Hidden Treasure

 Treasure by the worlds standards is gold, precious stones and rare jewels, or possessions of great value. I watched Treasure Planet with my daughter and it sparked my thinking about what the Bible says about treasure. 

Matthew 6:

 ¹⁹Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:

 ²⁰But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:

 ²¹For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

So I started thinking about the treasures we lay up in heaven, what are they? Good works? Converts to Christianity? Mission work? Service in the ministry? Hmmm, something was still missing.

Then as I studied it a little further, I began to look at what the Word describes as treasure ~ the Greek word surprisingly is 2344 "thesouros" ~ that got me thinking about the Bible and Jesus the Word of life. What could be more valuable than Gods word and His Son the living Word? In the new testament the word treasure is used several times to describe the Kingdom of God (eg. the parable of the pearl of great price). Ah but how to store up these things in heaven? 

I took a step back and it all became so clear. The Word, which was Jesus became flesh and died to birth the Kingdom, in us! We are the treasure and the treasure is in us. We store up treasure in heaven by living Kingdom life right here on earth and letting our light so shine before men that they are drawn to God's marvelous grace. God gave everything to ransom us. We are His treasure and exceeding great reward. The human race is more precious to God than an ever expanding galaxy of wonders we cant even fathom. 

There is in us that one thing that God put there when he first created us ~ His Image. His handprint if you like. Its easy to see the depravity of the world and evil multiplying daily, but hard to see the image of God in his people. We are hidden and rare and when a true prophet, healer, evangelist emerges, the world is changed forever. Because of His mark on them. They carry His presence, they bring His light, they leave His gifts, which are free. This treasure is not working harder at being a better person, its spiritual life in Jesus which transcends this earth/time continuum and is priceless, eternal, heavenly. 

This is the treasure that we aspire to ~ 

Romans 8:19
For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.

Intersection of life and bible

My bible reading for 6 weeks has been Ephesians. (http://www.goodmorninggirls.org/2012/02 ) Life has been somewhat complicated these last two weeks and as life and bible intersect interesting things happen. I love that the word illuminates the exterior situations and the interior conditions of our hearts. Truly it is a lamp!

Its a little bit of a trip so hang onto your hat:

• Ephesians 3:6 reveals the mystery that was hidden in God, Gentiles are co-heirs with the Jews. This is the gospel in plain language. Everyone is welcome, without having been born into the Jewish lineage, married or adopted into Jewish tradition, no circumcision or beard or prayer shawl required. That's Good News! That's why Paul was languishing in prison.
• Verse 10 (Amp) tells us the purpose of this revelation is that the church (faithful followers) make known to the angelic rulers and authorities the wisdom of God. WoW ~ did I write that wrong or did you read it wrong?! We're supposed to make something, er  "wisdom"  known to angelic powers?! How?
• Verse 12 tells us that in Christ we have boldness and access! Access, sounds like a key to me! Therefore Paul gladly suffers imprisonment for our glory (vs13)
• Verse 14 give us another piece of the puzzle. "For this cause I bow my knees" Is there anything that brings us to our knees faster than trials and suffering? Paul's kneeling gives us the bridge to the next few verses - so beautiful I'm going to quote them :

Ephesians 3:16-19 (KJV)

 ¹⁶That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;

 ¹⁷That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,

 ¹⁸May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;

 ¹⁹And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.

Look at the progression!

1st strengthened with might by his Spirit

2nd Christ may dwell in heart by faith

3rd Comprehend how GINORMOUS his love is

4th filled with all the fullness of God!

Do you think if you were filled with ALL the fullness of God, you might have wisdom?! Oh Yeah!

So if my life was not complicated these past 2 weeks I might not have read these words with the same hunger and desperation. If lives weren't hanging in the balance I might not have prayed with the same fervor and clung to the promise with every fiber of my being.

I am thankful for Paul and Jesus aren't you? If Jesus didn't suffer and die we would have no access to God, but without Paul we would have had to become Jewish to be heirs!

Paul; changed the course of history, by his obedience.

I pray that you are strengthened with might by the Holy Spirit, that Christ may dwell in your heart by faith, so you may comprehend how great the triune love is and be FILLED with all the fullness of God~ Amen

Magnify Him

I have had to encourage myself in the word these past few days as difficult circumstances were upon us. I found myself sinking into a negative state of mind, trying to figure things out and get a grip on my self. I felt trapped in a web of confusion ( thus the cute pics of my kids on a web )

The words of a song carried me through rough waters : Great is thy faithfulness, Great is thy faithfulness, Morning by morning new mercies I see, all I have needed thy hand hath provided ~ Great is thy faithfulness Lord unto me!

The word encourages us to separate the precious from the vile and to focus on the precious. Philippians 4:8 has this to say:        

Philippians 4:8 (NIV)

 ⁸ Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

In the Bible when a person wanted to remember a significant event, he built an altar or a pillar, dug a well or something in the physical, natural world which was then named in remembrance of the dealing or revealing of the Lord. In one of my favorite books " Hinds Feet upon high places" the protagonist collects stones marking her progress and reminding her of the work completed in her journey.

I have a song collection! In my life God has used songs and music to speak to me almost more than any other medium (is it any wonder I married a musician and prophet?) I also love to sing to the Lord, much to the distress of my often captive audience! LOL 

Okay, back to my point ~ we have good and bad things happening on a daily basis. I like to say : God comes to promote us, Satan comes to detain us. Its simply a question of who you're listening to. If we are the sheep of his flock and hear his voice and do not follow another then the light of the word penetrates, the song or the scripture renews us and we overcome. If we choose to reflect on those negative things, get emotionally invested in them, take up our defence in being wronged etc, the light of the word has so much more lies to penetrate and overcoming is a matter of hours or days rather than minutes.

However; daily we can rehearse the good things God has done for us and renew our minds to the wonder of His love and mercy and grace. Magnifying Him! We build ourselves up and grow in grace to weather the storms.

Another book that has shaped my thinking in this area: "How to stop the pain" talks about a significant event, and how we allow things or people to occupy far too significant a position in our lives. The insignificant daily skirmishes with the wearying worldly way become significant because we give it the power to!

So here is my point : let us decide today to Magnify God and his glorious majestic Son and overcome the insignificant little foxes that steal our JOY! I encourage you today, to make a list, count your blessings (another one of those songs) and keep it in front of your eyes. Record the significant events, name those stones, keep them close, thank God for them! In the light of the truly AWESOME things God has done for us, we keep things in perspective and don't sweat the small stuff  :)

As for me I choose again to Love Him and forsaking all others, Worship Him with all that is within me.

To earn love

 Love as a Performance

I wrote elsewhere about the pressure to perform and today more than any other, people everywhere are anxiously practising their lines and checking their costumes and make-up for the big event! No-one wants to be alone. Some people learn to like it and say they prefer it but we were created for fellowship, thats simply the truth.

So we try to figure out what we need to do to get that special person to like us, or even maybe LOVE us and we jump through all these hoops to ensure this goal~ we are loved and accepted by the object of our affections.

Therefore we expect that same principle must apply when we fall in love with Jesus. We must earn his affection, praise and acceptance. We must study to show ourselves approved. Sadly this is scriptural. Mangled, but it is there in the bible 2 Timothy 2:15 refering to the study of the word to be able to rightly divide the truth.

Do we need to act a certain way to be acceptable to God, earn Jesus love, be accepted in the beloved? NO! The bible says again and again : while we were yet sinners Jesus died. He is not waiting for us to clean up our act, get dolled up and bring him a box of chocolates! Or put another way, he is not waiting for us to renounce our old life, get that tattoo removed and start handing out gospel tracts.

He already loves you and me more than we can ever know or imagine or comprehend and His love is not changed by out behaviour. He won't love you less because you fail or more because you win. His Love is determined by His character and He can't stop loving no matter what we do!

Romans 8:38-39 (KJV)

 ³⁸For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
 ³⁹Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

His love is not conditional, so there is no need to do anything to earn it!

I don't know about you but I love to be loved by Jesus. It is a love that has completely healed and set me free. I make different choices now and do that which I believe pleases Him but its motivated by love not by performance. I want to stay close to Jesus and whatever holds me back from unity and intimacy from Him I have willingly relinquished. It didn't happen overnight and its not over yet but this Romance is in full bloom.

love intoxicated Jesus bride

I just wrote about love, romance and Jesus and got to thinking about the way we get it all confused and backwards, thinking romance and roses equals love and Jesus is all about denying self and having NO fun, romance or otherwise.

So here is my little (hopefully) treatise on the subject of love, through the eyes of a love intoxicated Jesus bride.

Debunking lies:
1) life with Jesus is full of rules that are designed to end all fun in your life forever!
Life with Jesus is the start of the best fun you'll ever have, its not going to cost you your life its going to give you life! Its all about perspective: do you like your life right now? yep, you actually have to answer that question! So if you like your life you really don't need to read any further unless you're just curious :) But lets suppose you really don't like your life! You feel like its missing something, its kinda boring but you're doing all the same stuff other people say are interesting and awesome - but its not really giving you the high you were promised. So if you chose to walk with Jesus you would have to give up this boring, dissapointing life and get something infinately better but it looks a little risky because well, the Christians out there are all boring and religious and thats worse than were you're at now! I agree. If that was what I was offered I never would have made a choice for Jesus. Leads me to lie number 2

2) Religion equals Jesus or "I already go to church"
As I have written previously: Religion represents Jesus about as accurately as a wavepool represents the sea! If you have never seen the real thing you might be quite impressed but if you ever do encounter the living God you won't ever be taken in by the tame god of religion again. Church is a much used ~ misused~ confusing word which was never meant to represent a building. In the context of the bible church simply means the gathering of the faithful. Anytime, anyplace, 2 or more are gathered in His name He is present and we are the church - in His presence. So its not a building and its not a religion and its not about big numbers, its about gathering for His glory and welcoming His presence. So technically you can't go to church because you are the church.

3) Jesus is boring
Lets really examine this one. Jesus was the only man to rise from the dead, and not die again but enter into eternal life. He made the world, the ever expanding universe and you. You are one of bazillions of humans made since the beginning of time but unique, never to be repeated. The maker is infinately creative, resourceful and living! We might have to reconsider the lens through which we have looked at Jesus. Is he defined by your limited church going experience? Maybe by the example of others and their representation of Jesus? Maybe by the hypocrasy and bigotry of the religious system? Maybe by personal hurt or painful misuse? Jesus is not what people or you have seen or represented. He IS.

So we return then to the starting point of this discussion: who is Jesus? If He is not a set of rules, or a building or a religion or a thought system, what is He?

He is Love. The pure love that we all long to experience but never dare to dream of reaching. If you
really want to know Him ~ He will show himself to you and you too can have the romance of a lifetime with the King of Love.

How did I become a love intoxicated Jesus bride?  thats another story for another day <3

To live is to Love

Its Valentines Day tomorrow and Love is in the Air! The florist on the corner worked all weekend making bouquets and roses will cost you more than any other day of the year. All over town marquee tents are making a quick buck on the romance bandwagon...

Love is surely the one thing that causes a reaction in all of us! We have a picture of what romance looks like, we have ideas about how love looks, behaves, interacts and creates more LOVE! Love is the chief end of man, it is our underling drive and motivation. We live to be loved and have someone to love. Research has shown that without love, specifically; physical touch and affection, babies fail to thrive and toddlers are developmentally challenged. Love is not just a feeling its a physiological need.

Love is a big word though: it seems to mean so many things to so many people. Its a language, or a gift, or a person, or a physical sensation, or a presence, or an absence or a perfume or even a place... 

How we define love can also define us. Is love security? Is it freedom? Is is beauty? Is it costly? Does it Last? Whitney Houston wrote: I will always love you... and those are words we all long to hear and prove to be true.

Love is not so easily nailed down but I have a picture of love which doesn't involve roses or candlelight and it was nailed to a cross. This love is the Love that answers all the questions ~ it is the one you've been waiting for, the one you can trust, the one who will never leave and the one that you can always come back to.

So today, if you long for love and have searched for it in so many places and been dissapointed in so many ways: could you give Love a chance? He is waiting to start the romance of a lifetime with you!