Contemplating eternity in deepest love

Do you believe that you are an heir of the world? 

What difference does it make for you to know and believe you own the world? 

Genesis 17:8 is one of God's first promises made to Abraham.  God said, I will give you (Abraham) and your descendants the land of Canaan, which came hundreds of years later.  Notice how God said "I will give YOU", Abraham...yet Abraham died before ever having seen Canaan.  That implies that God was speaking that Abraham will rise from the dead for the fulfillment of the promise. 

In the New Testament there are several references to this truth being retold to people over 500 years later. 

Matt 22:32- I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”

This is again speaking of all the promises that God remembers having once spoken to Abraham that will come to pass.  How do we know these will actually come to pass?  Well, we get a glimpse of every promise being fulfilled in some temporary way on earth.  The descendents of Abraham, for example, did eventually inhabit the land of Canaan, and all the other promises made also came to fruition such as His Abraham having a huge offspring as countless as the sand (which include you and me and all believers), and the promised Holy Spirit.  Never once did God's word fail.  Even in Abraham owning Canaan, it did not fail because logically speaking Abraham needed to be the father of many nations first, and that would require more time for the accumulation of people born after him.  But we got a glimpse of His descendants being given the land of Canaan as a little taste of the real fulfillment in Christ when we and Abraham will be given ownership of land in the Kingdom of God over all the universe. 

 

Rev 3:21- "The victor: I will give him the right to sit with Me on My throne, just as I also won the victory and sat down with My Father on His throne."

You and I will sit on the throne of the universe.  No longer as subjects as we know ourselves to be now, but as coheirs with Christ!  On His throne! 

Millions of us.  How can this be?  We think how can I be the heir And you be the heir?  When a father dies one son get this and another gets that.  They can't both be given the same house.  But this is something we should think about.  We are being shaped into a kind of people that will have the wisdom to rule with one another in such a deep kind of love similar to the way in which a married couple walking in the Spirit can live under the same house with a deep committed love to each other.  

All of us, as brothers and sister--as one family, and as joint heirs to God's kingdom will be fellow rulers over everything together....TOGETHER.  What does that say about love?  

Luke 16:12- And if you have not been faithful with what belongs to someone else, who will give you what is your own? 

Right now, all that we might think is ours (possession) is really God's.  

This is why the enemy loves to make us think that we rely on ourselves to have something like respect, beauty, money, and self esteem.  We get tempted by possession of such things, because there is a God-made quality in all humans made in His image that have the capacity to possess or own things, and the enemy twists that capacity, as he does all gifts from God, toward insignificant and lifeless things that pull us away from exercising our capacity toward owning the universe cojointly with Christ!  

Every blessing and good thing you think is yours--your health, your car, your family, your understanding, your money...all of it is all God's!  

Think about it.  Right now you have a few things that you think are yours, but when you contemplate eternity then that something or those things you think are yours now are actually exposed as God's training toys for you as He observes the way you handle it.  Does what you own make you love people more or does it isolate you?  Your body is not yours, but God gives us health or allows sickness as a means of training us to use what is not ours for His glory because if we can steward what is not ours for Him, then we can eventually own that which is His as our own forever.  

Each of us will own the world, but eternity will be governed by millions of God's heirs because we love each other--making that ownership possible. 

Romans 5:2-5

We have also obtained access 

through Him by faith 

into this grace in which we stand, 

and we rejoice 

in the hope of the glory of God. 

And not only that, but we also 

rejoice in our afflictions, 

because we know that 

affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character, and 

proven character produces hope. 

This hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love 

has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit 

who was given to us. 

The glory of God is OUR hope now and our PORTION in eternity when we rise from the deadness of this temporary life. 

Meditate on eternity as a coheir and as a child of God who will share the throne with Jesus and millions of others.

Eternity matters because it changes how we view suffering.  If suffering is what produces endurance, and endurance produces a character quality that produces the joy of one day being able to share the kingdom with our brothers and sisters because of LOVE, then suffering is the greatest gift of all. 

We are heirs of the world in Christ who is the heir of the world because His Father is God the Creator and King of Kings!  It doesn't get any higher than God!  

"And if you belong to Christ, 

then you are Abraham’s seed, 

heirs according to the promise." 

-Galatians 3:29

"So no one should boast in human leaders, for everything is yours —"

- 1 Corinthians 3:21

We don't boast in men or the things we admire about them and want to possess for our own, because we are heirs of everything God owns!  Why would you need to boast in being beautiful or smart or successful?  That's nice but you can boast in owning the world which is far greater and more precious than a short span of years as rich or beautiful or acknowledged.  Christ said that we can't love God and the things of this world.  Only one type of character in a person will be given ownership of the Kingdom as a coheir, and that's the child of God who loves His family so much that they rejoice in giving up everything they have for them.    It's why the apostle Paul said in Romans 9:3 that he would forfeit his own ties with Jesus forever if it meant that his brothers (the Israelites) would come to know God!  His character loved deeply and profoundly!  It is this kind of character that will be able to own the kingdom of God with others.  A person of deep and profound love for others, the love that would give up everything--our image, our reputation, our comfort, our beauty, our time, our money, our very lives for the sake of others! 

"For the promise to Abraham or to his descendants that he would inherit the world was not through the law, but through the righteousness that comes by faith."

 (Romans 4:13 HCSB)

If such a character sounds impossible to attain right now, understand that with man it is impossible, but with God who works and wills us according to His sovereignty--it is possible.  We walk by faith, meaning we walk by what we can't see--the impossible--and God gives us His Word to remind us of where we are going.  

Let us love like that:  to practice walking in what we have now with the mentality that what's mine is yours.  

To believe that God is shaping our character inside to truly say "nothing would make me happier than to give you what I have."

Right now we own nothing.  

Everything we drive, wear, buy, eat, ride, visit, see all belongs to GOD!  He gives us all gifts now, and each gift has a purpose...they are not just ends in themselves.  The profundity of our lives is in the shaping of our character toward the hope that one day I can give everything to someone else out of love.  

Contemplate your life right now in view of eternity.  I see what I own too often as that which I earned or worked for, but possessions are useless and they fade away, and I am reminded to see what I have as a gift preparing my character for what I will own in eternity with Jesus and all the believers who chose the superior way of love. 

In eternity We INHERIT everything as finally truly OURS.  But if we can't manage what we don't own now from God how could He give us what is His to truly own for ourselves?  He will not give His kingdom to people who cannot handle it.  

To contemplate eternity is to be encouraged and brought into the sobering truth that this is preparation time.  That is how we love one another eagerly, with a humble heart, knowing that God helps us along the whole spectrum of the process.  We meditate on His word day and night, we at least think about this truth even if we can't get it right, and this humility shapes us to relinquish possession of control of this stuff of ours to follow God's leading as He guides us into what it means to be His son or daughter, coheirs of His Kingdom. 

When I look at something I have, this Perrier drink in my hand, this right here is not mine but God gave it to me for the purpose of me practicing what it will be like to OWN it.  Can I drink this Perrier with God's glory in mind?  Can I drink this Perrier thankfully?  Can I drink this Perrier as my worship to God?  This is a gift, it's not even mine!  I'm drinking it because God gave it to me for not only my thirst or preference but because God is shaping me to be able to handle His kingdom.  If I can't even take care of the gifts He gives me, which all belong to Him, how can I later own all that belongs to Him?  Look at the things you have in your life.  Those are not yours.  Those all belong to God and we are stewards of His gifts on earth.  Every gift is another opportunity to be made into a coheir of God's kingdom. 

You and I are living for God's glory, meaning we have eternity in view.  We have ownership of God's kingdom in our minds over ownership (or the facade of it) of the stuff we had once so foolishly chased after in this exposed short span of a lifetime now.  You want to think your value is this or that, your struggle is this or that, your idol is this or that, contemplate eternity!  

Meditate on what eternity means as a coheir.  I feel like I'm saying this so much, but this morning I woke up with eternity in my heart.  And lately God has been putting eternity and loving others on my mind and I wanted to share this because it just makes sense! And because in my own life I struggle against possession of things that I want in my future or battles with sin that I find are equal to my worth and value in life, all of which I mentioned in the examples of beauty, money, acknowledgments, family, reputation, comfort, security, and a certain kind of career.  But what good is all that in and of themselves when exposed to the light of eternity?  To be about eternity is to be about love for others just like Paul was saying he would cut himself off from Christ forever if it meant saving his brethren and how Jesus DID CUT HIMSELF OFF FROM His Father to give us salvation.  He also rose from the dead and reunited with His Father to show us that death was the way to get there, making death lose its grip of fear on us.  If death is the way to eternity then that's good news, because all of us will one day die, but how many of us will live for eternity? 

Let me just get specific again:

What you gain in this life all belongs to someone else!  Your very education is a gift!  Your looks are a gift!  Your job is a gift!  Your parents are a gift!  Your friends are a gift!  Your children are a gift!  Your very life does not belong to you!  This is a gift from God for you to practice in becoming a ruler of the world!  But what kind of ruler will be able to share ownership with millions of other people who will sit on the throne with Jesus?  The kind that are filled with love for one another.  Can we use our gifts from God in this life to practice love for one another instead of love for ourselves?  What would that look like especially with a certain sin or idol in your life that you so crazily hold tight to?  Let eternity loosen your grip on such things.

I want to be a person shaped by God through my gifts not controlled by the gifts themselves. I want my gifts to be my vessels for giving to others my time, my energy, my attention, and my heart.

To have proven character in being able to feel inside that nothing would make me happier than to give the others all that I have.  

Profoundly deep and unfailing love.  

That is why we are called to love one another.  Not because it's nice for now, but because it is crucial for eternity as coheirs and co rulers of EVERYTHING God owns.  We will own the world together, and if you don't like that idea then you won't like heaven.  

Love is truly the superior way of God's coheirs.  

Today we are being shaped with some gifts to love from the inside out.  

Contemplate eternity. 

Jmegrey

My messy heart

How do you say what you want to say to a person you love without hurting them? 

Scratch that.  How do you say what you are really thinking to someone without hurting them, regardless of if they are a good friend or a complete stranger? 

I mean, when what you want to say is how you truly feel or what you really think, but you know it will hurt them because it disagrees with their feelings and thoughts.  

That's me.  I digress. 

[digress: v. - to put off (action, consideration, etc)]

Being open and honest with people is the doorknob twisting open to my heart.  When you go about entering a real relationship, things get exposed that you, on your own, would not choose to reveal.

I scored above average on an intensive personality test for being someone who was highly deferential.  Meaning I defer to the situation most likely as a means of protection, comfort, fear, and/or indifference...and probably confusion.  I can say it how it is on here because there's no risk involved.  Haha.  That's probably what I love about writing/blogging...no risks, at least none that I can't premeditate about. 

We all need protection, whether we get that from money, relationships, comfort, food or admiration.  We are all essentially protecting our identity.  Who we are is most exposed by who others show us we are.  Our parents showed us what a bad or wrong thing was by punishing us when we did something bad or wrong, while they showed us who a good or right person was by rewarding us when we did something good or right.  

Depending on how bad or rewarding our experiences were also factors into how strong our self perceptions of truly "good" or "bad" grew to be.  Some people are so convinced that keeping the peace is much better than voicing opinions because they might have been exposed to fighting or no fighting at all.  Or other might be so convinced that being successful is the way to being "good" because their parents were successful and loved or because their parents were unsuccessful and mocked.  Regardless of each person's' circumstance it's easy to blame this or that for why we think a certain way, but logically speaking we cannot pinpoint our reasons for why we are the way we are on vague notions...specificity is crucial to understanding.

But such powerful understanding can only come from God. 

One of the hardest things about specificity is the overwhelming truth deep down in us, once we set out to be specific, that we are staring into a gaping black hole.   There are a million thoughts, possibilities, explanations, excuses and so forth for every micro thought that we try to uncover in order to get to its specific root.  The task is haunting and daunting. Haha.

I recently moved to a new place and everything had to be packed and brought over within 3 days, so it was a mess of boxes with mixed items everywhere piled high like a jenga game left halfway done.  The garage was stuffed with everything from cleaning sprays to gift wrapping materials, clothes, drawers, books, pans, and everything else you might find in a house that usually never gets touched.  In other words I would take one look at the whole thing and cringe and I just didn't want to think about it, especially when the new place seemed already full and too small to add all the other stuff.  I hated it.  I hated thinking where to start, because it was so overwhelming.  It was much easier to shut the door and pretend like I didn't have to clean and sort it out, because that would take forever and most of the stuff in there were things I found useless or old.  But if it didn't get done I knew I'd have a shitload of crap just lying around in my garage, some of which I would need at some point (like the gift wrap during Christmas, or the pans if I ever wanted to make scrambled eggs), but the feeling of getting it done irked me so much.  It was work.  I just wanted everything to be done, clean, sorted, and ready for me to be happy about....but as long as the garage remained untouched so did my freedom to find what I needed--including the space to park the car.  

In the end my mom did most of the sorting and cleaning, while I watched in amazement and relief at her ability to get things done in such a way that I just could not on my own.  

That is what it's like to get specific about what's in our hearts.  Except what we can't do on our own is where the Holy Spirit comes and leads the way.  We sometimes open our eyes to see what's really there and it scares the crap out of us, overwhelms us, and we most likely find ourselves deferring to a place, any place other than that one.  The problem is the fact that the place we run from is the place we live at: our hearts.  

For as long as my garage remained in piles of stuff, that was how long I would be unable to get or use what I had.  Or if I did need something or use something it would be that much more difficult to get to as opposed to if everything were nearly sorted.  In the long run I'd waste more time searching and getting frustrated to find the things that I needed at a particular moment than I would if I spent a few days sorting it all out.  

But so many of us live our lives in such a way where we get frustrated and hopeless about finding the answers to what we need in the mess that our hearts are in.  We let the moment define everything rather than stepping back into the bigger picture of the fact that our entire heart is a mess.  And maybe we don't need to know why we are lonely at a particular moment when we are not feeling lonely, but whatever is causing our loneliness will eventually leak out and we will go running to the mess to find what we need, and if we don't find it we spiral into the mess.  But if we aren't feeling lonely, then why go through the work of sorting our heart out for what we might need to know when loneliness hits if we don't need to know that now?  We prefer to deal with things only when they become urgent, because if they're not urgent then they're just too much work.

Like me and my garage, we shut the door and cringe at what we know is there, but vaguely. 

Getting specific is daunting.  

A vague understanding is knowing what's there, namely a mess.

A specific understanding is knowing where everything is when we need it in a timely manner.  

You might call the difference wisdom.

Or you might call it productivity.

You could call it the peaceable factor.

And it's also a difference in efficiency. 

And can I just make a bold interjection here to say that some Christians think that saying "God will take care of it" is all we have to do to go back to our shut doors as we sort of hope and pray that the next time we open it we will be standing in a magically organized room with access to everything despite having no hand in getting it done.  Do you know why that never works?  Because the next time something stressful or bad happens our mindset will continue to be "run and hide!"  God wants us to grow in courage and wisdom that will last forever, so He works with us even if the majority of that time means we literally stand in the room of our hearts as He does most of the work with our watchful eyes and attention.  Eventually He might ask us to give a hand in something very simple, but mostly He just wants us present in the mess as He does the sorting.  Because by being there in our mess, we see exactly how He does things, where things go, why He sorts our mess a certain way, and though this take a long time (until we die in fact) the longer we see Him work the less afraid we become.  The less afraid we become the more useful to Him we can be participating now that we are not so frozen in fear.  

I am gonna come up with a little poem about it:

I open my heart and it's a mess,

I shut the door because it's stress.

Too much dirt and nothing can be found,

By ignoring it all I'm safe and sound. 

But something happens and I need relief,

I resist going in my heart and feign belief. 

Hoping and praying that it'll just get better, 

And when it does not I just get bitter.

The pain increases and life starts to dull,

Anger, frustrations, worries and all.

The heart I had shut has accumulated more,

Now ever more daunting to open the door.

I blame God for not doing the work in there,

Yet if He got it all done I would never be aware. 

He wants me to see Him work in my mess,

To show me He is there to take away the stress. 

Because when things happen, which they always do,

Getting it done with Him, makes it a job for two. 

So to bring it back around to my first thought about how to say what you want or need to say (because it's the truth to what you think or feel--aka: being present and open) to someone you are afraid it will hurt because it disagrees with them or you know they will respond a certain way that will bring more pain....I guess the only way is to do it with the Holy Spirit.  We have to be Honest with each other, trusting that our mess ups will be handled by the Holy Spirit as we surrender to His way or working all things in our hearts out.  We are present, we are honest, and the more of a mess we see and sit in it with Him the less afraid we become as we finally begin to see that Almighty God is in the room, and He's been wearing the cleaning apron right before us! 

We can speak the truth in love and make a mess only because God is with us to clean up when things get bad.  But we have to be present to see it.  We have to be in the mess, experiencing it even if all we can do is nothing but watch as God becomes more our Real God after the mess has been made.  In that way, we can do all things through Christ who gives us this courage and reassurance.  

In terms of relationships and becoming intimate with others, it's scary.  It's the worst garage of messes coming together!  We find that going into deep relationships is opening our hearts.  That's why most of us avoid deep and vulnerable real relationships.

One foul heart (yours) was scary but two is disastrous!  The mess will be worse than our own alone.  So naturally it seems better to shut relationships out and go it alone.  But the mess is not the problem.  Our belief that God is with us is  the actual problem.  If looking at Jesus is all it takes, then look at Jesus, He stands in the midst of our messiest mess: the heart.  

(Side note:  you'll know you're looking at Him because you'll literally be staring at your mess and at first it just looks empty because the mess is overwhelming in your eyes, until you find Him wearing a cleaning apron somewhere there.  You will see Him there, in that kind of humble outfit doing some dusting or moving out some boxes, and it'll amaze you as you just stare.  Perhaps you'll give Him a hand at some point, something really weak like handing Him a cloth for Him to wipe down the grease, but mostly He just wants you there because He loves you.) 

Jmegrey

Got love?

Remember the commercials, "got milk?"

Well, I'm lactose intolerant and I hate milk, so I could care less about milk, but what about "got love?"

Who doesn't want love? 

If we trace back every desire in our hearts, whether that's initially money, comfort, or peace and quiet, trace those back to the deepest layer of what we really want, I guarantee you will end up looking at the desire for love.  Try it.  Ask yourself why do I want _____, and when you answer that ask why? And then answer that and ask why? And when you save yourself the time and trouble and realize you just want love, it will no longer carry a hollowness about it.  It will be the last thing left under all the other layers.  

LOVE.

"filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.

What does it matter? 

Just that in every way, 

whether out of false motives or true, 

Christ is proclaimed. 

And in this I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice (Philippians 1:11, 18)

Through Christ.  I can definitely do some "right-eous" things like feed the poor or call up a friend and listen to them and tell them I love them, but all of that means nothing unless it is Christ doing those things through me.  It's a passive activity for me, where my words, time, arms, and senses are all at His disposal.  Meaning when any of those things, for me, get uncomfortable or 

Frustrated (or annoyed) I can freely take that feeling to God and show Him.  But the more I do the less surprised I am at how truly annoyed I am at everyone.  

I often say to God, "I can't love this person when I feel so annoyed at their ego and the way their face looks like a sneaky fox I just want to punch them."

Or I say: "God, this person always makes me pay for things and it makes me not want to hang out with them any more cuz I feel like their freaking mother when I'm not."

Or one of my real honest ones: "God, this person is so ugly, I don't like them cuz they're ugly."

Me, on my own, loving people is as shallow as an empty cup.  If they don't meet my needs and desires to be valued then they are worthless to me.  Why would I love a robber or someone who wants to murder me?  Why would I love someone who stabs me in the back or gossips about me?  Why would I love ugly people when I don't want to be ugly or seen with ugly people? Why?  Only would I love such people if Christ we're loving them through me.  Because Christ is all about rescuing the lost and marginalized.  Why is He like that?  Because real love is freaking heart melting and flabbergasting-ly beautiful.  Real love places value on someone's mere existence.  It has nothing to do with money, beauty, or even personality.  It's about relationship--that's it.  

It's sad that these days people don't know how to have real love-relationships.  Everyone has a relationship built on other stuff like money, beauty and personality.  But relationships built on love are the only ones that last forever.  Because money will eventually run out, beauty runs out, and even our personalities go through hiccups and sour phases.  But a relationship made up of one ingredient: love, outlasts any tempest.  Why?  Because God is love, and nothing can stand up against God.  

This is why our righteousness must be through Love Himself.  It is Christ who loves through us, and we live through Him, and everyone benefits because God uses us as vessels and we get to be brought into love because of that.  We might feel it to be unfair or weird that we can't love God by our own, or that we can't love another person on our own, and that since it's not our love it's somehow not real.  But what is love to us?  Isn't it a thought or a feeling we get when we are around someone or attached to someone?  We feel all googly eyed or our heart beats super fast or we feel overly protective and we think "yea, that's love!"  

If you really think about it, get specific with it, you'll soon find that what you define as "love" is actually quite easily destructive.  Being googly eyed is fun but if you were always googly eyed around the person you love, then when they were hurt or in pain you would have no sympathy to offer them.  You would just be a googly-eyed idiot, useless and probably annoying to be around if the person you "loved" was in a lot of pain.  The same goes for a quickened heart beat, eventually you'd die of heart failure and being dead is useless for the other person and for you in the context of being in a love relationship with them.  Overprotective can be overbearing.  Parents who are overprotective hinder their kids from growing because of how little exposure they have to the real world.  They become crippled.

All in all, love is not what we think or feel it is, but love is a person: God.  

If you love someone it means you understand that God is made beautiful by how you interact and treat that person.  And when God is beautiful so are you by the relationship you have with Him.  The church is the bride of Christ.  We are married to Christ and who Christ is is who we are.  Because we are one with Christ.  

You don't love anyone on your own.  That's not love, that's something else (money, ego, pride, or vanity) but it's not love, because nothing outside of God is love.  He is love!  

So then what does that mean about us before we met God?  Who were we?  We were sinners.  None of us chose God.  We, on our own, would never choose God because without Him we have no love.  God first chose us.  He loved us first.  He made the first move on us, all of us.  None of us got here by some grand and sacrificial decision of our own.  We all got in by grace of being hunted down by The hound of heaven.  So then doesn't it make sense that none of us is expected to continue this relationship on our own?  Does love from God suddenly make it my love?  Isn't love always going to be God's alone?    Yet I always tend to freak out at how unloving I am or how bad I am at loving people.

Hahaha.  It's hitting me more clearly now that I am terrible at loving people BECAUSE apart from God's love I have no love to give!  

I keep pulling from a resource that's always going to run dry in a matter of time.  But the resource I should be pulling from is God.  I need His love poured into me every day...because literally I have nothing without it.  I have no love to give if God does not first give me love to give. So then all the actions I do and all the righteousness I practice must come from God giving me love.  It's a real problem if I don't get love from God.  I will be useless.  So refueling and re-attunement to God's love for me is critical.  

How many times a day does it take to get love from God?  As many as it takes to be enough that you have love to give others.  If your goal in life is to love God and others, as God wills, then getting love from God will be your main priority every day.  Getting, getting, getting, and giving, giving, giving, is a cycle until it becomes our nature.  

You'll soon see how resistant you are to getting God's love because people who can't love others ...that's the moment you also notice your resistance to going to God for love.  Maybe you're going to what you think is God, like success, peace, or comfort.  But the true test is love for others, because without God's love you just logically cannot give love at all.  How can you give of something you don't have?

I notice this and it sobers me a lot.  I'm like "agh!  Really God?!  Again? And again? And again? And again?"  I'm THAT resistant...because lots of people for me are hard to love, not because they're hard to love but because I have no love in me to give them.  It's not the other person who needs help.  It's me. 

God's love is not prejudice, weak, or sometimes broken.  God's love is fail proof!  It's us who don't go to Him to receive it from Him.  We resist to the point of torture because deep down inside we want to think that we don't need God.  We can freaking rule our own lives!  And nothing changes that inside of us until we see Christ accepting that about us and laying His life down despite it.  

Sitting with God in my sin, telling Him I was going to continue all my bad habits because I just couldn't stop, was something I did more out of anger than a desire for proof of His love.  I did and do hate all my bad habits because they inhibit me from loving others and loving God more deeply.  But when God gently wrapped His arms around me and said "okay" (saying "okay go ahead and continue in your bad habits, because I know you can't stop right now, and that's okay") I could breathe a little bit.  

My heart became less tense and I looked at Him for many nights like "are You sure?!  Are You really sure it's okay to continue in my bad habits?"  And He would say "yep, because you said it yourself that you can't stop even though you want to, and that's okay because you can't stop without me."  

"But God, You're here now....(I would start to get shaky)".  I would start to get apprehensive and my heart would beat fast again, and the guilt and shame would lurk all around me, waiting to pounce, but God would say "shh, I'm here but we are just going to hug and cuddle for now."  

And that's what happened.  For about 6 months I continued in all my sins and bad habits, but at night I would cuddle with God.  I still do that from time to time, especially when I sin.  

Then I started noticing in a small and subtle way how much deeper my love for others got.  It was so small at first, but it was real.  I noticed I was less anxious and a little less afraid.  I would do things that I normally wouldn't do...like call people or spend time with certain people or think about other people in my free time.  But, I don't know how to really explain what is happening systematically...because there is no system.  There's just relationship.  There's room for mess ups and mistakes because love has no idea what anger is because it has no idea what entitlement is.  Love is all about the other.  Love is all about God.  

It was and continues to be my cuddle times with God, especially after I mess up, that changes my heart.  To know that that was the whole reason Christ was sent by my Father, to die in order to take my death away.  The death of sinful bad habits.  

In movies, the hero who saves the villains life by sacrificing his own is always enough to change the villains heart.  

Christ died for us, the villains, and unless and until we understand that ---we won't see the change in our hearts.  

What's the difference between me changing myself and God changing me? 

The goal is the difference. 

So that if your goal is to get God (which by the way you have the moment you open your heart) then everything else that happens to you is just evidence of how much you actually only want God.

When things go badly that is the true test of our hearts goals and treasures. 

Can you think of something difficult or stressful in your life right now?  That is probably your real treasure and your real "god."  

"I just want to be married!"

"I just want kids!"

"I just want to be healthy!"

"I just want to be debt free!"

"I just want to be beautiful!"

"I just want to have a friend!"

"I just want a job!"

"I just want some help with the kids!"

"I just want a better husband/wife...err for him/her to be better!"

"I just want a new _____!"

"I just want my kids to stop cussing!"

"I just want my business to pick up!"

"I just want so-and-so to stop pestering me!"

"I just want to be loved!"

When I start depending too much on my wants and desires without regard to God's role or involvement in them, I grow very unpleasant.  Because it's too heavy for me, and most of the things I want I cannot provide for myself.  I need God's help to get what I want, but when I ask Him for help He gives me what I need.  

The only reason I continue to want to go to God, despite initial frustrations at my wants being turned down a lot of the time, is that He always gives me something better and something more fun and profound than what I thought was fun and profound.  

His gifts are like expensive quality toys, while my initial wants turn out to be cheap plastic things that break after one use.  I know this because I've grabbed at many of my wants to know at least this much: what I want is nice, but what God gives me is awesome.  The difference is the time it takes to attain these things. What I want is instant, but what God wants to give me takes time.  

Indeed, patience is a virtue, 

and impatience is a vulture. 

What I want is God, but I know there are corroded parts of my heart that want other fake things that are not God. 

I don't always know what those other fake things are until I'm shown them by the Holy Spirit.  

But I'm less afraid to expose them, because God will cuddle with me no matter what.  

He already knows the depths of my dark and corroded heart.  It's really me who wants to remain ignorant because it feels more safe, UNLESS I know God will still love me upon seeing everything.  Regardless of whether I now know or don't know what I'm at fault for.  Will my Father love me when I have chocolate all over my face and He asks me "did you eat the cookies I told you not to eat?" And I say "yes, yes I did and they tasted good!"  

To which He would reply: "okay, let's cuddle and talk about it."  

I am sad and made more sad by my disobedience because I see how much I hurt the one I love who loves me, but I'm ready to share with Him everything in my heart openly because I trust in His unfailing love.   This is a relationship built on love not on expectations or even explanations.  His faithful love gently wipes my sin away, and teaches me how to live in the light of love, not in the darkness of secrecy and fear.  

And such love transforms me, such love transforms anyone!  Love never fails.  It has not failed me once.  Never does God not want to cuddle with me when in faith I believe that Jesus died to take my sins away so that I can approach the throne of grace with boldness in my time of need.

My eager expectation and hope is that I will not be ashamed about anything, but that now as always, with all boldness, Christ will be highly honored in my body, whether by life or by death. (Philippians 1:20)

I desire to honor God with my body, whether by life or my death, but the words are one thing.  First I need to go to God for His love, because I won't be able to honor God with my body in that way unless it is God working through me to do so!  

Jmegrey

Intimacy with God (when good gets bad, and bad gets good)

This is what the Lord says: 

The wise man must not boast in his wisdom; 

the strong man must not boast in his strength;

(Power, influence, physical beauty, and independence)

the wealthy man must not boast in his wealth. 

(Comfort, security, safety, fame, shopping sprees, traveling itineraries, possessions, and bank account)

But the one who boasts should boast in this, 

that he understands and knows Me — 

that 

I am Yahweh, 

showing faithful love, 

justice, 

and righteousness on the earth, 

for I delight in these things. 

This is the Lord’s declaration. 

(Jeremiah 9:23-24 HCSB)

When I think of wisdom and how many of us desire it I think of: Intelligence, academic achievement, knowledge of things, and even the wise choices we make in life such as ....um well, dang I don't really make many wise choices but I know a lot of people who do so let me think of one of their ways...okay, so for example I have a good friend who researches all the different prices for a particular item, like a car, and will spend weeks finding the best price because at the end she can choose the lowest price for the same good quality and save a lot of money (albeit not a lot of time).  This is wise indeed, but who gives us money?  God.  Who gives us time?  God.  Who gives us the ability to research and go about our daily and weekly tasks?  God.  So in the end wisdom is a good thing, but it is not OUR thing.  It's a gift, and boasting in a gift is as silly as the child who asks their parents for money to get them a gift and then feels proud that they got their parents a gift with their parent's money! 

All of this "wisdom" appears to be so good by our immediate perspective because they are good things, but they are not personally ours to give us the right to boast in them.  They are predestined things that are from God, gifts and helps given to us to enjoy being from Him.  When we start to boast in them, or think that these gifts are what we got ourselves, we lose the connection of intimacy with God that the gifts were meant to provide.

For instance, on my birthday I get gifts from all my good friends (because real friends give gifts!  Take your lead from God who is the exemplary friend of friends!).  When I get a gift from a really close friend it means so much to me.  The gift becomes a reminder of that friend to me.  I got a wallet from a friend about 5 years ago that I still hold on to because it reminds me of how loved I  am by this particular friend, and how much I love this friend.  The gift connects me back to her in small ways but in ways that actually bring more significance to an otherwise worthless gift.  By worthless I mean, if I bought it myself I would probably have thrown it away by now....most likely.  I'm not saying that every gift I get I like, some gifts from good friends I actually never use because I don't particular like the gift in and of itself, but the presence of it upon receiving it is meaningful and produces a connection between me and the friend.  That connection is what the gift's purpose is for.  Usually the better we KNOW our friend the more likely we can get them a gift they will like, and in that sense gifts are more helpful indicators for who we really know and who we don't.  

In the same way, God who knows us inside and out will give us gifts such as these all day long.  He knows us more than we know ourselves because He made us, and by knowing Him more we grow to know ourselves more, merely because He tells us--like an engineer explains a machinery to its users.  We posses our individual lives and identities, but we don't always know what they do or how they will best function because we did not make them.  

The same goes for the other things that we should not boast about: strength and wealth.  All of these are good things, but they are for the purpose of intimacy with God.  If having them become a means for boasting (usually revealed by our complaint, anger or sadness at losing or not having them) then they are the opposition of connection to God.  These good gifts become idols that we worship.  Comfort, security, fame, independence, houses, money, physical youthful beauty, sexyness, influential speaking ability, and so forth.  They become the very things that separate us from God, when we find ourselves so proud of ourselves for having them or so bent on getting them in order to feel proud or valued.  

Some have these good things while others do not, and the what God is saying in this passage is that all such things as wisdom, strength and wealth are gifts from God to enjoy not to possess.  In other words, the gifts can be taken away and that too would be a gift from God, because if what we are given is received as something from God and keeps our hearts growing deeper in love with Him, then they are useless themselves.  All that we want is to love God more.

But when pain happens or trials and bad circumstance appear in our lives we always first instinctively think something is wrong.  Something IS WRONG, but it's not because you don't have a gift, it's because you don't have intimacy with God.  Maybe your heart suddenly idolized the useless gift of comfort or beauty.  Maybe your heart started becoming too proud in this temporary life itself that sickness was the gift of helping you snap back to reality.  Or maybe pain is happening because you made a bad choice and God is helping you learn the mistake, but keeping you grounded in His eternal love for you.  Maybe you need to be reminded of eternity.  Maybe you need to be reminded of who God is and what He wants from you:  your intimacy with Him.

God is watching all of this and in His love for us will not stop pursuing our hearts to turn back to Him.  God is not commanding us to obey Him because He is God, all will obey Him BECAUSE HE IS GOD NO MATTER WHAT IN THE END, so why does He pursue and discipline us through trials and pain?  Because He loves us too much to see us choose death and useless idols.  Every good gift is an opportunity for us to be intimate with God.  Every trial and pain is an opportunity for us to be intimate with God.  EVERYTHING and every day is an opportunity for us to be intimate with Him. 

"But the one who boasts should boast in this, 

that he understands and knows Me — 

that I am Yahweh, 

showing faithful love, 

justice, 

and righteousness on the earth, 

for I delight in these things. 

This is the Lord’s declaration."

All God wants is for you and me to know and understand who God is.  I mean isn't that what we all want from our closest friends?  We want our friends to understand and know us, that's why we tell them things, and listen to their things.  It's why we fear rejection because we all so deeply want to be loved.  That desire is from the engineer of our very beings.  The great Creator made us to be creatures who would find our existence to mean being in love with Him and He with us.  All other uses for our existence are broken parts caused by sin, but thanks be to Jesus who took care of our sins.  

As we live our remaining lives in the world of sinfulness, God is healing us, fixing us, transforming us, all as a means, once again, to bring us into intimacy with Him.  If we were all just perfect in a miraculous "Zap!" then we would hardly say much to God at all, we wouldn't know Him very well.  But it is by our experiences that He draws us to Himself, and in this we are to boast.  That we know God.  

It is in the process of relationships that we begin to know, understand and grow intimately closer with someone.  It starts out with an initial coffee or lunch together.  Maybe some texts and phone calls.  Maybe emails.  A bundle of awkward times together, silent moments patiently swallowed, and the consistent pursuit after the other are all part of what makes knowing someone happen.  But the painful moments validate the joyful ones so explicitly.  Meaning, if you have a million awkward moments with someone as you get to know them, eventually you'll know what that person is like and it will close the space of unknown attributes about that person, resulting in logically less awkward moments.  But how will you transform awkward into intimate without first accepting the awkward?  

God desires for us to be intimate with Him.  He does not desire for us to be rich, poor, beautiful, ugly, comfortable or suffering.  All of those things He gives or doesn't give for the purpose of seeing us walk in our highest value: to be loved by Him.  

What is God doing for you now to call you to Himself?  

Does your heart have an ember or a flame in knowing and understanding God?  Do you love His gifts because they remind you of how much He loves you or do you blame Him for when they are taken away because you distrust His faithful love for you? 

God is always showing faithful love, justice and righteousness on the earth because He created the universe.  He runs it.  He lets this or that happen under His Sovereignty as a good and faithfully loving and just God.  Does that sound like it makes sense?  If not then perhaps God is wanting to show this to you somehow in your life through a gift that may not first look like a good gift.  But every good gift is from the Lord, and this means that all God does is good for us.  Search and seek to understand and know Him and you will find the truth of His words. 

"But the one who boasts should boast in this, 

that he understands and knows Me — 

that 

I am Yahweh, 

showing faithful love, 

justice, 

and righteousness on the earth"

You and I have it all.  

So why do we feel like we don't sometimes?  

I ask God that, and He reminds me daily about the process of intimacy.  A zap just wouldn't make me understand.  The joy of real sacred true love is produced from a long history of experiences that lead to understanding.  

Father, 

Help me see what Your doing in my life right now to bring me to intimacy with you.  Help me to seek you and find you.  Help me to know Your felt presence as well as your presence in faith.  Forgive me for constantly fixing my heart on the seemingly good gifts You give me as if they were achieved by me, and make me see the meaning of every gift as a call to Your Infinite love.  When the boring or dull moments hit, rest my soul and spirit with reflective and attentive eyes on You, teaching me to listen and hear You.  When the angst or anxiety in me begins to pressurize embrace me tightly so that the tears fall as the storm passes over and reveals the idols for their worthlessness.  Help me to love like You love me so faithfully.  Help me to walk in my gifts as evidence of Your love rather than evidence of my value.  When trials hit help me find You.  Father, don't take Your presence away from me, but speak and be with me and let my senses or spirit be aware of You every second.  I want to be near You and hearing You, but my love for Your gifts often dissuade me from Your love.  I want to be able to receive Your good gifts as they come, whether they are joyful gifts or painful gifts, may my heart always know they are vessels of intimacy with You.  

In Jesus name I pray,

Amen.

Jmegrey

Love or infatuation?

"Love is based on knowledge.

Infatuation is based on ignorance. 

When we are infatuated with someone, 

that infatuation is fed by fantasy 

and is based on little 

or no true knowledge of the other person."

Love is based on KNOWING.

Bam.  And then you realize how unloving you really are.  I realize I don't really love people more than get infatuated by some and annoyed by others.  Sometimes this truth hits me like a slap in the face or as if God is shaking my shoulders and saying "Snap out of it!"  Love is real, and reality is what fuels love.  Stop fantasizing that love is this or love is that.  Love is real and the only way to it is through real people and a real God. 

 

I would add that love is scary and many of us choose for people to be infatuated with us because the fear of being truly loved is downright frightful.  Being truly loved risks being deeply rejected.  It risks being too exposed. 

Love scares the sh*t out of me. 

Infatuation is a way to hide our bad parts and only show what we think people will accept and like about us.  This way when rejection happens we can blame it on the other person more than on ourselves.  We don't want to feel like we are unlovable or being rejected in any way.  

We don't want to feel anything but loved and acceptable.  

So the enemy makes infatuation look better than real genuine love by appealing to our desires for comfort and security.  This is why most people remain content to say they know God loves them and that they love God without thinking they need to change certain habits.  They might say they need or want to change but it doesn't show in that they are completely hopeless and helpless until God changes them.  They're actually quite fine with minor stings or mental bruises that come more from guilt than from sorrow and agony over how much it hurts God.  The same goes with how we treat other people.  We say we love someone but when we don't get the response we want we are shocked by the audacity of their reluctance to meet our expectations.  Or we're just annoyed at the flatness of their company when we come with our full throttle genuine self.  Love is not a feeling or an expectation, it is the life of God flowing from one person to another in ways that are often mysteriously deep for us.  It is oftentimes built up by faith that God is present; that this dull moment or that painful response is actually still worthy to be met by our love for the other person because we believe God is with and in us, regardless of how it feels.  The feelings can reveal things about us that are true while not defining the overall situation accordingly.  We need to know what is for what.  

 

Even and especially with God.  

"Even God cannot reach you in a world constructed out of your imagination, for God is completely real. The only place a creature can hide from God is someplace that is not real." 

We think God will only accept us as good little boys and girls who obey all of His commands.  The problem is that we don't open ourselves to truth about how deep our sinful natures actually are.  We settle for an imaginary version of our sel and God being infatuated with us.  God loves us, and He is about genuine love.  He is about spending time with us, knowing our deepest hidden secrets, and being there for us to rely on in our most difficult times of need.  But He is first and foremost loving.  That means He will give us the help we need when we need it, the commands we need for helping us, and the response He gives us will be From Him and not from our selves.  

"When we are infatuated, we expect the other person to speak according to the script we have devised in our mind, and when the other person does not follow our preconceptions, we are struck by the dissonance." 

Has that ever happened to you?  With someone else, with God?

"If you are infatuated with a person in this way and then have an opportunity for genuine knowledge, the experience will be disappointing." 

If we retain infatuation then being with someone genuine will only be disappointing because they won't meet our expectations. 

Knowing the difference between love and infatuation is important because one is real and one is fake.  If who you think and perceive someone to be is always just that then you're likely self-deluded. 

Real people love.

Fake people are only infatuated.

Real God loves.

Fake God is infatuated.

Remember the difference today and let love have His way with you.

Jmegrey

PS: I hate that after writing this I feel as though I am so behind and that everyone knows this stuff in their actions already.  I'm just beginning to learn these things while all those people who have been deeply hurt multiple times are shaking their heads thinking "yep, real love is painful to get to, but is far more and greatly surpassed by the joy of reaching genuine love....but only AFTER GREAT PAIN.  In fact, the greater the pain, the greater the depth and joy of the love you find at the end of it all -- pain is a necessary process to love."  Or something like that.  For someone like me who has only experienced an inner pain more than an outward (with others) kind of pain, but realizing that the two are intimately connected, this is so revolutionary and scary.  I have tried to protect myself from pain by others, yet now I feel called to walk right into it if it means pursuing them in love.  Gah.  

All quotes taken from Laura Smit's book "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not"

Dirty underwear

Dirty underwear is gross.  Especially after it has been worn and then unwashed for a very long time.  The stains.  The crust.  The stench.  The discoloration.  Disgusting.  

This is what the Lord said to me: 

“Go and buy yourself a linen undergarment and put it on, but do not put it in water.” 

So I bought underwear as the Lord instructed me and put it on. 

Then the word of the Lord came to me a second time: “Take the underwear that you bought and are wearing, and go at once to the Euphrates and hide it in a rocky crevice.” 

So I went and hid it by the Euphrates, as the Lord commanded me. 

A long time later the Lord said to me, “Go at once to the Euphrates and get the underwear that I commanded you to hide there.” 

So I went to the Euphrates and dug up the underwear and got it from the place where I had hidden it, but it was ruined — of no use at all. 

Then the word of the Lord came to me: “This is what the Lord says: Just like this I will ruin the great pride of both Judah and Jerusalem. 

These evil people, who refuse to listen to Me, who follow the stubbornness of their own hearts, and who have followed other gods to serve and worship — they will be like this underwear, of no use at all. 

Just as underwear clings to one’s waist, so I fastened the whole house of Israel and of Judah to Me” — this is the Lord’s declaration — “so that they might be My people for My fame, praise, and glory, but they would not obey. (Jeremiah 13:1-11)

We all probably wear some kind of underwear on a daily basis.  It's pretty essential to our lives because underwear protects and covers us.  It's the closest item of clothing to our most sensitive areas.  

It's crazy how in this passage God is connecting His people to be like His underwear, to be so close and intimate with Him!  Clinging to Him like underwear clings to us when we wear it! 

Yet He says that when the people reject such intimacy with God they become like underwear that's no longer in use.  Dirty underwear.  

Enough said.

Jmegrey

Love relationship

I watched part of a thriller movie about a psycho murderer who killed people to get what they had, their homes, phones, credit cards, and anything that was coveted.  Here's what I learned as I noticed I was getting more and more scared (a feeling I don't like to feel--I'm really curious as to why horror/scary movies do so well in the box offices?  Why would people want to feel afraid is so weird to me, but then again maybe they like to feel afraid only to also feel their situation is not THAT bad.  I don't know.)  Overall, I felt the craziness of a life a part from having a deep love relationship with God.  People will turn to whatever their hearts envy, perfect homes, perfect bodies, perfect lives, and will destroy themselves and others as they do--their awareness of what's happening gets dimmer and dimmer as their selfish ambitions are continually fueled by their actions and thoughts.

What we do in secret affects everyone around us, no matter how we may try to justify our darkest and most hidden thoughts and sins, they affect and destroy our lives as well as the lives of others -- every time.  

We need to live openly and honestly with God and with one another not just for the sake of purity and goodness, but because our very lives depend on it!  That doesn't mean we won't sin or that no one will get hurt, but that as we sin and stumble we have Christ who is our High Priest in heaven forever, making us clean as we look to Him to do so in the process.  

1 John 2:1

"My little children, I am writing you these things so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father--Jesus Christ the Righteous One"

Hebrews 4:15a

"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses"

God is about our hearts, 

He wants for us to see the truth and beauty of being in a love relationship with Him because that is the highest and most superior life to be had!  To be with our truest love.  Otherwise if our hearts remains attached to the secret sins we try to hide or our treasures to the selfish ambitions we run to attain, that is where all of us will be--attached to things that will eventually decay and fade away into nothing.  But to have our hearts attached to God is to have life and forever be enamored by the truest beauty and embraced by the most superior and faithful love, is there any greater treasure than that?  

Matthew 6:21

"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

As we become the kind of people who love one another by carrying one another's burdens, forgiving each other, confessing our sins to one another, committing to one another to stay when things are rough, humbly looking at Jesus to remember that our mess ups have been taken care of, then it is our hearts that will be refined by Him to be more open toward Him.

Ephesians 4:32

"And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ."

He causes growth as we plant or water accordingly.  Sometimes we are planting in others' hearts, and sometimes someone is planting in ours, but the growth we all need and want is from God alone, the Father of love who is in charge of every good and perfect gift.  

1 Corinthians 3:6

"I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth"

So what do I mean to be the point of all these things and scriptures?  After all, being in a love relationship with God doesn't just happen because I say I want it.  Right.  That's why we have each other to know and practice experientially.  We are each others' gifts from God to know what it means to be in a love relationship with God when we begin to be in love relationships with one another.  

How do you know you love someone or if someone loves you?  Things like spending quality time, having deep and honest conversations, and experiencing reliance on others during difficult times, being understood and heard, feeling valued, feeling sympathy and being open to being helped, being forgiven for a deep wound you caused to another, and/or joyfully enjoying the company of another are all ways in which I have come to know genuine love from another.  The deeper my love for others becomes the deeper my experience of God's love for me also grows in my heart. 

It takes courage to love someone, because love is the superior way.  It is the highest command, and as such it is one in which we will likely feel our most deepest fears.  

So if you're scared, like me, to love and be vulnerable, then that's okay.  We have prayer, the sacred language to God, as a way to receive His help and strength to do His will.  

Pray this prayer with me now:

"Father, 

I come before you just as I am, scared and lazy, confused and with a twisted heart.  My heart's treasure goes after everything that makes me feel temporarily comfortable, valued and validated as a person.  Father, I want my value to be from You alone.  I want my heart's treasure to be You.  Please give me simple ways and nudges for how I can experience walking more truthfully in knowing Your love.  Help me to use my fear as a sign, rather than a wall, to intentionally look at You.  I want to know more deeply of what Your love looks, feels, smells, sounds, and tastes like.  I want Your superior love to be the treasure I possess, so please help me believe and remember that loving others is the way to gain more personal experience of Your love.  I am so scared of rejection, getting hurt, and being wrong in such attempts, so I need You very close in every moment.  I want You to be there to catch me when I mentally faint, when I physically crumble to the ground, and also when I reach a spiritual glimpse of Your glory at the sight of love in action together.  In all that I do, I want to know You're with me, You love me, and I am forever Yours. 

In Jesus name I pray, amen."

Jmegrey