So here is the question to test whether you have been sucked in to this world's distortion of love: Would you feel more loved by God if he made much of you, or if he liberated you from the bondage of self regard, at great cost to himself, so that you enjoy making much of him forever?
As I allowed myself to get stabbed, tasered, and then dropped kicked by this question, I knew that that is exactly what God is trying to do in my life...to fix my distorted view of love! I was created to have an intimate relationship with the God of the universe, and He wants us to be one as Jesus is one with the Father. In order to do so I will have to stop fleeing from death and let the Spirit of the risen Lord continue to kill my flesh...ouch. I know I want some Shalom going on in my body and there is a real life battle going on in me that all starts in my mind, as Paul talks about in Romans. So what they say is true...boasting in the cross happens when you are on the cross.
Ok so why would I even want to get on this cross??? My Savior has shown me a mere droplet of His grace and truth and it has transformed my life. His Love is truly better than life. Yes, I continue to run and prostitute myself with sinful desires when I think that He is not good enough for me, but He is a God that is quick to forgive and longs to show compassion. The gospel has changed my life forever, it has sustained me, and will continue to make me look more like my Jesus.
"For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, wether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him."
-Colossians 1:16
Ok so I wanted to go ahead and explain that big part of me because I didn't do that in my first post. The picture on the top of my blog is right after I got baptized in the Pacific Ocean: an outward symbol of my inward change. Kate Hughes's life ended and Christ's life began in me! It just so happens that my bff that I am hugging in the picture, the back of her shirt reads "nada es impossible"...nothing is impossible!
So I thought that I would share this story, that my grandmother shared with me last week. I thought her story was a great representation of the relationship I have with my Maker. Ok so let me preface this so you can get a visual. My grandma is a very Italian, very Catholic, face grabber, who could literally tell stories for hours, even when no one is listening. She tells the same stories every time she comes to visit, and loves to sing 'the katie' song to me, and tries to teach me the jitterbug. She spent hours gasping over my mother's new silver candlesticks that she bought, and always knows the latest news on Tiger Woods. She has lost her hearing so I think she is fasting from listening all together, and now she just talks. Oh wow look at me I have gone too far once again. Anyway she lived in India for four years when my Mother was in middle school, and they had a servant that lived with them named John (I don't think that was his real name). But John became a dear friend, and he always worked so hard. He really loved my grandma and their family, and they really loved him. He had come from the slums of India and my grandma took him in, and would give him money to work for them, and he would send money back to his family every week. My grandma noticed a drastic change in John's temperament, and work ethic, and she finally asked him what was wrong. John grabbed his mouth and said that he was in extreme amounts of pain, he had wired his teeth together, and my grandma had looked and they were all infected. So without question my grandma took him to the hospital, the only problem was that the hospital didn't take people in from his class, and like I said before my grandma was a very Italian face grabber that got what she wanted, so she said "no you will take this man and take care of him because he belongs to me, and is part of my family". So they let him back and he had to have surgery. For some reason my grandma couldn't come to visit him, so she would wait outside the hospital for a certain amount of time each day to see if he was done. Finally, she saw John come out of the hospital, and right when John saw her, his eyes welled up with tears, he ran over to my grandmother, got down on his knees, and wouldn't stop kissing her feet, repeating how grateful he was. My grandma told him that he was her family now and of course she is going to take care of him because she loved him.
This story of my grandmother's compassion and her servant's gratefulness touched me deeply. I thought immediately of Jesus's compassion on me and my life. Of how He adopted me from my messy life in the slums, where I was poor, naked, hungry and He cleaned me up, clothed me in his righteousness, fed me with the bread of life, and made me a part of His family. Of the friendship that we have and the joy I get from being His servant. That He knows me and He knows when I am hurting and He wants to heal me as soon as I bring my brokenness out of the darkness and into the light. I think of His faithfulness and patience, how He waits for me, and is rich in mercy. And just like my grandma, but in perfect form, He did all of this just because of His deep love for me. That is it, not because he felt guilty, or because I got him a present for christmas (His son's birthday) so he thought he should get me a little gift, or because he thought I was kind of cute so he figured he'd let me shack with him for a bit, or because he wanted someone else to see how great he was, or because he did something bad earlier that day so he thought he'd do something nice for some random girl. No, He did it because that is who He is. He is the purest form of Love. He loves me because He loves me because He loves me. His nature is to love. And my reaction is total surrender, thanksgiving, praise, adornment, trust, awe, love, confession, repentance, joy. I'd like to think I would kiss Jesus's feet if I saw Him too!
"There is a quiet kind of joy, O Lord, that Jesus did both save us from our sin and show us how to love. His life, as you have said, was both a purchase and a path. He died for us, and now calls us to die with him. He took our poverty upon himself that we, in him, might have the riches of his heaven, and he calls us now to use our riches for the poor. He did not count equality with you a thing to grasp, but he made himself of no account and crossed an endless chasm between heaven and earth, so we might see what frontier missions means and join him in the final task. Is not this, then, the way we lay up treasure in your house-to give our money and ourselves to make as many rich with God forever as we can? A quiet kind of joy, I say, because of so much suffering. I cannot rise above the great apostle Paul who called his life a daily death and put it in a paradox: "sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, yet possessing everything." Grant, by your almighty Spirit and your piercing Word, that we who name Christ as Lord would treasure him above our lives, and feel, deep in our souls, that Christ is life and death is gain."
-John Piper (prayer)
