no longer uncommitted...

Hosea 6: 6 I want you to show love, not offer sacrifices. I want you to know me more than I want burnt offerings.

all of us are on this 'love walk' that God has put in our lives... it is easy for me to say that not everyone is on the same walk.. not everyone seems to be led to love at all times.. it is easy to say because not everyone lives as if they have ever heard that message... I myself only heard this message from God over the past few years.. but is that the truth? or do we ALL have the same call which is to love like Christ loved.. but maybe we refuse that message...

1 “Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces; now he will heal us. He has injured us; now he will bandage our wounds. 2 In just a short time he will restore us, so that we may live in his presence. 3 Oh, that we might know the Lord! Let us press on to know him. He will respond to us as surely as the arrival of dawn or the coming of rains in early spring.”
4 “O Israel and Judah, what should I do with you?” asks the Lord. “For your love vanishes like the morning mist and disappears like dew in the sunlight. 5 I sent my prophets to cut you to pieces— to slaughter you with my words, with judgments as inescapable as light. 6 I want you to show love, not offer sacrifices. I want you to know me more than I want burnt offerings. 7 But like Adam, you broke my covenant and betrayed my trust.

this is really a description of my life with God in the past... I would walk away from Him.. searching for what I thought would fulfill me.. then I would be broken down.. repent and come back to Him.. and He would fix everything.. then slowly I would ease back into searching for something else... I truly had broken His covenant and His trust...

I am so thankful that this is no longer my relationship with God... that now I do really know Him.. really seek Him above all other things.. I have learned that nothing and no one can satisfy my soul like God does... that nothing can give me peace like Him.. I can have relationships or belongings and they can bring pleasure for a moment.. but at some point.. that fades.. and again.. the thing I really seek is God... He is my whole being... I am completely committed to Him...
God wants to love us.. He wants us to know Him... that is a great thing too.. that the God of the Universe would love me and want me to know Him and He feels the same way about each of us...

why do we follow Christ?

one morning in a devotional from Charles Stanley.. he asks the question.. why do you follow God? is it for what you can receive or what you can give... and that really struck me... what is it that really keeps us following God?

we have to admit.. that while we realize that we will have work to do for God.. much of our following is about what He does for us... we don't like to say that.. it is ugly to admit.. but it is the truth... we don't want to be a sacrifice on God's altar.. we don't want to be a martyr... we want Him to protect us.. to love us.. to take care of us.. to prosper us... but what are we really thinking that we are doing for Him?...

even in a vision or a plan for our future.. are we really thinking about all it will cost us.. or are we thinking about what we will gain... as much as I wish I could say I am thinking of what great things I can do for God.. that is a lie.. that may be a result.. but I also want what I imagine will be good.. be pleasing.. make me happy... so our real thoughts are on what we receive far more than what we are to give... and.. when we do think about how much it will cost us.. that tends to make us feel sorry for ourselves.. to make us think oh woe is me.. do we really think Jesus walked around feeling sorry for himself daily like we do.. and yet he knew all along that he would be dying so that we might live..

I am thinking I really need to rethink or renew my mind.. because I have often been told by God that none of this is about me.. it is all for Him.. and if we are focused on what we receive from something.. then how is it God getting the glory for it?

I had often wondered how God would be receiving the glory for my life... it appears now that maybe it is because I am so cease living for self.. and begin living for kingdom completely... thereby being a true living sacrifice... and all the glory going to God...

sometimes I think about sarah and the promise God gave her of a child and how for 25 years she waited... I wonder.. did she wait like I wait? sometimes confused and unsure.. or was she always sure of what God had said... did she go through periods where she thought that she must have been wrong.. maybe it was her own mind thinking it and not really God speaking... or did she just stand strong all those years.. sure and waiting on God to decide it was the right time and move on her behalf.. open her womb and give her the child that she believed for...

I get days that I am unsure of the vision I once saw so clearly... but usually right after the confusion.. I am reminded.. and I am sure that God really did say this to me... sometimes I think that if I had someone who was agreeing with me.. that saw the same vision.. would it be easier to be sure.. or would there still be days of unsurity... and I think I would still get unsure.. I would still have good days.. and bad days... I think that is the way of faith.. I think our faith is strengthened by days going by... I think that if it were not of God that it surely would have died in my heart by now... that I would not still be holding on to this idea.. this vision.. this sight... this purpose...

I think that is one way that we can be very sure that something is from God and not our own desires... we cannot let it go... truth told.. this vision is not something I would have chosen on my own.. I am secure in my own life.. I don't really want all these changes that God has put in my heart... yet I know that in the long run.. lives may be changed because of His vision... so you don't have the ability to decide you don't want it... you continue on.. believing in God.. waiting on His Hand to move on your behalf.. waiting for Him to fulfill the vision.. because you know this is nothing that you can do on your own...

praying in the wilderness...

Luke 5: 16 But Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer.

I often wonder why it is that we put off time alone with God... time in prayer... yet even Jesus OFTEN withdrew for prayer...

idk about you.. but when I take even 15 minutes.. and just sit in silence before God.. read maybe a few scripture verses.. regardless about what... and just meditate on God.. on His goodness. His greatness.. just who He is... I immediately feel peace overtake me... yet whatever the reason... even though we know it works.. we still allow ourselves to forsake time alone with God...

we are really some silly people...

and this particular verse says.. Jesus withdrew to the wilderness... when I think of wilderness.. I think of a terrible place.. a place where I am wandering around aimlessly without answers.. without rest... is is possible.. that God puts us in the wilderness for exactly the opposite of that... maybe He puts us in the wilderness so that we can spend time in prayer and get some answers... so that we can stop striving so hard and just rest... we know in the wilderness we are pretty much lost without Him anyways... so the point is maybe we can use this time to pray and rest and get some insight...

instead of seeing the wilderness as a bad place.. maybe it is a place of comfort and peace...

Psalms 41:9 Even my close friend, someone I trusted, one who shared my bread, has turned against me.

I have always... been strange about friends.. I have always only called one or two people friends... and I am still able to be just as close as ever with people who I grew up with yet rarely talk to... for me.. friendship is not based on how often you talk to someone.. it is based on trust... if I can't trust you.. I find it hard to love you...

I have been given the gift of seeing the spirit within a person... almost always.. my initial positive or negative feel for a person is exactly right... yet sometimes.. I get sidetracked by the fact that I like someone.. and I get deceived by them... not because God didn't warn me.. but because I refused to see it.. because I like the person... this has only ever happened to me a few times in my life... normally.. I will go with my initial feeling.. but sometimes for whatever circumstance.. I am almost bound to be around someone.. whether it be family or whatever... that is when I get sucked under...

I have learned once again.. trust the inner voice of the Lord.. He will never steer you wrong..

secrets...

Mark 4: 22 For everything that is hidden will eventually be brought into the open, and every secret will be brought to light.

idk about you.. but I don't really want all my secrets brought out to the light.. at least not the bad ones... the good ones can come out any time... what is it that makes us do things and then think no one will ever find out? it has been my experience.. that every thing we do thinking no one will ever know.. eventually comes out... so why do we do things that we want no one to know about? why do we do things that we are ashamed of before man... obviously God knew about it to begin with.. so what makes us think no one will find out... bigger than the finding out.. what makes us do it at all....

even as far back as adam and eve.. they somehow imagined that God would not know that they listened to the enemy.. that they sinned... that somehow they would get away with it...

I think all of this goes back to satan's battle for our mind... he lets us imagine that we can get away with no one finding out that we did something we shouldn't have... then other people end up getting hurt from our actions... we are silly... truly we need to stop doing the things that we would be ashamed of someone knowing about... because surely... everything done in the dark will come to the light... every secret will be told.. and we will have to suffer the consequences of it.. along with anyone else that is important to us...

live righteously.. in the dark and in the light.. as best we can...

trusting God to protect you...

Deuteronomy 23: 14 For the LORD your God moves about in your camp to protect you and to deliver your enemies to you. Your camp must be holy, so that he will not see among you anything indecent and turn away from you.

daily I seem to keep learning a lesson in trusting in God... I keep thinking that I am to protect myself from being hurt.. I am to avoid situations where I may get used or abused.. but this is not what I am hearing from God... what I am hearing is nothing I have ever heard in church before...

I am learning.. God is my protector.. my shield and my fortress.. He is the one that will not allow the enemy to overtake me... I am to open myself up to people.. to show them through my own love who Christ really is.. and not be so concerned about protecting myself.. God will be my protector...

and I am to remain holy so that He will not turn away from me... although I know that holiness is not popular...yet it is the will of God.. the way of righteousness...

I believe this is how Jesus lived His life too... He did not come against anyone at all.. He allowed people to use and abuse Him.. trusting that in the end.. God will get all the glory for His life...

trusting in God is possibly the hardest thing I have ever done.. along with loving others... believing that God will be the one who protects my heart...