I N T I M A C Y will look like 2 things: SACRIFICE and REDEMPTION. Growing close, deepening love, fully knowing and being known will look like restoration. It’ll look like the Word becoming flesh and moving in, like being naked and vulnerable…on a cross, like fighting death and hell to claim what’s yours.
3-Minute Video of How Our Intimacy with Others Mirrors Our Relationship with God:
B O U N D A R I E S are important, but avoiding pain is NOT the endgame of a Christian. Restoration requires sacrifice. It’ll cost you something to love others well. Sometimes, the biggest thing it’ll cost you is your pride. The children of Israel exalted the things God sent to bless them above God Himself (worshiping Gideon’s ephod to celebrate God’s victory, honoring Moses’ bronze serpent God sent for their healing, etc.). You can exalt the fences so high that what should bless you (boundaries) becomes an idol – something you trust MORE than you trust God’s design of restoration. Boundaries are good, but only if governed by God.
3-minute message:
Do you desire to meet those who’ve pierced you deepest with an embrace that yearns for their restoration? We can’t love the best in people until we can forgive the worst in them. Love covers a multitude of sins. HEART CHECK: Who’s sinned against you, and how are you covering them? If we’ll ever love the way God loves, we’ll have to forgive the way God forgives. God loves the people you can’t stand… ((READ THE REST HERE)). See the video below for the demonstration of a 30-second forgiveness exercise.
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Tonight (Sunday, October 5th) at 9pm CST/10pm EST, we will have the first of the First Sundays prayer calls. It’s scheduled to be a 20 minute call with a brief testimony on a specific topic followed by prayer over those struggling in the area addressed. Tonight’s testimony and prayer topic is BROKEN RELATIONSHIPS. The dial-in information is on the flyer above, but I will also type it below. If you can’t make the prayer call in time, know that it will be recorded and playback/replay information is below, as well. I hope you can make it on and share the information with others who would be blessed!
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Forgiveness Does NOT Mean Access!
The 3-minute video below is the third part in a series on boundaries. The first was about the purpose of boundaries – protecting the fruitfulness God expects from what He’s planting in your life (CLICK HERE to view). The second was about knowing if/when to set boundaries in relationships – it’s always when, not if (CLICK HERE to view). Below, I briefly address the question of how we know if we should forgive someone, and let them back “in” or restrict their access to us. This mixes two aspects, FORGIVENESS and BOUNDARIES – both are important, and both lead to healing and healthy relationships. See how:
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Last week I revisited an old place with a new perspective. When I visited this time last summer, all I saw was all I needed to see as I stood at the edge of the property, now overrun with tall weeds. I peered across at the dilapidated house, now crumbling even at the foundation, with missing windows, dangling doors, and a sunken ceiling. The ugliness on the outside compared very little to what ugly memories it held, so my heart was gladdened to see it decaying in the summer sun. I felt God clearly reminding me that He was doing away with old things, the old places of pain and shame in my life, and doing something new and beautiful.
This time, I took in the same scene, only the house was even more decrepit than before, the master bedroom having collapsed into the former den and only a shell of the building still there. But, even there, there in the dust, in the remaining hovel that was once a home, even there I saw beauty I’d not seen before. I saw plenty of old things, yes, but I saw new things growing all around, and that made me smile. I saw several sassafras trees and saplings and even took one home to remind me God is still doing new, beautiful things in old, ugly places. I’ll be sharing more of these beautiful things in The Beautiful Things Project, and I want YOU to join me!
Everyone has a story, and it makes all of our lives more beautiful to listen. Join me in The Beautiful Things Project where you can share YOUR beautiful things, things others may find ugly, things you once found ugly, or things re-purposed or restored. Watch the brief video below, subscribe, share, and send pictures and/or descriptions of your beautiful things. Let’s commit to seeing beauty in every single thing!
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Grace Finds Beauty in Everything
I will restore the years… ~Joel 2:25
Today I’m sharing a videoed testimony of God’s all-encompassing grace throughout my life (begins after a 3-minute intro). When I didn’t care to live, God was determined to save. In my hatred and rejection, He pursued, and in my open rebellion, He forgave. He continues to prove to me, over and over, that He is able to bring such beauty from such pain and bring such glory to His name. God is still redeeming, still delivering, still restoring. Even in the ugliest circumstances of your life and even with the worst choices you can make, know that God Restores!
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God Restores!
Related BLOG POST: Gone In 60 Seconds
Many of our most powerful life experiences are inextricably tied to healing melodies that have both stirred our souls and lifted our spirits, music that will forever have an emotional impact on us and be indelibly etched into the fabric of our lives. Here’s a compilation of what was shared with me along with my own #lifesoundtrack. I thank each of you for sharing and blessing my life!
[FOR THE SAME SONG, DIFFERENT TESTIMONY BELOW:]
[FOR THE SAME SONG, DIFFERENT TESTIMONY BELOW:]
The reality is: some wounds we may live with until Christ returns, and He wants us to continue crying out to Him, ANYHOW, with absolute faith that He’ll answer (Luke 18:1-8) and that whatever His answer, it’s for our good (Romans 8:28)! I pray you all are blessed by this quote: Wounds Of The Spirit.
Some wounds are meant to draw our hearts closer to His.
I turned 33 this month. I began experiencing life’s brokenness at 3 years old, and ever since then, I’d always felt exactly that. Broken. Three weeks ago, I reread the story of the woman with the issue of blood in Matthew 9:20-22. I remember reading that “instantly” she was healed, and I paused my reading to say, “Lord, Jesus! I want that! I want to be instantly healed! I want this pain to be gone! I know You CAN do it. But why don’t You?” I kind of forgot about that prayer and continued along with life. The next week, I went to worship in the quiet sanctuary of my childhood church. As I left, a beautiful sister in Christ who was cleaning the church stopped me and said God told her to tell me, “Whatever it is, He’s bringing you out of it! Just keep doing what you’re doing, keep worshiping, keep praising, and know that He’s bringing you out.”
I thanked her but immediately protested whatever that meant. I was so emotionally drained and didn’t want anything else to do with the healing journey God had me on. I adamantly told my husband, “I quit. I’ll heal more, later.” I couldn’t even look him in the eye because I knew I hadn’t consulted God, and I knew didn’t want to. I was done, and that was that. Thankfully, we had friends over that evening, so there wasn’t time for my pity party. By the time I reflected on that afternoon, I recalled the life-giving words God spoke through His servant the preceding day: “He’s bringing you out; whatever it is, He’s bringing you out of it!”
Fast forward two weeks to last Thursday night, when I again found myself reading about the woman with the issue of blood, but this time, from the gospel of Mark. That detailed account indicated the woman had sought many physicians “and was no better but rather grew worse.” I exclaimed, “No, Jesus! She went to all the doctors and got WORSE? No thank you, Lord! Don’t let that be my story!” One day later, Friday, God realized His promise to bring me out of that lingering emotional pain. God answered the prayers I’d forgotten I prayed, prayers to be instantly healed.
I wish I could more clearly articulate what happened last Friday. But I simply felt myself changing. The hollow feeling in my chest began to fill and just didn’t feel so weighted down, the vibrating storm inside of me calmed without me having to take deep, soothing breaths. Fear was gone, sorrow was gone, pain was gone. By the time I could second-guess this new feeling of peace, the sting of what held my captive so long was finally, completely gone. Just as Jesus knew that power had gone out from Him, I knew, without a doubt, that God’s power had come into me and made me whole.
Understand that at 33 years of age, I had never been able to utter the words, “I am whole.” I didn’t even have a framework for what experiencing wholeness would be like, and yet, as I type this, I assure you: I am whole! The lame man in Acts 3 was lame from birth, so he had no neural networks for what experiencing walking would feel like, yet he left jumping and leaping with praise. I immediately began walking in wholeness exactly two weeks after I was ready to give up! I’m convinced the enemy senses the finish line long before we do. I believe he sees the angels coming alongside us to bear us up in their arms, and THAT is when he increases attacks to discourage our faith. When you feel like giving up, know that the words God has spoken over your life will NOT return to Him void. See the warfare for what it is! Never give up, never despair; though the vision may seem slow in coming, it will not be delayed. The brokenness is gone, and I am whole. If He did it for the woman with the issue of blood, if He’d do it for me, if He’s risen with ALL power in His hand, keep believing He’ll do it for you!
“God is more powerful than anybody’s past, no matter how wretched. He can make us forget – not by erasing the memory but by taking the sting and paralyzing effect out of it”
~Jim Cymbala
“The nature of the enemy’s warfare in your life is to cause you to become discouraged and to cast away your confidence. Not that you would necessarily discard your salvation, but you could give up your hope of God’s deliverance. The enemy wants to numb you into a coping kind of Christianity that has given up hope of seeing God’s resurrection power.”
~Bob Sorge, Glory: When Heaven Invades Earth
adjustedsails 