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

Male and female (part 1)

Nothing quite reminds you that you need people than when you're in bed sick with an atrocious fever and unbearable body aches.  

I need people because on my own I'm no good. 

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 

(Genesis 2:18 ESV)

Does that mean because I'm a woman that on my own I'm sufficient?

That's so forcibly not that case that it hardly needs mentioning.  Man existed before woman, not because they are higher in value but because the one will exist to be with the other while the other will come to existence for the man.

We need each other.

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. 

(Genesis 1:31 ESV)

This isn't about marriage so much as it is about our relational capacities.  We are image bearers of God that require one another for the whole picture of God, the "very good."

As I was lying in my bed, this was a loud alarm to whatever independent synapse that I may have let override this biblical truth that I need people.  I am no good without people. 

I need people on every level to be well.  Physically (as most felt in this moment), emotionally, and spiritually.  God is not enough until I am enmeshed with who He made to need me, and for me to be for--in order that things be "very good" by God's standard which is eons beyond any created being's standard of "good."

As a single person I need to be for my brothers in Christ so that I am completing the image of God.  If you want to see God more clearly, start being for others.  Or men, if you want to start seeing God more clearly start needing the help of others.  

Together, whether male or female, the beauty of God will be brilliantly very good. 

Don't go it alone.  

Need and be for one another.

Amen and amen. 

My sore throat is humbled.

Men, who do you need help from today? Be a man and say so! 

Women, what gifts are you holding back to empower others?  Be a woman and go help someone in need!

Stop waiting around for other to "make the first move".  You will get rejected, hurt and maybe just flat out ignored in some instances where you do what you were made ...created and purposed to do!  That's because of sin's stench!  Let not sin reign in your mortal bodies, but put the deeds of the flesh to death for the sake of seeing God!   For the sake of the "very good" you can take some brutal hits along the way, for the VERY GOOD! 

Okay, I'm calm.  

Maybe it's the meds I just took.

Your image alone is not good. 

Let's be the image of God for one another. 

Man to be needy, women to be helpers.

Let's need! Let's help!

Ask God who you need or who needs your help. 

Then shine as who you were made to be. 

 

It is very good.

Jmegrey 

Who Jesus is to me

I cannot make a single promise 

Because every promise I make I surely break at the first sign of desire

To get what I want I'll walk into death's grip.

I cannot bring a single gift that I have not first rejected for myself, because everything I bring is something of a bribe with my desires again at the core.

Where is my love?  Where is love at all?

The truth is I have none, and only Jesus can remedy my disease. 

The cold, bare confusion and discontent of my own desires laugh at me, stare at me, cling to me, til all I am is trembling.

Give me the real Jesus I feel the cry rise in me.

Who is this imposter deceiving me? 

Barking at me, teasing me, abandoning me, accusing me, condemning me!

Fooling me!  Veiling light from me! Looming around me like dark shadows that try to scare me.

Jesus, I want to see You.

But my eyes cannot find You, please guide them to You.  See there, in front of me.  The cross is what I see.

My Savior who died for me, pronounced sin powerless over me, and clothes me in garments whiter than I can on earth even see!  My shame is no more, Jesus your glory rises from my bedroom floor.  Here You swell the truth to me:  forgiven and loved

Knowing full well that i'd be on my knees tonight begging for Him to respond to me 

Just give me Jesus is the song I hear and my eyes sting with the pain of tears that swell from what's opening in my heart.

I want the real Jesus, give me the real thing.  I want the real Jesus and not some flat temporary feeling.  I am blind and begging to see, wipe your spit and mud on me! I want to see!  Because for far too long I've been lame at the gate with such little hope around me.  But there You were!  Jesus!  You flooded light and hope and healed me!  My broken legs jumping up to praise your glory, my dull eyes beheld Your face to see.  Jesus it was You, Your beauty overwhelmed me.  

I am the woman who was for 12 years bleeding, reaching in the crowds to touch just the hem of your clothing!  You turned around and claimed "daughter!" To me!  Oh I knew from there there was something more than healing that You gave me!  

I am the blind, the lame, the deaf, the beggar and the little child your disciples tried to shoo away.  

To know that You love me,  all of it, all of You, not just a feeling or a touch but Your presence to be here with me in response to my crying.  More passion!  More passion.  More passion!  More passion!  The real Jesus is passionate not this fake defeated heart.  The real Jesus is King! 

Who is this beggar in me, surely not the Lord of victory, but Jesus is this You?  Is this You stirring me?  Please tell me!  

There is doubt in me like Peter when he walked on water and for a moment turned to the storm and the terrifying sea!  Drowning Lord, save me! 

This is me. Crying "Lord Save me!"

The sound of tempest threatens me, the onlookers judging me, your figure appears ghostly, but Lord if it's you then call me.  It's all meaningless if I can't walk to You and feel your hand catch me above the sea right before the water swallows me, to stare at death in its weakness, while you hold on to me.  

Not just a feeling, but Jesus I want You to be the One to catch me.  When I fall on my knees to cry for what you died to give me, to be free, Lord I desire You to respond to me. 

Take my fear and doubt away from me!  Make me see!  Make me see and give You glory!  I was made to worship You, but Lord the passion seems far and faded and I am trembling. 

My faith is weak Lord Jesus, do You see?  You see the very worst in me, the selfish desires I grieve and endless manipulative thoughts in me, how I go back and forth and fail to see, that which You died to give me:  The God of three.  Magnificent is the glory!  But my eyes Lord!

I look to You in the moment of defeat, do You still love me?  What about the desires in me?  Are they wrong of me?  If so, please take them from me!  Or is this a test to strengthen me?  Do you want me to respond in faith when You save me? What is this?  I will pray again for a million words to hear from the real Jesus.  Beckoning me, to follow You in this life and into eternity. 

The real Jesus who saved me, saves me from these earthly trivialities, and daily responds to me.

Stir up my passion for more ways to worship You.  Then help me be still for the times I set out to walk in faith toward You.  I will walk again on the water that leads to You, even if each time I almost drown because Your hand is what I want to reach me.  

My Jesus is real to me, not a feeling of maybe or glimpses of some ghost on the sea, He is real to me!  He catches me when I am drowning!  This is Jesus who rescues me, the one who responds to me. 

What Jesus said when she died

 “Do not fear, only believe.” (Mark 5:36)

Today is in a capsule of time, 24 hours to be exact.  For about 15 hours of that time I will be awake and my eyes will be seeing, my nose will be alert, my body will feel, and my ears will hear all kinds of sounds both intentionally and unintentionally.  

What if I saw something terrible, the stench hit my nose, the screams rang in my ears, and the moment made my stomach drop.  Would I, in that very moment, fear or believe?  

What happens when things in life just hit us like a freight train?  Or maybe even like subtle pin pricks that we tend to ignore, but they keep on poking?  Our minds resort to autonomy mode and we automatically resign to doing what we feel at the moment in order to quell the fear.  We run or we hide or we start to worry that things could get worse for us if we don't take matters into our hands.  Or maybe we shut down and let the fear rule our reactions.  We succumb to its terror by not caring.  Perhaps we over analyze the fear and try to figure out a way to beat it mentally.  Whatever you do it is pretty clear that fear is there in most of us, especially those of us who have ventured into the root of our issues.  

For myself, I discovered a few tyrant fears of mine after wondering why I was like this or why I occasionally did that. 

Fear of worthlessness was one of the most clarifying ones that helped me understand why I did things I didn't mean or want to do.  

I had a rough experience in the 7th grade that I thought was nothing after years and years had passed, but reflecting back on that time made me see that the 12 year old girl who experienced that awful pain of being rejected for no known reason had walked away without resolving why things happened the way they did.  In doing so it probably left a small seed that became a deeply rooted notion that people would reject me for no reason, so that the best thing to do was to try as hard as possible to give them reasons to like me: be nice, be pretty, be popular, date hot guys (as proof to self), be smart, be funny, etc etc.  It became so natural of an inclination that I began to think "this is just who I am."  I'm nice.  I'm pretty.  I date hot guys, I'm smart, I'm funny, I'm _______.  And my worth was placed in each of those things, all the while I called myself a Christian because I went to church.  

Be acceptable.  Looking back now, as time wore on the load just only got heavier, as reality revealed the impossibility of my attempts to be acceptable to everyone, which led to isolation and deflation of my once colorful passions as a child, and by the grace of God it collapsed over me crushing me and forcing me to recognize that I could not go on living like this.  I loved to love too much, I loved to live too much, and I loved to have meaning too much to just lay defeated underneath all the confusion and pain that I felt but that I didn't really understand.  God was there working in me to bring me to a place of better clarity of Himself.  He brought my philosophical questions into theology, my isolation into community, and my meaninglessness of life to His Kingdom where I began living life for as an heir.  As an heir and as a child of God.  The standard of meaning was met by God Himself who placed His promise and Word in me.  The promise that when I turn 89 and my body is crinkled and smelly, things would only get grand after I said goodbye to family and friends.  The Word in me said I had been given the kingdom of God when all that I knew and owned was hell and death.  

Things began making sense. I am an earthen jar (with arms and legs and eyes and ears and a nose) and I'm breakable but the treasure within me is God who speaks truth about my identity. 

"But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves"

2 cor. 4:7

Every once in a while when I crack or when a part of me chips, I see it, I smell it, I hear it and I certainly feel it.  

But when Jesus overheard the people saying this and that about how the girl was already dead, I'm sure some of those that were talking had seen the dead girl with their own eyes, felt her cold arms with their hands, and heard the doctor proclaim that life had left her. 

And Jesus said: "do not fear, only believe."

Fear will pounce on our earthen vessels, but the Word of truth that we hold as treasure reminds us that God is real.  We are best exposed to His presence when, against all odds and feelings, we let the body crack and crumble only to see God restore and ressurect.  I'm not saying that the purpose of our treasure is to bring dead people to life or to give us what we want (mend our chips and cracks!) but that God has given life through Jesus and it is for those who believe and pass over the fear who will see it. 

If we got what we wanted that would only make us feel as though we knew what was good for us, undermining the ingenuity of our Creator.  We want to reign and rule, but we don't have a kingdom!  If you want to love and to live and have God's friendship as Father then He will show you this treasure in your earthen vessel.  

When you see, smell, hear and feel yourself breaking, as all vessels of clay can

"Do not fear, only believe.” (Mark 5:36)

He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” 

(Mark 4:40-41)

And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. (John 17:3)

Jmegrey