Today I sat in the backseat of my friend's car on the way home from our church's women's retreat. My eyes were closed, the wind was blowing my hair in every direction, the sun was shining brightly, and my mind & body & soul were humming to the praise music that we were blasting.
I found myself soaking in His presence.
This weekend revived me. Between tears on my Saturday afternoon alone with Jesus and howling laughter with friends, God met me where I was at, just like He always does. I had a web of themes that the Lord taught me this weekend but on that car ride home, I meditated on some of His words to me during our time of communion that morning.
Alyssa, by my wounds you are healed. My forgiveness is more than the cheap grace you've been making it. My forgiveness is more than Me just covering your sins. It's greater than that. It's about Me making you NEW. Take Me in. This is more than just a ritual: It's soaking in My love. It's being consumed by Me so that You not only rest in Me, but become like Me. It's newness. My forgiveness is the restoration of your life, of your relationships, of you and Me.
Our God is a personal god. That's mostly what He taught me this weekend through Mark 5. He loves the unloved and sees the disregarded. In this chapter of Scripture, He could have cast out demons, healed the sick, and raised the dead all alone by a prayer to the Father on His friend's boat. But He went to them. He spoke to them. He had compassion on them.
If God wasn't a personal god, He wouldn't have died on the cross and rose again. Do we realize this? Do I realize this?
He could have just left us with the law. He could have just left us to animal sacrifices. But the law never made the Israelites new. The law only allowed for them to reflect God's fading glory, not for them to be transformed into His image in an ever-increasing manner. The law only covered their sins (imperfectly, might I add). Do I realize this?
The Gospel message of Jesus dying for our sins is generally well-known in America, and sometimes it becomes dry and taken for granted, even to us born-again Christians. But He died and suffered and was mocked and flogged and beaten. For you and for me. He made the sacrifice personal so that we could be personal with Him.
God allowed Himself to be brutally murdered for me. Do I realize how personal that is?
And He rose again so that His Spirit could dwell in me, not just so that I could have eternal life in heaven, but so that I could have a living relationship with Him here and now. The fact that I could have a conversation with Him and feel Him all around me this weekend is proof of the resurrection being personal.
The law doesn't come and dwell in us. Jesus does. And the law could never make us new.
His forgiveness--and what we are remembering when we take communion--is more than just the acknowledgement of the covering of our sins (though it is that too, don't get me wrong). It's also the acknowledgment of us needing His nourishment for our souls, of us needing Him in us in order to be made new.
He died and rose again and lives in me. That's what makes me new. It's not just the covering of my sins that transforms me, if that were the case you'd see grander stories of transformation in the Old Testament instead of fading glory (2 Cor 3:13). It's Him living inside of me that makes me new and transforms me into being more like Him.
He is personal. He is in me. He is all around me. It's a miracle, really, that He not only washes our sin, but desires and chooses to transform us and have a relationship with us.
We are unworthy. But His love is greater. His love is the greatest we'll ever know. And just when we think we're deep in His love, we realize that we've only just scratched the surface of understanding it.
Love is dying to save. Love is conquering death to transform. Love is being the Living God who we can hear and see and feel.
The question then doesn't become: Does He love me [or How can He love me when I'm so unworthy]? The question was never that.
The question is: Am I listening? The question is: Am I paying attention? The question is: Am I being transformed from the inside out by His Spirit that lives in me?
The question is: Am I engaging with this Love?
He is here. And He is personal. And He loves me.
And He is making all things new.
No comments:
Post a Comment