The Holy One calls to me this morning. Thanksgiving is just around the corner. This has been a year of hard things, but then there is always something to be thankful for, even in the hard times we all experience awaiting the return of our King.
Perseverance in a trial can create a thankful place in the heart with the simple fact that the last year or month or day or even hour is past and will never have to be lived through again. Eternity is laid out before us with all the thoughts of a peaceful paradise so comforting as we pass through the hard days here.
The purposes of God, who can fathom? His Word in Isaiah tells us, "I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like Me". It goes on to say, "My purpose will stand and I will do all that I please".
So much of my human thinking for years has revolved around trying to grasp God's purpose for what I see touching our lives.
The Holy One speaks, "Unconditional love has no purpose but itself. Purpose is reason and if you stop tracking your value at a "purpose" for your life in what you do as a servant, you haven't gotten into the depths of God's unconditional love".
The silence in my head is deafening as the shock and yet awe of His words sink in.
Failure to understand God's unconditional love drives people to busy-ness and attempts to validate their "value" through "good works". A mistaken thought of "flowing" along in God's purpose for our lives can actually prevent us from finding the true value of our lives.
God's love is unconditional love. He doesn't just give it. He IS it. God IS unconditional love. He created each one of us out of His being of unconditional love, for His good pleasure. His good pleasure is relationship with His Beloved..... AKA you and me.
So much of the time we want to "do" for God rather than "be" for Him. Adam was first created to "be" with God, not just to manage the garden that God created. Tasks and assignments flow out of that original fellowship but were never intended to replace or earn it. God brought all the animals He created for Adam to name. An activity designed to draw Adam even closer to the Creator in the co-management of God's created world.
God created Eve for Adam, not to replace Him but to expand the relationship and love dependency as they made themselves at home in the Garden with God.
God loves His Creation, but we are the ones trying to find our value in what we do, rather than realizing our value to our Creator is found in who we are to Him.
Human love is tragically conditional and grossly different than God's unconditional love. Today the Holy One makes His point. I fulfill God's true purpose for my life by being in relationship with Him.
Having been raised under legalism, the faulty reasonings have been hard fought and life long in correcting. The reliance on what I do and how I act as the determination of my value to my Creator is off-base and stops way short of who He created me to be.
Relationship "with" our Creator not busy-ness "for" Him is where our value is realized. We are individually and uniquely His masterpiece, created for His good pleasure.
That Truth comes as such a relief. When I think of God's purpose in my life as an action or even a mission, a heaviness fills my heart. Fear of failure and guilt over unmet expectations clouds an otherwise sunny sky.
I am who I am...warts and all. I judge myself and see the flaws. But the Holy One tells me that I am "the apple of God's eye". He loved each one of us before we were ever born and He sent His unconditional love in the form of a Savior before we had done anything good or bad.
Paul says in Romans 8:38, "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither the present nor the future, nor anything else in all creation can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
And what was the "mission" of the Savior, Christ Jesus? To restore the broken relationship with our Creator God. To bring us back into the fulfillment potential of our true and basic "purpose" for which we were created: To live now and eternally in the unconditional love of our Creator God. To be the unique and beloved person we were created to be.
I John 3:1, "How great is the love the Father has lavished upon us that we should be called the children of God."
Having accepted the sacrifice of God's chosen Savior, Christ Jesus, I can now rest in the knowledge from Holiness that the days of "doing" are no substitute for a life of "being".
I am thankful for the Holy One and the sheer joy of being in His Presence, beyond any task or assignment or expectation as His servant. Today He has taken me further in to the depths of understanding my Father's unconditional love.
I ask Him to remind me often, when the demands of proving myself start to well up, that my true purpose and the peace that goes with it are to be found in my "being" and not in my "doing".
The God of the universe, created me to be in relationship with Himself...nothing more and nothing less. He calls me to His bask in His unconditional love, and my heart leaps with joy. Now that's a wonderful purpose.
The Spirit is calling. Can you hear Him?
Perseverance in a trial can create a thankful place in the heart with the simple fact that the last year or month or day or even hour is past and will never have to be lived through again. Eternity is laid out before us with all the thoughts of a peaceful paradise so comforting as we pass through the hard days here.
The purposes of God, who can fathom? His Word in Isaiah tells us, "I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like Me". It goes on to say, "My purpose will stand and I will do all that I please".
So much of my human thinking for years has revolved around trying to grasp God's purpose for what I see touching our lives.
The Holy One speaks, "Unconditional love has no purpose but itself. Purpose is reason and if you stop tracking your value at a "purpose" for your life in what you do as a servant, you haven't gotten into the depths of God's unconditional love".
The silence in my head is deafening as the shock and yet awe of His words sink in.
Failure to understand God's unconditional love drives people to busy-ness and attempts to validate their "value" through "good works". A mistaken thought of "flowing" along in God's purpose for our lives can actually prevent us from finding the true value of our lives.
God's love is unconditional love. He doesn't just give it. He IS it. God IS unconditional love. He created each one of us out of His being of unconditional love, for His good pleasure. His good pleasure is relationship with His Beloved..... AKA you and me.
So much of the time we want to "do" for God rather than "be" for Him. Adam was first created to "be" with God, not just to manage the garden that God created. Tasks and assignments flow out of that original fellowship but were never intended to replace or earn it. God brought all the animals He created for Adam to name. An activity designed to draw Adam even closer to the Creator in the co-management of God's created world.
God created Eve for Adam, not to replace Him but to expand the relationship and love dependency as they made themselves at home in the Garden with God.
God loves His Creation, but we are the ones trying to find our value in what we do, rather than realizing our value to our Creator is found in who we are to Him.
Human love is tragically conditional and grossly different than God's unconditional love. Today the Holy One makes His point. I fulfill God's true purpose for my life by being in relationship with Him.
Having been raised under legalism, the faulty reasonings have been hard fought and life long in correcting. The reliance on what I do and how I act as the determination of my value to my Creator is off-base and stops way short of who He created me to be.
Relationship "with" our Creator not busy-ness "for" Him is where our value is realized. We are individually and uniquely His masterpiece, created for His good pleasure.
That Truth comes as such a relief. When I think of God's purpose in my life as an action or even a mission, a heaviness fills my heart. Fear of failure and guilt over unmet expectations clouds an otherwise sunny sky.
I am who I am...warts and all. I judge myself and see the flaws. But the Holy One tells me that I am "the apple of God's eye". He loved each one of us before we were ever born and He sent His unconditional love in the form of a Savior before we had done anything good or bad.
Paul says in Romans 8:38, "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither the present nor the future, nor anything else in all creation can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
And what was the "mission" of the Savior, Christ Jesus? To restore the broken relationship with our Creator God. To bring us back into the fulfillment potential of our true and basic "purpose" for which we were created: To live now and eternally in the unconditional love of our Creator God. To be the unique and beloved person we were created to be.
I John 3:1, "How great is the love the Father has lavished upon us that we should be called the children of God."
Having accepted the sacrifice of God's chosen Savior, Christ Jesus, I can now rest in the knowledge from Holiness that the days of "doing" are no substitute for a life of "being".
I am thankful for the Holy One and the sheer joy of being in His Presence, beyond any task or assignment or expectation as His servant. Today He has taken me further in to the depths of understanding my Father's unconditional love.
I ask Him to remind me often, when the demands of proving myself start to well up, that my true purpose and the peace that goes with it are to be found in my "being" and not in my "doing".
The God of the universe, created me to be in relationship with Himself...nothing more and nothing less. He calls me to His bask in His unconditional love, and my heart leaps with joy. Now that's a wonderful purpose.
The Spirit is calling. Can you hear Him?
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