Posts tagged as:

love

Nothing to Bring

by Jessica on April 20, 2010

I feel like I’m being an open book lately. And I’m okay with that. There’s a freedom that comes with being honest and real. Letting your flaws and emotions show. No pretenses.

My heart is stirring within me. There’s a Christian song that’s popular right now (More Like Falling in Love) that when it comes on the radio I usually change the station. Why? It annoys me.

I’m the type of girl that likes rules, organization, consistency, commitment, measurable success. So when I hear things like “more like losing my heart than giving my allegiance,” part of me gets frustrated because we should give our allegiance to God.

Not only that but one thing I see in Christian culture is a trend that focuses on the emotional aspect of having a relationship with God rather than being solidified in the truth. Emotions are good and useful, but not when you base your faith on how you feel. I have seen and heard one too many Christians live a rollercoaster style of faith based on their emotions and, to me, songs like this encourage this.

But hear me out–I’m also a perfectionist recovering perfectionist. So something, say, like receiving love, I often struggle with. When you live life aiming for perfection you’re in this constant struggle with Am I good enough? Did I do the right thing? How much farther (or more) until I’ve arrived? You’re never really settled. Always aiming. Always seeking. Always looking to perform.

The thing with love though, real love, is that it’s not based on performance. Tell that to a perfectionist and they have no idea what to do. They live a life based on performing…you’ve removed the floor beneath them and now they’re falling no longer in control.

That’s me.

I run faster and harder to know the Truth than to be loved by the Truth. I know I’m a sinner. I know I’ve been saved by grace. I know, all too well, my own wretchedness. I know the grace of God, but…His love I often struggle with.

This song got to me the other day. I heard it on the radio and let it play.

Give me rules
I will break them
Give me lines
I will cross them
I need more than a truth to believe
I need a truth that lives, moves, and breathes
To sweep me off my feet
It ought to be

More like falling in love
Than something to believe in
More like losing my heart
Than giving my allegiance
Caught up, called out
Come take a look at me now
It’s like I’m falling, oh
It’s like I’m falling in love

Give me words
I’ll misuse them
Obligations
I’ll misplace them
‘Cause all religion ever made of me
Was just a sinner with a stone tied to my feet
It never set me free
It’s gotta be

…It’s like I’m falling in love, love, love
Deeper and deeper
It was love that made
Me a believer
In more than a name, a faith, a creed
Falling in love with Jesus brought the change in me

(by Jason Gray, More Like Falling in Love)

My heart is slowly letting go of performance and, while holding fast to Truth, I’m opening my arms to receiving more of His love. Unabashed, unashamed, with nothing to bring. It’s deeper than an ocean.

The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell;

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

- Frederick Lehman, The Love of God

Love brings freedom. There is no longer an “I have to…” but an “I want to.” There is no condemnation in the love of Jesus–even if I don’t have a quiet time. His heart is so big and his love so deep that we would drown in it if it were an ocean.

And so, this is my prayer:

Lord, I want to know You more. I want to be passionate about Your Word. I want to run to it and be joyously satisfied. I want my heart to be stirred by things You are passionate about. I want to be free from any weight, condemnation, or guilt. I don’t want to meet with you as a Pharisee. Read some words and move on. I want to be changed.

I want to sit with You and walk with You…fully confident and fully in love. Secure.

Lord, break my calloused heart and give me a feeling, beating heart of flesh immersed in Your love and promises.

You are steadfast, O God, and good to all who trust in You.

I sought, He answered and delivered.

I cried, He heard and saved.

He delivers, He redeems, and as long as I seek

Him I lack no good thing.

How are you experiencing the love of God today?

photo credit

Tagged as: love, quiet time, Sacred Chaos

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The Fourth Week of Advent

by Jessica on December 20, 2009

in Christmas

photo by VickyvS'

As I was thinking about the fourth week of Advent being the week of love, I was reminded of how love is a choice.

This sounds simple enough, right? I remember a time when I was growing in my relationship with the Lord that I asked a friend ‘How do you love God?’ The response I received, albeit a bit cheesy, comes from an old DC Talk song “Love is a Verb.”

Love is an action, a choice. It’s a decision.

While love is sometimes accompanied by emotions and feelings of fulfillment and joy, more often than not we have to work to love those in our lives. Love does not come naturally. Sometimes it can feel more of a chore than a joy. Who wants to do the laundry again? Or spend an afternoon running kids between activities? Or work a tiring, boring job so the bills are paid? Love is often a sacrifice. And sacrifices rarely feel good in the moment.

While we should always aim to love others better than we love ourselves, we shouldn’t–at least I don’t think–expect ourselves to get it right the first time or feel the greatest joy when doing it. Does that make sense? Loving people is a lot of work!

One struggle for me, and I assume for many others as well, is that love is so closely associated in our culture with happiness and good feelings. The detriment here is that when we don’t feel happy, but still need to love amid our own yucky feelings, we feel like we aren’t loving. The idea that love is emotion wrecks our relationships and often our ability to love. We feel that we’re loving wrong, not enough, or that because we longer feel certain emotions love does not existence (hence the dissolving of many relationships).

While I believe we should pursue joy in loving others, I don’t believe it must coincide with every action of love. Sometimes action must proceed response. If we are obedience to respond in love, then the heart attitude of love will follow. It may take time, but it will come.

This reminds me of Jesus’ time in the garden of Gethsemane and his way to the cross. He wasn’t singing praises or joyfully skipping through the streets as he carried the cross. No–he prayed, with blood on his face, asking God to take away “this cup.”

It wasn’t that Jesus didn’t love the Father and was seeking a way out. He knew it would be painful, but in the end he would do what pleased the Father. Why? Because he loved Him.

Love is not always easy. It’s a choice.

As we continue in this season of Advent, let’s remember that we love because He first loved us and are to extend that same love and grace to those in our lives. Love may be a choice, but it’s also a gift–first, to us and then to others.

Love wisely, love humbly.

Remember we’re just as undeserving of love as the last annoying, inconvenient person we met.

Tagged as: Advent, Christmas, love

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Humble Reflections

by Jessica on May 26, 2007

in Uncategorized

“I need to be reminded of who I was when I took that first step…”
- Bethany Dillon, Imagination

Oh, how those words have a meaning that is so true and humbling. I need to be reminded of who I was before my Savior took me by the hand and in His humble glory saved me. I was like our heroine, a prostitute (metaphorically). Even at eight years of age I was a wicked sinner headed for damnation. Yes, as an eight-year-old I had spited God—I had done all of those things you find in Romans 1.

Then God reached down and called out to my heart. He spoke words of love and peace and life. He said he would make His own, call me daughter and friend. One day I’d even be His Son’s Bride. I had been offered the most beautiful gift. Jesus had paid the ransom for me. I was now his. He paid the debt for all my sin, my sorrow, and my shame. (Yes, even an eight-year-old has sin, sorrow, and shame!)

His blood, the sacrifice of my depravity, covered my unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil, envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, gossip, slander, hatred of God, insolence, arrogance, pride, and disobedience to my parents (Ro. 1:29-30). It is a great and beautiful thing that I have been made a princess of grace. I have been crowned with what I don’t deserve—mercy leading to a blessed life. And how quick I forget it.

It was not my own goodness that saved me—I was a practioner of wickedness. It was not I who crowned myself with favor. No, it was the Lord and the Lord alone. Don’t miss it. I could not have saved myself. I could not have worked my way to this place in the kingdom. An enemy does not become a daughter on her own accord.

Before Christ’s gallant entry I was worthy of one thing and one thing only—death. Remember it for that’s the humbling truth. No one enters the kingdom of God by their own merit.

I need to be reminded of who I was when I took that first step…

“But God demonstrated His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. […] For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”
Romans 5:8, 10

…forever reigns the King…