The view from the other side.

Over the past couple of weeks the Lord has been pulling me in closer to Himself it has been an amazing couple of weeks spiritually. He has shown me truths in His word, truths about myself and ways that I need to repent and changes that need to be made. Very recently He has shown me just how much wider the gap between this world and myself actually needs to be.

There is a common illustration used at least once in most evangelical pamphlets of a great chasm, with you on one side, and sin in the middle separating you from God who is on the opposite side. Then the cross of Jesus appears in the chasm and you are able to go over to the other side. Well I have crossed the bridge that Jesus built and am on the other side now and am exceedingly grateful for the access to God that Christ provided for me. The hard part is that there are quite a few people over here acting like they're still on the wrong side of the bridge. The Lord has been showing me here lately that in allot of ways I have been one of them.  Whether its in immodesty, pride, selfishness or even self loathing it's sin, and there are allot of people on this side of the gap teetering dangerously close to the chasm that once separated them from God.

Most of them through lack of devotion have ignored or pushed aside Gods word. If we are seeing as through a glass darkly then Gods word is our Windex and He has used it in me over the past few days to clear my view just a little more. He showed me that the ground beneath me was starting to crumble under the weight of an unrepentant heart, and that those burdens which He had meant for me to throw in the fire burning in that great chasm had somehow cleverly found their way onto my back again.  I've been gazing forlornly back over the chasm in the way a foolish child gazes at the swing sets when you're offering them disneyworld.

I know about my foolishness and have once again thrown aside the weights that hinder, and am running the race or at least figuring out how to move my feet. Sand is not easy to walk on, let alone run. The rock is there but my fondness for the things of this world have drug my feet down onto the shifting sands of doubt and distraction while my fingers cling desperately to the solid rock of Gods truth. Leaving the things of this world behind is a discipline, one that must be practiced daily if we are to win the race that as a Christian I am in. Whether it's the letting go of relationships, habits, entertainment or anything else contrary to Gods word it is something we must do if ever we are to make Christ believable to a sinful world.

At the time of my salvation I was given the occupation of a priest, and was called to be set apart for the Gospel of Christ, to be Holy as He is Holy and to preform all of the many splendid priestly duties given to  all of us who have been redeemed and are journeying the road to the Celestial City. In all reality it is an amazing call to be set apart as a member of a Holy Nation, but it's easy to lose focus on this side of the sun. Most especially in the culture of Crete.

Crete was an Island that Paul the apostle established a church in and left one of his sons in the faith Titus on. It was full of debauchery ... wait, maybe I should use plain english... it was full of drunkeness, sex outside of the Gods Holy confines of marriage, lust, gluttony, violence, disobedience, greed, jealousy, slanderers, gossips and liars (this is what it means when someone calls you a cretan).  Titus was living in a very hard place to be a Christian. The culture of America is allot like Crete, only bigger and with todays technology allot harder to get away from.

Sin is so glorified in this culture that turning on the television is dangerous now, only a couple days ago as I flipped through the channels I counted 5 times that I saw nude adults engaged in some sort of sexual activity. I flipped quickly away, but the damage had been done. Living as an American Christian can be so exceedingly difficult because sin is so celebrated, but God has called me to "come out from them and touch no unclean thing" 2 Corinthians 6:17 which is hard because the perversion is so thick even sometimes (sadly) within the church. So how do I get out of here? I have no clear idea at the moment, except to stop my ears like Christian did and run towards Gods promises yelling over the shouts of those who would beckon me back accross the chasm "Life, Life, Eternal Life!"

Thoughts on the Holy Spirit.

Typically when I find out that there is something living inside me I want to know as much about it as possible, yet somehow my interest in the Holy Spirit who lives within me has lied dormant for some years.

I know the He is in there, there are times when I pray that I can literally feel Him in my fingertips.  There are times when I'm meditating on a specific verse or thought that I can see His light radiating out of my own chest. It's amazing how the Spirit of God can indwell so many people and suffer no division, but rather unify us on a level that only He Himself can reveal to us.

When I pray He is the first to hear, and He translates what I cannot express and delivers the message to the Father. He is the one who is within me and gives me the only goodness that I have within me, He wills me to do good and gives me the ability to follow through with it. The ONLY sin that cannot be forgiven is blaspheming Him, the Holy Spirit. Both the Father and the Son will overlook their own blasphemy to protect the Spirit, it's astounding. (BTW if you're freaking out about this sin, you haven't done it.)

I carry a bit of God within my person. I AM A VESSEL and not only a vessel but a Temple, set apart for God's purposes. Whether honorable or not, I am sealed by Him the Holy Spirit. How often have I grieved Him? My heart turns at the thought of how deeply it must have hurt Him to go with me where I've gone, to watch what I've watched and to hear me utter the sinful words I have uttered, and worse are the thoughts, the thoughts that I have not captured but let run free to muck up all of His work at putting my mind in order. Oh the wretched woman that I am! Who will free me from this body of death? Praise be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord who has loosed my chains and has showed me what freedom is really like. Every suffering and every grief is nothing to be compared with the taste of that freedom that is yet to come. Just the taste of it. Bless God for the joy that I will have when it comes into its full time and I can see Him face to face as a man meets with his friend. I'll be swimming all up in that joy!

My Devotional this morning...beauty.

MORNING:

"Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands."

-- Isaiah 49:16

No doubt a part of the wonder which is concentrated in the word"Behold," is excited by the unbelieving lamentation of the precedingsentence. Zion said, "The Lord hath forsaken me, and my God hathforgotten me." How amazed the divine mind seems to be at this wickedunbelief! What can be more astounding than the unfounded doubts andfears of God's favoured people? The Lord's loving word of rebuke shouldmake us blush; he cries, "How can I have forgotten thee, when I havegraven thee upon the palms of my hands? How darest thou doubt myconstant remembrance, when the memorial is set upon my very flesh?" Ounbelief, how strange a marvel thou art! We know not which most towonder at, the faithfulness of God or the unbelief of his people. Hekeeps his promise a thousand times, and yet the next trial makes usdoubt him. He never faileth; he is never a dry well; he is never as asetting sun, a passing meteor, or a melting vapour; and yet we are ascontinually vexed with anxieties, molested with suspicions, anddisturbed with fears, as if our God were the mirage of the desert."Behold," is a word intended to excite admiration. Here, indeed, wehave a theme for marvelling. Heaven and earth may well be astonishedthat rebels should obtain so great a nearness to the heart of infinitelove as to be written upon the palms of his hands. "I have graventhee."It does not say, "Thy name." The name is there, but that is notall: "I have graven thee." See the fulness of this! I have graven thyperson, thine image, thy case, thy circumstances, thy sins, thy temptations, thy weaknesses, thy wants, thy works; I have graven thee,everything about thee, all that concerns thee; I have put theealtogether there. Wilt thou ever say again that thy God hath forsakenthee when he has graven thee upon his own palms?

 

 

The Art of Abandonment

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,  fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

~Hebrews 12:1-2

The phrase "throwing off of everything that hinders" has a weight to it that I've only recently considered. I've been able to quote this verse for years, but it remains new and the Lord shows me new ways to live within it. By definition the throwing off of something that hinders means the abandoning of that thing. It isn't like throwing off only to pick it up again, in Greek it would mean to put something away and the intention was permanent. It's been on my mind lately because in the recent weeks trough God's grace and leading I have found this new devotion to the Lord, His work and His word that quite honestly I have never before experienced. With that increasing spiritual vitality the need to rid my life of “second things” the things that hinder my relationship with Christ is becoming an increasing conviction.

One of those “second things” is something that will surprise a lot of people, but it is something that for me can and has at times become a serious idol. Art. Out of all of the things that compete with my devotion and attention to God art is the thing that has a death grip. Most people I know, know me as an artist. Generally I'm introduced to someone as "This Amanda, she's an artist" which is true. I am an artist, and I'm good at it. However being an artist brings with it this strange dynamic between your life in art and your life in everything else. Being an artist and a Christian kind of turns things in all sorts of different directions and things can get really confusing really fast.

Serious artists have a tendency to abandon themselves to their work, everything becomes art and if anything interferes with art you abandon it. It's more than a passion, it's an obsession. Vincent Van Gogh was one of these people, he worked tirelessly for years on one painting after another, he abandoned his faith and was quoted as saying "you can live without God, but you cannot live without painting". He never sold a single painting in his lifetime, and he killed himself at age 36. Today he is the most renowned artist in the world, only after he is not around to experience or benefit from it. He gave everything to art; his money, his meals (he almost starved to death more than once) his sleep and every scrap of energy he had, and art gave him nothing back.  Art no matter how much starving artists everywhere wish to deny it is just a thing. It is not alive, it cannot give you any lasting meaning or purpose and one day this too will perish.

I am very much an artist, and it is a great blessing to me most of the time. The gift God gave me in art enables me to see things in ways that friends who aren't artists don't see them and I have this gift to be able to see beauty where beauty seldom comes. However left to its own devices it is also a source of pride, contention and a gateway for all sorts of sinful thoughts and attitudes. Because of my abilities as an artist I have noticed myself taking liberties that until recent weeks I have been unwilling to admit as being sinful and grievous to the Holy Spirit within me.

I am not by any means saying that I will never pick up a paint brush again, after all it was God who gave me the gift and the gift was meant to honor Him. In His holy hands Art is an amazing and beautiful thing, God is an artist if ever there was one. But I will not be pursuing art itself as a lifestyle, a definition of myself or a way to win the respect and love of others including Christ (which I have been guilty of doing). I am taking a serious break from it, until the Lord gives me the strength and humility to use it purely for His glory and His purposes. Someone once said to me that “as an artist you cannot be truly happy unless you are creating” I disagree, I am an artist but I am a Christian first. As a Christian I cannot be truly happy without abiding totally in Christ, abandoning everything for Him and His cause, and it doesn’t matter whether art is involved at all. 

There are several other “second things” that need some serious pruning or throwing off in my life including but not limited too certain relationships, entertainment, and even my furthering education. The Lord will help me to learn to run in a way so that I might win, but without the throwing off and abandoning of things that hinder I will be panting and out of breath long before I reach the finish line of this great race. Someone will inevitably chide me for this, but there is a general attitude among a good percent of the believers I know that we needn’t sacrifice anything for our faith. I’m starting to think that this is strictly an American idea, believers in other parts of the world sacrifice everything, including their freedom and even their lives for Christ and are far better Christians and have more joy in their lives than I and most other Christians I know.

Cutting the straps of the weights that hold me back isn’t something that I’ll be able to do overnight, alone or without the all of the grace and humility Christ can provide me, and I’ll probably wince at the sound of them rolling off my back and hitting the ground behind me, but in order to run truly free into eternal life it is something that must be done. The reward is worth the sacrifice thousands of times over. No matter what the sacrifice requires, even to my life.

“And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life”

~Matthew 19:29

On becoming a woman

For the past ten years I have been a Christian and for those ten years I feel as though I've lived in mediocrity. Not in the way of financial savvy or success, but as a woman. I grew up largely without a father, but I also grew up largely without a mother. The defining quality of my relationship with my parents is selfishness, I was never taught or talked too by them on any important issue of life or even of the unimportant ones.

I lived in a house where the television taught me how to behave and treat others, and since becoming a Christian ten years ago breaking out of the thought patterns of the world has been difficult to the point where I think I may have given up on it some time ago. My major defense for alot of this has been the "I'm just not that way" defense.

"I'm just not...gentle"

"I'm just not...feminine"

"I'm just not...kind"

"I'm just not...meek"

"I'm just not...peaceful"
 
"I'm just not...submissive"
 
"I'm just not...useful"
 
"I'm just not...quiet"


There have been years of this wrong thinking running through my life, because I am not naturally and haven't been nurtured to be submissive, kind or gentle to others especially men or other women who try to hurt me in any way. For years the Holy Spirit has been trying to tap this into my heart, for years He has been trying to show me what it means to be a Woman of God, bringing all that I am and all that I have under the authority of Gods word and the leadership of His Holy Spirit. Learning to be a woman after His heart and learning what my role is as a woman in a modern world where marriage for me isn't a promise. Living in this culture and living in such a radically different way, or learning to live in such a radically different way is so extraordinarily different and seems so extremely difficult.

So few people will understand that I am almost dreading some of the changes I feel the Lord leading me to make. Because of that dread I am praying for a partner, a woman who has been there or a women's group bible study with older women in the teaching roles. I have this whole hang up right now that doing this completely alone is impossible, and unbiblical. Learning to be a "true woman" isn't easy if there are no other "true women" in your life. I am aching for some fellowship and I don't trust the relationships I've recently let go of.

I've heard His voice, I've read His word and now there is no going back. Whatever it is that may come or may not I am now on this road and am pushing forward. I cannot see any step other than the one directly before me. All I have is His word, His voice and the faith He has given me to go on.


"Trust in the LORD with all your heart,

and do not lean on your own understanding.

In all your ways acknowledge him,

and he will make straight your paths."

Proverbs 3: 5-6