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I promise I will finish the Briefing posts! Right now, however, I have a few thoughts to share from two Matt Chandler sermons I’ve listened to yesterday and today.
Matt Chandler- Village Core Values: What is Truth?
- What stirs up your affections for Jesus? What robs you of that affection? Pursue that which adds to your affection and run from that which robs you of it.
I just had to stop the podcast right there when Matt said that (the luxury of recordings: you don’t have to miss anything!). I got out my journal and began to answer the questions for myself. I came up with two lists that I’d like to share with you.
Stirs up my affection for Jesus:
- The Word
- Prayer <—– These 3 apply to all Christians
- The cross
- Music- instruments, vocals, lyrics, all of it.
- Beauty coming from ashes
- Creation
- Romantic love
- Fellowship- simple hanging out & spiritual discussions
- Theology
- Forgiveness/grace/mercy being experienced (by me or someone else)
- Systems in life that are metaphors for spiritual things- marriage, sex, family, adoption, redemption from prostitution, etc.
- Remembering my “history” with God
- Motherhood
- Poetry & pretty words
- Color
- Helping to bring the kingdom of God to earth
Robs me of my affection for Jesus:
- Habitual sin
- Apathy & selfishness
- Fear, doubt, worry, lack of surrender
- Ignoring God’s calls to action
- Imagining what I would be like if I didn’t love God or care about Him (i.e. what sins would I want to indulge in)
- Dreaming of self-centered life plans (think fame & wealth)
- Self-absorbtion
- Not reading the Word and praying
- Materialism
- Clinging to temporal things
- Unforgiveness, anger, bitterness
- Judging strangers based on appearances
- Dwelling on loneliness
- Stubbornness, pride
When I finished these lists, I realized something huge: if who you are, the essence of your heart & soul, what makes you “you,” could be put into a list format, it would be these two lists. These lists show the spirit and the flesh side by side, warring against each other. God wants us to pursue the first list and flee the second. That idea helped me answer, for the millionth time, the question of “what is God calling me to do with my life?” Funny how we seem to need to answer that one over and over again.
My calling entails:
- Making music
- Encouraging and building up broken & struggling people
- Encountering God in creation
- Getting married
- Surrounding myself with a God-loving community of friends
- Soaking up as much theology as possible
- Reminiscing with Jesus
- Having kids
- Writing poetry and prose
- Staring at pretty colors & filling my world with them
- Working for the furtherance of the kingdom
Nice and simple.
What would your lists look like?
It’s true that I am in the middle of writing about the 4-ish days of Briefing, but I cannot help but take a time-out to tell you about the ministry that came out of Sunday night.
God has been breaking my heart for His daughters since I received my call to ministry in the spring of 2008. Major issues faced by women, particularly those who do not know the love of Christ, simply wreck me. I always cry over prostitution especially. Sandy’s blog and the Nightlight blog are sources of great pain for me, which is exactly why I read them. I pray regularly that God would break my heart for what breaks His, and He has done just that in giving me a heart for His lost & broken daughters.
I am starting a ministry currently called the Magdalene Project. I will be going out on Coast Highway on Saturday evenings and talking to the prostitutes. I will get to know their stories, pray for them, and show them the love of Jesus in any way I can. I will be combining my passion for music with this by recording a CD of songs that focus on our brokenness and God’s love, forgiveness, healing, and redemption. I will give copies of the album to the girls I befriend, with a personal note & my phone number in each, in hopes that the music touches their hearts in a way words alone cannot. Should a girl desire to get out of the commercial sex trade, I will do whatever I can to help her find a job, a place to stay, or whatever else she needs. I have connections in the Oceanside Police Department, so I’m going to talk to some officers to better understand the problem.
I asked God what my first step would be, and He told me to “go and see,” so this Saturday night I will be going to see the brokenness with my own eyes. I expect this entire ministry to be one of the most heartbreaking and difficult things I will ever do. I will be in need of TONS of prayer, because other than having felt the leading of the Spirit, I have no idea what I am doing, and no one with whom to do it.
Please be praying for discernment, wisdom, safety, love, compassion, and mercy.
For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers,
who give me my bread and my water,
my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’
6 Therefore I will hedge up her way with thorns,
and I will build a wall against her,
so that she cannot find her paths.
7 She shall pursue her lovers
but not overtake them,
and she shall seek them
but shall not find them.
Then she shall say,
‘I will go and return to my first husband,
for it was better for me then than now.’
“Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
and bring her into the wilderness,
and speak tenderly to her.
15 And there I will give her her vineyards
and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth,
as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.Hosea 2:5b-7, 14-16
