But God showed his love for us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8
Read it again.
Push out of your mind the laundry, the dishes, the responsibilities of job or kids, the urgency of whatever is next on your schedule, and . . .
Read it again.
Ponder the wonder of Christ’s love and resulting death for us. How he secured forgiveness of sin, how He bridged the hopeless gap between our sinfulness and God’s holiness, how He provided the hope of eternal life, all of this--- and giving us not just an undeserved status, but a unique relationship with Himself!
Consider how we are naturally blinded to His offer of salvation, dead in our sin, comfortable in our wide path on the way to destruction…
Except for His grace wherein He chooses us for Himself, and so He calls us.
Meditate on the peace of God that then results as we now live as his children. Confident in his watchcare, secure in His control of all things, safe in the goodness of our Father who knows the number of hairs on our heads and is strong enough to make even the most heinous of evil acts work together for good.
Does your heart reverberate with love, gratitude and thankfulness?
Is His glory your single most longing and passion?
Is your life consumed with living out your praise, worship and affection for Him?
Mine wants to; mine often (in baby-like wobbly steps) moves toward this, but too often falls with a resounding plop and then scrambles quickly to more comfortable ground.
(Like duties, pleasures, tasks at hand, conversations about my temporal life & family, even ministry pursuits, and on and on it goes.)
Yet as I reflect on the sacrificial, mystifying, boundless love of Christ, I am not content with this. I bow my head and whisper to God, ‘I love you, forgive my apathy’ , for I know my heart is too quickly enamored with lesser things.
And so I plead for his provision.
* " Give me a heart that follows after you; and give me discipline to spend time in the Word that my heart may grow in following after you.
* Give me a mind that revels in you; and give me purpose to study and meditate and listen and memorize on the truths found in your Word, even as it is often laborious!
* Give me a passion for you as supremely my delight, and then enable me to cultivate this affection be denying lesser things (and not just sinful things, but even the good pleasures from your hand that can often pull my eyes—and heart---from you!)"
Living and breathing passionately about the next life while living in this one is not natural.
Yet Christ’s love for me and provision to me winsomely calls my name.
May this week be filled not with pursuits and accomplishments and pleasures that will whither like the grass, but may my strength be given to His eternal purposes.
Oh, I still may be folding undershirts, making gravy, pulling weeds and scraping bug guts off my windshield.
But may Christ’s love be never far from my thoughts. And interspersed in these mundane tasks may my heart respond by excelling in my kingdom callings…to my family, my husband, my neighbors, my own ‘Samaritan alongside the road’ opportunity, even the person who may come to my door selling a product that ‘works really good at getting bug guts off a windshield.”
May I love with unqualified abandon and unchallenged priority…. God.
And may an inventory this week of what my heart follows after bear this out.
He is so Worthy.
So Lovely.
God Y
Push out of your mind the laundry, the dishes, the responsibilities of job or kids, the urgency of whatever is next on your schedule, and . . .
Read it again.
Ponder the wonder of Christ’s love and resulting death for us. How he secured forgiveness of sin, how He bridged the hopeless gap between our sinfulness and God’s holiness, how He provided the hope of eternal life, all of this--- and giving us not just an undeserved status, but a unique relationship with Himself!
Consider how we are naturally blinded to His offer of salvation, dead in our sin, comfortable in our wide path on the way to destruction…
Except for His grace wherein He chooses us for Himself, and so He calls us.
Meditate on the peace of God that then results as we now live as his children. Confident in his watchcare, secure in His control of all things, safe in the goodness of our Father who knows the number of hairs on our heads and is strong enough to make even the most heinous of evil acts work together for good.
Does your heart reverberate with love, gratitude and thankfulness?
Is His glory your single most longing and passion?
Is your life consumed with living out your praise, worship and affection for Him?
Mine wants to; mine often (in baby-like wobbly steps) moves toward this, but too often falls with a resounding plop and then scrambles quickly to more comfortable ground.
(Like duties, pleasures, tasks at hand, conversations about my temporal life & family, even ministry pursuits, and on and on it goes.)
Yet as I reflect on the sacrificial, mystifying, boundless love of Christ, I am not content with this. I bow my head and whisper to God, ‘I love you, forgive my apathy’ , for I know my heart is too quickly enamored with lesser things.
And so I plead for his provision.
* " Give me a heart that follows after you; and give me discipline to spend time in the Word that my heart may grow in following after you.
* Give me a mind that revels in you; and give me purpose to study and meditate and listen and memorize on the truths found in your Word, even as it is often laborious!
* Give me a passion for you as supremely my delight, and then enable me to cultivate this affection be denying lesser things (and not just sinful things, but even the good pleasures from your hand that can often pull my eyes—and heart---from you!)"
Living and breathing passionately about the next life while living in this one is not natural.
Yet Christ’s love for me and provision to me winsomely calls my name.
May this week be filled not with pursuits and accomplishments and pleasures that will whither like the grass, but may my strength be given to His eternal purposes.
Oh, I still may be folding undershirts, making gravy, pulling weeds and scraping bug guts off my windshield.
But may Christ’s love be never far from my thoughts. And interspersed in these mundane tasks may my heart respond by excelling in my kingdom callings…to my family, my husband, my neighbors, my own ‘Samaritan alongside the road’ opportunity, even the person who may come to my door selling a product that ‘works really good at getting bug guts off a windshield.”
May I love with unqualified abandon and unchallenged priority…. God.
And may an inventory this week of what my heart follows after bear this out.
He is so Worthy.
So Lovely.
God Y
Thanks for the reminder that our true purpose and heart's desire is to praise and glorify the One who loved us first. Why is it so easy to get caught up in this temporal life and so hard sometimes to focus on who gave us this life? Would that we always felt as the psalmist in Psalm 73:25 "Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you."
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