VACATION

My husband and I are on vacation and won't be on-line until the 8th of October. I am very excited to have this time with him.

A LOVER

What are the characteristics of a lover?

They are consumed with the thought of their beloved. They want to spend all their time with them. To do for and give to them. They want emotional intimacy with them. There is a desire to be loved back. They want the very best for the person.

Merriam Webster’s on-line dictionary (m-w.com) gives this definition of lover:

Function: noun
1 a : a person in love; especially : a man in love with a woman b plural : two persons in love with each other
2 : an affectionate or benevolent friend
3 : DEVOTEE

Number 3 really got my attention so I had to look up “devotee” and “devote”.

Main Entry: dev·o·tee
Function: noun
: an ardent follower, supporter, or enthusiast

Main Entry: de·vote
Function: transitive verb
1 : to commit by a solemn act
2 : to give over or direct (as time, money, or effort) to a cause, enterprise, or activity

synonyms DEVOTE, DEDICATE, CONSECRATE, HALLOW mean to set apart for a special and often higher end. DEVOTE is likely to imply compelling motives and often attachment to an objective . DEDICATE implies solemn and exclusive devotion to a sacred or serious use or purpose . CONSECRATE stresses investment with a solemn or sacred quality . HALLOW, often differing little from dedicate or consecrate, may distinctively imply an attribution of intrinsic sanctity .

Father loves us so passionately that His only begotten Son, Jesus, died and rose from the dead for us. This was both Father’s and Jesus solemn act. He has given over all for us. He watches over us: Deuteronomy 32 9 But the LORD's portion is His people,
Jacob, His own inheritance.
10 He found him in a desolate land,
in a barren, howling wilderness;
He surrounded him, cared for him,
and guarded him as the pupil of His eye. (A)
11 He watches over His nest like an eagle
and hovers over His young;
He spreads His wings, catches him,
and lifts him up on His pinions

His compelling motive is our redemption--a much higher end, a huge good.


Because God first loved us we can love Him back. Because He is passionate about us we can be passionate about Him. He is our lover. Everything above applies to how He loves us. When we grasp how thorough and intense and passionate His love for us is our love for Him will grow. As that grows so will our desire to obey Him, to be with Him, to be transformed into His image.

AWE

When I was 7 I made my first communion. Disappointment flooded me because I had expected a personal encounter with Jesus. As I knelt and prayed, like I'd been religiously taught, I didn't find Him.

Later that day friends were driving my parents and me along with their daughter through the Palos Verde Peninsula in Southern California. I was looking out the window thinking, "Is that all there is?" when my mother asked me if I was happy. I knew better than to tell the truth so I lied and said, "Yes" with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. For years I did all the right religious things according to the church that man instituted and NOTHING happened except I grew more rebellious and cold hearted. At some juncture I remember wondering what it would take to change my cold hard heart because I wasn't able to.

After having 5 children in less than 4 years I ended up divorced. 3 years into that divorce I found out that the Bible says I'm saved by grace through faith, not works. Right then I received Jesus as my Savior and many things changed but there was still some hardness of heart that I didn't want and I still didn't have a PERSONAL relationship with Him, even though I said I did. Experiencing God was frowned upon. I still don't know why.

Three years after being saved I met my husband. He married me and took on 5 teenagers too. (That's a whole other story). Ten years later God moved us to a little farming town in S.E. Georgia. It was a very different environment from Southern California. He put us in a church with precious people and dried us out really good. He wanted us to be ready to take a good drink of His Spirit. We did but still I could not feel God's love. A MorningStar prophet told me that and as I cried like a baby she wrapped her warms around me because Father told her to hug me for Him. That started a little crack which would later become a full blown fisure.

During the next few years God did things gently with me. Once during a worship time at a church we were involved with I felt laughter bubbling up and since I was the only one who seemed to be experiencing this I tried not to give in believing it was my flesh. However, God finally pursued me until I fell on the floor laughing so hard I was almost crying. Two days later I realized that what I had been sensing within the core of me as a concrete urn with concreted hands holding it in place had totally vanished!

Process was still happening! Then about a year ago I realized that the Bible says I love God because He first loved me and that in order for me to be truly transformed and to really love Him I had to have a revelation of that love--a life changing revelation. I prayed for it and told a group of people it is what I wanted. Finally, all these years after expecting a personal encounter with Jesus (40+) I have a personal, deep relationship with my Lord and it's only the beginning. God used many wonderful people and things including Don Milam's book, The Ancient Language of Eden which touched me deeply, to help me in my process. I'm so grateful for all of them.

Then He directed me to Graham Cooke's ministry and his Cd's have opened up God's love for me in that life changing way I had prayed for. Today I've begun doing a Graham Cooke Journal called Living in Dependency and Wonder and in the introduction he talks about being taken back in a dream to a time of sin when suddenly Jesus stepped into the picture. His shame was incredible but Jesus told him, "Grae," He said gently, "it wasn't your disobedience or your rebellion that grieved Me. Son, I dealt with those issues on the cross. What grieved Me is that you never saw what I wanted to be for you. You never understood what I wanted to give you".


I wept because I didn't understand that either, BUT GOD is opening all that up to me in wonderfully loving new ways. He is wonderful beyond description, He is too marvelous for words and I do stand in AWE of Him and His wonderful process continues. . .

IN CASE OF CONFUSION

Just in case there is any confusion about my last post I believe that as we become conformed to the image of Christ then we do out of that. We are to be obedient but that obedience needs to bring forth the works that will stand up to fire. If we do it out of our flesh, not out of our love and BEing in Christ then we produce hay, straw and stubble. We are not different than the Pharisees.

Christ said to make disciples. We have a choice to walk in love or flesh and from there share the gospel but we will either bring people into an atmosphere where God's love and ways are wonderful or into a religious institution where condemnation is heard more often than forgiveness and growth are experienced or just feel good that we led them to Christ and leave them. Disciples are made through time and caring...

Where's the Love

Yesterday I went with my daughter, son-in-law and their 3 sons to a "seeker sensitive" church. My son-in-law needs Jesus. He needs to know how much Father truly loves him. What we found was do do do. The entire service was so oriented on doing that I wanted to weep.

It began with some old praise and worship songs. Then went into a one person skit. She was talking to God about His wanting obedience and how, in essence, she couldn't live up to His expectations. It went on to her father and how she had wanted to please him and whenever he wanted something he'd order her to get it and never say, "thank you". It seemed to me what it was about was wanting relationship and not finding it with her natural dad so she couldn't find it with Father. She ended by saying, "I'd just like you to tell me Thanks for the coffee". I knew exactly how she felt. BUT GOD has brought me past that; however, the skit didn't.

That made me want to weep, then scream. God's love goes so far beyond that and when we get a revelation of that we start to BE. From that we can then do. I now know he was talking to me and wrapping His arms around me but fear kept it away. The church we visited is so caught up in doing that they never thought to bring God into this skit as He wants to be. They don't seem to know Him that way. And neither did most of the churches I've ever attended.

Religion said, "You HAVE to be here when the doors are open or you are not spiritual", etc. Guilt/condemnation...the pastor's message was full of guilt and condemnation...I want NO MORE of it. I want JESUS! I want Father! I want the Holy Spirit.

A few years ago I was talking to God about not being able to feel His love. It came from the same thing as the skit...I'd never be good enough. And I told God that I knew I didn't love Him like I should. That His Word says I love Him because He first loved me and that I really needed a life changing revelation of that love. It's come! and will continue to come! I am being and from that the desire to love Him and others His way is seeping forth. It will eventually gush forth. I now desire to obey Him because He truly loves me and wants the best for me. I know it deep down. Transformation is happening.

God wants us restored to who He meant us to be. He wants us conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:28-30). But it is His work that does all that. It is our yielding to Him that brings the changes. We can not be or do on our own. We can't save ourselves, He provided that. We can't love on our own, we respond to His love so again He provided the way. He has to give us what He wants because on our own we can't do it. I couldn't be holy on my own. He knows I tried and failed miserably. And so it is with all He wants for us. He provides it.

His love for me is amazing. It's always been there, it's just been polluted with religion and the expectations of others and performance Christianity. If I do all the right things without love then I'm sounding brass. But if I obey God out of a heart of love there is joy!

My son-in-law won't talk to me about Jesus, yet. He needs to know that love that I have and have been doing my best to give, without preaching to my family. Father, Help me and your people GET it and give it to others.