear with their ears, 

understand with their minds, 

turn back, and be healed. 

Then I said, “Until when, Lord?” 

And He replied: "Until cities lie in ruins without inhabitants, houses are without people, the land is ruined and desolate, and the Lord drives the people far away, leaving great emptiness in the land. Though a tenth will remain in the land, it will be burned again. Like the terebinth or the oak that leaves a stump when felled, 

the holy seed is the stump." 

-Isaiah 6

--

Why do I do anything that I do? 

Why do I strive to be a better person, both internally and externally? 

The fact that I know God Almighty who asks me to do something at all, even if what He wants me to do is as dismal a task as Isaiah's, is the only force of irresistible obedience that I have to do what God asks of me.  

It is by the experience of seeing God on His throne, as the seraphim could not, but as Isaiah did, that compels one to believe that whatever God asks shall be done.  When we experience the holiness of God as Isaiah did, seeing how just the hem of God's robe filled the temple entirely, we no longer doubt His power over all things.  

It is an honor to do the will of God when you have seen the glimpse of His glory in your life.  When you have experienced His holiness burst forth into the light of your world making you aware of just how grand and Almighty and different He is, how vastly higher and bigger and greater His is compared to your world and everything you know, then He takes the top of your whole being.  Your top respect.  Your top love.  Your top desire.  Your top goal.  He becomes the top of your entire world. He is the top of everything you do.

God's holiness is utterly unmistakable because it far outweighs the marvelous glimmers of anything this world has to offer.  It makes money look like useless paper trash, makes human beauty look canine, makes our hopes and dreams of becoming this or that seem dreary and dull...boring and meaningless compared to His vastly different and wonderful holiness.  

God's holiness is so vastly catching that the world around you dims.  That is just what happens the more you look upon His holiness.

Just by looking at it, being there with God in the temple, seeing His robe's hem as huge and majestic, the hem alone is far richer and too beautiful, more grand a sight than a thousand mountain ranges beneath pink and golden skies. And that's just the hem!

There's a story about a woman who had been suffering from a bleeding disease for 12 years and when Jesus is passing by, near her house, she goes and scrambles her way through the chaotic crowd around Him thinking to herself: 

"If I can just touch His robe, I'll be made well!"

(Matthew 9:21)

In other words, just one touch of the only part of His clothes that I will be able to reach in this crowd and in my condition, which was most likely just the hem of his robe as it trailed behind Him while He walked.  This was all she needed to be well, because the hem alone held power since it was His hem.  Not that the hem itself was magical, but that it was worn by a Son of God, and as such made it a privileged and powerful garment just by who it belonged to.  

"Jesus turned, and seeing her he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.” And instantly the woman was made well."

-Matthew 9:22 

It was her faith in the power of that which belonged to Jesus, the hem of his clothes, that she was made well.  Her faith was in the power of that which belonged to God.  That God is so holy and higher than everything that so long as it belonged to Him it was powerful by association. 

By this heart of hers was she made well.  Her faith in having reached for the mere hem of His clothes.

This gets me thinking about what I have seen of God.  

Of course I have experienced many times of being and feeling blessed by God and loved and forgiven, but the healing comes after the hem.  The woman who bled for 12 years was desperate for healing, she was suffering and yet had the thought occur within herself that "if I can just touch his robe, I will be made well."

If I can just touch His robe...

Not some grand emotional or spiritual momentum, not even a prayer spoken or a passage of scripture read and meditated on (though all these actions are good disciplines for us to be reminded of God's real presence amidst the physical world), but just the mere thought of "if I can just touch the hem as He passes me by"

No expectation of a look back or some sort of interaction with Jesus, but just to get a touch of something that isn't even He himself, but just something that belongs to Him.  A quick little feel for something of His.

And somehow that woman believed that such a small endeavor would be enough for her to be radically healed from the most grotesque and crippling disease of her life.

It was small, but she believed it was powerful.

Then with Isaiah, when he saw the hem of God's throne filling the temple, he got a sight of the power and glory of God on His throne, and he was convinced that something as grotesque a task as spending his entire life in failure (failing to bring Israel to repentance) was small compared to the glory of God.

Isaiah's trembling and apparent apprehension is heard, albeit his confirmed conviction to do what God asks, he understands the hardship of such a calling and meekly asks:

“Until when, Lord?” 

And He replied: "Until cities lie in ruins without inhabitants, houses are without people, the land is ruined and desolate, and the Lord drives the people far away, leaving great emptiness in the land. Though a tenth will remain in the land, it will be burned again. Like the terebinth or the oak that leaves a stump when felled, 

the holy seed is the stump." 

(Isaiah 6)

God tells Isaiah that this terrible calling will last until absolutely nothing but great ruin, desolation and emptiness happens, and all that's left is a stump.  In other words, it will cost Isaiah his entire life, but not just his life but his reputation, his happiness on earth, his friendships, his image, his comfort, and his peaceful living with others.  It will disrupt everything for Isaiah and there will be no sort of goal of fruitfulness in his lifetime, just sheer obedience to what God tells him to say which in turn will be rejected.

Talk about discouraging!  I would also ask God "until when?" In a very meek and trembling voice.  How long will I need to live in discouragement?  And then to hear God say, "Um, basically all your life."  

In such a case the only ONLY ONLY way I would agree to that kind of life is if, like Isaiah, I stood before the throne room of God and saw the train of His robe fill the temple...in other words, if I understood how above and set apart, holy, He is. 

Then something as grotesque as a surrendered life would look like nothing but a small touch of His robe to me.  

For the woman she saw Holiness because grace to think that way was given to her for healing to happen, and for Isaiah he saw Holiness, because it was God's grace to him to live his life in utter and grotesque failure.  

The common denominator is God's holiness.  

However, we tend to measure our spiritual growth or progress by something like healing or "fruit" in our lives.  Isaiah had no such fruit or healing, so does that mean he was not living as a representative of God?  No.  Both received from God what they needed: His holiness as power to change and transform them as a son and daughter of God.  What both of these people had in common were the grace given to them by God to know about the holiness of God. 

How have you experienced the holiness of God?

For example, when has God appeared so beautiful and different than anything you've ever seen or knew about?

-for me, one of my experiences with the holiness of God came when I felt the meaninglessness of all endeavors in life.  That nothing matters much as a shell or mask when what's beneath is rotting.  That death comes to us all, but a life lived for eternity in glory is pretty dang holy.

What specific descriptions convince you that it was Holiness you experienced?

-for me I experienced holiness when I was so filled by love that every doubt and worry of mine melted at the sight of God.  What once brought me anxiety and fear was now a minor speed bump in my day, and although I still lose sight of this truth from time to time as worries again threaten to capture me, I experience the holiness of God in moments when I am brought to my knees full of tears at how separated I want to be from temporary desires I still have in this life.  

What might have been thought to be God's holiness but was really a holiness of your own? 

For example, some sort of "sacrifice" you made and viewed as holy itself, rather than the sacrifice being what was dirty and made holy only by association or belonging to God.

- for me I am reminded daily that the work I do at church as a high school leader along with the work I do in my cultivating genuine loving relationships with people are never a thing with an expected goal, but a thing of obedience despite discouraging outcomes, because what I do is merely a response to what God has given me, and above all He is in control of the outcome.  So that the holiness is not in my success or in my expectations being met, but in the continuing to do what He asks regardless of how big or little the task and the outcome are.  

How do you know when you are experiencing God's holiness or when you are experiencing a fake holiness of your own self? 

-one way that I know it is God's holiness I am experiencing rather than my own is that I feel completely zero at and in everything, but Christ is still with me as infinite and overpowering my zero-ness. 

When you see God as holy then everything we labor for is neither right or wrong, but a mark of our grace to know and experience the power of being made into a son and daughter.  

We might ask God, as Isaiah did:

"Until when, Lord?"

Regarding our circumstances and situations, or we might be reaching for the smallest bit of power from Him as it seems he is merely passing by us, but remember His holiness and all things will fall beneath the supremacy of those things that belong to Him: His robe, His requests, and His children.  

Then you will be enabled to continue.

Holiness sightings prompt stillness with joy + thanksgiving, which are the enabling process of becoming a coheir or a sharer of the kingdom:

May you be strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for all endurance and patience, with joy giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light.

Our Father enables us, not our will power.

Go to Him today, and ask to get a glimpse of His holiness.  Just a glimpse is enough. 

Jmegrey. 

Heartbreaking stillness

The Lord will fight for you; you must be quiet.” (Exodus 14:14)

The hard part about endurance is the stillness.  When neither pain or suffering hold your hand, but in the wait you stand there all alone, slightly discomforting, and absolutely still.  At least pain gives you some sort of urgency, but stillness?  Stillness is a meek and humble stance, a position of stop and wait.  

Can we stand still for a moment longer?  Without falling asleep or without busying ourselves with a task on our check list?  

What about just being still. 

Try it and you'll soon find that stillness awakens our meditation and pries open the inner doors of the heart.  Your thoughts will shudder at the stillness and they will begin to go rabid.  But don't chase them, let them run and be above them, watching them run and crash and go in circles, up and down, spinning and hitting walls, spiraling every which way, threatening you for your involvement, beckoning you to join in their havoc, but be above them as if on a balcony.  Then take your mental gaze off of them and look into the doors of your heart.  It'll be a dark and hazy place but the longer you gaze the more your eyes will adjust to what's there.  Your thoughts will be distant whispers all throughout, but only below where you are.  

Be still. 

"Be angry and do not sin; 

on your bed, reflect in your heart 

and be still. 

Selah."

-Psalms 4:4

Discomfort, drowsiness, emotions and thoughts will poke and badger you to stop being still, but be still, you are doing a great thing.  

Be still and look inside the place guarded by fear and pride.  Fear and pride cannot see us when we are still.  So being still allows us to get past them and see what they try to keep from our eyes.  

Be still and see what's there in the deep.

What do you see?

What do you hear? 

How murky is it?

How loud and griping are the things below the balcony from where you are?

Where do you stand in proximity to fear and pride?

How hard is it for you to just be still?

---

We go into life without much foreknowledge about what will happen to us, we bank on things to be something and sometimes they are and sometimes they're not.  

We get confused about what to do, where to be, who to see, what to say, how to start, when to finish, and a million other things.

At least that's how I feel a lot of the times.  I look at my life and it pains me to be still and look inward at what's blocked by fear and pride.  I hear the thoughts that want my attention, but they are working with fear and pride to get me moving and doing all kinds of things--to keep me from seeing what I see when I'm still. 

Yet I  am compelled to be still because I hear my name being called by a voice familiar and gentle.  What's behind fear and pride seems to call for me, and I cannot resist it's beckoning to me.  

"My sheep hear My voice, 

I know them, and they follow Me."

-John 10:27

All that is needed is to be still.

Listen to the voice in the smallness. 

What is God saying today?  For from the stillness He speaks a better word than the thoughts below. 

"He comforts us in all our affliction, 

so that 

we may be able 

to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive 

from God. 

For as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, 

so through Christ our comfort also overflows. 

If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort 

and salvation. 

If we are comforted, it is for your comfort, 

which is experienced in your endurance 

of the same sufferings that we suffer."

"For every one of God’s promises 

is “Yes” in Him. 

Therefore, the “Amen” is also spoken through Him by us for God’s glory."

"Now it is God who strengthens us, 

with you, in Christ and has anointed us. 

He has also sealed us 

and given us the Spirit 

as a down payment in our hearts."

-2 Corinthians 1:4-6, 20-22 

Open the door and go to the one who speaks "Yes" about the promises we were given, the one who creates strength in us, for He resides in our inner hearts not below the balcony of ruckus.  

Pray without ceasing. 

Love your enemies.

Love one another.

Be still and know that He is God. 

Oh, heartbreaking stillness, break down the doors of my heart to let me get to You. 

Jmegrey.