It's funny how in ministry we tend to often think that God is calling us to change people's live. While He does call us to be the hands and feet of Jesus by sharing His love, I am learning more and more that the first person He wants to change is us. In the midst of longing to conquer the problems of the world, we start to neglect the corruption within ourselves. If we cannot give from what we have not received, how then can we pour out the love of God to those around us if we do not have it abiding within our very own hearts?
It
has only been four days of "Shine" and I have already been
brought face to face with the challenge to examine my own heart. I
realized that since my DTS I have started this process of healing,
and that now I am at a place where I felt so much shame and
insecurity about myself because I wasn't where I thought I should be.
I put myself on a "healing time-table" saying
that the fact that I am still struggling with rejection, fear of
failure, and lack of confidence in my self after 2.5 years means that
I have failed the assignment and that maybe, just maybe God was close
to giving up on me.
Since
I can remember I have placed my worth and my value in the friendships
of those around me and because of that I have faced so many feelings
of hurt and rejection. While God has taken me into greater
steps of freedom, I see that I still have been harboring feelings
that the people who define me are people and not God, No amount
of love and affection from friends or relationships has the ability
to heal me or to give me a solid foundation in which I can rest
fully. My friends didn't die for me, Jesus did. He
bought me at the price of shedding His blood. A value to high
for any monetary sum.
I
am priceless and so are you, because there is no value great enough
to be put on the blood of Jesus and what He did on the cross. When
I think about what it means to truly receive in my heart the love
that God has for me as my heavenly father and to know that my value
and my worth is unchangeable, it is liberating. No longer do I
have to feel insecure about measuring up to anyone's standards. I
do not have to fear rejection because the God in heaven will never
reject me. I can be free to be me and know that I am loved with
a love so fierce God sent His only son, Jesus, to die on the cross
for my sin, my shame, my guilt.
The
only person who has power to save and to heal is Jesus Christ. It
is in Him our joy is made complete and our hearts are filled with
contentment.
For
so long I let others define me, but it has been long enough. I've
repented for giving people the authority of defining who I am and now
I just want to move on. To lay it down at the cross and receive
the love God is extending to me.
It's
not going to be like flipping a switch, or maybe it will be, but I
know that God is starting a process of breaking into greater freedom.
It will take practice , and at times I may fail, but God never gives
up on me. God never gives up on you. His love has no end, and His
love has the capability of bringing you to a place where you know who
are and you love the way He has created you.
We
can not love others with the love of Jesus if we have not first
experienced it ourselves, to love is to give and for us to have love
to give it must come from an overflow of love we have received from
God our father.
I
written many times about identity and the love of God, thinking that
God wanted to use it to minister to the hearts of others, and while
that is true, I also see that He put it on my heart for me, to help
me experience greater revelation of His love.
In
order to receive, we must sometimes let go.
I
have written many times about identity and the love of God, thinking
that God wanted to use it to minister to the hearts of others, and
while that is true, I also see that He put it on my heart for me to
read, and to help me experience greater revelation of His love.
This
is only day four. I can't imagine what more the Lord has in
store.
"We
have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us.
God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and
God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, so that
we may have confidence in the day of judgement; because as He is, so
also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but
perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and
the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He
first loved us."
1
John 4: 15-19
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