Treasures out of the Darkness

When God starts to teach me something, he usually does it by giving me all these different pieces from different places that all sort of mesh into a truth He wants me to get. I am hard headed so I guess it takes telling me the same thing over and over in different ways until I “get it”. So this is one of those times that I am hearing this message all over the place.

Last month Jesus was asking me this question: Who do you say that I am?
This month the question is a bit deeper and has multiplied but still in the same vein. Here it is: Do you love me? And if so, Do you want more of Jesus in your life? As any “good Christian girl” my knee jerk response is a somewhat offended and very quick “YES! Absolutely!” But he asked it again… in the following manner.
If you love me then answer these questions:
What made me happy this week? Was it an hour alone with Jesus Was it a new outfit? Was it hanging out with my visible friends?? Was it a stolen moment in His presence?

If I am truly hungry for more of Jesus, do I crave alone time with Him? DO I carve out time just to be in his presence?
Do I talk to him about seemingly trivial things throughout the day? Am I in a relationship with Him or am I in the business of Christianity?

See, I am in the ministry. I am a mother and I work alongside my husband who is a youth minister. I would not have it any other way. I love it. I love seeing God move and I love being on the front lines of His movement. But the tendency is always there lurking in the background to let it become a job. Something that God “needs” me to do. My calling becomes my occupation. Ridiculous I know. The danger for most Christians, particularly those who are actively engaged in ministry, is to know more about God than to Know HIM!

I love Oswald Chamber! This is how he put it;
It is possible to know all about doctrine and still not know Jesus. A person’s soul is in grave danger when the knowledge of doctrine surpasses Jesus, avoiding intimate touch with Him. Why was Mary weeping? (at Jesus’ tomb) Doctrine meant no more to her than the grass under her feet. In fact any Pharisee could have made a fool of her doctrinally, but the thing they could never ridicule was the fact that Jesus had cast seven demons out of her. Yet His blessings were nothing to her in comparison to knowing Jesus, himself.

Think about the apostles. They walked with him. They ate with him. They knew him and he knew them. If it had been merely doctrine that they had knowledge of, do you think that would have sustained them when Persecution came after Jesus’ death? No, they had to have something more to sustain them.

For me, in my personal relationship with Jesus, I constantly pray, asking Him To keep me from becoming numb. To keep me in awe of him. I never want to be in the place that my own belief and my own opinion gets in the way of Him. Do I hunger enough for Him that I don’t care if he busts right through my denominational wall or do I have Him and the way He moves figured out? I heard someone say recently that if the Holy Spirit packed up and left the church today, most of us would not even realize it. This just grieved my heart.

For those of you who know how to ballroom dance, think about this. When you are dancing with a man, you let him lead (ideally lol) You have to be tuned in to where he is moving or you will get out of step. I want Jesus to keep me in a place of such dependency that I MUST keep my eyes on Him or I will lose my step. I must seek his face so that I know where He is leading. I need to feel His hand on the small of my back guiding me. I want to dance with him.
In Exodus, 40:34-38 is an amazing example of this. It says that a cloud came and covered the tabernacle and the glory of the Lord filled it. …. Whenever the cloud lifted and Moved the people of Israel journeyed onward, following it. But if the cloud stayed, they stayed until it moved again. The cloud rested upon the tabernacle during the daytime and at night there was fire in the cloud so that the people could . see it.
I want to be that dependent on his presence. Oh Jesus, keep me dependent on you.