Thanksgiving
I just want to remember this moment, where I think I've come to understand with more depth, (through my experiences in the last month,) how God is indeed everything to me, without substitute. Once again He's changed the way I understand His word.
QT today was on 2nd Corinthians 1:1-11. What do you think of when you hear the word "comfort"? My first thought is of having a sympathetic friend caring for me when I’m grieving or troubled. While that may be a legitimate way to use the word, it falls far short of what it really means. At root "comfort" means "with strength". To receive comfort is to be given strength to endure, to carry on with fortitude.
Paul is not talking here about an arm around a shoulder and the offer of a box of tissues! He is talking about his own severe sufferings to the point of death (v 8). He had experienced the strength of God bringing him back from the brink (v 9) so he knows what he is talking about! If we allow God to meet us with comfort in our suffering, the very things that cause so much pain turn out to be the source of strength. Not only does this enable us to offer real "comfort" to others, but Paul even suggests that we are somehow sharing in the sufferings of Christ (v 5). I feel awed by this perspective. I hope I can remember it when I most need to. Knowing this also reaffirms the purpose to which I'd been called, and the purpose for my pain--that the God of all comfort, comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God (v 3-4). It is an encouragement to me, to know after such an extended period of discouragement, that because of my choice to share in the sufferings of others I have been blessed with a greater intimacy with my Father's heart. It is an affirmation, a much needed one in the midst of a sense of disapproval surrounding my work, that the world which thinks me foolish for sharing in the sufferings of others and constantly seeks for "a better way" to "solve" their burdens has missed out on the blessing of knowing Him, and that I have hung on despite the seemingly insurmountable challenges and countless heartaches. Now joy is my reward, and I cannot praise my Saviour enough.
The other bit of changed understanding is the image of having been washed in His blood. (As stated in revelations 1:5.) Yesterday as I was praying and allowing God to pour Himself out for me, an image (which would have been alarming had I not had His peace) came to mind. It was that of blood, His blood, dark and red, pouring itself INTO my heart (as opposed to an external washing or band-aid healing). Filling in all the fissures and cracks, and covering all the shattered pieces of my spirit till all my pain was saturated in His blood. Two things happened. Firstly, that pain that always cut deeply, seemed to dissolve into nothingness, like a salt rock being dissolved in water. Second, God brought to mind the verse that "the life is in the blood", and with that one could actually feel the cut-up flesh of a spirit beyond repair starting to have the ability to grow new tissue, broken arteries growing till they were good as new so that they no longer bled one dry. It was as though anything that touched that blood took on a capacity for life. And now the new man that lives--it is as though His own blood were the very substance coursing through the veins of my spirit. And I was amazed, at how the metaphors in His word tied in together so much more deeply than I ever realised. God promised that His blood washes away our sin, and makes us new. I.e. with that washing comes eternal life, restoration to wholeness, a call to holiness, and real-time fellowship with God 24/7. This blood not only gave me life and washed away my sins. It was a spirit of sonship which has been poured out upon me. Like a human father-son relationship, where the father's blood runs in the son's veins because one is descended from the other. I have never felt more truly His.
And I think for the first time, I have come to know that the spiritual resources He has placed at my disposal (gifts, authority, etc) are truly mine. I'm not borrowing them from Him, they're mine, part of me, which grow into and exercise. (think "I am", which implies the ownership of qualities you can never divorce yourself from, versus "I have", which implies the ownership of things you can lose from time to time.) And now that I have been shown this, and know it more deeply than ever, I have no excuse to believe I am anything other than He says I am. Dearly loved, made worthy by His blood in every sense, made His righteousness, standing without condemnation, comforted, and called to live with purpose.
I sat there letting Him pour Himself into every corner of my heart. Allowing Him to search every nook and fissure confessing sin that I had not known I'd hidden until I was clean.
Oh, let everything that has breath praise the Lord!
Everything to Me
I grew up in sunday school
I memorized the Golden rule
And how Jesus came to set the sinner free
I know the story inside outI can tell you all about
The path that led Him up to Calvary
But ask me why Heloves me
And I don't know what to say
Buti'll never be the same
Because he changed my life when
He became...
Everything to me
He's morethan a story
more than words on a page of history
He's the air that I breath
The water I thirst for
And the ground beneath my feet
He's everything,
everything to me
We're living in uncertain times
And more and more I find that i'm aware
Ofjust how fragile life can be
I want to tell the world I
found A love that turned my life around
They need to know that they can taste and see
Now everyday I'm praying
Just to give my heart away
I want live forJesus
So that someone else might see that he is...
Everything to me
He's more than a story
more than words on a page of history
He's the air that I breathe
The water I thirst for
And the ground beneath my feet
He's everything
And looking back over my life at the end
I'll go to meet You saying You've been...
You're everything to me
You'remore than a story
More than words on a page of history
You'rethe air that I breath
The water I thirst for
And theground beneath my feet
You're everything to me
Lord, you're everything to me
| e.s.t.h.e.r in the arms of Jesus @
7/31/2006 12:49:00 pm |
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