Sunday, February 27, 2011

No man will satisfy the hunger that daily springs up within my soul. No man will daily provide for me the food that will keep this body going. No man will daily woo this heart with kindness, gentleness and loving guidance. No man will spiritually focus me, refine me. No man on a minutely basis will guide and direct my thoughts heaven ward. No man died for me and cleanses me of my inward filth. No man will know the deepest troubles I have and will experience. No man will listen as I rejoice with my utter being. No man will understand my complaints. But the Son of Man will. The Son of God will provide for my every need because He is becoming my Every Want. I praise You, Father, that at the end of the day, I am not alone. I am Home.

Amen

Friday, February 25, 2011

I cling to my Jesus, because as the world interacts with me, I begin to see the sharp contrasts of what it is to be outside of His presence. I am touching sorrow, heartache, pain, rage, anger, more so in the people I daily interact. I cannot see cool Living Streams spring out from their deeps. I see the thirst within them and watch as they reach for broken cistern. Oh My Father, what can I possibly do?! Words don't reach them, so I pray that my life in living for my Jesus will.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

“All true obedience comes from the heart. It was heart work with Christ. And if we consent, He will so identify Himself with our thoughts and aims, so blend our hearts and minds into conformity to His will, that when obeying Him we shall be but carrying out our own impulses. The will, refined and sanctified, will find its highest delight in doing His service. When we know God as it is our privilege to know Him, our life will be a life of continual obedience. Through an appreciation of the character of Christ, through communion with God, sin will become hateful to us.” (DA 668)
So, I have been on John 10 for over a month now. Only the Father knows why.

Therefore, My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. John 10:17

Jesus wasn't just laying down his life, He laid it down because that was the point of His sacrifice but it is an automatic assumption that He would take up His life again. People don't realize that He had to take it up again. Him dying for us and staying dead would have defeated the purpose of His sacrifice in the first place. So, what did Christ really have to loose if He gave up His life?

He sacrificed His life but in vs. 17 and 18 He talks about it being His choice to lay down His life and in the same motion take it up again. If He knew He'd be rising from the grave, what then was the sacrifice? Being separated entirely from the Father? Was that the sacrifice?

So what did it mean for Christ to be separated from the Father for that time period? It would have been the one and only time in the entire history of the Trinity that one of them would be silent. They who are infinite, and Their existence has no beginning or end, would for a short period of time be separated. Fellowshipping between the Three was disrupted.

And the idea that God would taste death. The idea, death is so very based in mortal ideology. Death has become the norm for humanity, so to wrap our heads around the idea that our God "died" willingly is mind boggling. Jesus did not die of old age or was killed as the cross depicts, but while hanging on it, He literally committed His Spirit to the Father. Handing there, He allowed the take over of sin to consum Him, hence the separation from the Father, hence the utter and complete absence of God.

Separation from God was the sacrifice. He felt He would be separated forever from the Father He loved. Felt is an incredibly strong emotion. Yet, Jesus knew (opposed to felt) that He would be connected to the Father again, even though He didn't feel it. He knew because during His time on earth, He and the Father spent every free time together through prayer.

There will come a time when "feeling" Christ's presence will be gone, and because I have built up my relationship with Him, I will know He is still with me. A time in earth's history will arrive when the Spirit will stop striving with man, but Christ will still be present to those who have established Him in their hearts. So from John 10:17 I must lay down my own life for Christ so that I may truly know the love of the Father. Amen

Monday, February 21, 2011

John 10:15

The Father and Son are of one accord.

"As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the Sheep". One has to read the rest of John 10 to get a background understanding of what Jesus is saying to the Pharisees. In this chapter Christ is speaking about the Good Shepherd and Himself as that very Shepherd. But I digress. On to the topic at hand.

Jesus speaks about "knowing" the Father, and this type of knowing seems to have the same meaning or connotation as when Adam "knew" Eve. Not in the sexual sense but in the aspect of being "one". So Jesus knowing the Father and vice versa, means They were one, thus Jesus "laying down [His] life for the sheep"  is an action, one action agreed upon by two individuals. It reminds me later on when Jesus said, "...Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are" (John 17:11). Oneness means completeness which means the ability to succeed, to finish. Being one with the Father, Jesus was only able to lay down His life. By being one with Jesus, who is in the Father, can I lay down my own life, die to self, and live in Christ!

This oneness was the only way Christ could lay down His life; He lay down His life because of His love for the Father, and the Father allowed Him to lay down His life because of His love for the Son. Their love was/is perfect. It was harmonious. It flowed smoothly between Them both. The love between Them resulted in the creation of man. Man and his creation was a part of that love, part of that harmony, hence the utmost reason why Jesus created us and even after sin pursued us and redeemed us. He was anchored to the Father's love. Oneness is one of the foundations of love. Achieving oneness means otherness must come into affect!

Friday, February 18, 2011

My thoughts from this morning as I ponder Christ's presence in my life...

Each and every task Christ attended to before His ministry, whether it was "insignificant" or of the utmost importance, was completed with perfection. Each task faithfully attended to was one step in preparation towards the moments He would daily face in His ministry and inevitably, the Cross. He knew the terrible utter hold that sin had upon the soul of man and knew in equal context the reinforcements needed to sustain Him in His time of need. Each and every task was surrendered to the Father. Christ was always emptied of self for it was the only way each and every task could be accomplished. All surrender of self was done out of unfanthomable love for His creation. The daily surrender, nay, the minutely surrender of self into the Father's hands was an effect of the love that the Father and Son shared for each and every soul that was, is, and will be.