Lee McDowell Christian Ministries LMCM
Nacogdoches, Texas Gal. 2:20 KJV
Thoughts on Michael Wells’ teachings in My Weakness for His Strength - # 12
Michael’s book is available through:
Abiding Life Ministries International
Littleton, Colorado
(303) 972-0859 almi@abidinglife.com
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day, 2012. So much to be thankful for. Perhaps the thing I am most thankful for is that God loves me. Even me.
Michael makes a couple of statements in Day 338 that I think are truly earth-shattering. See if you can spot them as you read his writing…I will mention the ones I think are so when I comment afterwards.
Day 338
What Love Is Not
Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. –I John 2:15
Who of you thinks that you are greater than God? Do you think your actions can change the very nature of God? Being stupid and falling into sin and failure is a different topic; the topic here is love and whether you think those things can change the very DNA, so to speak, of God. He is and forever will be patient, kind, never arrogant, never abusive, working for your good, not provoked, not keeping a list, hating the bad that happens to you, rejoicing with the truth, bearing with you, believing in you, hoping for you, enduring to the end, and never failing. It blows your mind! You perform your whole life to be loved because love is conditional, and then along comes Jesus, loving without condition. In a sense, He just cannot help Himself! He is love. As I said, this revelation will change everything!
In our quest for love we have exhausted ourselves performing, competing, and blaming. The standouts in the race to be loved are (not all, but many of) the entertainers, politicians, the title holders, and the “successful.” In the end they die after having relived their few moments of glory and experienced loneliness, bitterness, and reclusion. In brief, if we do not know that God loves us, we will continue to work for man’s love. Some feel so rejected and worthless that they are working for the whole world’s love to overcome the feelings. This is why many live to man and not to God. Avoiding man is another form of living to man. Once we have the revelation of God’s love, nothing else will matter. Some think I live in the clouds, but I am quite serious about God’s love. When a carnal husband tells his wife that she does not meet his needs and he is leaving for another woman, it hurts not only because of the rejection but the fact that the relationship was never deeper than flesh. Her response, “God loves me!” is not mere words but fact that must come by revelation. The realization that God Himself loves a person is an acceptance that dusts earthly rejection.
Perhaps in your opinion (because the world brainwashed you) your life, your job, and your ministry have never really gone anywhere (the same could have been said of Jesus working at the carpenter bench in a small village with narrow-minded people). But through revelation to say, “God loves me,” makes none of that matter. Does He love the pastor with a big church more and the one serving a small congregation less? Does He love the believer more that has straight A’s on his spiritual report card and less when he earns D’s and F’s? Does He love the one with a doctor’s degree more than the eighth-grade dropout? Tell me, what do you think? God’s love is not and cannot be worked for; God’s love can only be enjoyed. No matter what you have been up to today and what you will be doing tomorrow, you can say, “God loves me!” We allow men in the pulpit to tell us covertly that they are more loved because of what they have done. I tell you, they are boasting in their unbelief! To know that He loves you softens every blow that life can hand out. You were left out? He loves you! You had to quit university? He loves you! You were going to seminary but decided on business school instead? He loves you! If you had gone home a day earlier you could have seen your grandmother before she passed away? He loves you! One bumper sticker made to be cheeky says, “Jesus loves you, but everyone else thinks you are a jerk.” It does not offend me; I like the truth that is in it. If everybody thinks I am a jerk, but He loves me, that truly does make all the difference. To hear that He loves us means very little to most, for their ears and head hear the words but their emotions say, “He loves me if . . .!” This causes them to discount His love and go on working for what they already have.
God has been trying to teach you what His pure love is for years. He has never forsaken you, when you were faithless He remained faithful, and He is not making you pay consequences. Still you might lack the revelation of His love. Simply pray and ask that you might see it. It will set you free! God loves you! The revelation must come through Him, and Love will make life make sense. Love reveals that your relationship is not man-generated but God-generated, not man-maintained but God-maintained. Often we hear, “Do not give up! Keep trying! Hang in there! You can make it! You are further along than when you began! If you will just lead one person to Christ it will be worth it! Keep studying, then you will understand.” What is the source of all such piffle? Its source is ignorance that gets spewed from the foundation of a man-based relationship incognizant of the Love that makes the relationship completely God-planted, God-germinated, and God-harvested. Through Jesus God continued to shout that the relationship was Love-based, and yet every question directed toward Jesus proved that man understood the relationship to be completely performance-centered. I like hiking and pointing out the wildlife, for just as a painting reveals the painter, so does creation reveal the Creator. I find it very frustrating when someone cannot see the deer in the middle of the field; worse yet is the person that cannot hear me telling him where the deer is. Eyes that cannot see and ears that cannot hear are vexing. We hear that our relationship is God-based, we see that it is, and yet we go on working for what we already have. Christianity without the Love of God as the foundation produces religion, and the Christian religion is the ugliest of all, because every other religion was created as such--with man instigating and executing what is believed to establish a relationship with “deity”--but in Christ God initiated the relationship with man and finished the work to allow it. If Christianity is approached with a religious spirit it gets, as some would say, real goofy! A religious man may imitate Buddha, Mohammed, or a New-Age teacher; it is just man imitating man. But can a religious man imitate God? Impossible! Jesus was not imitating God; Jesus was God. Christ’s life is God’s life.
Again, Christianity is God-generated. Let me ask you a question. Imagine you have known your husband, wife, or friend for many years and know of his many foibles. Over the past month you have been acutely frustrated with the person’s lack of spirituality, when he comes to you and tells you that Jesus appeared and spoke to him. How would you take it? Would you doubt that it happened? Why? You do not see the person as being holy enough? Or if you did believe it, would you be jealous, because in you heart you believe you are just a better person? These attitudes reveal that you do not adequately know the Love of God.
(Underlining is my emphasis.)
There’s an old song in the hymn books of old that is titled: “Jesus Loves Even Me.”
The first verse goes like this:
I am so glad that our Father in heav’n Tells of His love in the Book He has giv’n,
Wonderful things in the Bible I see; This is the dearest that Jesus loves me.
The chorus:
I am so glad that Jesus loves me, Jesus loves me, Jesus loves me;
I am so glad that Jesus loves me, Jesus loves even me.
Second verse:
Tho’ I forget Him and wander away, Still He doth love me wherever I stray;
Back to His dear loving arms would I flee, When I remember that Jesus loves me.
Repeat chorus…
I am so glad that Jesus loves me, Jesus loves me, Jesus loves me;
I am so glad that Jesus loves me, Jesus loves even me.
Third and last verse:
Oh, if there’s only one song I can sing, When in His beauty I see the Great King,
This my song in eternity be: “Oh, what a wonder that Jesus loves me!”
Repeat chorus once more…
I am so glad that Jesus loves me, Jesus loves me, Jesus loves me;
I am so glad that Jesus loves me, Jesus loves even me.
(I wonder how many of you knew the tune to that old song and sang the words as you read them!?!)
Jesus loves even me! That’s the message Michael was emphasizing in this day’s
writing. And once you and I “have the revelation of God’s love, nothing else will
matter.” WOW!
Now those “earth-shattering” statements…
(1) “God’s love is not and cannot be worked for, God’s love can only be enjoyed.”
(2) “The realization that God Himself loves a person is an acceptance that dusts
earthly rejection.”
There is so much truth in Michael’s writing this “day.” It shows in the amount of
writing that I have highlighted for one reason or the other. Can we not believe
just how much our Heavenly Father wants us to realize THAT He loves us, and
HOW He loves us? That revelation would make life make sense!
Oh, one other thing: God’s love is not conditional.
Read, re-read, and re-read this day’s writing over and over until you own it!
Yellow – VIP, Very Important Point Red – GP, Greatest Promises
Turquoise – UR, Unfathomable Riches Pink – PV, Priceless Victory
Lee McDowell Christian Ministries
P. O. Box 633244 Nacogdoches, Tx 75963 936-559-5696
No comments:
Post a Comment