Week 1 Abide and Rest
Day 6
First Comes Love
When
we enter into God’s presence through the doorway marked grace, our hearts melt with sorrow over the ways we have hurt Him.
In repentance we are overwhelmed with love and desire to please Him. No human
effort can accomplish this cleansing that follows repentance; it arrives by
grace alone, grace that flows with the tide of the shed Blood of
Christ. Our response to God’s overwhelming love is the place obedience is
born.
~~~
A
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fast from the world’s
distractions is restful, but if those distractions have been used as a way to
keep uncomfortable issues at bay, unwelcome emotions may arise. When we walk
"according to the flesh,"[i] barriers
are erected that numb our emotions, and although we don’t intend it, our hearts
are hardened toward those we love. We simply don’t want to feel their pain or
our own.
One way to keep these protective
barriers erected is by numbing spiritual perception through overeating. But
when we abide in the sustaining comfort of God’s presence, we can be brave to
share His clear vision of our loved ones' hurts and our own. Our hearts don’t
have to bleed for them, and we don't have to die for them; Jesus has borne the
weight of our sorrows. It is better to be strengthened to bear a burden than it
is to retreat in weakness and failure. Abiding in Jesus strengthens us to bear
knowledge of the sorrows around us, and the sweetness of His comfort is better
than the choicest food. [ii]
Now is the time to invite a prayer
partner or two to accompany you on this journey. In Exodus 17 there is an
account of a battle against the nation of Amalek. The Israelites prevail only
when Moses holds up his staff, but when he becomes weary his friends, Aaron and
Hur, stand on either side of him and hold his arms in place, ushering the
Israelites to victory. Moses couldn’t win his battle alone and neither can
we; praying for others and receiving their prayers in return can anoint our
spirits with comfort. A brownie will bring no lasting benefit, but the prayer
of a friend eases craving for counterfeit pleasures that will not bring lasting
sustenance.
We need those prayerful friends
because the devil doesn’t like our efforts toward freedom. There will be
difficulties. During the beginning days of my own 100-day journey, I was
frustrated by debilitating lower back pain although I had been doing everything
right. One evening during this time I
was pouting before the Lord--there is really no other way to describe it--when
a memory popped into my head. At Wal-Mart I had seen a little boy kicking
and beating his father, who, with a calm expression on his face, was carrying
the child toward their car. The little boy was screaming, "I HATE YOU
I HATE YOU I HATE YOU!!!" The dad just cradled his child in his arms,
dodged blows, and did not look angry, but perhaps tired and a little
resigned. I wondered whether my pouting made the Lord Himself feel tired
and a little resigned with me! He might have been thinking, "It really
doesn't take much at all to throw you off track, does it?"
Obedience is a response and not an
initiative. We don’t have to mount a grand obedience effort (jaws clenched,
minds determined). Instead, as we rest in the Lord, His love ignites our own.
Obedience flows from our love for Him, a love that exists because He first
loved us.
Pray: I come before you, Lord, and I see myself in
Your eyes. My very DNA is sin-tainted
and corrupted. Re-knit me in Your Holy likeness, cleanse away the dross,
remake Your perfection in me. Like spun gold, Your song weaves a melody of
transformation, knitting me together with threads that will never decay. The
old falls away like shreds of a decayed garment, and I walk away in newness of
life. Praise You Lord!
~~~
We love because he first loved us.
1 John 4:19
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