Tethered To The Divine

"abide in me and I in you"  John 15:4

He loves you.

I'm not sure you got that.  

He loves you.  

It's unquestionable.  It's so complete.  

He has you deep...deep in His heart.  The forces of a thousand hells could come to destroy you...you...and HE would risk everything to protect you...and he did.

Try something.  Set aside some time to read the book of John from beginning to end without interruption.  It's only 30 pages or so and it reads better than any novel ever written.  It is 30-some pages of the last three years of Jesus life, and the intense drama and supernatural content is astounding. Set aside this time and read it with one thing in mind.  Every word, every action, every miracle, every hardship, every difficulty, every painful blow, every sleepless night in prayer, every dinner with the disciples, every moment to moment temptation, and every wrestling match with satan himself was done for the love of only one person...just one person...YOU.
                     
This man...God...who got up every morning and clothed himself and ate breakfast and cut wood and debated men and healed the sick and died horribly and now rules from the heavens loves you intensely.  And here's the best part...His blood, his flesh, his DNA flows in and through YOU...if you want Him.  The God who stretched out galaxies and spoke nebulas into existence loves YOU.  His tabernacle that no one could ever approach now lives in you...if you want Him.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
"on that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me, and I am in you"

Wow...it's like He was "tethered to the divine"...and so should we…"abide in me and I in you"...so complete...do we really need...anything...else? His DNA, His Spirit flows through us and connects us, unites us to a place unseen...a place unknown...a place where Ephesians says we've been given everything.  

"who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ". Eph 1:3

For a couple of years my wife used to wake up in the middle of the night terrified she was most certainly going to die...right then.  She was panic-stricken.  In fact, we concluded they were "panic attacks".  It was totally impossible to talk her out of these moments of panic. She just needed someone to clutch, to hold tightly until the fear subsided.  She needed to be tethered to someone, some power, to some love until the panic passed.

If you read the chapters of John you find Jesus in constant conflict.  You find Him continually offered well-meaning advice from his disciples or threatening accusations from angry mobs.  Yet, He never moved, He never spoke, He never breathed...apart from the Father.  He was tethered...to the divine.

I am nothing, a nobody in the eyes of the world...and I love it.  My life is a secret and so are many thousands of other "nobodies" that walk the earth.  Waitresses, clerks, managers, moms and dads, and just ordinary people who as John Wesley said, "their hearts have been strangely warmed within".  They contain a fire. and in the midst of every painful trial and cold night they know that Jesus LOVES and LIVES in them supernaturally.  They are tethered to a power so much greater than themselves that every act and every seemingly ordinary moment can be lived in GREATNESS serving Him.

Jesus spent some sleepless nights in prayer to stay close.  Sounds like a good idea...every now and then. Some retreats to His word and some days of fasting might be just the thing to bring us back to the awareness that we abide in Him and He abides in us.  I have tasted many, many bitter days and I have met fear and hardship on many levels.  I have friends right this moment that are facing fears and possibilities of loss that I can hardly fathom.  But I have yet to know a day of following Christ that I could not somehow reach deep within and deep within his word and find that I am tethered to a God that is a Father.  This God is intensely in love with me.  

As I walk through my day knowing that His mercy is not only new every morning but every second, I praise Him, I cry out to Him, I search for Him, I intercede with Him, I groan with Him, I die with Him, I live with Him, I love Him…and I thank Him...because I am tethered to Him…forever.

Tethered To The Divine

"abide in me and I in you"  John 15:4

He loves you.

I'm not sure you got that.  

He loves you.  

It's unquestionable.  It's so complete.  

He has you deep...deep in His heart.  The forces of a thousand hells could come to destroy you...you...and HE would risk everything to protect you...and he did.

Try something.  Set aside some time to read the book of John from beginning to end without interruption.  It's only 30 pages or so, and it reads better than any novel ever written.  It is 30-some pages of the last three years of Jesus life, and the intense drama and supernatural content is astounding.

Set aside this time and read it with one thing in mind.  Every word, every action, every miracle, every hardship, every difficulty, every painful blow, every sleepless night in prayer, every dinner with the disciples, every moment to moment temptation, and every wrestling match with satan himself was done for the love of only one person...just one person...YOU.
                     
This man...God...who got up every morning and clothed himself and ate breakfast and cut wood and debated men and healed the sick and died horribly  and now rules from the heavens loves you intensely.  And here's the best part...His blood, his flesh, his DNA flows in and through YOU...if you want Him.  The God who stretched out galaxies and spoke nebulas into existence loves YOU.  His tabernacle that no one could ever approach now lives in you...if you want him.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
                                                                
"on that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me, and I am in you"

Wow...it's like He was "tethered to the divine"...and so should we…"abide in me and I in you"...so complete...do we really need...anything...else?

 His DNA, His Spirit flows through us and connects us, unites us to a place unseen...a place unknown...a place where Ephesians says we've been given everything.  

"who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ". Eph 1:3

For a couple of years my wife used to wake up in the middle of the night terrified she was most certainly going to die...right then.  She was panic-stricken.  In fact, we concluded they were "panic attacks".  It was totally impossible to talk her out of these moments of panic. She just needed someone to clutch, to hold tightly until the fear subsided.  She needed to be tethered to someone, some power, to some love until the panic passed.

If you read the chapters of John you find Jesus in constant conflict.  You find Him continually offered Well-meaning advice from his disciples or threatening accusations from angry mobs.  Yet, He never moved, he never spoke, He never breathed...apart from the Father.  He was tethered...to the divine.

I am nothing, a nobody in the eyes of the world...and I love it.  My life is a secret and so are many thousands of other "nobodies" that walk the earth.  Waitresses, clerks, managers, moms and dads, and just ordinary people who as John Wesley said their hearts have been strangely warmed within.  They contain a fire and in the midst of every painful trial and cold night they know that Jesus LOVES and LIVES in them supernaturally.  They are tethered to a power so much greater than themselves that every act and every seemingly ordinary moment can be lived in GREATNESS.

Jesus spent some sleepless nights in prayer to stay close.  Sounds like a good idea...every now and then.  Some retreats to His word and some days of fasting might be just the thing to bring us back to abiding in Him as He abides in us.  I have tasted many many bitter days and I have met fear and hardship on many levels.  I have friends right this moment that are facing fears and possibilities of loss that I can hardly fathom.  But I have yet to know a day of following Christ that I could not somehow reach deep within and deep within his word and find that I am tethered to a God that is a Father.  And this God is intensely in love with me. 

As walk through my day knowing that His mercy is not only new every morning but every second, I praise Him, I cry out to Him, I search for Him, I intercede with Him, I groan with Him, I die with Him, I live with Him, I love Him…and I thank Him because I am tethered to Him…forever.

What Will You Do For Her?

“I had not told anyone what my God had put in my heart to do for Jerusalem”
Nehemiah 2:12

I can hardly read this passage without weeping or welling up inside with emotion.  This is nothing short of beautiful. So personal…MY God…So passionate…what he will do for Jerusalem…so secretive…he had not told anyone…so supernatural…what God had put on his heart.  He loved Jerusalem.  He wept over her.  He mourned over her.  He fasted and prayed for her night and day.  She had become Nehemiah’s greatest delight because she was God’s greatest delight. And Nehemiah loved HIS God.  It was a divine dream set out on a clandestine journey.

“If I forget you O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill.  May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy.” Psalm 137:5

When I decided to ask Carol to marry me 14 years ago, I planned an entire evening of events.  We went to special places.  Places that held memories for us.  We went to a specific restaurant.  We talked about certain things that together we held dear.  I wanted it to be this crazy secret thing I had planned for her...just for her.  Sometimes when we plan that special Christmas or birthday gift for our kids we get really excited.  We know it’s something they want really badly.  We anticipate the moment we give it to them.  Occasionally, we even make them earn it by following little clues that lead to the package.  

What has God secretly put on your heart to do for Jerusalem?  What has God burned inside of you to do for His church, His Bride, His eternal…beloved.  Do you see her beauty, her glory?  Do you hear the drumbeats, the music, the singing, the unending praises being declared from that distant land…the heavenly city that awaits us?  Stop for a moment.  Be very still.  You can hear them…if you have ears to hear.  

What has God put on your heart to do for His people?  Are you secretly excited?  Are you planning it all out like a special gift to be given…like a marriage proposal to be asked?  Are you riding through Jerusalem like Nehemiah, observing the torn down walls, the places of desolation, the broken down gates, the places burned down by fire, the areas in need of repair?  Are you on your knees pleading with God because you don’t know what to do…you don’t know how to fix it?

Do you hurt for her?  Do you want to help her?  Do you want to see God infuse new life into her?  Do you want to see her delivered of all the disgusting, vile, corrupt sin that so easily entangles her?  Do you want to see her delivered from the snare of the fowler?  Do you want to see her flowing in the holiness and the majesty and the glorious power and love of our Lord Jesus Christ, the King?

"If I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy".  Jerusalem must be our highest joy, our deepest treasure, our greatest mission.  Our nights should be sleepless with her intercession.  Our days should be filled with bricklaying...building up her walls.  She is the bride of Christ...His eternal pleasure...His family.  What will you do for her?

Bulletproof Declaration

"When Jacob awoke from his sleep he thought, surely the Lord is in this place and I was not aware of it".

I have a new prayer. Well, it's more like a declaration. This declaration is for every minute, every second of the day.  I've implanted this declaration in the forefront of my mind. I've taken a spiritual megaphone and shouted this declaration into my soul!  I go to bed with it. I wake up with it. I'm going to write it on post-it notes and decorate my house and my car with it.  I'm going to wrap myself up in the thought of it, relish in the sheer delight of it, and breathe very, very peacefully because of it.

What is it?

The Lord is in this place and I AM aware of it!

The Lord is in this place and I AM aware of it!!!

Let that soak in a bit.

I love it, and I quietly whisper it all the time now.  The Lord is in this place and I am aware of it. Try it.  Declare it, speak it, shout it and whisper it.  Everywhere this life takes you...as you make your way through this sin-ridden, upside down, corrupted world, make the declaration that He is in this place and you are aware of it.  In your most elated moments of joy and satisfaction, make this declaration. In your most frustrating, painful moments, make this declaration that He is in this place and you are aware of it.

Jacob awoke that morning to an epiphany.  Love those. Wish they happened every day. But they don't. Sometimes I just sit and stare at the air.  I wish I had command over it because I would just rip it wide open and run to see the face of the one that was ripped wide open for me.  Jesus...holy and anointed one.  How I love thee!  Jacob awoke to such a powerful presence of God that he trembled as he realized..."this is none other than the house of God...the gate of heaven."  And here we are on common soil with Jacob; with angels cascading stairways all around us...but even better!  We have Christ in us...the incarnate Son of God!  The psalmist declares "the earth is the Lord's and everything therein" but "our citizenship is in heaven", our inheritance is in His eternal kingdom.  Physically we are here.  Positionally we are there, “seated in heavenly places with Christ”.  We share and we inhabit both.  We temporarily walk this earth but our names are written there!

When life brings the severest of trials, I whisper…the Lord is in this place and I am aware of it…because the Lord himself is the author and grantor of my tribulation. Every joy and trial is from God, the hymn says and it is my choice to cleave to every fear and deceptive growling from the enemy or hold unswervingly to the hope I profess and attack the lies of doubt and unbelief with this declaration of truth.

It's as though it's a bulletproof declaration shielding us from every flaming arrow and lie from the enemy of our souls. This declaration doesn't just bounce darts off of us.  It takes in every lying arrow, exposes it for what it is, and brings forth and celebrates the truth of each matter.  It invites heaven into every...every...every situation you might find yourself in and helps discover a God who has NOT stopped "working everything in conformity with His purpose and will" and "works all things to the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose".

A couple of days ago I was driving along unnecessarily worried and fretting about the future...the future of my family, my job, my health...everything basically.  I began to whisper these words…the Lord is in this place and I am aware of it...the whisper grew to a shout as I realized that God is the CEO of this planet and NOTHING gets passed Him!  Every joy and every tribulation flows from our Master.  The shout grew to ever-flowing praises and prayers that seem to well up within me...finding no end.  He is in this place and He has assigned this moment for me!

Our minds, our flesh may declare that He is a million miles away but our minds and our hearts are no match for the truth of God's word.

Are you longing for Jacob's epiphany?  Has it been some time since you sensed His tangible presence and recognized the company of heaven in your midst?  Do you need Jesus to come nearer?  I do.  I need Him to come alongside of me, put his arm over my shoulder, take me for a walk, look around with me and point to all the fun and mysterious things He created and tell me about each one of them.  I need Him to reassure me that He's still CEO and though things seem terribly crazy down here, it's all as it should be.  He is author and He is perfector...

Jacob was in a mundane, no big deal place...or so he thought..."a certain place"...He laid his head on a rock...not too comfortable...

What kind of place are you in?

Try it.  Whisper the words.  See what happens...