The Best Things in Life

The best things in life are people and the best people are free, truly free. Too often, especially in religious circles (now there’s an interesting term) we become folks who have traded one set of chains for another. We try to conform to other’s ideas of who we should be, how we should act and what we should think at the expense of being real, being ourselves. How can we realize God’s unique love for us when we’re following the crowd?

Don’t Forget

God loves you like He’s never loved anyone before or will again. You are unique and His greatest desire is to have an extremely intimate one of a kind connection with you. This love, this relationship is the very one your heart desires more than anything. Don’t look for it anywhere else that will do nothing but fail, bring heartache and damage those around you. Trust Him, count on His love for you. With Him you lack nothing.

John

My wife and I met a guy named John the other day. We could have talked to John for hours about nearly anything because you could easily tell that he cared. He was secure in who he is and simply confident about life. At one point in the conversation he told my wife how much he loved God. We weren’t surprised in fact we already knew. John’s love for God was all over him. At one point quite a ways into our encounter John told us about his eleven year old son that has leukemia. Sometime later we asked about other children and heard about his newborn son who two weeks before was in the NIC Unit due to major complications at birth. The complications were a huge medical issue for John’s wife too. In fact at one point in the last few weeks his wife was at one hospital while his sons where at different hospitals in another city. None of them were within twenty miles of their home.

At no time did John indicate anything other than joy! He had every reason to be down and good reason to doubt yet his excitement for God was amazingly contagious. We loved how he told us about his Lord not his church because it’s personal. His trust was infectious. We can all learn from John and people like him.

John’s wife and baby are home doing well, will you please pray for their older son Toby?

Part of the Change

You can be encouraged when life is difficult and overwhelming. Struggle is part of the change. If you were plugging along in your comfortable life, convinced that all is well you’d be fooled. More of Him comes in difficulty. Trust!

Imitation

There are two ways to look at the word imitation; one is the act of copying someone or something and the other is a counterfeit.

Why then is so much of Christianity based on imitation and isn’t it interesting that simulation is a synonym of imitation.

God’s love for you is absolutely unique! He’s never loved anyone in the same way He loves and cares for you. His ideas and desires for you are matchless.

So why do we spend so much time, money and effort trying to duplicate what He’s done in another’s life? We read books about the 5, 7 or 10 steps to this or that, we put together elaborate programs, curriculum and seminars designed to make others like us, all the while forsaking our individuality and cheapening the exceptional relationship God wants to have with us.

Don’t be discouraged if trying to follow the crowd has left you saying “surely there’s more”. There is, it’s more Jesus! He is the only one capable of truly loving you with no strings attached and no baggage. The only one that can satisfy your very soul and the only one that can heal the pain this world has thrust upon you. Cry out to Him, He’s right there.

There’s so much more!

It’s been far too long since I sat down to write you. You’ve been in my thoughts very much and I’ve prayed for you often.

Well over two years ago I was inspired to encourage you through this blog with the idea that if I could tell you just one thing, what would it be? Well today it’s that there is so much more! More what? Would be a good question but we’ll answer that later. Here are some other questions to consider first: Do you have the feeling that there’s something lacking in your life? Do you feel less “spiritual” than many of those around you? Could God be more “real”, more present to you? Do you get pressure to religiously perform up to others expectations but when you do it’s rarely fulfilling? If you answered yes to any of these questions don’t be discouraged. God is inviting you to put all of that behind you.

Each of us spends far too much of our lives looking for love in all the wrong places. The more that we are looking for, the more that we know is out there for us, is God Himself. He truly is everything we need and He wants us to quit trying to manufacture a relationship with Him or maybe more importantly to quit manufacturing the appearance of a relationship with Him.

Slow down, get quiet, cry out. He loves you so very much. He truly can be everything you need and even more so everything you want. Let Him! Don’t remain in the shackles of whatever keeps you from Him, it’s a position of your own making. He wants to meet you today right where you’re at and pour His peace and freedom all over you.

You are loved; don’t believe the evidence to the contrary.

God is Real

God is real, you can know Him personally and intimately and once you do, there’s more. It’s an eternal pursuit, a perpetual longing so we need never settle into a smug “I’ve got God all figured out” way of living. We can wake up each day eager for what we might be taught from and about Him, eager to share and learn from others. We don’t have to be anxious or fearful just careful that what we teach and discover is consistent with what He’s given us in His Word.

I can’t begin to tell you the hours and hours of angst behind the above paragraph. I know what you’re thinking, “Duh! You say those things all the time.” Lately I’ve been listening to and reading a bunch of different Bible teachers on both sides of the concept of knowing God. Some that tell us God will pick out your clothes for the day and others that say the Bible is the only place you can hear from Him. The one thing they have in common is their insistence that they’re right. Combine that with the crappy way many Christians treat each other plus those on the outside and you have good reason to struggle with some tough questions. The answers to those questions are found in the seeking, urgently needing to hear from God whether it be in His Word, through His people or however He may choose to get through.

All that to say, sometimes it’s good to have what you know challenged in order to dig deeper and know more certainly how much God loves and cares for you. Aw, just read the first paragraph.

Characters

All the heroes in the Bible were characters. That’s not to say they weren’t real but that they didn’t fit in, they were different. They didn’t fall in with the norms of society and religion and the results of their lives were supernatural. The one thing they all had in common was having heard from God and eventually mustering the courage to step out and do what He said. Most of these characters’s weirdness had its roots in an intimate, one of a kind relationship with God.

This unique relationship is available to all of us today; in fact God wants nothing more. Why then is so much of today’s Christianity about conformity and imitation? Why are our churches gathering places for those that are just like us? Why have the outliers, those with legitimate questions been marginalized? How has “my way or the highway” become so prevalent?

God’s doing something new and it doesn’t look or operate the way it always has. He’s moving in the lives of people that have been rejected by religion and conventionality and drawing close those that will reach out and truly love those that are different. He’s using people that don’t have all the answers but are not afraid of the questions. There’s an uprising underway, seek Him with all your heart to see what your distinctive role will be.

He’s Here

Don’t put off the incredible relationship Jesus wants to have with you. It truly is everything you could dream it to be and it doesn’t have to start or grow when He comes back. He’s here right now wanting to love you just as you are. Let’s not do the bare minimum to get to Heaven with the idea of knowing Him once there.

Sameness

God’s highest hope for each of us is to find and stay in an intimate, unique, and completely fulfilling relationship with Him. It’s not His idea for us to walk the path of everyone else. Different is good.

The world is countering God’s plan with sameness. We’re becoming franchise humanity with no tolerance for anyone unlike ourselves and will soon be herded into one of only two crowds; it’ll be them and us. Much of the church today is playing right along with this plan.

Our answer has to be personal. Our intimacy with the Lord will result in an outpouring of love on individuals, persons that are different than we are and our goal can’t be to make them just like us.