Stuff...

I couldn’t for the longest time see the connection between the concept of intimacy with Christ and at the same time acknowledging Him as Lord of my life. I realized the other day that one really can’t happen without the other. Intimacy or friendship with God can’t happen until He is Lord. This may seem like an obvious point but really digesting it should challenge the way we live our lives. Jesus said His family were the people who did the will of God. Don’t get me wrong, we can never earn friendship with God by any works or anything. However, I wonder how much of how we live show Jesus as a nice friend without the costs of having Him truly as Lord. I realized the other day that as I submit to the Lord I allow Him to love me more but it comes with the initial question of ‘will I bow my knee?’ It’s nothing Jesus forces but when we finally do, we realize that He is truly worthy of all we have to give and more. In seeing His worthiness we also see His love towards us. But if we don’t acknowledge Him as Lord first and foremost than we can never truly appreciate how precious friendship with Him is. When we can truly conceive that He brought us from dust and made us vessels to receive His love simply because He desired to do so it consumes us. Friendship with the Lord is truly rare, there aren’t many who He tells His secrets to and it’s not because He doesn’t want to it’s because, as one evangelist put it, we won’t "trade our comfort for commitment." What builds my zeal for Him and what steals it? What ways do I seek comfort and not true rest from Him?


I tried for a long time to discipline myself and I thought that made me humble but what I came to realize was that I still wanted to be master of my life and I didn’t really want to submit to the Lord’s discipline. When I finally did, it hurt but in the time following I experienced freedom that I didn’t think was possible. 1Peter says that "he who has suffered in the body is done with sin" that we should arm ourselves with the same attitude as Christ who suffered for sin. Am I done with sin? I’m not talking about stupid vices, I’m talking about dying and taking up my cross daily to live a life of repentance, a life of turning the other way from the world and towards God. Have I committed myself completely into the hands of a faithful creator (1Peter) just as Jesus committed Himself into the hands of the Father and "gave up His ghost"? Peter was writing to people in the midst of trials and every trial we go through is an opportunity to die so that we can truly live. Is there some part of me that the Lord has asking for me but I want to save it only to have it breed death instead of letting it die and seeing His life manifested to a greater degree? Jesus had the option to get off the cross at any time and we can drop ours at any time. Some of our suffering has to be chosen, "yes Lord, I will endure this, I will submit to you because I know that there is a greater joy set before me even if I can’t see it yet." The physical suffering of Christ is scratching the surface of the price He paid, He suffered separation from the Father for the first time in all of eternity and that is something we don’t ever have to bear if we choose Him. The suffering we chose as we die to ourselves is something Jesus really only appreciates and empathizes with and that is why it’s called "the fellowship of His sufferings."