All for Love

I've been laid up for a month now after having had surgery to have a Plantar wart extracted from the bottom of my right foot. I wasn't even going to mention this in a blog cuz I honestly thought that it was a small enough thing of no consequence. It has turned into...bah. Long story. Without going into details, the healing process has taken a really long time. I have been stuck in the house for a month and only got off crutches a few days ago. I even had to miss working our first outreach of the summer :(
All this to share that I have been doing a lot of reading. As you may have read below, I finally finished all of my required discipleship reading. Then I started reading a book I picked up when I lived in Kansas City 5 years ago and had never read. It's on Mike Bickle's top 10 books to read list. "When Jesus Returns" by David Pawson. AWESOME. About a third of the way into it, I stared having dreams again. I get dreams from the Lord in cycles and it had been a while. However, these dreams were full of symbology and needed some more paying attention to. So, then I got out my book called "The Seer" by Jim Goll to see if I could glean any dream interpretation wisdom from it. Not too much. It had been a while since I'd read it, so I kind of skimmed through it. I love Jim Goll's writing. He wrote a great book called 'Kneeling on the Promises' which I wish I had brought down here with me, but... sidetrack.
Okay. After two weeks of reading informational books, I confess I just wanted some fiction. So, I had my roommate Amy go borrow some from our boss's house. I ended up with Brock and Bodie Thoene's book series the A.D. Chronicles (missing book 2, however). I'd heard of the Thoene's before, but had never really been interested in reading any of their stuff. If for no other reason, I am glad that the surgery aftermath caused such intense boredom that I decided to read these books. They take place during Jesus' time and are so full of history and are just, plainly, anointed. I have been so deeply moved as I encounter the love and mercy of Christ on every page.
As I've mentioned before in earlier posts, I have a tendency to get 'religious' on myself-- and subsequently on others. I have that inner drive to be perfect before the Lord; so desperately want to be pure and shining, and then become incredibly disheartened when I fall short. I don't think this is necessarily a bad quality, however what has struck me is just how easily I can fall back into a 'works' oriented way of operating in my spiritual walk. Ten months of reading books on holiness and fear of the Lord left me feeling so unholy, so self-absorbed. With each book I read, I would be convicted of sin, feel utterly repentant and grieved at my inability to change myself. I would read, feel horrible, ask God for forgiveness, forget about it a few days later, read the next book, feel convicted, etc. In just a few days of reading these fiction novels, I have been transformed. What I mean is: encountering the presence of Jesus can, in an instant, bring healing, bring revelation, bring comfort, bring repentance, bring WHATEVER it is that we truly need. I have just been blown away, as I always am, when I encounter the love of Christ in such a way that it sidesteps what I think the real 'issues' are and goes straight to the heart of the matter. The ways that I act out are always rooted in something I am usually unaware of. But, Jesus is aware. Intimately so. And, He loves me so much that He goes right past all the shame I have about sin and touches on the places that need His healing touch so that I have no desire to even act out in the ways that I was. Am I making sense?
There is a time and a place for being convicted of sin. I believe the 10 months of discipleship reading laid the groundwork for Jesus to then just come in and love me into more wholeness. Hosea scribed, "He has torn us, but He will heal us."

In the book of Revelation, an angel says to John, "The bride has made herself ready!" I have often wondered what that meant. How can we, as the bride, make ourselves ready for communion with our Bridegroom? I finally feel like I am getting a picture of what this means. In the last year, I have been actively pursuing more training, more discipline, more teaching. I have been asking God to take inventory of my heart, to shine the light on areas that don't please Him. It has been incredibly painful and uncomfortable-- definitely confusing at times. What I didn't know was that I was preparing myself to meet Him at a deeper place of communion. I was making myself ready to meet Him.  He tore me apart, ripped me open, exposed things I didn't want to deal with, just so that He could then come and love me tenderly in the deepest, most wounded and ugly areas of my heart.  His love for us is so fervently jealous that He comes to burn up everything that hinders love in our lives.  He so desperately wants to 'catch the little foxes that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes'.  Those little foxes, all those little things that we allow to linger-- sins, attitudes, judgments-- spoil the abundance of fruit He wants to grow in our relationship with Him.

I now have about a hundred other Scriptures popping into my mind that relate to all this... I better stop while I'm ahead.

Make yourself ready. Seek Him while He may be found.  Catch the little foxes. Let Him tear you, and then heal you.

Ya, Terminé! I'm Finished!

It's only the minimum, but I finally finished reading the very last book for my discipleship class at Fraternidad Cristiana Amor a Quisqueya!!  We still have about a month left of classes to attend, but yesterday evening I polished off the very last book.  Discipleship class at my church here is a 10 month commitment-- we meet every Saturday evening from 5-7 and receive great teaching from our pastor, Popín.  Within the first 10 weeks of class we are required to read the entire Bible, starting in Matthew and ending with Malachi.  The rest of our 'spare' time is spent reading a minimum of 12 assigned books the pastor has read and picked out for us.  Then we write reports on each one.  For the most part, I really liked his selection, though I was realizing the other day that every single book was written by a man.  I don't believe this was intentional, just interesting. The principles of discipleship aren't sex-related, though I do enjoy hearing a woman's perspective, too.

Anyway, here is a list of the books I had to read and I put an asterisk next to my faves:

1. Causa de una Tirania (this is a book in Spanish about the Dominican dictator Trujillo)
2. Stop Flirting with the Church and Fall in Love with the Family of God-- Joshua Harris
3. A Tale of Three Kings-- Gene Edwards
4. El Martir de Las Catacumbas (only available in Spanish and the author didn't have his name on the book)
5. The Heavenly Man-- Brother Yun *
6. Spiritual Warfare-- Dean Sherman *
7. El Clamor en el Barrio-- Freddie García
8. Not Even a Hint-- Joshua Harris
9. Fear of the Lord-- John Bevere *
10. Undercover-- John Bevere *
11. The Prayer of Jesus-- (can't remember the author's name, but it was my least favorite)
12. The Twelve Transgressions-- Sergio Scataglini *

After reading all these books and taking this class, the overall resounding theme is: I am not my own.  It has been both hard and good to have the Light shine on weak and sinful areas of my character these last 10 months. It has been both frustrating and a relief to know that these areas do not just 'go away' and that I will continually have to go to the Cross with them.  I both hated and loved acknowledging that I, truly, can't do life on my own-- I literally need the Spirit of God to transform me and enable me to do the things my flesh doesn't want to do.  I have discovered just how much I cling to 'religion' (doing godly things without God-- spirit of independence) and reject 'relationship' (humble surrendering to the One who can actually do godly things because He IS God).  Sanctification is a fiery process that I both desire and want to run from.  But as Paul exhorts in 1 Thessalonians 5:19: "Do not put out the Spirit's fire;"  and 4 verses later, "May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through.  May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it." !!!!

I am so thankful for God's faithfulness to us, the promise that he will do it as we continue to believe in and walk in Christ.  I can't make myself blameless, I can't be perfect, but Christ in me, the hope of glory, CAN and WANTS to as long as I keep myself yoked to Him with a broken and contrite spirit, desiring communion.

Being a disciple is being broken at the feet of Jesus.