Neither of the below sections are from my head. I was sent two different e-mails during the last few weeks, each containing one of the below. I was reading them this morning and was freshly encouraged and spurred on. Hope you enjoy them as well.
"The word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem, Thus says the Lord,“I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness, in a land not sown” (JE 2.1-2).
When my wife Kristi was a young bride she followed me into the wilderness because she loved me. In our first year of marriage I quit my secure teaching job and came on staff as a pastor-in-training in a small, fledgling church where neither the pastor nor myself really had any idea of what we were doing. At least I didn’t. Even scarier, within 2 years I became the Sr. Pastor. In those early years our church navigated some dry times when it looked like the church wouldn’t make it. Times when more people were bailing than joining. Times when it seemed like nothing was happening, mostly when I preached. Yet Kristi still followed me.
That’s what it’s like to run after Christ. He gives us such a love for him, we follow him in the wilderness, where we aren’t sure where our provision will come from. Sometimes it’s a wilderness of suffering, or a desert of having no idea what in the world to do with our kids. It may be the solitary wasteland of loneliness or the badlands of being sinned against.
That’s what it is to love Jesus. To follow him in the wilderness and trust him, no matter what the outcome. To keep following him when we’re dry and thirsty, tired and weary. Where it’s bleak and boring. What devotion he implants in our hearts, to go, not knowing where, to walk with him in arid places because he alone can satisfy our thirsty souls.
Are you in the wilderness today? Is it because you followed Jesus? Know this, the Lord Jesus takes great delight in your desert devotion."
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"I've been thinking and working through and failing at...repentance. Approximately one month ago, I attended NEXT and God revealed (again) areas of my life that were not under His prememinence. Repentance was in order.
Yet I did not want begin, and even then, where to begin? Here I was staring at a long standing sin pattern and only seeing all the failed attempts to change.
Tired of failing. Tired of trying. Tired of knowing that I should change.
But God.
He reminded me~ "...for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." (Heb. 11:6b, KJV). If I would climb that mountain in repentance, it must be with faith, believing that He will work and change me. He is a REWARDER of those who diligently seek Him. (I realize that this verse is refering to faith, but that is simply repentance in action. If I believe, I leave my sin behind. I step forward, knowing there is grace for my failed attempts, but that step-by-step, God will change me and make me like him.)
He reminded me~ I am called to repent today. Present tense. Tomorrow hasn't been written and I am not called to look at it without God's grace or imagine failing and repenting for years to come. If I keep repentance in the NOW (which would be biblical), repentance is tangible.
He reminded me~ The Gospel gives grace and power to change. "For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." (1 Cor. 1:18). It's the means by which all of God's favor and transforming power are lavished on my life. Christ came to redeem me from the bondage of even this sin, and not just to save me from this sin, but to lavish on me His richest kindness and blessings (Eph. 1 & 2). What hope! What joy! What wonder!
Repentance is a verb.It is me humbly begging God to help me repent today.
Repentance is a verb.It is a life actively pursuing God and turning from sin.
Repentance is a verb.It is God transforming a life one step at time."
3 comments:
Thanks! You don't know how encouraging this was. Jeremiah is one of my favorite books of the bible! The theme of the desert and God as the source of strength is pretty powerful throughout all of the book, and my favorite spot is probably in Jer 17:
5 Thus says the Lord:
“Cursed is the man who trusts in man
and makes flesh his strength,
whose heart turns away from the Lord.
6 He is like a shrub in the desert,
and shall not see any good come.
He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,
in an uninhabited salt land.
7 “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
whose trust is the Lord.
8 He is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit.”
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What's cool about this is that is doesn't say we whose "trust IS the Lord" won't go through the desert, but instead when we do we will "not fear," our "leaves will remain green," and we will "not cease to bear fruit"! So cool!
Thanks for the verses! Very helpful.
thanks for posting this. it was very helpful to me today! love you!!!!
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