loving like jesus loves

Opening Prayer: Lord Jesus, help us to love like you love.  Amen.

Scripture: Luke 7:11-17

Journal:  If you could ask Jesus one question, what would it be?  What does it mean to love like Jesus loves?  How will you do that?

Reflection: A few days ago a friend asked me, “If you could ask Jesus one question, what would it be?”  And as I thought about it, a question rose up from within me.  In fact, it surprised me a bit.  My only explanation is that it came from God; he knew the deepest question of my heart better than I did.  How kind of him to show it to me.

“How can I love like you love?” was my response.  Like I said, I can take no credit for it.  It was just something that arose from a deep and beautiful place in me.  And it was so right!  In fact, the older I get, the more it seems like the only question that really matters.  And when it came out of my mouth, I could feel a yes deep in my soul. 

The problem is that it’s so far from my daily reality.  My failures to love seem much more abundant that whatever small successes I might have.  Even the idea of loving like Jesus loves seems almost impossible to me apart from a work of Divine Grace.  Yet, it is definitely one of the deepest longings of my heart and soul.  But how in the world does that happen?  How can I possibly begin to love like Jesus loves?  I guess the answer is as simple as it is complex: I must let Jesus do the loving in and through me. 

Which brings me to my verses for the day—Luke 7:11-17.  It is the story of a widow who just lost her only son.  Can you imagine the pain?  What a double dose of pain and heartache and tragedy!  First you lose your husband, and then you lose your only child.  Losing one of the two would have been bad enough, but this just seems like piling on.

And here is the verse that stopped me in my tracks: “When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her.” (Luke 7:13) Not only had Jesus revealed to me the deepest question of my heart, but he was also revealing to me how to go about the journey of loving like he loves. 

You see, ninety-nine percent of the time my initial thoughts are about myself, and how things affect me.  Sadly, even when I run into the tragedy and despair of others, my initial thoughts are usually something like, “What can I do?  What do I need to say?  What would be wise and helpful?”  And when I do that, I fail to really see the person in front of me at all, much less allow my heart to go out to them.  Loving like Jesus loves, first of all, involves a shift.  A shift from me worrying about what I am going to say or do, to really seeing them and letting my heart go out to them.  A simple shift, but a profound one.

It’s like Jesus is saying to me: “Jim, just allow me to love others through you, that’s how you love like me.  Train your eyes to really see those around you, and then, instead of worrying how to respond, just let your heart go out to them.  Make it about them, not about you.  If you can do those two things, you will be well on your way in the journey of love.”

Pray

Closing Prayer: Jesus, help us to truly see people and help our hearts to go out to them.  For then we will be on our way in the journey of love.  Amen.

occupied

Opening Prayer: Lord Jesus, help me to treasure and ponder only that which is good and true and beautiful and excellent and praiseworthy.  For when I fill my mind and my heart with those things—when I fill my mind and heart with you—it will transform my life.  Amen.

Scripture: Luke 2:15-20

Journal: What occupies your heart these days?  What do you spend most of your time dwelling on?  What do you treasure up and ponder in your heart?  How does that affect your life? 

Reflection: “But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19)

What do I allow to occupy my inner space?  Whatever it is, it will determine how I live.  Do I let my fears and insecurities and inadequacies and needs consume me, or do I dwell on what is good and excellent and true and beautiful?  All too often, I’m afraid, it is the former rather than the latter.  I tend to focus on my shortcomings and gaffes and mistakes and failures, instead of focusing on the victories and progress and growth going on within and around me.  Mary chose to focus on what God was up to within and around her, and it made all the difference.  She treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart.  O Lord, help me to do the same.

Pray

Closing Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank you that Mary treasured all these things up and pondered them in her heart.  May we do the same.

alive to God

Opening Prayer: Help me, Lord Jesus, to prepare the way for your coming, whatever that may mean.  Amen.

Scripture: Isaiah 40:3-5

Journal: How are you preparing the way, both within you and around you, for the coming of Jesus?

Reflection: “What is required is a constant aliveness to God—an aliveness present when you talk, read, watch, or examine something.” ~St. Theophan the Recluse

Advent is here, and once again we have a beautiful invitation from God to enter into the watching and waiting of the season as we prepare for his coming.  But just how do we “prepare the way” (Isaiah 40:3) for the coming of the King into our everyday lives during this season?  One way is by paying attention, which is a lot harder than it sounds.  A vital attentiveness to God’s movement and God’s presence is required.  An aliveness to God, and to his Spirit, must be nurtured and nourished within us.  This aliveness is nurtured by prayer and nourished by love.  So let us be diligent in the days ahead to make relentless time and space to pray and to love. 

Pray

Closing Prayer: Help me, Lord Jesus, to be alive to you at all times and in all ways.  I cannot do that on my own, so please to a deep work within me.  Amen.

 

cease striving

Opening Prayer: Cease striving and know that I am God. (Psalm 46:10, NASB)

Scripture: Psalm 46:10

Journal: Where in your life are you striving these days?  Why and how?  How is God speaking to you about through this scripture?  What does he want to say to you?

Reflection: “Stop.  Just stop.  Stop trying desperately to prove you are worth loving and just let yourself be loved.  Let me love you.  Let me cradle you in my embrace and let me whisper words of delight and affection in your ear.  You are so busy, so full of striving.  Just be still for a moment and know that I am God.”

Pray

Closing Prayer: Forgive me, O Lord, for my endless striving.  Somewhere along the line it has stopped being about you and has started being about me.  Forgive me.  Give me the strength and the courage and the grace to stop trusting me and start trusting you.  Amen.

hurled

Opening Prayer: In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me.  From the depths of the grave I called for help, and you listened to my cry.  You hurled me into the deep, into the very heart of the seas, and currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me.  I said, “I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.  The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me, seaweed was wrapped around my head.  To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me forever. (Jonah 2:2-6, NIV)

Scripture: Jonah 1:17-2:10

Journal: When was the last time God hurled you into the deep?  What was your response?  What were the results?

Reflection: “You hurled me into the deep” (Jonah 2:3) not to harm me, but to deepen me, and awaken me to your presence, your will, and your direction.  You hurled me into the deep in order to change me into the person you dreamt me to be, to restore the Divine Image in me.  If we are not changed by these moments of chaos and crisis, then what are they for?

Thus, this hurling was not malicious and hurtful, but intentional and redemptive.  It was a severe mercy, a tragic tenderness, and an exacting kindness.  So thank you.  Even though it was incredibly difficult to go through, you accomplished something good and beautiful in me as a result. 

Pray

Closing Prayer: But you brought my life up from the pit, O Lord my God.  When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple.  But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you.  What I have vowed I will make good.  Salvation comes from the Lord. (Jonah 2:6-9, NIV)

his eyes

Opening Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank you that you always look at the lost and broken through the eyes of love.  Help me to see the love you have for me in your eyes today, so that I might be able to love others the way you want me to.  Amen.

Scripture: John 4:17-18

Journal: What do you think was in the eyes of Jesus as he said these words to the Samaritan woman at the well?  How did he see her?  How does he see you?

Reflection: “You are right when you say you have no husband.  The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you have right now is not your husband.  What you have said is quite true.” John 4:17-18)

What do you think was the look in the eyes of the Savior as he uttered these words to this lost and thirsty woman?  Was it a look of disdain and judgment and disgust?  Or was it a look of compassion and longing and tenderness?  How you answer that question tells you so much about what you really believe to be true about God.  And that is significant. 

If we are consistent with the Jesus we see in the rest of the Gospels, I think it had to be a look of love.  Rarely did Jesus ever look at the lost and broken with a look of disdain, so I think it had to be a look of desire and of invitation and of delight.  Because I do not think he said these words to shame her, but to awaken her.  It was his way of saying to her, “You have not yet found your beloved, and he is the one standing right in front of you.”  Because more than anything else, the story of God is the story of a lover in constant pursuit of his beloved.  Do you believe that?  Do you believe it for this woman?  And do you believe it for yourself? 

What do you think the eyes of Jesus hold as they look at you?  How could it not be love?

Pray

Closing Prayer: Lord Jesus, forgive us when we believe that you look at us through the eyes of criticism or anger or disgust.  Help us to see ourselves as you see us, as your beloved.  Only then can we see others that way as well.

just do it

Opening Prayer: “One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.” (Psalm 27:4)

Scripture: Psalm 27:4

Journal: What do the words dwell, gaze, and seek mean to you?  How do they take shape in your time with him?  How often to you actually do them?  How often do you make time and space to dwell with God, to gaze upon his beauty, and to seek him in his temple?

Reflection:  In the midst of chaos—evil men advancing and enemies attacking and armies besieging and war breaking out—David asks for one thing, and it’s probably not the one thing you would expect.  Instead of asking God to intervene, or make it all go away, he asks that he might “dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of his life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.”  He does not ask for his circumstances to change; he asks for his perspective to change.  He asks for his practice to change.  For he knows that if he can learn to dwell in God’s house and gaze upon God’s beauty and seek God in his temple, then everything else will take care of itself.  What a beautiful prayer! 

The only problem is that it’s really easy to talk about doing those things, and to write about them, and maybe even to pray them, without actually doing them.  Take it from me, I’ve become an expert.  There are many days when I pray this very prayer and think about its beauty and write about its wisdom and its depths, without actually taking the time to stop and dwell and gaze and seek.  And if I fail to actually do these things, they cannot bear fruit in my life.

G. K. Chesterton once said, “The difference between talking about prayer and praying, is the same as the difference between blowing a kiss and kissing.”  If we don’t actually do it, we never reap the benefits or taste the pleasures and treasures of intimacy with God.  Which is so sad for us, but even sadder for God.  God longs for us to know the depths and breadth and heights and passion and intimacy and pleasures of his unfailing love.

It’s almost like God is waiting for us to bask in his love and express our love for him in return, but all we do is talk about it or think about it or write about it.  We never really enter into it, so that he’s left saying, “Are you going to kiss me or what?  Are you going to dwell and gaze and seek, or are you just going to sit there?  Are you just going to think about it, or are you actually going to do it?  Don’t just talk about loving me, love me!  Just do it!

Pray

Closing Prayer: Forgive me, O Lord, when I talk about dwelling and gazing and seeking, and fail to do them.  Help me to make time and space today to do the one thing David asked.

waiting and trusting

Opening Prayer: Help me, O Lord, to learn what it means to wait patiently for you.  Give me the faith and the strength and the courage—as well as the trust—to do so.  Amen.

Scripture: Psalm 40:1-4

Journal: How and where is God asking you to trust him these days?  What does that look like?  How does that involve a willingness to wait?

Reflection: “I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry.  He lifted me up out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.  He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.  Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord. (Psalm 40:1-3)

There is a deep connection between waiting and trusting.  In fact, it is impossible to wait patiently for the Lord if we do not trust him—we will be far too busy managing and controlling and manipulating life to do so. 

And while it may seem that our inability to wait is a result of impatience, the truth is that it is more a result of a lack of trust, which makes it is more a matter of unwillingness than of inability.  We refuse to wait because we do not trust.    

Unless we truly believe that God's heart toward us is good and that he will take care of us and provide for us, then waiting, much less waiting patiently, becomes impossible because we will always be busy trying to arrange our lives and our circumstances.  All of which means that if we cannot, or will not, wait for the Lord, then we do not have a patience problem, we actually have a trust problem.

Pray

Closing Prayer: O God, help us to trust in you.  Cultivate in us, during this Advent season, a heart of waiting.  And help us to let go of our compulsive need to control and manipulate and manage.

 

ulterior motives

Opening Prayer: Forgive me, Lord Jesus, when life becomes more about me than it is about you, when it becomes more about my plans than about yours, when it becomes more about getting my way that doing your will.  Forgive me when my kiss becomes an attempt to get what I want, rather than an expression of my delight and affection.  Amen.

Scripture: Luke 22:48

Journal: What are your true motives in coming to Jesus today?  What kind of “kiss” are you giving him?  What is his response?

Reflection: “Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?” (Luke 22:48) It’s sad how often I come to Jesus with ulterior motives.  And it’s comical to think that somehow I’ve convinced myself that he doesn’t see right through it.  And yet, like Judas, he loves me anyway.  Amazing Love!  How can it be?

Pray

Closing Prayer: Lord Jesus, you kiss us with the kiss of Divine Affection, and yet we kiss you with a kiss of betrayal or manipulation or demand.  Forgive us.  Help us to give you the love and adoration you deserve, both this day and every day.  Amen.

 

let him kiss me

Opening Prayer: O Lord, you are my Lover.  No one loves me like you do.  Nobody loves me with the passion and tenderness and tenacity and pursuit that you love me with.  So kiss me, O Lord, with the kisses of your mouth—for your love is more delightful than wine.  Amen.

Scripture: Song of Songs 1:2-4

Journal: What do these verses stir up within you?  When was the last time someone kissed you?  How did it make you feel?  How does it make you feel to know that God desires to kiss you with the kisses of his mouth today?  Will you let him?

Reflection: “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth—for your love is more delightful than wine.” (Song of Songs 1:2)

There is a big difference between kissing someone and being kissed by them.  One expresses my desire for intimacy and affection, and the other expresses the desire and delight of the One who loves me.  It feels really good to be desired, doesn’t it?  It does something beautiful in us.  That’s why I’m so glad that this line of poetry from the Scriptures is worded the way it is: “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.”  For in this Divine Romance, he is the active one, not me.   He is the initiator; I am the recipient.  He is the pursuer; I am the pursued.  He is the lover; I am the beloved. All I can do is open myself up to his passion and his embrace, which requires a beautiful vulnerability. 

So, kiss me with the kisses of your mouth, O Lord, and give me the courage and the passion to receive them.

Pray

Closing Prayer: O Lord, help me to have the courage and the passion to completely open myself to you.  Amen.

jesus made them

Opening Prayer: Lord Jesus, help us to know that even in the storms of life, you are still at work, accomplishing your purposes, both in and through us.  Thank you.  Amen.

Scripture: Matthew 14:22-33

Journal: Why do you think Jesus made the disciples get into the boat, even he knew exactly what he was sending them into?  What do you think he was trying to accomplish?  When is the last time Jesus showed up in the midst of one of your “storms?”  How did it change you?

Reflection: “Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of them to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd.” (Matthew 14:22)

Did you catch that?  Jesus made the disciples get into the boat.  He knew full well exactly what he was sending them into and yet he made them get in the boat—without him—and head to the other side.  He was totally aware that he was sending them into the middle of a huge storm.  Why on earth would he do such a thing?  Maybe because he was trying to accomplish something in them. 

It was done both intentionally and purposefully.  He didn’t see them as he watched from the mountainside and think to himself, “Oh dang!  I didn’t see that coming.”  No, he was actually trying to accomplish something in them that could be accomplished no other way.  He was leading them beyond where they were.  Jesus always calls each one of us beyond where we are.  He sent them into the storm so they would come out knowing him better.  He sent them into the storm so that at the end of the whole episode they would be standing in awe with their mouths wide open saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

A wise saint once said that “There is an intent of God behind the content of life.”  The painful content of this life all entered the world as a result of the fall: storms, floods, hurricanes, death, disease, diagnoses, violence, abuse, addiction, depression, anxiety, and fear.  The list goes on and on.  Jesus did not create the storm, he just sent them into it.  He used the storm to give them a bigger picture of who he was.  He is big enough even to use life’s most brutal and evil content, to accomplish his intent, both in and through us.  He uses it to invite us to a deeper and more beautiful life with and for him. 

It happened with the disciples, and my guess is that it has happened with you.  When’s the last time God sent you into a massive storm just so you would see and know how big and awesome and wonderful and loving and powerful he really is?  When was the last time you stood in awe saying to yourself, “Truly you are the Son of God”?   

Pray

Closing Prayer: Lord Jesus, truly you are the Son of God!

speed kills

Opening Prayer: Lord Jesus, although you did so much, you were never in a hurry.  You were never moving so fast that you forgot to see and notice and touch and care for people.  You were never in so much of a hurry that you neglected your time with the Father, or failed to pray.  Help us, Lord Jesus to be more like you.  Amen.

Scripture: Proverbs 19:2

Journal: How does hurry affect your life?  What is the real reason you hurry?  What would it look like to ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life?

Reflection: “Desire without knowledge is not good, and whoever makes haste with his feet misses his way.” (Proverbs 19:2, ESV) He who hurries his footsteps errs. (Proverbs 19:2, NASB) Enthusiasm without knowledge is no good; haste makes mistakes. (Proverbs 19:2, NLT).

Who, or what, determines the direction you go each day?  And who, or what, determines the pace at which you go that direction?  These are big questions, but questions, I’m afraid, that we spend far too little time reflecting upon.  Somehow, we have bought into the lie that bigger and more and faster are better.  We have gotten so caught up in trying to do everything, that we actually accomplish nothing of eternal significance.  The most important things, and processes, in life cannot be rushed.  They cannot be manufactured; they can only be grown over time.  If we want to know God deeply and well, it is just going to take time.  “A long obedience in the same direction,” as Eugene Peterson so beautifully stated. 

Simply put, hurry is the enemy of spiritual life.  When asked what someone must do to have a relationship with God that is vibrant and fruitful and alive, Dallas Willard once said, “You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.”  Or, as the psychologist Carl Jung once put it: “Hurry isn’t of the devil, hurry is the devil.” 

In other words, speed kills.  Speed breaks down and burns out.  Speed is reckless and sloppy.  Speed keeps us from being able to see what we need to see and hear what we need to hear.  It keeps us from being able to notice and pay attention.  Speed makes us miss the point; it keeps us from being able to enter into what God is doing, both within us and around us.  Ultimately, speed is all about us, and not about God.  If we do not watch our speed, eventually we will end up in big trouble.

Jesus, though he did so much, was never in a hurry.  That is why he was able to enter into conversations with people even though he was being pulled in a million directions.  He let the Father determine what he did and did not do, who he did and did not spend time with.  It wasn’t determined out his own of need—or theirs, for that matter—but out of the larger purposes and direction of the Father. 

That’s why he was able to stop in the middle of a crowded street to hear the story of a nameless, bleeding woman, even though he was in route to heal a dying little girl.  That’s why he was able to wait four days after he heard his friend Lazarus was on his deathbed.  That’s how he could show up at a pool filled with hundreds of desperately needy people and only heal one of them.  That’s how he had time to go through Samaria to have a long conversation with a woman at a well, who no one else in her town would talk to.  That’s how he could respond to his disciple’s statement that “everyone in town is looking for you” with the statement, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also.  That is why I have come.”  That’s why he could wait until the fourth watch of the night to go out to the disciples on the raging sea.  And I could go on and on.

Jesus did not allow hurry to take his life captive.  And neither should we.  If we want to have any hope of being his presence and his hands and his voice in this dark and desperate world. It will be because we took the time to be with him, and listen to him, first.  And if we never slow down, that is not possible.

Slow us down, O Lord, so we can do the work you have given us to do, and not merely our own.  Amen.

Pray

Closing Prayer: Slow us down, O Lord, so we can do the work you have given us to do, and not merely our own.  Amen.

 

seek his face

Opening Prayer: Help me to seek your face, O Lord, and not merely my own interests masked in a pious shell.  Amen.

Scripture: Psalm 27:8

Journal: What are you really seeking these days?  God’s face or your own success?  God’s will and God’s kingdom or your own?  What would it look like to truly seek his face?

Reflection: We can fool others, and even ourselves, but we can’t fool God.  He knows when we are seeking his face and when we are merely seeking our own personal gain—be it control, popularity, recognition, power, prestige, etc.  The truth is that we cannot seek his face and our own success at the same time.  It is just not possible.  As Jesus so clearly reminded us: “We can’t serve two masters.”  The bottom line is that we are either in it for ourselves, in it for others, or in it for God.  We must seek God alone, not God and.  As A. W. Tozer once said, “When we are seeking God and, we are not really seeking God at all.

Pray

Closing Prayer: Forgive us, Lord God, when we try to use you rather than seek you.  Using you to build our own kingdom makes us no better than the Pharisees.  Lord, have mercy on us.  Amen.

busyness

Opening Prayer: Lord Jesus, help me never to miss you because I am too busy doing something else.  Amen.

Scripture: Mathew 25:1-13

Journal: What is your current level of busyness?  How do you feel about that?  How do you think God feels about that?  How does that busyness keep you from paying attention to God and what he is up to?

Reflection:

     busyness

     Mt. 25:13

we wear our busyness

like a badge of honor

a measurement of

our value and worth

but that badge

will not help us

at the midnight cry

when the words ring out

Here’s the Bridegroom!

Come out to meet him!

then there will only be regret

not that we had fallen asleep

but that we had been

too busy to notice

we did not have time to buy oil

there was too much else going on

therefore keep watch

because you do not know

the day or the hour

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Forgive me, Lord Jesus, when I get so preoccupied with my plans and agenda that I forget about yours.  Have mercy on me.  Amen.

 

what are you feeding

Opening Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank you that it’s not all that complicated; whatever we feed is what’s going to grow.  Give us the desire and the ability and the wisdom to feed the life of the Spirit within us, O Lord.  Amen.

Scripture: Galatians 6:7-8

Journal: What nature are you feeding these days?  What are the results?  What seems to be growing in you the most these days?

Reflection: “A man reaps what he sows.  The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.” (Galatians 6:7-8)

As a wise saint once told me, “Whatever nature you feed is the one that’s going to grow.”  Why then, should we be surprised that if we feed the false self, then that is the very self that will grow and flourish within us.  If we feed what is false and fleeting and temporary, we will reap a harvest of fear and insecurity and anxiety and self-centeredness.  If we feed the lies, then the lies will grow and take root within us.  But if we feed on the truth—that which is good and beautiful—then we will grow into people who look like that very goodness and beauty.  In other words, we will look like Jesus.  And without anything to feed on, the lies will starve and eventually die, because we will have cut off their food supply.

Pray

Closing Prayer: Grow your good and beautiful life in me, Lord Jesus.  Help me to become more and more like you each day.

 

the bizarro world

Opening Prayer: Forgive me, O Lord, when I get things backwards and begin to think that this like is all about me, rather than all about you.  Amen.

Scripture: Psalm 131:1-3

Journal: How does Psalm 131 resonate within you?  How does it disrupt or disturb you?  What is God trying to say to you today?

Reflection: The Psalm 131 I know and love: “My heart is not lifted up, O Lord, my eyes are not raised too high.  I do not occupy myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me.  But I have stilled and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.  O Israel, put your hope in the Lord now and forevermore.”

The Psalm 131 I usually see: “Look how hard I try, O Lord, to do awesome things and make everyone think I’m awesome—for you, of course (wink, wink).  If anything great and marvelous is going to happen, I must be a part of it.  I am a driven workaholic, and proud of it.  So I keep running and I keep pushing because everything will fall apart if I don't.  O God, aren’t you glad I’m around to do your work for you?  Lucky you!”

To truly follow Jesus, I must lay down my pride, my agenda, my opinion, my need to be right, and my sense of indispensability.  I must let go of my need to be needed and my desire to be applauded.  After all, is trying to be liked by everyone really kindness at all, or just needy manipulation in a clever disguise—self-love?

Still and quiet my soul, O Lord, and wean me of all that is no you.

Pray

Closing Prayer: Still and quiet my soul, O Lord, and wean me of all that is no you.

on his terms

Opening Prayer: The call to follow you, Lord Jesus, is a holistic one.  We do not get to choose which areas we want to follow you in and which ones we don’t.  You demand all of our lives, not just certain compartments of them.  You demand that we live life on your terms, not our own.  Give us the courage to do just that.  Amen.

Scripture: John 21:18-19

Journal: Whose terms are you living your life on these days?  Why and how is that true?

Reflection: “I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.”  Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God.  Then he said to him, “Follow me!” (John 21:18-19)

We tend to live life on our terms, when life with Jesus is really about living life on his terms—a life of total and complete surrender, not merely using him to make ourselves bigger.   If we are truly following Jesus, we don’t get to determine the nature, content, or direction of our lives, that role belongs exclusively to him.  We can either follow him, or follow ourselves, but we can’t do both.

Pray

Closing Prayer: Lord Jesus, do not let us fool ourselves, when we live our lives on our own terms, we are not really following you at all.  Help us to fully heed your call to follow you, no matter where it may lead.  Amen.

rubbish

Opening Prayer: Lord Jesus, continue to teach me how to empty myself of all that is not you, so that I can be filled to overflowing that all that is you.  Amen.

Scripture: Philippians 3:7-11

Journal: What are you desperately hanging onto that keeps you from stepping into a deeper relationship with Jesus?  Will you let it go, so that he can give you himself in some new and mysterious and beautiful way?

Reflection: All the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life.  Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung.  I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him. (Phil. 3:7-8)

Life with Jesus always challenges our addictions.  It asks us to let go of the things and the patterns and the ways we have grown used to and familiar with, in order to receive something new and beautiful from him.  Most people, in fact, miss the new because they are unwilling to let go of the old. 

Help us, O Lord, to drop any plans and agendas and comforts and preferences that keep us from be fully and completely yours.  Help us to consider them rubbish—dog dung—compared with the surpassing value of knowing you.  For how can I ever expect to be made new, if I am unwilling to let go of the old?    

Pray

Closing Prayer: "Lord, deliver me from the small loyalties of habit or tradition that would keep me from the larger loyalties of the Spirit." ~John Killinger

why me

Opening Prayer: Thank you, O Lord, that you care enough to draw us into your great heart of love.  What a gift!  Give us the wisdom and the grace to receive that gift each day.  Amen.

Scripture: John 6:44

Journal: How did God first draw your heart to himself.?  How has God been drawing you lately?  What is your response?

Reflection: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.” (John 6:44)

Why me, O Lord? 

Why did you choose to lay your hand of love on me?  Why did you give me this amazing life?  Why did you grace me with deep intimacy and love?  Why do you continually draw your mouth close to my ear and whisper words of delight and affection?  Why did you give me this beautiful and loving and incredible woman to share my life and love with?  Why did you give me such wonderful children, and now grandchildren, to love and be loved by?  Why did you bless me with deep, rich friendships and vibrant, life-giving ministry over the last 45 years?      

And why on earth do you desire relationship with me in the first place?  Why do you allow me to share your very life?  Why do you choose to actually live your life in and through me?  Why do you allow me the intimacy and the privilege of sharing in your suffering?  Why do you want me to live in ecstatic union with you? 

Why me, O Lord, why me?

Pray

Closing Prayer: It’s you, Lord; it’s all you.  You are the drawer, the romancer, the pursuer.  Draw our hearts to yourself this day and every day.  Amen.

clothe me

Opening Prayer: Forgive me, O Lord, for always trying to dress myself.  Forgive me for trying to make people believe that I am something more than I really am, which really makes me less.  So much less.  Forgive me for all of the ways I pretend and project and posture.  Help me, O Lord, to have the courage to stop dressing myself and allow you to dress me.  Clothe me, O Lord.  Amen.

Scripture: Isaiah 61:10

Journal: How are you trying to clothe yourself these days?  How well is that working for you?  How long can you keep it up?  Will you let God dress you instead?

Reflection: “I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God.  For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness....” (Isaiah 61:10)

We spend most of our lives trying desperately to look a certain way, in order to convince ourselves and our world that we are actually worth loving.  This “dressing ourselves,” as John so beautifully described it (John 21:18), takes many forms—appearance, performance, possession, etc. 

The problem is that anything we can dress ourselves with—no matter how beautiful or expensive or hard earned—is really nothing more than “filthy rags” or “fig leaves.”  It is merely a covering, a hiding place, camouflaging what really lies underneath.  Thus, we spend our lives living falsely, desperately hoping that we will never be found out.  Needless to say, living this way is utterly exhausting.

The beauty of the gospel, however, is that we do not have to dress ourselves; God offers to do it for us.  All we have to do is take off all of the falseness and pretense, stand naked before our God, and allow him to clothe us.  God says, “I will dress you.  Let me clothe you in the garments of salvation and a robe of righteousness; they fit you perfectly.  They make you who you were created to be.  Thus, when you allow me to dress you, instead of constantly trying to dress yourself, it will result in you living a life of joy and delight, rather than a life of fear and shame.”   

Pray

Closing Prayer: Dress me, O God, in the garments of salvation and a robe of righteousness.  For only then will I be who I was created to be.  Amen.

sufficient

Opening Prayer: Forgive me, Lord Jesus, when I try to live out of my strengths, rather than out of weakness.  Forgive me when I try to rely on myself, rather than on your grace.  Forgive me for not believing that you are enough for me.

Scripture: 2 Corinthians 12:8-9

Journal: Where in your life is God saying, “My grace is sufficient for you”?  Is God's grace really enough for you?

Reflection: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is make perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

“My grace is sufficient for you.  It really is.  Whatever you are going through, whatever burden you are carrying, whatever situation you are struggling with, whatever thing you cannot fix.  Whatever uncertainty you are facing, whatever battle you are fighting, whatever challenge is before you.  Whatever demon you can’t conquer, whatever pattern you can’t break, whatever hole you have dug for yourself, there is always hope because my grace is sufficient for you.  I can take your weakness and your powerlessness and your brokenness and your vulnerability and display my power.  Trust me.” ~Jesus 

Pray

Closing Prayer: Lord Jesus, forgive us for not believing that your grace alone is sufficient for us.  Help us to genuinely believe that you are all we need.  Amen.

taken hold of

Opening Prayer:

Take me to you, imprison me, for I

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

~John Donne

Scripture: Philippians 3:12-14

Journal: How has God taken hold of you?  How are you straining and pressing on to take hold of life with him?

Reflection: “I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.  Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.  But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:12-14

If we truly have been taken hold of by God, if we have been ravished by the One who loves us like no other, then we will do everything in our power—strain and press and wrestle and fight—to take hold of the life and the love he offers to us.  We will simply have no choice; our hearts will not allow us to do otherwise. 

Pray

Closing Prayer: Lord Jesus, seize our hearts with the power of your great affection, so that everything in our lives might become an expression of love to you.  Amen.

known

Opening Prayer: O God, help us to truly know you, so that we might be fully known and become all you desire us to be.  Amen.

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:12

Journal: What does it mean for you to know God, even as you are fully known?  What is the next level of knowing that he is calling you to?  How does knowing him fully enable you to know yourself fully?

Reflection: “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face.  Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” (1 Corinthians 13:12)

God always invites us beyond where we are.  Thus, as we lean in to the invitation deeper into his heart, it is both incredibly exciting and absolutely terrifying.  Because as we go deeper into his heart, he asks us to let go of deeper and deeper things, some of which are so deep that they feel like part of who we are.  But they are not.  They are merely the deepest and most subtle ways we have lived falsely, and moving deeper into the heart of God means that we learn to be our truest, Christ-like selves.  So sometimes this call to wholeness means giving up our idea of what wholeness even looks like in the first place, which is letting go at one of its deepest levels.  It is all a part of the journey to “know fully, even as we are fully known.”  The two go hand in hand. 

God does not want us to settle for less.  Whatever it takes to strip away the false and bring about the true, is what he will do.  He loves us too much to allow us to live lives that are less than what he dreamt them to be.

Pray

Closing Prayer: Lord God, seeing you and knowing you is such a process.  It does not happen all at once.  Lead us on this amazing journey of knowing and being known, until that day when we are able to see you clearly and know you—and ourselves—fully.  Amen.