Covenant Ring

When a young woman finds a man with whom she is in love, she pledges herself to marry him. She takes his name and leaves her family and her home to live with him. She makes vows to never leave him, and to be faithful despite any circumstances that may arise. As a symbol of their covenant of love and faithfulness, they exchange rings. 

I don't wear a purity ring. I wear a covenant ring. What's the difference? A purity ring represents a young woman's or young man's promise to stay sexually pure until marriage. A covenant ring represents a young woman's or young man's marriage covenant with God. With this ring, I promised to stay faithful to God, pursuing and seeking Him first {Matthew 6:33}. I promised to follow Him wherever He leads, despite any circumstances that may arise. I promised to wait, both sexually and emotionally, for the man with whom He will join me according to His perfect plan. My maker is my husband and my lover {Isaiah 54:5}, and He will give me a new name {Revelation 3:12}.  His love is perfect, and I will give Him my entire heart until and even after He sees fit to bless me with a man who seeks God more than he pursues me.

GRACE

God's grace really is amazing. It's not just a cliché. Every time I think I have my mind wrapped around the craziness of God's grace, He goes further and deeper than I thought possible. Take for example Nehemiah 9.  I have been reading through the Bible this year (successfully this time!) and Nehemiah is one of the last Old Testament books that this plan has me read. Throughout the whole Old Testament, we see Israel fall time and time and time and time and time and time again. There are a bunch of Old Testament prophet books in which God is warning the Israelites to turn from their sin. It's hard to get a picture of the whole story all put together of the Israelites and God, but Nehemiah 9 does so beautifully. At this point, you can go ahead and grad your Bible and read that. (I would type it up on here but that would make for a ridiculously long blog post)

Now that you've read Nehemiah 9, I want to remind you that this was before the covenant made with Jesus's blood. This was before our sins were forgiven and we were redeemed in the eyes of the Father. How much more will He have grace with us, after Jesus's blood has taken away our every sin! Meditate on that a little today, and let God blow your mind a little.

He is worth it.

I just felt to encourage you to pursue God. Seek Him above all else. Sometimes He asks us to do things that are hard. HARD. I don't care how lame it seems, sometimes when He asks us to do something, it's hard. It is those times that we question Him or try to ignore Him and do it our own way, but let me tell you, HE IS WORTH IT. He's asked me to do things in the past few months that were very hard for me and I ignored Him for a long time; my relationship with Him became strained and forced. I finally gave in and did what He said, and HE IS WORTH IT. Pursue Him. Devote time to Him. Passionately, recklessly abandon your heart to the one who made it and let Him rule your life. HE IS WORTH IT. Looking in, it seems like a lot to give up, or a lot of time to spend on Him, or too much effort, but He is so worth it. I can't even put into words how beautiful He is when you finally give in and let Him love you. 

This isn't a one-time deal. You have to choose Him every day. We tend to forget how great His presence is when we're not in it, so you have to continually come back and humble yourself before Him. But, He. Is. Worth. It.

Enough

"Christ is Enough" We hear it a lot in contemporary worship. "Christ is enough for me!" we proclaim, and yet I think sometimes we misinterpret this phrase. There are two ways of looking at this phrase, and I believe both can be right. But, if we're only looking at one, we may end up confused at life's circumstances. You can look at it like this: "Christ is enough. He provides everything I need and gives me the desires of my heart. He provides; He gives." or, you can look at it like this: "Christ is enough. I don't need anything else beside Him. If I am to live with little or nothing; so be it. Christ is enough."

Matthew 4:4 says "Jesus answered, 'It is written, "Man doesn't live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God."'" In Matthew 10, Jesus sends the 12 disciples to preach the Gospel, and He says to them, "Do not take along any gold or silver or copper in your belts; take no bag for the journey, or extra tunic, or sandals or a staff..."

Christ sometimes calls us to situations that are uncomfortable. C.S. Lewis said, "If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don't recommend Christianity." Sometimes Jesus tells you to go live in a shack with absolutely nothing to your name but the clothes on your back. Sometimes He calls you to move across the world and preach the Gospel and maybe die for the Gospel. Sometimes He tells you to go to Mexico and get wet and cold and not sleep and be cold and get muddy and be cold. When He calls us to situations like these, "Christ is enough" doesn't make sense if we're trying to understand it as "Christ gives me what I think I need to live." These are the times when we still our hearts and choose to say "Christ is enough. I don't need anything else."

His perfect handiwork

Recently I have been struggling to connect with God in my quiet times, and I have been wondering why it's been so hard to feel close to Him and just enjoy Him and worship Him for who He is. I have persisted, but it's frustrating to eel far away when I want so badly to be close to Him.

Today the veil was lifted and I feel closer to Him than I have in a while. I saw suddenly very clearly that I had been coming to Him with an anticipation of His disappointment. I came with the intention of trying to appease Him, trying to earn His love, to give Him something in order to earn His love. Today He tore away the wall and said:

      My beautiful and invaluable Daughter,
I love you so much.
Stop coming to me with apprehension; I'm not disappointed in you, and I don't expect anything from you. My heart aches just to be with you. When you come to me, I will N E V E R reject you or examine you and find you not good enough.
My Blood covers you. All I see is my perfect handiwork.
I love you more than mere words could ever say.
The greatest love you have ever felt for anyone is but a speck of sand next to the sun of my love.
I. love. you.

What more is there to say? I am so full of love. Abba, I am amazed at You.

About or because of?

As I have grown up, Christmas seems to have lost some of the wide-eyed wonder that I remember it having as a child. Maybe it's because I'm older and more aware, or maybe it's because throughout the last 10 years or so, Christmas has become awfully commercialized. As much as we try to emphasize and tell our young ones and teach that Christmas is not about presents, our "it's all about me" culture stands in direct opposition to that. Even in my mind, Christmas is immediately associated with the busyness.... of shopping for gifts. Black Friday (or should I say Thursday?), and TV ads obsessed with stuff don't help much.

 See, as much as we say that Christmas is about Jesus, I think that it's not anymore. Not even for most Christian families. In my opinion, the church has followed right along with the secular belief that Christmas is about family, food, and giving gifts. It only takes a second to realize that those three thing dominate the season, and Jesus takes the back seat, possibly getting mentioned when we read the Christmas story on Christmas morning. It goes so far that when we explain Operation Christmas Child to young kids, the thing we put emphasis on is that the kids may never have received a Christmas present before, not that they may never have heard about Jesus!

For the church, I believe Christmas has shifted from being about Jesus, to being because of Jesus. For example, we call Sunday "Sunday" because of the Latin phrase "dies solis," which means sun's day, the name of a pagan Roman holiday. Does that mean that Sunday is about worshipping the sun? No! It's called that because of an old holiday, it's not about it. In the same way, just because we celebrate Christmas because Jesus was born, that doesn't mean we make it about Him.

The world is fierce with its commercialization. It is estimated that the average American sees 3,000+ advertisements every single day. We have to make a point to make Christmas about Jesus, not just because of Him.

Tangible Love

God is so faithful. I say it so often it sounds redundant but really, for lack of a better and stronger word, He is faithful. Nothing could really describe Him, nothing can ever really capture what He does for His children.

It's starting to really hit me that I'm moving to Texas in August. I'm starting to realize what it implies, and it's stirring two different reactions: excitement and sadness. I am really excited to go to Texas and seek what God has for me; I've known Teen Mania for a long time and I know that the Honor Academy will grow me in ways I never imagined possible. I'm also starting to realize that I am moving across the country and that means that I won't be able to see my closest friends and family everyday anymore. I wrote a lot about this in my last post. I say to Him, "You are worth it," because He is. He is proving to me over and over and over and over and over and over that He would never call me to something that He wouldn't walk through with me.

Recently He has given me these scriptures and songs:

"So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." Isaiah 41:10

"If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast." Psalm 139:9-10

Called Me Higher by All Sons and Daughters

Counted the Cost by Rend Collective Experiment

He is Faithful by Brian and Katie Torwalt

Never Once by Matt Redman

Your Hands by J.J. Heller

If you have a chance, look up these songs. They are so Spirit-filled, and give me so much hope.

Here's a testimony about His faithfulness: Saturday night I had stayed up too late reading (as usual) and eventually had gotten to thinking about moving. I started to cry, thinking about everything that I'm leaving behind. God comforted me and I stopped crying, but I could feel it like a burden. I decided to check my Facebook before going to bed, and someone had posted "The valley of weeping is a place where we do not dwell but pass through to the heights! What a hopeful thought!" I went to bed in peace, knowing that He is with me. Then, the next morning in church, I turned around after worship, and there, sitting on my chair was a brand-new book that I have been waiting to read for almost two months. In it was a note from my former children's pastor, encouraging me to continue following God and doing what He says. It may sound dumb but that was one of the most touching gifts I have ever received, simply because it was God reaching down to me through her just to say that He cares. Pastor John's sermon was about Hope, how it is the knowing that tomorrow will be better than today.

His love for me that day was so tangible I could almost reach out and touch it. In fact, I could, in the form of a book. He is faithful. He won't call me anywhere that He won't walk next to me the whole entire time.