Everything.

I have noticed that my Facebook feed has come alive with links to blogposts and videos. So long status updates. I have been reading different ones that my friends have posted, and I came across this one about waiting for your future spouse. Here's the link if you would like to read it:

I Don't Wait Anymore

The point of my blogpost is not to discuss how one might get a future spouse...but I thought that she had some good points about what it means to follow Christ. Many of the things that she mentions are lessons that I have been fed throughout my life. Things such as, "If you delight in the Lord, He will you give the desires of your heart" (Psalm 37:4), and that means that when you desire God enough, He will give you a husband. I know that these lessons my Sunday School teachers and youth leaders taught were meant to keep hormonally-charged girls from giving their hearts to any boys who showed them attention, and I'm sure that they had many positive effects on me as well as others. However, I agree with this fellow blogger that these might not be the BEST messages to be feeding into young girls. We, as women, were not made solely to find a husband and settle down. Our purpose in life is to glorify Christ through our lives while being in relationship with Him. Shouldn't that be the message we are spreading constantly through word and deed? 

"Christ is the source of everything we need and the giver of all good gifts … but in telling people about Him, it’s possible we’ve sold them on a solution for life’s problems and not life itself."

How true those words are. I have come to realize that a lot of modern evangelism tools focus on "getting people to heaven" and "saving them from hell", rather than helping them to recognize the gloriousness of who God is and what it means to be redeemed and reconciled unto Him. Is being a Christian really about what we can get from God? About a deal we make with Him? 

No.

It's not.

It's about who He is. God of the Universe, Redeemer of our souls. He is the definition of holy, good, power, majesty. Christianity is about recognizing these things, realizing that He is all that matters. YET, we cannot know God because of our sin. We cannot know His holiness, goodness, power, and majesty because of who we are in our sin. There is a separation there that cannot be overlooked or tolerated. This is why Christ died on the cross. Because He loves us. Because He IS good, powerful, and mighty. Because He IS love. 

"Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." - 1 John 4:8-10

It's all about Him.

Not about the deals we can make with Him, or what we get out of it. It's all about who He is.

This has changed my whole perspective on life. If this is the way that I view the world, then everything I receive from Him is a complete blessing, undeserved. If He is what fully satisfies my soul, everything else is extra luxury. 

So tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I haven't intentionally been thinking about what it means to be thankful, as maybe I should during this season, but it seems like God decided He would show me anyways by teaching me these things. 

What does it mean to be thankful? What is the secret to being truly content? 

Realizing that it's not about us. 

"The happy life is this - to rejoice to thee, in thee, and for thee." - St. Augustine, Confessions.

Stars.

"When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,

what is man that you are mindful of him,

and the son of man that you care for him?"

Psalm 8:3-4

The Scandal.

I often hear, "How can someone be eternally damned because of one tiny sin? How can someone deserve ultimate punishment for something as little as "borrowing" a cookie from the cookie jar?" It seems to be a question that comes up often, and one which I have struggled with myself. How can a good God justifiably damn someone for eternity for even the smallest of sins?

I was listening to a sermon a couple weeks ago by David Platt. If you haven't read his book Radical, I highly recommend it. In this sermon, he was speaking on Isaiah 6 where Isaiah is brought before the throne of God. This passage describes the gloriousness of God, seated on the throne in all His majesty. It's an amazing picture of God's might. Platt describes this in such a way that one cannot help feeling the awe that this scene demands. He lays this foundation in order to share some truth about who God is and what our response to Him should be. One quote that struck me hard as I was listening was this:

"It is not about how small or large we would measure sin. What is significant is the greatness of the one who is sinned against. You sin against a rock; you are not very guilty. You sin against a man; you are guilty. You sin against an infinitely Holy God, and you are INFINITELY guilty and deserving of infinite destruction."

That is some hard stuff to swallow. We don't want to think that way. Whether you agree with this or not, I think he brings up a good point. When we measure the magnitude of our sin, we are in some ways justifying it. "Oh, but it's only a white lie." NO. It's not. When I think of the goodness, the righteousness of God which cannot be measured, cannot even be fathomed, any sin, no matter how small or how insignificant it may seem, is a defile thing to do before one who is so infinitely holy. He is so far the opposite of that "small" sin. Isaiah 55:9 ESV "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

This is why the cross and resurrection is so incredibly scandalous, so amazingly miraculous. It is absolutely mind-blowing that God would send His beloved Son to not just live in this broken place called Earth, but that He would die for these people who are so phenomenally guilty and profoundly sinful and take that punishment that we completely deserve upon Himself. Crazy. That's some crazy love right there.

As Platt says, "We have a scandalously merciful Savior."

And boy, what a scandal.

If you have time, please take a listen.




Redeemed and Unashamed,

Delissa

Pronunciation: Dzo-ay

For the past two years or so, this word has been constantly influencing my life. What its definition is, what it means, how I can attain it, etc. Let me just share with you this beautiful word.

ζωὴ: zóé

In the New Testament Greek Lexicon:

life of the absolute fulness of life, both essential and ethical, which belongs to God, and through him both to the hypostatic "logos" and to Christ in whom the "logos" put on human nature; life real and genuine, a life active and vigorous, devoted to God, blessed, in the portion even in this world of those who put their trust in Christ, but after the resurrection to be consummated by new accessions (among them a more perfect body), and to last for ever.

And in Strong's Concordance of the Bible:

2222 zōḗ – life (physical and spiritual). All life, throughout the universe, is derived – i.e. it always (only) comes from and is sustained by God's self-existent life.

Wow.

This word.

This is the life that Jesus speaks of in John 3:16. Everlasting or eternal life seems to be a vague concept, just out of our grasp of understanding. What if it's not? What if it's as simple as a life fully devoted to God? Well, that's all fine and dandy, but what does that mean? What does that look like?

This summer, a good friend of mine shared with me a verse in such a way that I will be forever changed by it. The joy and awe this friend had in sharing this verse with me has marked my heart.

John 17:3 (ESV)

"And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."

Pure and simple. THIS is eternal life. Not forever being in the beautiful, wondrous place of heaven with our dear ones forever. KNOWING God. That is eternal life. For it would take an eternity to know Him.

I can't help but be completely dazzled by that knowledge. To know my God, it would take an ETERNITY of relationship building. I'm a huge fan of developing relationships. It's one of the most difficult things in life, but the MOST rewarding to spend your time and energy on. So to think that my eternal life will be spent in relationship with and getting to know and understand this beautiful, glorious God...WOW. I love this.

I literally could talk for days about this one word and what it means for my own life as a follower of Christ. However, I will save sharing those thoughts for another day. In the meantime, I have made this blog to use as a tool to share truth, light, and joy to whoever stumbles upon it. Hopefully, it will be just that.

Blessings and peace,

-Delissa