“I pray that you will understand beyond all comparison the magnitude of His power towards us who believe. It is the same dynamic energy that He unleashed in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and forever established Him in the power of His own right hand in the realm of the heavens.” ~Ephesians 1:19-20~ (Mirror)
The deep pain and sorrow of a secret addiction or a life changing, devastating moral failure, is not easily described with words, but anyone who has walked in that shadow world for even a brief period of time, knows exactly what I mean.
Twisting in the depths of torment and shame, thoughts of suicide may come with increasing frequency and appeal.
Sanity becomes a relative term, examined in the dark, from this angle and that; never actually grasped, somehow, almost miraculously just out of reach.
Despair, rage, indifference…hurricanes of self pity clash violently with great surges of hate feeding greedily on self loathing.
Loved ones innocently make it worse, adding guilt and the undeniable, unreasonable pressure to perform, to get better…to BE NORMAL. To – WHY did you DO IT?
Nothing else matters except not mattering. Everybody just leave me alone.
Where did everybody go?
So lonely.
Get away from me. This black hole will suck you in, as well.
Please don’t leave, just don’t get too close.
Every dream dead. All hope gone. Rejected, refused, again. I should have hurt you first.
Next time, I will.
This is all your fault. This is nobody’s fault but mine.
I knew better; I know better.
If you recognize your own thoughts in those words, not in the distant past, but recently, or even now, I am compelled by the Lord to invite your heart into freedom and life. My purpose is not to psychoanalyze you, or even to counsel you. I feel led to simply pray for those who are bound or oppressed by these types of thoughts.
God wants to do for you what He has done for me; He will set you wonderfully free.
The point of contact between you and Heaven’s freedom is not me, but your reaching out to receive what Jesus did on the Cross. He bled and died and rose again for you to be utterly and completely free. If your heart is burning within you, thundering in your chest as you read these words, maybe your face is wet with tears…listen to me, please…REACH towards Him and BELIEVE that He is Who He says He is and He HAS DONE what He says He’s done. Reach with your whole being and don’t stop until you touch the hem of His garment.
Now stop and breathe Him in…LIFE. Sweet. Terrifying GOODNESS. Repentance. Hope reborn. Peace…His LOVE surrounds you, overtakes you, overwhelms you…HEALS you. His strength fills you. His face shining before you…His smile, His eyes-impossible beauty, acceptance, forgiveness, JOY. Take His hands and stand up before Him, let Him look at you and run His hands through your hair, draw you near until you are forehead to forehead. Breathe Him in. Smiles turn to laughter, quiet at first, but fast exploding into glorious, uproarious, golden waves of perfect euphoria, each breath healing and transforming the deepest parts of your inner heart.
Holiness. Righteousness. Blamelessness. Perfection. Completion. A finished work. It is finished.
FREEDOM.
The finished work of the Cross leaves nothing undone in you, everything undone in you; nothing lacking…OVERFILLED and OVERFLOWING, more than enough. Enough for everyone you encounter and then WAY more, exponentially MORE…ever expanding, always increasing from glory to GLORY…in YOU. No longer you that lives, but beautiful, stunning, miraculous Jesus IN YOU.
Amen.
“Let’s celebrate God! Every spiritual blessing in heavenly places has found its definition in the fact that we are in Christ. This association goes back to before the fall of the world, His love knew that He would present us again face to face before Him, identified in Christ in blameless innocence.”
~Ephesians 1:3-4~
For the King and His Kingdom
“Enter through the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and spacious and broad is the way that leads away to destruction, and many are those who are entering through it. But the gate is narrow, contracted by pressure, and the way is straitened and compressed that leads away to life, and few are those who find it.” ~Matthew 7:13-14~
I once lived for the advancement of my own personal kingdom, working tirelessly at building an empire rooted in the dirt of this world. My loyalties were divided though. Most of my heart resided in Heaven while my mind was stuck fast in the fading things of earth. Now that both mind and heart are firmly anchored in Glory, I care nothing about building my own kingdom. All is for His Kingdom and His Name.
For my friends and family this creates a great conflict because the person they knew for many years is gone. There is no more interest in the things of this world, no more commiseration over hopeless sin issues, no more feigned longing for freedom from this earth. I have found myself more desperately lonely in this season of my life than any other time I can remember. Not alone, you understand…lonely.
And it is a sweet loneliness, filled with the glory of Heaven’s secrets and the beauty of His smile.
To be clear, I am not complaining, or even seeking some glorious new commiseration..lol. I am marveling out loud, publicly…at what has been one of the most radical and accelerated times of growth in my entire walk with God. There is no doubt that I have learned more about who God really is in the last 9 months, than in the 19 years of my Christian journey leading up to this year.
Please don’t read this and feel as if I need encouragement or exhortation of any kind. My prayer is that maybe just one, upon seeing these words, will seek out the glory of the narrow road. For sure, there are more than a few who will read this and instantly relate. This is an hour unlike any other ever seen on this planet.
Some say,”The glory is upon us! This is it!”, while others are saying,”What glory? I sing and praise Him all day…is that the glory you’re talking about?”
And yet others can’t stop saying, “GET READY. THE KING IS COMING IN MORE GLORY AND POWER THAN HAS EVER BEEN SEEN ON EARTH. GET READY.”
Get ready…