SO ill start with the word that I "got" about 3 months ago after feeling like I had really not been hearing from God in awhile...We've been talking about hearing Gods voice a little bit with our small group at church and it makes me think a little bit more about how it has come to be the most crucial thing in my life. Sometime after high school I started to think about everything, A LOT. Its a good thing and a bad thing, good because Im not as easily deceived or led every which way but bad because I spend a lott of time just wandering around in my head through "what ifs" and past conversations and questions about who I really am and what other people are thinking etc etc etc. SO I think ever since I became aware that God has things to say to me and that I don't have to wonder where my heart is, He can actually tell me that, and can speak to whatever I can't figure out inside me, his voice has become the only thing that can cut through all the thoughts I wade through and the only thing that can move me to action. I think every season of my life these days has a verse or an important conversation that marks it in my heart. This time its 1Peter 1. Which God "gave" me on the airplane on my way home from a little adventure visiting my best friend in New Mexico. I was sitting in my seat next to my new just-became-a-doctor-friendly-friend, and thinking about lots of things and just really needing Gods perspective. The phrase "be holy as I am holy" came into my mind and I knew from another time in my life exactly where it was so I turned to 1 peter and found....
1 Peter 1
...Grace to you and peace be multiplied. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuiness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, who having not seen you love. Though now you do not see him, yet believing you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith-the salvation of your souls....
v.13 Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, "Be holy as I am holy."
And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each ones work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear; knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot."
I really almost read it out loud to my row friends. Its so hard to describe when the Holy Spirit speaks its just that feeling of "oh man this is so true, its so for me right now and theres nothing I did to deserve this clarity all of a sudden, he just decided to speak it and I can hear it and its great! no matter what hard thing he might be saying I know its real." The words I put in pink are the little phrases and stuff that I've been working over and over in my mind and what God is convincing me of in my heart since then.
Hope is the first one. It happens to be my middle name :) Ill probably put a separate post on here about that one but the important thing is that I have it! Hope is wow this little word we read and stuff but do we know what it means to have hope? and how many people don't have it and what are we doing about it? How do we hope? where do we put our hope? Maybe its something we don't notice until we feel like we don't have it, or hear someone who feels that way. But when you feel like you're failing and a little lost and then God tells you that you get to start over with a living hope in Jesus, its a beautiful thing.
These words like incorruptible and undefiled spoke and speak right now to how I am feeling. Like God did you teach me all of that, for no reason? Just to let it rot here and go to waste. I thought we were going somewhere but it feels like I'm just drying up and dying inside and everything you did is leaving. But he says its incorruptible , it doesn't fade away, its reserved in heaven for you. Its not about this world and the circumstances I find myself in here, this is not my home or where my treasure is. And I wasn't redeemed with things that rot away, not even things that last a long time like silver or gold, I was redeemed with the very blood of Jesus, and am I really gonna let the devil tell me that that doesn't last, that it can just be taken from me? I'm "kept by the power of God" not my own will even, not my own striving and trying, but only the power of God. He told me, "rachel you have faith, everyone has faith, are you going to put that faith in your weakness, are you going to believe in your failures instead of my strength. Are you going to believe in the weak person inside you or my power that lives in your heart. Actually, last time I checked I was on the throne of your heart."
He even spoke about that fact that I don't see him, but showed me that I do infact still love him. And that the times when I don't see are when I have to believe, we walk by faith not by sight. This is a test of my faith.
Verse 13 is the verse I would answer someone with if they asked my how I am or whats up right now in my heart- I wasn't sure what "gird up the loins of your mind" meant but I knew that my thoughts were a mess. Like I could believe and hope in God sure for a second until I was worrying again or afraid again or just thinking about other things that don't matter. So I looked it up and apparently gird up your loins refers to back in the day when the warrior men would tuck their skirts into their belts to prepare for battle. So they wouldn't have anything in the way when it was time to run and fight. Be sober, be alert, be focused, set your hope in one direction. God told me (and i feel like i need to make this more present tense cause I'm not even close to having it all down yet) , rach you need to get ready to run. This isn't one of those things you can be passive about, you are under attack, and this battle takes place in your mind. You need to get all those thoughts that you think in line and all pointed in one direction..
To which I've been asking, "ok God what the heck is that direction? You said were doing a new thing, and if I would just know what it is you want me to do, where you want me to go, what you want me to focus on maybe I could start running, maybe I would be motivated to get off my butt and do something about this."
So he said: okay, be holy. holy. like He is holy. set apart to love always. completely other than. blameless. spotless. A bride fit for his Son. Pure, without mixture. true, beautiful, good.
But God thats why I'm so miserable, because i keep seeing all the ways I am not that, don't you see, don't you know what everyone says? "Im just human" "were all sinners" but he answers that..."youre just human, made in the image of God..youre all sinners, SAVED by grace. You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, my own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness in to His marvelous light; you were once not a people but now are the people of God, who once had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy. BELOVED, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against your soul"...(1pete 2)
I thought about why he didn't say "try your best" or "just make sure you do more good than bad in the end" I pictured circles, like a little dot and then a circle around it and a bigger one around that and so on, and I thought of the little dot in the middle as holy (like a dart board i guess haha)..why couldn't he make it so the next circle out was holy? or the one a little bigger than that. Why is it that its just that tiny dot in the middle thats so impossible to hit on the mark.Im starting to think he made it that way because he loves us. He knows that everything we were designed and created and formed (by him) for is found on that mark, we were made to be with him, to know beauty, truth and goodness, to be holy like him, for him, with him. God is light, in him is NO darkness at all. He could have said, okay fine, just shoot for the bigger circle, you can probably get it if you try hard enough. Just get to know me a little and do my will a little and you can keep the rest of your life to yourself, I know its too hard in this world to actually dwell with me, so just shoot for mostly me but with a little darkness still lingering there. Just survive, just be nice. But He is love, he wants whats best for us, and he knows what that is. He came to give life abundantly not the halfhearted, just surviving, life a lot of us shoot for and score. He knows there is a life with him, through him, for him, in Him and its exactly what he made us for. So he said, be holy.
And we get discouraged and frustrated with him for raising the bar so high. I think like, I just don't know exactly what is right all the time, I'm still tied to so many many wrong things, I can't be like you really, but I can't ignore his word,
"Look! I know you can't do it by yourself! so set your hope fully upon the GRACE (the divine ability) that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ....knowing that you weren't redeemed with the stuff of this earth that fails and doesn't last, but there is one who was foreordained before the creation of the world, its by his precious blood that you can do this, he was manifested to you and through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so put your hope and faith in God."
This is the work that he gives us to do, believe in the one He sent! How do we do that work? because it is hard work while were here in the flesh...
"For though we walk in the flesh we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and EVERY high thing (pride) that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing EVERY thought captive to the obedience of Christ."
I have to think about what I'm thinking about. If I'm constantly angry, or putting myself down, or judging others to make myself feel better, or stressed or afraid in my thoughts then I'm being beaten by the lies of the enemy. And we don't do anything about it, in the mean time we are just trying to do whats right on the outside, trying to make ourselves serve and be helpful, and read the bible and pray or make ourselves want to do any of that..while the devil is just feeding us lies that we start to think on and think on and believe and eventually we get too tired and give in and start acting like all of those thoughts say.
Okay I think this is getting way too long, and if i sit here any longer I won't have any fingernails left haha. Im thankful that by Gods mercy that is new every morning and goes on and on He has been able to communicate this to me. And I HOPE that I will continue in his grace to live it out in my life. I hope if you happen to stumble upon this you will find some hope that there is a way out of the restlessness you may be feeling if you're anywhere close to where I was and still am working to be free from. It's not by your power or by might at all, only by his Spirit, only by the grace he freely gives to us when we come to him humbly in our time of need :)
Set your hope fully upon the grace that will be given to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ!
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