"L. is for the way you look at me. O. is for the only one i see. V. is very very extraordinary. E. is even more than anyone that you adore..."
I've been thinking a lot about love lately, God's love in particular. I feel like sometimes Christians go this deep with God's love and don't realize how INTIMATE God wants our love to be with Him. His love is so amazing, so breathtaking, so indescribable, and we can just blow it off sometimes like it's nothing.
Unfailing.
amazing.
awesome.
crazy.
NO GREATER.
agape.
We need a wake up call to God's kind of love. ok people, He DIED for us. MORE than that, He sent his SON to DIE for us. let's put that into words that someone without or with children can understand...
Think of a sibling, or maybe a best friend, or a parent, or someone who is VERY VERY DEAR to you. now think of you telling that person, "Could you go die? I mean, i have all these people who I want to be with me someday, some people who haven't even lived yet. But the only way they can be with me, and we can party someday, is if you die for them." and then, SEEING them suffer in the most horrible way known to man, but getting a crown of thorns pressed into their head, having their clothes ripped from them and getting tied to a pole to be whipped with the worst thing imaginable and getting their clothes put back on just to be ripped off again, and then carrying this HUGE cross made of wood with a million splinters in it, and at the top of this huge hill they had to climb with this multi-hundred pound cross with a million splinters, laying down on top of it and having someone drive POINTY NAILS THROUGH YOUR HANDS and FEET, and then being put up for all to see.
NAKED
BLOODIED
WEAK
SCORNED AT
DYING
When I put it this way, it sounds a lot worse, huh?! well that's what Jesus went through. When I listen to the song, "You Saw Me" by Hillsong (it's at the bottom of this post), I can't help but thinking that when He was on that cross, there was a slideshow playing in his head of pictures of every single one of us. And when it gets to me, He sees why he died. He sees all my sin that I will have, all the times I will make Him look bad, and He knows that is why he is on that cross, naked, bloodied, weak, scorned at, dying.
THAT is the kind of love that God has for us, and what kind of love I'm supposed to have for him. it's not an gushy, lovey-dovey kind of love you see in movies and feel towards your significant other, it's a bloody, painful, INTIMATE love you can only have with Him.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Monday, October 13, 2008
True Fasting
Isaiah 58:1-12
Your Prayers Won't Get Off the Ground
"Shout! A full-throated shout! Hold nothing back—a trumpet-blast shout!
Tell my people what's wrong with their lives,
face my family Jacob with their sins!
They're busy, busy, busy at worship,
and love studying all about me.
To all appearances they're a nation of right-living people—
law-abiding, God-honoring.
They ask me, 'What's the right thing to do?'
and love having me on their side.
But they also complain,
'Why do we fast and you don't look our way?
Why do we humble ourselves and you don't even notice?'
"Well, here's why:
"The bottom line on your 'fast days' is profit.
You drive your employees much too hard.
You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight.
You fast, but you swing a mean fist.
The kind of fasting you do
won't get your prayers off the ground.
Do you think this is the kind of fast day I'm after:
a day to show off humility?
To put on a pious long face
and parade around solemnly in black?
Do you call that fasting,
a fast day that I, God, would like?
"This is the kind of fast day I'm after:
to break the chains of injustice,
get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
free the oppressed,
cancel debts.
What I'm interested in seeing you do is:
sharing your food with the hungry,
inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
being available to your own families.
Do this and the lights will turn on,
and your lives will turn around at once.
Your righteousness will pave your way.
The God of glory will secure your passage.
Then when you pray, God will answer.
You'll call out for help and I'll say, 'Here I am.'
A Full Life in the Emptiest of Places
"If you get rid of unfair practices,
quit blaming victims,
quit gossiping about other people's sins,
If you are generous with the hungry
and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out,
Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness,
your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.
I will always show you where to go.
I'll give you a full life in the emptiest of places—
firm muscles, strong bones.
You'll be like a well-watered garden,
a gurgling spring that never runs dry.
You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew,
rebuild the foundations from out of your past.
You'll be known as those who can fix anything,
restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate,
make the community livable again." (THE MESSAGE)
Your Prayers Won't Get Off the Ground
"Shout! A full-throated shout! Hold nothing back—a trumpet-blast shout!
Tell my people what's wrong with their lives,
face my family Jacob with their sins!
They're busy, busy, busy at worship,
and love studying all about me.
To all appearances they're a nation of right-living people—
law-abiding, God-honoring.
They ask me, 'What's the right thing to do?'
and love having me on their side.
But they also complain,
'Why do we fast and you don't look our way?
Why do we humble ourselves and you don't even notice?'
"Well, here's why:
"The bottom line on your 'fast days' is profit.
You drive your employees much too hard.
You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight.
You fast, but you swing a mean fist.
The kind of fasting you do
won't get your prayers off the ground.
Do you think this is the kind of fast day I'm after:
a day to show off humility?
To put on a pious long face
and parade around solemnly in black?
Do you call that fasting,
a fast day that I, God, would like?
"This is the kind of fast day I'm after:
to break the chains of injustice,
get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
free the oppressed,
cancel debts.
What I'm interested in seeing you do is:
sharing your food with the hungry,
inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
being available to your own families.
Do this and the lights will turn on,
and your lives will turn around at once.
Your righteousness will pave your way.
The God of glory will secure your passage.
Then when you pray, God will answer.
You'll call out for help and I'll say, 'Here I am.'
A Full Life in the Emptiest of Places
"If you get rid of unfair practices,
quit blaming victims,
quit gossiping about other people's sins,
If you are generous with the hungry
and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out,
Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness,
your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.
I will always show you where to go.
I'll give you a full life in the emptiest of places—
firm muscles, strong bones.
You'll be like a well-watered garden,
a gurgling spring that never runs dry.
You'll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew,
rebuild the foundations from out of your past.
You'll be known as those who can fix anything,
restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate,
make the community livable again." (THE MESSAGE)
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