Intimacy: Experiencing the Love of Christ

For myself it's so easy to seek love and attention from others. It comes naturally. Far more easily than seeking love from Jesus. Actually seeking love from Jesus hurts because he has to pry my heart open to take out all the junk I've fixed within it and then he has to stitch up the holes so he can fill up my battered heart with his love, which is like a healing balm for my soul. Who knew experiencing the love of Christ was so dangerous, yet if we never experience his love our hearts will remain tiny, insecure, and wholey. Not holy. He has come to refine us with fire, to turn us, who are marred clay into gold.

My desire is for love, deep thirst quenching love, yet this world only offers the shallow kind, the kind that will make you thirsty in a second, a salt water that shrivels you and never quenches your thirst. It's like a cruel joke that the devil is playing on us. He says, "Look at this wonderful spring of living water, it's clean. Look at all those people who are drinking from it. Aren't they having fun? Don't they look fulfilled? I mean, sure God says he's got something better, and maybe he does, but come on, his pool is up the mountain side and will take too much work to get to. He asks a bit much when you could just settle down here, don't you think? Here, have a drink. It won't kill you."

But God says, "Come up the mountain side. The spring air will revive your soul. I'll walk with you and carry you if you'll only say Yes to me. This water the lyer is talking about is polluted, it warps the mind, the soul. The people who drink from it have glazed eyes and hearts and can't determine right from wrong. They've gone blind but they're addicted. To what you ask? To pleasing people, to looking for love in all the wrong places. The fish are floating on the surface from the green muck of jealousy and comparison and lies. Can't you see? The water I offer will actually strengthen you, give you a clean heart and mind. Just say yes and I'll take you there."

God not only seeks to heal our wounds, but to give us new hearts entirely.

Ezekiel 36:25-28 says, "Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. Your filth will be washed away, and you will no longer worship idols. And I will give you a new heart with new and right desires, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony heart of sin and give you a new, obedient heart. And I will put my Spirit in you so you will obey my laws and do whatever I command. And you will live in Israel, the land I gave your ancestors long ago. You will be my people, and I will be your God."

In Christ we are...

Clean
Free from worshiping idols (pleasing people in my case)
Given a new heart
Given new and right desires
Given a new Spirit
Given a new, obedient heart
A home
A new identity
A relationship with God

In Galations 1:10 Paul says, "Obviously I'm not trying to be a people pleaser! No, I am trying to please God. If I were still trying to please people, I would not be Christ's servant."

And in 2 Corinthians 5:21 ~ "He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live to please themselves. Instead, they will live to please Christ, who died and was raised from the dead."

We are called not to please others or ourselves, but Christ.

"And what union can there be between God's temple and idols? For we are the temple of the living God... Because we have these promises, dear friends, let us cleanse ourselves from everything that can defile our body or spirit. And let us work toward complete purity because we fear God." 2 Cor. 6:16 & 7:1

In church today the woman who was preaching said, We can't have a little bit of ourselves and a little bit of Jesus, we have to have none of us and all Jesus. All Jesus. It's so extreme, but what other way is there to live? I hope and pray God works this out in my soul that I'd give up everything in him. I'm not there at all yet, but pray that he'd guide me towards all him and none of me.