First Love
Below is an excerpt from a post I wrote on August 3rd 2010. It’s entitled- Parking Tickets, Patience and Giving Up Control
**** Why is patience so hard for us? I think it is a deep seeded need to control. Which is opposite of living in relationship. In a healthy relationship there is an absence of control or maybe at best in the human condition… an awareness of our controlling ways. Control is a desire for power which is at the root of our fallen nature. The only way for us to find freedom from control is in relationship that frees us from our need for control. Where unconditional love and trust exist… where each person is looking out for the needs of the other… where there is true servitude. At our best, we humans will fall short of this in human to human relating. Only in God, can we be truly safe to give up control.
Prayer… Father, Son and Spirit.. I desire to walk in relationship with you. To daily abide in your love and goodness. Help me to know how lost I am without you. Thank-you that I don’t have to measure up or feel pressure to be good.. to truly know that there is nothing I have to do for you to love me. NOTHING!! I have been so wounded and deceived. Continue to heal my heart and renew my mind. I invite you, gracious and Loving trinity to walk in relationship with me. Revive me. free me up! I love you. Jon*****
When I reread this old post today, one sentence hit me like a ton of bricks! It is in the prayer…..”help me to know how lost I am without you”
As I have said before, our enemy is dead set on taking us out! He is not worried about the carnal man, but the man or woman who comes alive through the love and power of God in Jesus. The person whose heart has been set free- free from posing, legalism, fear, control… Free from religion, all striving and trying to be good enough…in essence , free from trying to add or subtract one thing from the gospel. A person God has brought to this place becomes a marked man or woman and the evil one will come calling with great intent to take this “Alive Heart” out!
You see, by Gods grace and goodness, He brought me to that place of deepest sweet surrender and freedom in January and early February of this year-2012. He had led me to write, Children of Lesser Gods on February 2nd. I told my wife that it was “the hardest post I’ve ever written”. It’s basically a confessional- exposing my poser! I had come to realize that real freedom comes when we are free to be who God created us to be. We drop the “image” we are hiding behind and find our true identity in Christ as “the disciple whom Jesus loves”. My words can’t express the joy that came to me through this. I had “come home” to a love that poets have been trying to describe since the beginning! My focus was drawn away from myself and all the cares of this world and put squarely on the Cross of Christ.
During this time I received my message and calling. The message is based on John 10:10 and 15:5 and my calling is to speak into the brokenness of people.
Prayer -“Jesus, please help me pull this together”.
Revelation 2:4
4-5 “But you walked away from your first love—why? What’s going on with you, anyway? Do you have any idea how far you’ve fallen? A Lucifer fall!
“Turn back! Recover your dear early love. No time to waste, for I’m well on my way to removing your light from the golden circle.
John 21:
3 Simon Peter said, “I’m going fishing.”
“We’ll come, too,” they all said. So they went out in the boat, but they caught nothing all night.
17 A third time he asked him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
Peter was hurt that Jesus asked the question a third time. He said, “Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Then feed my sheep.
I close with this song and a verse that this song, I believe, speaks about. Almost every time I listen to this song I end up wet with tears. I don’t know of a more beautiful song!
Bellarive – I Know You
Dry your eyes
I see you
Come inside the doorway
Don’t you hide, My child
Place your hand in Mine
I know, I know you
I know you know I love you
I know, I know you
My grace invites you
Home
Life nor death will keep you
You don’t have to fear
Nothing comes between us
In the end you’re Mine
You’ll be just fine
You’re Mine
In the end you’re Mine
I know, I know you
I know you know I love you
I know, I know you
(You know me, yes, You know me)
My grace invites you
(Your grace, it invites me)
Romans 8:38
38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[a] neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.
I did not sleep well last night, which also adds to my state of being. My main prayer always comes back to this. Trust and Rest. Do not give in to the temptation to tie your trust and rest to circumstances or events or endings. But to simply take one day at a time , be thankful and trust and rest. Do not look to the end or conclusion of the trial but to trust and rest in the process knowing that God is good, loving, in control and working all things together for good. To learn to see him in the pain as well as the joy. To be still and know that he is God. Oh heart, settle down! It will be ok.
Trust and Rest- Jonathan
