September 26th, 2006

Some thoughts

I need to return to the cross every day and there continually be reminded of my brokenness and dependence on God. It is one thing for me to know and conceptualize that I am forgiven, but everyday I need my heart and my emotions wrestled with. I need to daily be shown my baggage, my junk, my weakness because it is so easy for me to put on my blinders. Its so easy for me to become prideful and boast in myself, to boast in areas where I have no place to boast. My prayer is daily that God would change my heart. That he would change my affections and draw them to take joy in his glory, not mine. My prayer is that God would continue to shape me into more and more and more and more the person he made me to be. I still have a mighty mighty long way to go.

I don't want to just see salvation as a ticket to somewhere else. I don't want it to simply be a future salvation, one where the forgiveness of our sins only means we get to go to heaven when we die.

John 5:24 " I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life."

Jesus says that I am connected to him NOW, not just in the future.

My prayer is not just that Salvation would be a distant idea. That Jesus would not just be a person in the past. I don't want a compartmentalized life. A compartmentalized life is one that that has not experienced Christ. To have faith that manifests itself in compartmentalized life where vast areas of it are unaffected, unmoved, and unchanged is a type of faith that James refers to as dead. Oh how I feel guilty of so often having such a faith

My prayer is that….

I would need a God for now

I would need healing now

I would need help now

Yes, even greater things will happen someday.

But salvation is now.

Christ is sweet and frees you to actually enjoy the world. I would argue he frees to even enjoy it more than you ever previously could apart from him. To experience deeper more satisfying joy than you ever could have imagined with out him. Not just circumstantial joy, where things go in your favor and all is happy frappy. But joy that ultimately transcends circumstance; joy and contentment that cannot be robbed by situation.

Oh how i want to FULLY see and taste Christ for who he is.

I have tasted bits and chunks and boy is it sweet. Sweeter than anything i have ever experienced.

But i want more, more of him. I need it. I desperately need it....only God can take me there. Only God can wrestle with my heart

I need to remember that I am loved just because I exist.

Not because of what I do.

So much of my efforts are spent trying to earn what i allready have.

I did not make the world and it will continue to exist with out my efforts. Christ loves me not because of what i do....he loves me because he loves me. He loves me for his glories sake. This category of love should be liberating.

Oh how i want to be liberated!

I am learning that salvation is for all of me.

Jesus wants my heart and soul now. Not just parts of my life…he want my affections, my emotions, my mind, my body…my life.