Before The Throne

Sometimes I think we forget what we claim to believe.

"Before the throne of God above

I have a strong, a perfect plea:
A great High Priest, whose name is Love,
Who ever lives and pleads for me.

My name is graven on his hands,
My name is written on his heart;
I know that while in heaven he stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart
No tongue can bid me thence depart.

When Satan tempts me to despair,
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look, and see him there
Who made an end of all my sin.
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/s/shane_and_shane/before_the_throne_of_god_above.html ]
Because a sinless Savior died,
My sinful soul is counted free;
For God, the Just, is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me
To look on Him and pardon me

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Praise the One,
Risen Son of God!

Behold him there, the risen Lamb
My perfect, spotless righteousness,
The great unchangeable I am,
The King of glory and of grace!

One in himself, I cannot die
My soul is purchased by his blood
My life is hid with Christ on high,
With Christ, my Savior and my God
With Christ, my Savior and my God"

"When I Am Afraid, I Will Put My Trust In You." Psalm 56:3

The last week and a half have been among the longest. I have had some big decisions to make and I have been really torn in making them. Everything was so nicely packaged and planned out, it felt real nice, real manageable. I have had some uncomfortable, seemingly unnecessary circumstances thrown my way and it has really thrown me off. Little sleep, lots of tears, lots of prayers, lots of thinking. Several things that I have put my trust in have been slowly taken away. Several people that I tend to rely on when things get crazy have been unavailable for various reasons. It's scary when things are going on that are out of your control. You quickly realize how small you are and how large the world really is. You quickly realize how weak you are and how desperately you need God to be strong on your behalf.

I love this quote:

"Before He furnishes the abundant supply, we must first be made conscious of our emptiness. Before he gives strength, we must be made to feel our weakness. Slow, painfully slow, are we to learn this lesson; and slower still to own our nothingness and take the place of helplessness before the Mighty One." ~Arthur W. Pink

What a concept. There is such beauty in the picture of this incredibly powerful, sovereign God breaking me into 1,000 pieces. Beautiful because it is being done out of love. Love for me. This God that should break me into 1,000 pieces and leave me there because of my sin, instead breaks me out of love and for my good, because Christ took that judgemental breaking for me on the cross. God knows that there is one thing that will satisfy my wandering heart, that is Him, His presence, His peace. And because of His overwhelming love, He will stop at nothing to keep me focused on Him. He will take away anything and anyone that stands in between me and Him. And as much as it hurts me, He knows it is the only thing that will make me happy. The crazy thing is that I hurt right now because I am loved.

I am loved. So much so that He wont leave me like I am. He won't stop until I'm conformed to the most beautiful image one can find. Conformed to the image of His son. Focused on and delighting in Him and Him only.

Christlikeness. It's painful.

"You will not stroll into Christlikeness with your hands in your pockets, shoving the door open with a careless shoulder. This is no hobby for one's leisure moments, taken up at intervals when we have nothing much to do, and put down and forgotten when our life grows full and interesting... It takes all one's strength, and all one's heart, and all one's mind, and all one's soul, given freely and recklessly and without restraint." ~Arthur John Gossip

It's easy to pour all one's heart and strength into something when it is fun and exciting. It's really hard to give freely and recklessly when you have nothing left. It's really hard to pour all your heart into something when your heart hurts.

"Take up your cross daily and follow me."

Cross-bearing is not supposed to be easy.

Yet, we are called to pursue His steps freely and recklessly and without restraint. We are called to pour our heart, soul, mind and strength into cross-bearing...into dying...into becoming Christ-like.

"Learn to trust His heart when you cannot trace His hand. He has your best in mind and regardless of how you may feel now, at the end of the day Christ-likeness is what you really want."

I trust His heart more than my heart, more than my feelings, more than my circumstances.

Psalm 56:3-4 "When I am afraid, I will put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid."

I Want To Know God.

"Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls."
(1 Peter 1:8-9 ESV)

So I've been reading this book by this really smart man named J. I. Packer. This is something I came upon:

"How many of us would say that in the light of the knowledge of God which we have come to enjoy, past disappointments and present heartbreaks, as the world counts heartbreaks, don't matter. For the plain fact is that to most of us they do matter. We live with them as our "cross" (or so we call them). Constantly we find ourselves slipping into bitterness and apathy and gloom as we reflect on them, which we frequently do. The attitude we show to the world is a sort of dried-up stoicism, miles removed from the 'joy unspeakable and full of glory'. 'Poor souls,' our friends say of us, 'how they've suffered.' And that is just what we feel about ourselves!" ~J.I. Packer

I want to know God in this manner, in this way. In a way that is so real, so close, so deep, that it changes EVERYTHING. I know God, don't get me wrong. But I want to know him like this. In a way that produces continual 'joy unspeakable'. I think a lot of us accept the truth of the gospel and maybe we even study a little bit and develop a pretty good foundation of God and who we are in Christ. But we stop there for some reason. And although it seems like we know all this stuff, we've barely scratched the surface of KNOWING our God. We know a lot about Him, but how deeply do we KNOW HIM?

"But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish..." Phillipians 3:7-8

"When Paul says he counts the things he lost rubbish, or dung, he means not merely that he does not think of them as having any value, but also that he does not live with them constantly in his mind: what normal person spends his time nostalgically dreaming of manure? Yet this, in effect, is what many of us do. It shows how little we have in the way of true knowledge of God."

I want to KNOW Him in such a way that all these pointless things fade away. These things- the ones that hurt so much, that are so tiring, that are so hard to understand....they are rubbish, they mean nothing in comparison to KNOWING Him.

I want that. I want it not just in a theological, philosophical, abstract sort of way. I want it in the everyday, in a practical, hands on, lived out sort of way.

Determined.

Today

Today I feel like I'm failing at everything. Today my heart hurts a lot. Today I feel like I'm 6 inches away from letting everyone down. That scares me a lot. That's a lie I refuse to give into.

I believe it's part of the process of our sanctification to daily, hourly, (sometimes even minute-ly) reject that which is false and cling to that which is true. There is this tension inside the mind of every believer that we constantly have to stay on top of or else we'll lose our footing.

I am a very strong individual. My mind is so strong, 90% of the time I don't struggle to cling to the truth and I don't struggle to reject what's false. But when I do, it's rough, it's real, it's hard, it's draining. Today is one of those days.

Days like today I wish God would take human form once again and just sit down and have coffee with me for a few minutes. I wish I could audibly hear some verbal affirmation. I wish I could have a physical pat on the back. I wish I could just talk and know that I'm being heard. I wish I could look into His eyes as He speaks and be given full confidence that I am not crazy. I am hearing what I'm hearing. This is real.

Faith is not easy. Neither is trusting. Both are part of the battle.

We're in a battle. Daily. It's not meant to be easy.

I'm encouraged by the fact that even on days where there is so much struggle, I am still not alone. I'm encouraged that even when I am so tired, I have a continual source of unwavering strength to tap into. I'm encouraged that my ability to not fail was never in my hands to begin with.

Bad days happen. Struggle happens. Real life, real hurt, happens.

We can't give up. We can't slow down. And we can't give in to the lies that get thrown at us.

Cling to truth. Unchanging truth. Keep fighting.