October 8
Do you see how I am able to shine through you, no matter what? Jesus asked.
He reminded me of the doubt, exhaustion and inability that I’d been feeling- that I often feel as a result of the abuses and failures in my past- but even then, His love and words were coming through and making up a compelling picture, now that I could step back and look at it from a distance. Nothing that I had been feeling had stopped His way of being with me and guiding me.
“Yes, I can see how my brokenness is no hindrance to You,” I admitted. His life and love pours through me, regardless. I can simply trust Him no matter what I feel or what my past is telling me about myself.
Do you see how I am able to shine through you, no matter what? Jesus asked.
He reminded me of the doubt, exhaustion and inability that I’d been feeling- that I often feel as a result of the abuses and failures in my past- but even then, His love and words were coming through and making up a compelling picture, now that I could step back and look at it from a distance. Nothing that I had been feeling had stopped His way of being with me and guiding me.
“Yes, I can see how my brokenness is no hindrance to You,” I admitted. His life and love pours through me, regardless. I can simply trust Him no matter what I feel or what my past is telling me about myself.
*
But this beautiful treasure is contained in us—cracked pots made of earth and clay—so that the transcendent character of this power will be clearly seen as coming from God and not from us."
II Corinthians 4:7
*
October 12
I woke and reached out to Jesus, and it was as though He were high above me, but I remembered that verse about not going up to heaven to reach Him or going down to the depth, because He is already close.
And I saw that Jesus was close to me and I said to Him, “I know You will be with me all day long, no matter what I do or feel, You are not high above me, but I am hidden in You.”
As I was saying these things, I was in His arms and I saw His face, which was luminous, beautiful and full of aching, tender love looking down at mine as I spoke.
“I have You in my heart and I know I won’t be…” but I couldn’t go on, because it was impossible to say it.
Jenny, He whispered, encouragingly.
But it took every ounce of courage and faith to say the words:
"I know I won't be ashamed- because of You, because of Your work," I finished ardently. "I can boast of nothing of myself, for I have no strength of myself. I can boast only of You, for anything I do is really Your doing and everything good that I have and everything good that I am is all from You and speaks of You and reveals You and goes back to You.”
And Jesus said my name and we were pouring into love. For a moment I was lifted out of my cramped self awareness into the wide open spaces where there was nothing to know but love like breathing.
*
"The earlier revelation was intended simply to get us ready for the Messiah, who then puts everything right for those who trust him to do it. Moses wrote that anyone who insists on using the law code to live right before God soon discovers it’s not so easy—every detail of life regulated by fine print! But trusting God to shape the right living in us is a different story—no precarious climb up to heaven to recruit the Messiah, no dangerous descent into hell to rescue the Messiah. So what exactly was Moses saying?
The word that saves is right here,
as near as the tongue in your mouth,
as close as the heart in your chest.
as near as the tongue in your mouth,
as close as the heart in your chest.
It’s the word of faith that welcomes God to go to work and set things right for us. This is the core of our preaching. Say the welcoming word to God—“Jesus is my Master”—embracing, body and soul, God’s work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead. That’s it. You’re not “doing” anything; you’re simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you. That’s salvation. With your whole being you embrace God setting things right, and then you say it, right out loud: “God has set everything right between him and me!”
-Romans 10:5-8, The Message
-Romans 10:5-8, The Message
*
October 16
You will see Me, Jesus assured me, and my heart flared up at the thought of being before Him in the fullness of who He is, and then I saw myself before a dark glass, and I pressed my hands flat against it, in longing and He pressed His hands against mine on His side and we were full of longing for that day when I will see Him in the flesh, without any veil at all.
*
Besides, I know my Redeemer lives,
and in the end He will rise and take His stand on the earth.
And though my skin has been stripped off,
still, in my flesh, I will see God.
I, myself, will see Him:
not some stranger, but actually me, with these eyes.
Toward this end, my deepest longings pine away within my chest.
-Job 19:25-27, Voice
-Job 19:25-27, Voice
*
I was thinking about how He born an infant, a newborn, covered in afterbirth and trembling, with those wiry limbs and loose skin and liquid dark eyes, and completely helpless- God in person!
“How could He do it?” I wondered in awe all over again at the immensity of that surrender.
I could and did for you, Jesus replied, swiftly, strongly.
*
For a child has been born—for us!
the gift of a son—for us!
He’ll take over
the running of the world.
His names will be: Amazing Counselor,
Strong God,
Eternal Father,
Prince of Wholeness.
His ruling authority will grow,
and there’ll be no limits to the wholeness he brings.
He’ll rule from the historic David throne
over that promised kingdom.
He’ll put that kingdom on a firm footing
and keep it going
With fair dealing and right living,
beginning now and lasting always.
The zeal of God-of-the-Angel-Armies
will do all this.
Isaiah 9:6-7, Message
