August 22, 2014

God renews our lives!! He picks us up without fail!! He makes new what was old, then pours His new Spirit into the new vessel He has made in us!

Being filled with Jesus is a crazy experience. You want Him more, and you WANT to want Him more. Like sitting in a lake, sinking underwater. Any normal person would be afraid to let go of their breath, for fear of drowning. No! Instead, you suck in as much water as you can BECAUSE YOU NEED MORE. Your lungs are waterlogged... who cares?! You'll sink deeper into the lake! And the deeper you go, the more you discover CHRIST. 

God. The top dawg. The big man. But He ain't just that! HE IS THE LOVER OF MY SOUL!!! He FILLS my cup so that it overflows!! But even overflowing, a believer's cup doesn't hold enough... a desire consumes the passionate believer for MORE. To fill the cup with the good stuff, first it was emptied of the cheap, store-brand cola and washed out. Thrown in a dishwasher even. Tumbled around, bruised, beaten, scrubbed. THEN it was ready for what God had for us. He poured us a glass of AWESOMENESS, and we can't get over it!! And as it overflows, He is telling us, "Tell me when!", but we NEVER say "When!" because it is NEVER ENOUGH. It dribbles down the sides and splats on the floor and runs in a creek from our heart to others, and still we want more!

But then we see the water on TV. It looks SOO GOOD, and we immediately leave the table, and buy some of the brand water. We tell God "When!", and He stops His pouring of the best stuff for us, and we drink deep of filthy water. Funny, we didn't notice it was dirty before. Eh, it MUST be clean because it came in a bottle... duh!! Anyways, it tastes much better because we worked hard for the money required to buy it... job well done!

We don't see the tears streaming down Jesus's face as we reject His water, drink some nasty water, and fall ill. We don't see Him as we reject Him. He just stands at our table, always ready to continue pouring the stuff that will SATISFY. We drink and drink our nasty stuff, and get sicker and sicker, eventually throwing up all our liquids and become severely dehydrated. But it has poisoned our minds and we tell ourselves we are fine. We don't notice the desert that has become our mouth. 

God, in a final act of mercy, THROWS AWAY all our self-bought bottled water. He dumps it in the toilet and flushes it all... then He drags us back to our table. Where it all began. He takes great care sitting you upright, and though you fight back, all He says is, "I love you. Just trust me." He puts a drop of HIS drink on our tongue. Instantly healing floods our body and we start loving Him again! And so the cycle continues...

This silly metaphor has some points. First of all, notice how I didn't mention what it was God was giving us to drink... I wanted you to imagine the most wonderful thing you've ever had to drink. Now times it times a gabillion. Thats not even close to what He gives us. Secondly, we had many chances to avoid this. Turn off the TV perhaps. But we choose to look at the world and not at God. We worked to earn our own water... God's FREE gift of grace is just that: free grace. We CANNOT earn it. Thirdly, we try and tell ourselves we are alright and living well when in fact we are retching on the floor and dying. Admitting we were wrong is another way to avoid total brokeness.

I hope you guys benefitted from that. I know as God wrote that through me, tears came to my eyes because I was reminded of what HE does for ME... and I know it'll happen again, but this time we have the chances to avoid total disaster, and this time we will strive for Jesus!!