I just read a wonderful quote from Bertie Brits:
"Any verse in the Bible - even in the NT written by Paul - that does not reveal GRACE (effortless life) is simply misunderstood. Any scripture that is seen as something that we need to do to contribute to HIS work is MISUNDERSTOOD. Don't be blinded by a scripture that seems to contradict the simple Gospel of HIS LIFE IN YOU AND THROUGH YOU FREELY."
"If it's not effortless it is flesh."
Wow! Grace means effortless life, because God by His Spirit is flowing through us! Anything of our effort or our work, anything that seems hard or something we must struggle to 'do' is just flesh. We don't contribute to His Life! His Life is more than sufficient, infinitely sufficient, all on its own! That is the Life that we now have in us, the Life that naturally rises up and flows through us. That is the Life that is freely given to us and freely pours out of us without our effort. In fact, we are in union with that Life! That is the Life that is OUR very life!
Living by grace is effortless!
Law Thinking vs. Grace Thinking
When I'm caught up thinking I need to do something to earn God's favor, get some blessings, or get into that 'sweet spot' where my Christian life will 'really' go great, I only get run down and frustrated. That kind of thinking leads to spiritual burnout, and I've definitely been there! But when I'm caught up in His love and the complete nature of Jesus' work on the cross, seeing that I'm already set for eternity and nothing can change that, I relax. I am drawn to just enjoy my dear Savior. I am able to accept myself and others. This kind of thinking leads to pure joy!
So I was comparing these two lines of thinking lately, and these are some thoughts that came to me:
Law thinking tells me I'm bad, bad, bad.
Grace thinking tells me I'm good with the goodness of Christ!
Law thinking causes me to be self-focused.
Grace thinking causes me to be Son-focused.
Law thinking makes me realize I can never measure up, and I feel depressed.
Grace thinking makes me see He measured up for me, and I feel elated!
Law thinking always demands.
Grace thinking always frees.
Law thinking adds burdens.
Grace thinking removes burdens!
Law thinking causes me to judge myself and others, too.
Grace thinking causes me to accept myself and others, too.
Law thinking means I'm always noticing the bad in me and others.
Grace thinking means I'm able to see the good in me and others.
Law thinking causes me to despair of ever living the Christian life.
Grace thinking causes me to rejoice because He's already living the Christian life IN me!
Law thinking makes me feel I'm never good enough.
Grace thinking lets me know He's good enough, and so am I IN Him!
Law thinking causes me to feel distant from God.
Grace thinking causes me to feel intimate with God!
Law thinking makes me pull away from God in fear.
Grace thinking makes me cuddle up in Daddy's lap because I'm secure!
Law thinking makes the Christian life seem so hard.
Grace thinking makes the Christian life so flowing and easy!
Law thinking is the mind set on self-effort, and it's death.
Grace thinking is the mind set on the Spirit, and it's life and peace.
Law thinking makes me feel I'll never please God.
Grace thinking shows me I'm already pleasing to God through Christ!
Law thinking makes me feel unworthy.
Grace thinking makes me feel worth something, worth Jesus' dying for me!
Law thinking screams guilty, condemned, punished!
Grace thinking whispers forgiven, accepted, blessed!
Law thinking is used by Satan to accuse me.
Grace thinking is used by the Spirit to affirm me!
Law thinking makes me feel God is an impossible judge.
Grace thinking show me God is a loving Father!
Law thinking makes me think that God is all about performance.
Grace thinking lets me know that God is all about unconditional love!
Law thinking makes me feel everything must be earned.
Grace thinking reminds me everything is a gift.
Law thinking says work, work, work.
Grace thinking says rest, rest, rest.
Law thinking makes me feel I need to DO more.
Grace thinking shows me Jesus has already DONE it all!
Law thinking causes me to withdraw from interacting with God.
Grace thinking causes me to be drawn to worship, talk to Him, and enjoy His presence!
Law thinking causes me to feel down on myself.
Grace thinking causes me to be UP on Christ!
Law thinking makes me try to earn God's blessings because I feel they contingent on my performance.
Grace thinking lets me enjoy God's blessings because they're already mine through Christ's performance!
Law thinking makes me feel it's all up to me to live this Christian life.
Grace thinking lets me know it's all up to Christ to live this Christian life!
Law thinking makes me feel salvation and the Christian life are all my responsibility.
Grace thinking lets me know salvation and the Christian life are all His responsibility.
Law thinking makes me think I'm alone living this life.
Grace thinking shows me it's Christ who lives through me!
Law thinking makes me feel separate and disconnected from God.
Grace thinking makes me feel close to God, and I enjoy the union and constant connection I always have with God.
Law thinking makes me fear that God might reject me and I might lose this relationship, since I'm basing it all on how I perform.
Grace makes me relax, knowing God will never reject me and I'll never lose this relationship, because it's based all on how Christ performed!
Law thinking makes me feel that if I've sinned too much, I'm out.
Grace thinking tells me no matter how much I sin, I'll NEVER be out!
Law thinking makes me sin-focused, and I feel my sins are all over me.
Grace thinking makes me Jesus-focused, and I know my sins were put on Him and taken away!
Law thinking makes me feel dirty and ugly before Him.
Grace thinking makes me feel clean and beautiful before Him!
Law thinking makes me feel imperfect and lacking.
Grace thinking reminds me that He's made me perfect and complete!
Law thinking is a dead end.
Grace thinking is the way of endless life!
So I was comparing these two lines of thinking lately, and these are some thoughts that came to me:
Law thinking tells me I'm bad, bad, bad.
Grace thinking tells me I'm good with the goodness of Christ!
Law thinking causes me to be self-focused.
Grace thinking causes me to be Son-focused.
Law thinking makes me realize I can never measure up, and I feel depressed.
Grace thinking makes me see He measured up for me, and I feel elated!
Law thinking always demands.
Grace thinking always frees.
Law thinking adds burdens.
Grace thinking removes burdens!
Law thinking causes me to judge myself and others, too.
Grace thinking causes me to accept myself and others, too.
Law thinking means I'm always noticing the bad in me and others.
Grace thinking means I'm able to see the good in me and others.
Law thinking causes me to despair of ever living the Christian life.
Grace thinking causes me to rejoice because He's already living the Christian life IN me!
Law thinking makes me feel I'm never good enough.
Grace thinking lets me know He's good enough, and so am I IN Him!
Law thinking causes me to feel distant from God.
Grace thinking causes me to feel intimate with God!
Law thinking makes me pull away from God in fear.
Grace thinking makes me cuddle up in Daddy's lap because I'm secure!
Law thinking makes the Christian life seem so hard.
Grace thinking makes the Christian life so flowing and easy!
Law thinking is the mind set on self-effort, and it's death.
Grace thinking is the mind set on the Spirit, and it's life and peace.
Law thinking makes me feel I'll never please God.
Grace thinking shows me I'm already pleasing to God through Christ!
Law thinking makes me feel unworthy.
Grace thinking makes me feel worth something, worth Jesus' dying for me!
Law thinking screams guilty, condemned, punished!
Grace thinking whispers forgiven, accepted, blessed!
Law thinking is used by Satan to accuse me.
Grace thinking is used by the Spirit to affirm me!
Law thinking makes me feel God is an impossible judge.
Grace thinking show me God is a loving Father!
Law thinking makes me think that God is all about performance.
Grace thinking lets me know that God is all about unconditional love!
Law thinking makes me feel everything must be earned.
Grace thinking reminds me everything is a gift.
Law thinking says work, work, work.
Grace thinking says rest, rest, rest.
Law thinking makes me feel I need to DO more.
Grace thinking shows me Jesus has already DONE it all!
Law thinking causes me to withdraw from interacting with God.
Grace thinking causes me to be drawn to worship, talk to Him, and enjoy His presence!
Law thinking causes me to feel down on myself.
Grace thinking causes me to be UP on Christ!
Law thinking makes me try to earn God's blessings because I feel they contingent on my performance.
Grace thinking lets me enjoy God's blessings because they're already mine through Christ's performance!
Law thinking makes me feel it's all up to me to live this Christian life.
Grace thinking lets me know it's all up to Christ to live this Christian life!
Law thinking makes me feel salvation and the Christian life are all my responsibility.
Grace thinking lets me know salvation and the Christian life are all His responsibility.
Law thinking makes me think I'm alone living this life.
Grace thinking shows me it's Christ who lives through me!
Law thinking makes me feel separate and disconnected from God.
Grace thinking makes me feel close to God, and I enjoy the union and constant connection I always have with God.
Law thinking makes me fear that God might reject me and I might lose this relationship, since I'm basing it all on how I perform.
Grace makes me relax, knowing God will never reject me and I'll never lose this relationship, because it's based all on how Christ performed!
Law thinking makes me feel that if I've sinned too much, I'm out.
Grace thinking tells me no matter how much I sin, I'll NEVER be out!
Law thinking makes me sin-focused, and I feel my sins are all over me.
Grace thinking makes me Jesus-focused, and I know my sins were put on Him and taken away!
Law thinking makes me feel dirty and ugly before Him.
Grace thinking makes me feel clean and beautiful before Him!
Law thinking makes me feel imperfect and lacking.
Grace thinking reminds me that He's made me perfect and complete!
Law thinking is a dead end.
Grace thinking is the way of endless life!
My Souls Sings
I woke up with this beautiful song (here sung by Bethel Live, but originally by Delirious) on my heart..our souls sing to You, Wonderful Father!
Lyrics:
Open my eyes to see
The wonderful mystery of love
Falling into you
I'm drawn to the gravity of love
Open the page and see
The wonderful history of love
I start and end with you
I'm pulled to the gravity of love
We're standing still in a moment of eternity
Where worlds collide and I feel the breath of heaven over me
My soul sings
My soul sings
My soul sings
How I love you
Oh, how I love you
Bound by Love!
Here's a wonderful quote from the dear and amazing grace-lover, Jamie Weeks:
"God did not bind us to himself with the commandments. In fact, under the Old Covenant, we attempted to bind ourselves to God through our performance. God always had a better way! He bound himself to us by the cross, making his performance, not ours, the only contingency for righteousness and life."
"Where the law can never hold us, the love of God will keep us."
"Where the law can never hold us, the love of God will keep us."
Jamie Weeks
I love that! The law could never hold us. But the love of God expressed in the work of Christ on the cross will keep us! We are bound to God by love-strings, held by the power of Christ's work for us, safe in His arms today and forever..
Things I Love About You
I love the way You are kind..
I love the way You are gentle..
I love the way You are beautiful..
I love the way You are so good..
I love the way You are so loving..
I love the way You are gracious..
I love the way You look at me with love in Your eyes..
I love the way You smile at me..
I love the way You hold me in Your arms..
I love the joy You have over me..
I love the way You are always there for me..
I love the way You call me Your best friend..
I love the way You always build me up..
I love the way You never focus on my faults..
I love the way You think I'm beautiful..
I love the way You embrace me..
I love the way You accept me..
I love the way You understand me..
I love the way You listen to me..
I love the way You feel my hurts..
I love the way You grieve with me..
I love the way You laugh with me..
I love the way You want to be with me..
I love the way You love our times together..
I love the way You love me!
I love the way You love the world through me!
We Can Take Heart, Because He Has Overcome and He is Lord - His Love Reigns!
This song, "Take Heart," by Hillsong, goes along with the whole idea of Christ being Lord - He has conquered and overcome, and we can take heart because He has put us into a place of freedom, security, and grace!
The Lamb has won!
Grace reigns, Freedom reigns, Love reigns!
He has overcome....Jesus is Lord of all!
I love You, Lord!
Take Heart - Lyrics:
There is a light
It burns brighter than the sun
He steals the night
And casts no shadow
There is hope
Should oceans rise and mountains fall
He never fails
So take heart
Let His love lead us through the night
Hold on to hope
And take courage again
In death by love
The fallen world was overcome
He wears the scars of our freedom
In His Name
All our fears are swept away
He never fails
All our troubles and all our tears
God our hope, He has overcome
All our failure and all our fear
God our love, He has overcome
All our heartache and all our pain
God our healer, He has overcome
All our burdens and all our shame
God our freedom, He has overcome
God our justice, God our grace
God our freedom, He has overcome
God our refuge, God our strength
God is with us, He has overcome
Hillsong United
The Lordship of Christ Revisited
Growing up in church, I heard a lot about the Lordship of Christ and making Christ Lord of your life. We were often encouraged to surrender our lives to Christ and commit to follow Him wherever He would lead, do whatever He might tell us to do. With my performance-oriented brain, I tended to see this as a very hard thing. I felt I was being told to give up my 'real' desires and do all kinds of hard things I would hate to prove I was a really 'good' Christian, to prove I really was committed to Him. I figured if I really surrendered and "made Christ Lord" that He would surely send me to work in some foreign jungle with no flush toilets, or that He would force me to marry someone ugly (I really thought that!).. Why did I always think God's will would be something I would dislike? Why did I not see that His will would be 'good, perfect, and acceptable' to me? That His plan for my life would be more beautiful and amazing and soul-satisfying than anything I could dream up? That His plans for me were good, to give me 'a future and a hope?' Perhaps it all stemmed from my view of God as Someone whose agenda was all that mattered to him, not any of my desires or interests. I didn't know that God's agenda is to love us and all people!!
So I was lacking, I think, in my understanding of how loving God really is, and since I saw Him as performance-oriented, I figured the Lordship of Christ centered on getting me to perform things I would rather not do.
But lately God has given me a beautiful, new understanding of what the Lordship of Christ really means! It doesn't have to do with forcing us to do things against our will or making us submit to some horrible plan that we dislike. The Lordship of Christ has to do with freedom!
The Lordship of Christ means that Jesus is Lord and the devil is not! Jesus has all rightful authority over me - and if Jesus has all authority in heaven and earth and in me, the devil has NO authority! Haha! Jesus reigns in my life and sin doesn't! Jesus is over all in my circumstances, and evil does not hold sway! Jesus' righteousness rules in my heart, and condemnation can't stick! Where sin abounds, grace MUCH MORE abounds and trumps sin every time! Where death used to reign, now Life has the upper hand!
I have been planted in the Kingdom of the Son of God's love, and that means that I'm no more held captive in the devil's kingdom - he has no more right to my life! Haha! I'm not a prisoner of Satan, sin, death, shame, guilt, oppression, fear, bondage, or struggle anymore - I've been set free by Jesus, the Rightful Lord of this place! He has bought me back by the cross, and He is my rightful owner, not the enemy! He came to set the captives free and tell the prisoners, "Come out, it's all right, you're safe now!"
The Lordship of Christ means a new Kingdom has begun, a kingdom in which we are FOREVER removed from the threat of death and hell, condemnation and punishment, and the power of sin and the enemy. Satan can't ruin me or destroy me or even touch me, because Jesus is Lord over me! The power of Satan has been defeated in our lives by the cross and resurrection, and Jesus' power holds sway and is flowing through!
We are in a new country now, where we're dead to sin and alive to God in Christ! We won't ever be stuck in that old country again, because we exited it by death and were raised to a whole new life in this new Kingdom of Love and Grace! The Kingdom where Christ, the Lover of our Souls, who means us good and not evil all the days of our lives, REIGNS! In this Kingdom, Love reigns, Grace has the final say, and Goodness wins! In this Kingdom, we are safe and secure, and the enemy can never EVER snatch us out of Christ's hand - because Christ is LORD! In this Kingdom, "surely goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of my life, and we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever!"
So what does it mean to say, "Jesus is Lord?" To me, it is confessing reality, confessing the truth of what the cross did for me. Saying Jesus is Lord is saying Satan has no more ownership of me - I'm safe in the arms of Him who perfectly loves and protects and keeps me! I'm safely in His embrace, and noone can snatch me out. My problems can't crush me, Satan can't crush me, my own failures and even doubt can't crush me, because Jesus is Lord over all that! He is BIG and that makes everything else small and insignificant in comparison. Jesus is Lord! We are free! Free to enjoy His presence, free to accept ourselves as He accepts us, free to lay down our efforts to be "good" because He's made us "good" with His goodness, free to rest and be at peace, free to enjoy our lives without shame and guilt, free to love the person next to us, free to dance, to sing, to soar in His grace! Free to know Him intimately and be loved like we've never been loved before, for this is what we were made for - intimate fellowship with the Lord of All!
Jesus is Lord - His love reigns and rules!
Jesus is Lord! Hallelujah!
So I was lacking, I think, in my understanding of how loving God really is, and since I saw Him as performance-oriented, I figured the Lordship of Christ centered on getting me to perform things I would rather not do.
But lately God has given me a beautiful, new understanding of what the Lordship of Christ really means! It doesn't have to do with forcing us to do things against our will or making us submit to some horrible plan that we dislike. The Lordship of Christ has to do with freedom!
The Lordship of Christ means that Jesus is Lord and the devil is not! Jesus has all rightful authority over me - and if Jesus has all authority in heaven and earth and in me, the devil has NO authority! Haha! Jesus reigns in my life and sin doesn't! Jesus is over all in my circumstances, and evil does not hold sway! Jesus' righteousness rules in my heart, and condemnation can't stick! Where sin abounds, grace MUCH MORE abounds and trumps sin every time! Where death used to reign, now Life has the upper hand!
I have been planted in the Kingdom of the Son of God's love, and that means that I'm no more held captive in the devil's kingdom - he has no more right to my life! Haha! I'm not a prisoner of Satan, sin, death, shame, guilt, oppression, fear, bondage, or struggle anymore - I've been set free by Jesus, the Rightful Lord of this place! He has bought me back by the cross, and He is my rightful owner, not the enemy! He came to set the captives free and tell the prisoners, "Come out, it's all right, you're safe now!"
The Lordship of Christ means a new Kingdom has begun, a kingdom in which we are FOREVER removed from the threat of death and hell, condemnation and punishment, and the power of sin and the enemy. Satan can't ruin me or destroy me or even touch me, because Jesus is Lord over me! The power of Satan has been defeated in our lives by the cross and resurrection, and Jesus' power holds sway and is flowing through!
We are in a new country now, where we're dead to sin and alive to God in Christ! We won't ever be stuck in that old country again, because we exited it by death and were raised to a whole new life in this new Kingdom of Love and Grace! The Kingdom where Christ, the Lover of our Souls, who means us good and not evil all the days of our lives, REIGNS! In this Kingdom, Love reigns, Grace has the final say, and Goodness wins! In this Kingdom, we are safe and secure, and the enemy can never EVER snatch us out of Christ's hand - because Christ is LORD! In this Kingdom, "surely goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of my life, and we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever!"
So what does it mean to say, "Jesus is Lord?" To me, it is confessing reality, confessing the truth of what the cross did for me. Saying Jesus is Lord is saying Satan has no more ownership of me - I'm safe in the arms of Him who perfectly loves and protects and keeps me! I'm safely in His embrace, and noone can snatch me out. My problems can't crush me, Satan can't crush me, my own failures and even doubt can't crush me, because Jesus is Lord over all that! He is BIG and that makes everything else small and insignificant in comparison. Jesus is Lord! We are free! Free to enjoy His presence, free to accept ourselves as He accepts us, free to lay down our efforts to be "good" because He's made us "good" with His goodness, free to rest and be at peace, free to enjoy our lives without shame and guilt, free to love the person next to us, free to dance, to sing, to soar in His grace! Free to know Him intimately and be loved like we've never been loved before, for this is what we were made for - intimate fellowship with the Lord of All!
Jesus is Lord - His love reigns and rules!
Jesus is Lord! Hallelujah!
A Favorite Grace Quote
Here's a favorite grace quote on what God has already done within us by Christ's wonderful work:
We live out of what is already true.
from The Rest of the Gospel
by Dan Stone
By faith we rest in what God has ALREADY done in the unseen and eternal realm within us. He has made us His holy, blameless, irreproachable children. He has made us the righteousness of God in Christ. Our old man died with Christ. We have been raised with Christ as completely new creations, born of God's Spirit. He has made us perfect in His sight. there is no condemnation. He has become one with our spirit, through which He manifest His life to the world.
How many times have we said, "I'd like to be. I wish I were. Maybe someday." And God was on His throne saying, "You are! You are!"
Every one of us who has believed into Christ is complete in Christ (Col. 2:10). We are already holy (Col. 3:12) We are already perfect (Heb. 10:14) We are His righteousness (2 Corin. 5:21) There's nothing else to be done.
There's nothing left for you to do to get close to God. You and God are one. There is no more separation. [He who is joined to the Lord is ONE SPIRIT with Him!]
from The Rest of the Gospel
by Dan Stone
Photos from our Waterfall Hike
Quotes from The Happy God
Here are some great quotes from the book I'm now reading, The Happy God (by Benjamin Dunn). It's a wonderful book reminding me that God is happy with the finished work of Christ and happy with us, His children!
At the beginning of the book, he defines some common Biblical terms. Many of these are words that I have misunderstood or taken in a more "performance" way than a "grace" way. I wanted to share some of those definitions here:
Gospel - I always knew it meant "good news," but I didn't know how really and amazingly GOOD that news is! I thought it was mainly about forgiveness, sort of giving people a second chance (and we better not blow it this time around!) and going to heaven when we die. But it is so much more! Ben Dunn says the Gospel is "the glad-message of the glory of the happy God; the glad tidings of salvation through Christ; the proclamation of the grace of God manifested and pledged in Christ." It's about the revealing of God's grace through the work of Jesus, to free us from sin and shame and put us safely in His arms forever! It's the message that we are right now reconciled with God and called His friends, and that He's not holding our sins against us, for they've been taken away by Jesus on the cross. This message reveals that God is smiling on us - what a happy God!
Grace - here's another word that I felt clueless about when I tried to define it. I guess I used to think it meant forgiveness. But discovering what grace really means has literally changed my life! Ben Dunn defines it as "total, undeserved divine favor, by which a man is saved. Grace is not just the kindness or mercy that is shown by the Lord when one is in a fallen condition, but Grace is also the influence that keeps one from falling." I love that! Grace means salvation is a completely free gift. Grace means we are favored for free, without having to deserve it, and grace means our salvation is secure, for He will keep us from falling. We didn't have to do anything to get this favor and acceptance, and there is nothing we could do that would cause it to be lost!
Faith - I'm still learning what this one means, for so often in the past I turned faith into a "work," focusing on it as something I must somehow "do" to "get" God to give me good things or be on my side. But that isn't what faith is, for it is the opposite of works! Ben Dunn says it is "a firm persuasion produced by God's infinite goodness. A childlike response to God's wonderful love and works. It is also a gift." Faith is just the natural response when we hear the good news of God's love for us in Jesus. Faith isn't focused on me but on Christ! It's not something I "do;" faith is when I stop my "doing" because I see that Jesus already DID it all! And it's not something I muster up - it's a gift from God, so it's actually Christ's faith in us! Now that's perfect faith..
Flesh - Here's another word that has been tricky for me to figure out. I guess I always thought it meant "the real me," in that I thought of myself as truly bad at the core. Well, that is what the real me WAS, but not what the real me IS NOW, since I've been newly created in Christ! Ben Dunn says flesh is "the unregenerate state of men that was destroyed or cut away by Christ at salvation. "The flesh," "Old-Man," "Sinful-Self" and "Sin-Nature" are all different terms to describe the same unregenerate state." That unregenerate state doesn't exist for us anymore as His children, so none of those terms describe us anymore!
Righteousness - Here's a word that I was also confused about (boy, have I been really confused! Sometimes I still am, but that's okay, because HE isn't confused about our relationship and says it's perfect, keeps it perfect!) I always thought righteousness meant basically doing everything God commanded, and how could I ever think I was totally doing that? So I never felt righteous. I never felt righteous, so I figured I wasn't. And this left me feeling that God wasn't pleased with me, and that it was impossible to please Him. Here is Ben Dunn on what righteousness is: "uprightness and right standing with God. The state of him who is as he ought to be." This is what Christ has given us as a gift! Salvation is simply the deliverance from being un-right with God and being given the gift of being right with God. We're He's truly happy with us because He remade us righteous and acceptable to Him in every way in Christ. We're now rightly related to God with nothing amiss or lacking in that relationship. We are as we were always meant to be, in perfect, right relationship with Him, with absolutely nothing between us!
Justified - This is similar to righteousness, coming from the same Greek word. I never really knew what this word meant. Ben Dunn says to be justified is to be "declared or rendered righteous apart from the works of the Law or self-works." In other words, made right and acceptable before God as a gift, apart from any works needing to be done on our part! My whole life it seems I've been searching for acceptance from God. I never felt really accepted, always felt He was looking at my ways and that I was coming up so very short in His eyes. Oh, how I longed to know He accepted me! And then He started showing me that grace means favor and ACCEPTANCE, and that being righteous or justified (which is basically the gift He gives us at salvation) actually means being ACCEPTED by God, made ACCEPTABLE in His eyes! All along through my whole Christian life, I'd been accepted by God and had been since the moment I'd first believed in Jesus, yet I hadn't known it. I'd been longing for Him to accept me, trying to clean up my act so He would, when He already had! What a wonderful revelation..
God - how do we define God? I guess the way we see Him determines so much about how we relate to Him, ourselves, other people, and our circumstances. I have seen Him as more of a Judge in the past, a very serious and unsmiling person looking at my works and shaking His head in disappointment. I knew or at least heard that He loved me, but it was hard for me to get past the fact that I felt He was requiring me to do things that I was failing at. I always felt He was saying, "do better, why can't you just do better?" But to start to meet the real God has been the greatest joy of my life! He is so loving and happy with us! He is so good and so kind! He isn't looking at our works but at the perfect work of Christ for us. He was literally dying to be with us, and became a man and died to make that union with us possible. He loves, absolutely loves, being with us and spending time with us in fellowship. What a wonderful God! He shows off His glory for all time through Jesus and His work in us - He shows off how wonderful and loving and good He really is! Ben Dunn has a quote in his book about God that describes Him as "the Good Being, a fountain of infinite benevolence and beneficence towards His creatures..In a word, a Being who, from His infinite wisdom, cannot err or be deceived; and who, from His infinite goodness, can do nothing but what is eternally just, right, and kind." What a wonderful God!
At the beginning of the book, he defines some common Biblical terms. Many of these are words that I have misunderstood or taken in a more "performance" way than a "grace" way. I wanted to share some of those definitions here:
Gospel - I always knew it meant "good news," but I didn't know how really and amazingly GOOD that news is! I thought it was mainly about forgiveness, sort of giving people a second chance (and we better not blow it this time around!) and going to heaven when we die. But it is so much more! Ben Dunn says the Gospel is "the glad-message of the glory of the happy God; the glad tidings of salvation through Christ; the proclamation of the grace of God manifested and pledged in Christ." It's about the revealing of God's grace through the work of Jesus, to free us from sin and shame and put us safely in His arms forever! It's the message that we are right now reconciled with God and called His friends, and that He's not holding our sins against us, for they've been taken away by Jesus on the cross. This message reveals that God is smiling on us - what a happy God!
Grace - here's another word that I felt clueless about when I tried to define it. I guess I used to think it meant forgiveness. But discovering what grace really means has literally changed my life! Ben Dunn defines it as "total, undeserved divine favor, by which a man is saved. Grace is not just the kindness or mercy that is shown by the Lord when one is in a fallen condition, but Grace is also the influence that keeps one from falling." I love that! Grace means salvation is a completely free gift. Grace means we are favored for free, without having to deserve it, and grace means our salvation is secure, for He will keep us from falling. We didn't have to do anything to get this favor and acceptance, and there is nothing we could do that would cause it to be lost!
Faith - I'm still learning what this one means, for so often in the past I turned faith into a "work," focusing on it as something I must somehow "do" to "get" God to give me good things or be on my side. But that isn't what faith is, for it is the opposite of works! Ben Dunn says it is "a firm persuasion produced by God's infinite goodness. A childlike response to God's wonderful love and works. It is also a gift." Faith is just the natural response when we hear the good news of God's love for us in Jesus. Faith isn't focused on me but on Christ! It's not something I "do;" faith is when I stop my "doing" because I see that Jesus already DID it all! And it's not something I muster up - it's a gift from God, so it's actually Christ's faith in us! Now that's perfect faith..
Flesh - Here's another word that has been tricky for me to figure out. I guess I always thought it meant "the real me," in that I thought of myself as truly bad at the core. Well, that is what the real me WAS, but not what the real me IS NOW, since I've been newly created in Christ! Ben Dunn says flesh is "the unregenerate state of men that was destroyed or cut away by Christ at salvation. "The flesh," "Old-Man," "Sinful-Self" and "Sin-Nature" are all different terms to describe the same unregenerate state." That unregenerate state doesn't exist for us anymore as His children, so none of those terms describe us anymore!
Righteousness - Here's a word that I was also confused about (boy, have I been really confused! Sometimes I still am, but that's okay, because HE isn't confused about our relationship and says it's perfect, keeps it perfect!) I always thought righteousness meant basically doing everything God commanded, and how could I ever think I was totally doing that? So I never felt righteous. I never felt righteous, so I figured I wasn't. And this left me feeling that God wasn't pleased with me, and that it was impossible to please Him. Here is Ben Dunn on what righteousness is: "uprightness and right standing with God. The state of him who is as he ought to be." This is what Christ has given us as a gift! Salvation is simply the deliverance from being un-right with God and being given the gift of being right with God. We're He's truly happy with us because He remade us righteous and acceptable to Him in every way in Christ. We're now rightly related to God with nothing amiss or lacking in that relationship. We are as we were always meant to be, in perfect, right relationship with Him, with absolutely nothing between us!
Justified - This is similar to righteousness, coming from the same Greek word. I never really knew what this word meant. Ben Dunn says to be justified is to be "declared or rendered righteous apart from the works of the Law or self-works." In other words, made right and acceptable before God as a gift, apart from any works needing to be done on our part! My whole life it seems I've been searching for acceptance from God. I never felt really accepted, always felt He was looking at my ways and that I was coming up so very short in His eyes. Oh, how I longed to know He accepted me! And then He started showing me that grace means favor and ACCEPTANCE, and that being righteous or justified (which is basically the gift He gives us at salvation) actually means being ACCEPTED by God, made ACCEPTABLE in His eyes! All along through my whole Christian life, I'd been accepted by God and had been since the moment I'd first believed in Jesus, yet I hadn't known it. I'd been longing for Him to accept me, trying to clean up my act so He would, when He already had! What a wonderful revelation..
God - how do we define God? I guess the way we see Him determines so much about how we relate to Him, ourselves, other people, and our circumstances. I have seen Him as more of a Judge in the past, a very serious and unsmiling person looking at my works and shaking His head in disappointment. I knew or at least heard that He loved me, but it was hard for me to get past the fact that I felt He was requiring me to do things that I was failing at. I always felt He was saying, "do better, why can't you just do better?" But to start to meet the real God has been the greatest joy of my life! He is so loving and happy with us! He is so good and so kind! He isn't looking at our works but at the perfect work of Christ for us. He was literally dying to be with us, and became a man and died to make that union with us possible. He loves, absolutely loves, being with us and spending time with us in fellowship. What a wonderful God! He shows off His glory for all time through Jesus and His work in us - He shows off how wonderful and loving and good He really is! Ben Dunn has a quote in his book about God that describes Him as "the Good Being, a fountain of infinite benevolence and beneficence towards His creatures..In a word, a Being who, from His infinite wisdom, cannot err or be deceived; and who, from His infinite goodness, can do nothing but what is eternally just, right, and kind." What a wonderful God!
Thank God We Just Can't Escape Him!
Thank You, Lord, that I can't escape You! Thank You that You won't let me go!
Everybody crashes down
Sometimes
Everything come falling down
Sometimes
I don't even know how,
Or know why
At times I try to hide away
From Your eyes
At times I'm covered in shame
From my lies
You sweep me into Your embrace
And I cry
The thing I can't escape is You
The promise that You made is You
Will pull me through
You're never far away no matter what I do
The thing I can't escape is You
It's You
Your grace
Irresistible
It's true, it's true
Your grace
Irresistible
The thing I can't escape is You
The thing I can't escape is You
Rush of Fools
The Happy God
I am reading a wonderful book right now called The Happy God, by Benjamin Dunn. He makes a wonderful point in the book that the Bible actually describes God as a happy God!
In 1 Tim. 1:11, Paul calls the good news of grace "the glorious gospel of the blessed God," and in 1 Tim. 6:15, he calls God "the blessed and only Ruler." In both of those verses, the Greek word translated "blessed" is makarios, which basically means "happy!"
It's wonderful to me to think of my dear God and Father as happy. So often in the past I have imagined Him as very serious, maybe even frowning in disapproval or shaking His head in disappointment. But the Bible describes Him as happy! And since He is perfect, He is perfectly happy. Since He is everything in an infinite way, He is infinitely happy. And He is infinitely happy with us and in us!
Back in Gen. 1:31, when God saw everything that He had made, it was very good. And He blessed the man and woman He had made. Eden was a pristine and innocent place of perfection, a place filled with God's joy and happiness. And now that Jesus has come and died and rose and ascended for us, we have something better than Eden within us right now! We are new creations! The old has passed away and is forever gone - destroyed! - and the new has come! And I think God sees us, His new creations that He has perfectly made in Christ, and He sees that what He has made is very good, and He smiles and is so happy! Happy because we are beautiful to Him and happy because fellowship is ours, the intimate spiritual fellowship of being IN Someone, because the very Spirit of God dwells in us! We dwell in God and He in us, how wonderful..
I believe God is happy and delighted with us today. His Holy Spirit in me is always joy, pure joy. Always love and delight in me. Always grace and tender love. Always open and accepting. Always there in support and always there lifting me up when I'm down. He has shown me the true nature of God - delighting, joyful Love!
We worship a Happy God! He sings a love song over us today, to quiet our hearts and make us rejoice (Zeph. 3:17). He smiles upon us with shining eyes (Num. 6:24) as a Proud Papa, for He is proud and happy with us, His little children!
Thank You, Lord, and let us enjoy Your joy today!
In 1 Tim. 1:11, Paul calls the good news of grace "the glorious gospel of the blessed God," and in 1 Tim. 6:15, he calls God "the blessed and only Ruler." In both of those verses, the Greek word translated "blessed" is makarios, which basically means "happy!"
It's wonderful to me to think of my dear God and Father as happy. So often in the past I have imagined Him as very serious, maybe even frowning in disapproval or shaking His head in disappointment. But the Bible describes Him as happy! And since He is perfect, He is perfectly happy. Since He is everything in an infinite way, He is infinitely happy. And He is infinitely happy with us and in us!
Back in Gen. 1:31, when God saw everything that He had made, it was very good. And He blessed the man and woman He had made. Eden was a pristine and innocent place of perfection, a place filled with God's joy and happiness. And now that Jesus has come and died and rose and ascended for us, we have something better than Eden within us right now! We are new creations! The old has passed away and is forever gone - destroyed! - and the new has come! And I think God sees us, His new creations that He has perfectly made in Christ, and He sees that what He has made is very good, and He smiles and is so happy! Happy because we are beautiful to Him and happy because fellowship is ours, the intimate spiritual fellowship of being IN Someone, because the very Spirit of God dwells in us! We dwell in God and He in us, how wonderful..
I believe God is happy and delighted with us today. His Holy Spirit in me is always joy, pure joy. Always love and delight in me. Always grace and tender love. Always open and accepting. Always there in support and always there lifting me up when I'm down. He has shown me the true nature of God - delighting, joyful Love!
We worship a Happy God! He sings a love song over us today, to quiet our hearts and make us rejoice (Zeph. 3:17). He smiles upon us with shining eyes (Num. 6:24) as a Proud Papa, for He is proud and happy with us, His little children!
Thank You, Lord, and let us enjoy Your joy today!
Already
I have been one who has been insecure about God's love for me. I have tried to get it, tried to keep it, agonized when I felt I'd lost it, wondered if I had it, wanted it but felt it was just out of reach..so many lying voices I've listened to concerning His love for me!
Yet one day I could try no more. I was so tired and just basically gave up trying to get His love and favor, trying to finally feel I was "right" and "okay" and "pleasing" to Him. All my Christian life seemed to be a bust, and I just quit trying.
And He whispered to me that I was His own child, that He loved me anyway.
He had already proved His love for me before I was even born. If someone actually being willing to die for you doesn't show the greatest love a person can have for another, I don't know what does! I haven't ever thought of it that way, really, but that cross is such a proof of love. We look around and sometimes feel noone cares, noone is willing to listen, noone will take any time for us, noone would actually give up anything to help us. And here is Jesus giving up all just to be with us! We are worth sooo much! We are cared for, cherished, and loved beyond our wildest dreams!
There's no need to earn such a love. It's already been given, long before we were even born.
Long before we were even created, God already loved us. He loved us knowing all that we would do. He loved us knowing all the mess we'd make of our lives. He saw every thing that we feel is rotten about us, and He LOVED us still, loved us anyway, loved us with all that junk! And He went and became a man and died to absorb all our junk into Himself and carry it away, so it could harm and defeat and shame us into hiding NO LONGER! So we could finally be free to enjoy the love that has always been ours. To enjoy the God who has always been on our side. To be held in the arms that have always been available to us. To open up to the Friend who has always been there for us. To embrace the Father who has always cherished us. To relish the intimacy of being in the family we've always been meant to belong to.
We were made to be loved by Him. This is where we belong. And it's already been done. There is NOTHING left for us to do! We can just accept it!
Your failures are gone, that you are loved and welcomed in! There is nothing between you and God! He is fine with you! He loves you forever! You can relax in His arms...
Because He Is In Us..
Cherished, adored, valued,
Taken in, accepted, embraced,
Held, affirmed, wanted,
Cared about, cared for, nurtured,
Supported, helped, strengthened,
Guided, cheered, comforted,
Kept, secure, safe,
Warmed, hugged, nestled,
Upheld, carried, lifted up,
Chosen, wanted, delighted in,
Valuable, listened to, remembered,
Thought of, important, significant,
Companioned, attended to, encouraged,
Whole, complete, sure,
Released, empowered, freed,
Needed, joined, included,
Celebrated, smiled upon, favored,
Befriended, fellowshipped with,enjoyed,
LOVED, LOVED, LOVED!
Thank You, dear Lord!
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