As I consider that today is Good Friday, I find it apropos that love would be on my mind. I was awake early this morning praying fervently, not out of obligation but because of love. The greatest demonstration of love to ever take place is being remembered today. Today is the memorial of the breaking of the bondage sin had on my life and on yours. Good Friday drenched me in His blood and made me acceptable to a Holy and Righteous Father. Good Friday made this relationship possible. Good Friday is the ultimate outpouring of love imaginable.
Its Good Friday. I'm so thankful to be alive in Christ.
Isaiah 58:5
Is such a fast as yours what I have chosen, a day for a man to humble himself with sorrow in his soul? [Is true fasting merely mechanical?] Is it only to bow down his head like a bulrush and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him [to indicate a condition of heart that he does not have]? Will you call this a fast and an acceptable day to the Lord?
Fasting is my friend. I love fasting. I have a devout fasting practice that actually involved giving some stuff up AND seeking Him. I actually find it so odd that people wanted to pretend to fast and put on airs as if they were fasting but weren't fasting. Fasting is such a useful tool for getting closer to the Lord that I can't see why anyone would want to. However, many people I've known are completely non-religious until Lent comes and then they're the most devout and follow a very strict diet. That's what it is....a diet. Without the prayer piece, fasting isn't fasting. What makes fasting effective and makes it fasting and not dieting is prayer. I've fasted many a time and what I find is that He's always got something for me in a season of fasting. All the answers to big questions I've needed to ask have been answered during a season of fasting. Also, things I wasn't asking that He wanted to impart to me came during fasting. Fasting sets me up to hear much more clearly from God. When I do away with so many extra or outside things, specifically secular music, I'm more in tune with His voice. I love fasting but fasting has much more to do with the heart than with what you are giving up.
Isaiah 58:6-7
[Rather] is not this the fast that I have chosen: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every [enslaving] yoke?
Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house—when you see the naked, that you cover him, and that you hide not yourself from [the needs of] your own flesh and blood?
Here's what the Lord is talking about when He's talking about fasting. He's talking about freedom. I've found so much of it through fasting. One of the things I know about answers I get from above, is that His word does NOT return void. Its why I seek Him. Its also why I stand so firmly upon the promises He's made me despite what it looks like. Fasting is a way to get free because fasting and prayer beget answers from on High. I've never felt anything else like being in the center of His will and I can't know that if I don't spend seeking Him diligently. Even though I haven't always walked out the answers right, I know there's grace there and that His word is true. His word is always true.
The other thing I love about this is that fasten also creates in me a compassionate heart. I'm so much more long suffering in fasting because I'm better able to temper my humanity and tap into the Spirit within me. I'm so much more giving, understanding, and loving when I'm fasting than when I'm not. There's something about having an ongoing intimate and more sacrificial than usual prayer situation that changes you. Fasting expands my prayers. People and situations I'd never intended to talk to God about come tumbling from my mouth during prayer. Fasting is a practice I recommend to every and anyone who seeks to know anything or have further clarity on a situation. I recommend cause its always worked for me, God is no respecter of persons, and He's faithful.
Isaiah 58:8
Then shall your light break forth like the morning, and your healing (your restoration and the power of a new life) shall spring forth speedily; your righteousness (your rightness, your justice, and your right relationship with God) shall go before you [conducting you to peace and prosperity], and the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
When I think about the way I'm trying to live my life, I see that the relationship I have with God permeates every other relationship I have. The idea that my right standing with God goes before me reminds me of reputation. People hear about you well before they see you. I know my reputation as a student, teacher, person of color, woman, and lots of other hats is known. Can I offer that having a sound relationship with God has the same effect? I feel it does. There are people I go to not for academics but because I know they know Him. I've found also that lab members bring me certain things because they know I know Him. I remember when a friend's parents were in a motorcycle accident, she called me and said "You are the most devout person I know and I need you to pray for me." I had no idea she even knew that about me but she'd seen my witness over a 10 week summer program and she saw me for who I am. Much like my reputation as a good biologist, my relationship with God also speaks on my behalf. I'd must rather you know about the God piece than the biology.
Isaiah 58:11
And the Lord shall guide you continually and satisfy you in drought and in dry places and make strong your bones. And you shall be like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters fail not.
Sometimes prayers are desperate. Sometimes they need to be. Can I offer than even in that place, God is ever present? He is with me. He was with me this morning. What I know about heeding the early morning prayer call from on High is that there's peace there. There's always peace if you allow it in. Heeding the call is hard too. Usually those early morning prayers come with tears. Lots of them. And I like sleeping in a eye mask...so off with the mask for me! And sometimes I don't want to cry. Sometimes I don't want to be that broken, not because He can't handle it but because I'm not quite ready to hand it over. Sometimes the burdens I feel aren't done being turned over in my head when God's asking me to give them to Him. Though I know there's peace there, there's also a surrender. I've got to give it to Him and stop worrying. I've got to get a better understanding of who He is in the moment. I'm constantly coming to know Him better and every time He tells me I'm not alone and I don't have to do it on my own, I'm humbled. He protects me...even from myself.
The other thing I love here is the idea that I am like a watered garden. I really love this song called Rivers Flow by Marvin Sapp. I sing this song often when I know I'm about to need to be available to someone else. When I know I'm going to need demonstrate Christ's love for us, I go right inside myself where the Spirit is and get me some.
The Chorus is
I've got a river flowing, inside of me.
I'll take a drink whenever I feel the need.
Not in the mountain or in Jacob's well but from my belly flows a well,
springing of living water,
worship in me.
I've got to do the work with God to be this way but its so worth it. Its so worth it to help someone else, to be poured out so that I can be filled again. The work is this right here. This is the work. Its relationship. I love doing the work He has me to do for others and within me. That's one of the reasons I got a PhD. It allows me access to spaces and places people don't normally get to see Jesus but I'm bringing Him. He's my very present help so He's going to be in the meeting too.
Isaiah 59:1-2
Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened at all, that it cannot save, nor His ear dull with deafness, that it cannot hear.
But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.
This is why I need Good Friday. My sins, my short fallings, my iniquities make me unworthy and unable to access the Father. Its not a failing on God's part but on mine. I simply can't do right. I think Paul said when I want to do right I find myself doing wrong. Its true. Even my best attempts at righteousness are miles from the mark. The blood Jesus shed on Good Friday changes that totally. He is the full and perfect sacrifice for my sin. He makes Himself an offering that covers my sin and allows me to stand before God boldly. With the blood, which speak on my behalf and on yours, I wouldn't have any of this. I wouldn't have this relationship, I wouldn't have any idea about any of the things that really matter. I'd no real reference for love, patience, kindness, or anything that is good because good comes from Above and I'd have no access to that. Jesus paid it all. Period. Welcome to freedom! Welcome to love!
Isaiah 59:12
For our transgressions are multiplied before You [O Lord], and our sins testify against us; for our transgressions are with us, and as for our iniquities, we know and recognize them [as]:
At Maundy Thursday service last night Dr. Banks preached about this. He gave a court scene wherein the devil gave all the evidence to God that we were sinful and that we were guilt. And the fact is, we are. I surely am. But the defense...oh the defense. God brings in a special defense attorney on our behalf who says "Not them but I, will suffer for their transgressions. There sins will be upon me." That defense attorney is Jesus. By His sacrifice alone, we are able to know, love, and serve God appropriately. Our inheritance is based on Calvary. Without the cross, none of this would be worth anything. With the cross, we have life and life more abundantly. I don't know about you, but I'm so thankful for the finished work of the Cross.
Isaiah 59:16
And He saw that there was no man and wondered that there was no intercessor [no one to intervene on behalf of truth and right]; therefore His own arm brought Him victory, and His own righteousness [having the Spirit without measure] sustained Him.
That which I just laid out...that God saw there was no intercessor, no defense attorney for us, is right here. God saw we didn't have a way out and He made a way out. He made a way. That's critical. Nothing I did made anything happen. God saw my need for salvation, for grace and love and hope and a future, and He made a way. He gave His only Son so the whosoever (that's you and me) believes in Him shall have everlasting life! God already gave a radical and loving sacrifice for this relationship. All I have to do is surrender and give my life to gain it. That isn't always easy but grace is real.
Isaiah 59:19-20
So [as the result of the Messiah’s intervention] they shall [reverently] fear the name of the Lord from the west, and His glory from the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him and put him to flight [for He will come like a rushing stream which the breath of the Lord drives]
He shall come as a Redeemer to Zion and to those in Jacob (Israel) who turn from transgression, says the Lord.
Yesterday, in the talk about mentoring, the speaker highlighted the fact that a good mentor protects their mentee from any and everything that could hinder their progress including themselves. That's who God is for me. He keeps any and everything from harming me. Even me. When I think back on the times I hurt myself, I know He was still keeping me. Even when I wasn't trying to keep myself, He was. I love that He's got the victory already and because I belong to Him, I can count on Him to come through on my behalf. He is my strong tower and my refuge. I would say when no one has anything nice to say about me, He tell me who I am but the first part of that isn't true. He's given me people that say all types of nice things about me. But knowing who I am in Him is the best ever.
Isaiah 59:21
As for Me, this is My covenant or league with them, says the Lord: My Spirit, Who is upon you [and Who writes the law of God inwardly on the heart], and My words which I have put in your mouth shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouths of your [true, spiritual] children, or out of the mouths of your children’s children, says the Lord, from henceforth and forever.
I belong to Him. I always will. We have a covenant. Swoon.
But seriously, God has already given so much for this relationship that I know without any doubt that He loves me. That doesn't make it easy when the things I want when I want them aren't here. When I had to wait on Med school, that wasn't easy. I had to fight for my life and for what I couldn't see physically but saw spiritually. The interesting thing is He didn't ever promise me that I'd get into med school. What He grew in me was a deep and pervasive love. Looking back its so counterintuitive but He knows me. He knows who I am because He made me and He knows what would motivate me.
The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is such a profound gift. Its an amazing thing to let Him do what He wants with me. Its an act of surrender I don't often get right but when I do...oh when I can actually surrender completely, its always exactly what I need.
Also, I can't wait to hear the prayers of my children. I can't wait to hear them imitate their mother and I. It brings tears to my eyes to think about. If we can teach them anything, teaching them to pray is the most important legacy we can leave and He already says it is so. Amen!
No comments:
Post a Comment