Mike Donehey
The gospel is exceedingly clear that even at the very heights of our human achievement and purity, Christ has gone higher. And that’s pretty humbling isn’t it? He is over and above the most pure and the most successful, and there isn’t one person on earth who doesn’t need Him or owe Him everything. He has out performed us all! And at the same time, at the very depths of human wretchedness and insignificance, Christ has gone lower, bearing our sins, taking our shame, suffering the worst and most embarrassing loss of all time. The loss of his right standing before his Father. And the loss of his divine purity by clothing himself in our defeat on the cross. There is no depth that is too low for his grace. There is no failure that has fallen to far. He is underneath us all.
He won what we couldn’t win. He lost what we couldn’t afford to lose. We are loved, and it has nothing to do with us.
To love like Him, you have to get a little crazy. You have to believe that He was crazy enough to forgive you, and transversely, you have to be demented enough to do the same for those who wrong you. After all, grace is not for those who are of a sound mind. Jesus even says that sane people don’t love like Him. Sure they will love people who love them, and lend to people who pay on time, but ask them to get close to someone who might hurt them, and they’ll run for reason, because safety always make sense and forgiveness never does.
To think that this huge God who has billions of other things to worry about, billions of other people to care about, actually thinks about me. And not only that, but that He is hurt when I want to spend time with someone else. You know that’s what this is saying don’t you? It’s saying that He is heart-broken when we run to other lovers. God is jealous. God hurts. He…feels. And not only that, but that He feels, “broken,” over you. Over me.
One day we won’t use creation to see our creator. We won’t gaze at the mirror to see a piece of the reflection. We’ll just stare at Him face to face. And to think, even the sun will pale in comparison. Hmmm, that sounds like a kingdom worth waiting for.
A speaker friend of mine once said this of the Bible, “do you read it to finish or do you read it to change?”
Well, I think Paul would say, that if we don’t suffer, if all we have is comfort and ease and prosperity, then the world will not see anything supernatural in our lives at all. If our lives were perfect, than how would anyone know we’re really worshipping the giver and not just the gifts? In fact, I think it is only when we are killed, when we are bruised, beat, and bleeding, that people can really begin to see Christ in us. If we praise God when all is well, that is one thing, but if we say that God is good when all has gone wrong, well, that’s something different entirely...giving thanks to God in the midst of my pain unleashes the beauty of God for all to see.
How do we find escape from this world, this self, these rings of death that promise peace, pride, and prosperity? Well, I'm not an expert, but I guess there's only one thing we can do. We find something better. Someone better. Toss the ring in the lava and lift our eyes to more lofty shores, to life, to truth, to the true treasure.
I am faced with the bewildering reality, that Christ will not let me feel completely satisfied with anyone other than Him.
There are, I believe, moments in one’s life, Moments that have been waiting for you since the beginning of time itself. Moments that cannot be explained or manufactured or predicted. Moments that cannot be forced or contrived or figured out. There are moments that bring you back, steal your breath, make you dream. There are these moments. Moments that barrel down on you like a freight train, seize you like a lover’s glance, hold you helpless in the roaring silence. These moments remind us as that we’re still alive. They remind us why we love and long and long to be loved. Why we give and shout and reflect like water. Why we hope. Why we wonder. They tell us why we wait and watch the maker’s work in the world.
I do not choose God. I did not choose God, but He chose me and appointed me to go and bear much fruit. Fruit that will last. Fruit that has nothing to do with my faith, my willingness or my obedience. Fruit that is born from the perfect life of Christ. Fruit that was his to give in the first place. He gets all the credit. He gets all the praise.
The duty of the Christian is no longer to work in order to earn God’s merit, Christ has already done that on our behalf, rather, the new responsibility for those who are in Christ, is to put all their effort, all their desire, and all of their work into simply resting in what Jesus has done for us. He demonstrates and proves his love one way; by suffering the wrath of God in our place. Over and over. Day in, day out. One sacrifice for all eternity. What other proof do we need? What act of love could surpass that of the Son of God dying under the weight of our shame? The love we’re looking for is here. It’s now. It’s at the cross.
May we be mirrors only. Tilted at 45 degrees, pushing every adoring gaze and idolatrous stare back to the true source of beauty, to the true source of fame, and to the only source of life.
Like staring at a sunset, or a mountain top. or the grand canyon, it’s when we forget about ourselves in the grandeur of God that we are truly and finally set free.
So may He lift us up to fall before Him, open our eyes to see His beauty, and give us good works to express our love for Him. It’s not about what we do, it’s about what He has done for us.
Only Christ is a treasure worth having. Only Christ is a treasure that can free you from the fear of missing out on all other treasures. Only Christ is life.
Life is waiting for the ones who lose control. “taking captive every thought, and making it obedient to Christ Jesus.” Take captive? Yeah. Take it freaking captive. Smack that lie in the mouth and slaughter it with truth
God will unapologetically tear me into pieces so that He can heal me...He’ll break you, He’ll hurt you, He’ll ruin your plans, and He’ll tear you into pieces, and He’ll do it all out of a perfect holy love...A lot of people want to use God to give them something other than Himself.
If our hope is set in anything but the living person of Christ, then we’re just setting ourselves up for failure. And so God, in his infinite and everlasting love, will do whatever He has to do to break, bend and conform his people’s hearts to Him. He will no longer be the means to some other end, but the end Himself.
Don’t live your life for God. Live your life because of God. Because He has loved us, redeemed us, and because He is all that our hearts are longing for. It’s no longer about what you do with your life at all, because He is your life. May He do whatever it takes to open our eyes to see that. He is the means and He is the end. And everything in between is from his hand.
Christianity was never meant to be a belief system, it’s meant to be an encounter with a person.
You’ll never be changed by the love of God until you’re completely honest with yourself and how undeserving you are of it. Only when we try to love God will we see our utter inability to do so. And only when we understand that inability, will we begin to be in awe of his great love toward us. In other words, to be a Christian is to live a life of response.
Don’t try to be better for God. Don’t try to figure out all the things you need to change, just fix your eyes on Jesus. He is your life. He is the one who saves. He is at the center of all things, and He holds all things together. And as you love Him, as you fawn over all that He is, He’ll begin to change all that you are.
If you don’t feel satisfied, don’t go running after substitutes. Just wait. Sit right there, content in your discontentment, and say to God, “Alright look. I don’t feel satisfied by you right now, but one thing I know, no matter what else I run to, it’s not gonna do it for me anyway, so I’m gonna wait for you. Teach me O Lord, to know deeply that I’m not home here, Teach me that all this world offers, and all the good things you’ve given us to enjoy, they may be good, but they’re not the ultimate. They’re not you. Only you can satisfy.
Let your walls fall down, let your masks fall down, let your pretense fall down, because guess what? Your walls are glass anyway. We can see through them. You are fighting a losing battle and this is where the healing begins, when you let the light expose the darkness.
The call of the gospel is not for me to think highly or lowly of myself. The call of the gospel is to stop thinking about myself all together.
Christ died on the cross and our responsibility is to simply fix our eyes on Jesus. Love is here. Everything we are longing for, whether we would say it this way or not, is really Jesus. Our hearts are made for him and are hearts are restless until they rest in him.
Sometimes we aren't going to get the answers we want, but we still have God's promises and the tough part of that is when Jesus said to us, "I will never leave you nor forsake you," but your whole world feels like he's done exactly that, it is no small thing to hold onto the truth and cling to that truth. 'Hold My Heart' is a psalm. It's like Psalm 13, it's saying, "God I'm clinging and holding on and I just don't know how much longer I can go, so come and hold my heart."
Look God, you need to satisfy me because everything I want, whether I realize it or not, is you. If you don't come and satisfy me, I'm afraid that I'm going to do exactly what I don't want to do which is I'm going to run to other things.
A parent who never disciplines their child is not a loving parent, and a God who looks idly on as rape, murder, and all the atrocities of humanity rage on, is not a loving God either. To be love, He must hate evil.
He’s asking us to admit that we aren’t strong enough, good enough, or pure enough. He asks us to lay down our self-saving, pride-enhancing promises and pick up his robe of salvation. He asks us to be honest about how truly awful we are, so that we might actually despair of ourselves altogether.
As long as people think we’re better than we are, then there’s really no need to cling to Jesus.
Because healing doesn’t begin when we start fighting our vices and become better people, true healing starts when we become better people for the right reasons. And by that I mean grateful responsive love. Now, the more we’re aware of our hang ups and failures, the more we see our need for a Saviour. And the more we see our need for Him, the more we love Him. And the more we love and treasure Him, the more we want to live for Him. And then, not necessarily for Him at all, but because of Him, and because of His great love for us.
Unveil your sin, and let God be seen as the great and glorious redeemer that He is.
We delude ourselves into thinking that Jesus is nothing more than a fact on a page. An idea to comprehend, a moral to ascribe to. And believe me, He’s much more than that. He is our life, our breath, and the pulse within our veins. He is before, behind, and all around. Over. Underneath. Inside. In between.
The one we are following is not some philosophical ideal to adhere to, He is a person to fall in love with.
I am a child of God in spite of myself. I’m not struggling to be free, I am free to struggle.
Jeff Owens
When you see “beautiful” things, it’s easy to see God if you’re not completely tuned out to Him. When you don’t see beautiful things it’s easy to become apathetic toward God and dismiss that it is “from Him.”...if you discipline yourself and find joy, TRULY find your joy in Christ you will find God in the commonplace, the casual…even the dark.
Find God in everything and you will find true love.
Believe that He will be faithful to deliver and force yourself not to pray with a doubtful heart. HE WILL be faithful. HE WILL hear you. Even if His answer (which comes swiftly or in time) is not what you expect, God’s peace which flippin TRANSCENDS ALL UNDERSTANDING will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus for being obedient to His will.
God is a jealous god. You delight yourself in Him (he’s your joy). So, shouldn’t God give you Himself? He’s what I want right?
Why do I want to go to heaven? If all my desires were fulfilled and all my friends are gathered around in community and food but God were not there...would I want to go? If he were there but only as a mediator of my pleasure...would I want to go?
Psalm 37:4 "Take delight in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart." Sounds like he will give you himself if that is the delight of your heart.
