The Gift of Life

For those who don’t understand the life Jesus offers, what does this mean? What is this life? Nicodemus (a learned scholar) asked Jesus the same question in John 3. Jesus had just finished telling him that no one could see heaven until they were born again. This confused Nicodemus. He couldn’t understand how someone could be born again when they were old.  I’m sure he stared at Jesus with confusion written all over his face as he voiced his next question, “How can someone who is old be born again? Can they enter their mother’s womb a second time?” But Jesus wasn’t talking about a physical birth—he was talking about a spiritual birth, A birth we need because we're dying of sin. All of us are dying in the physical sense. We’re all slowly aging and some day we will breathe our last. None of us can escape that reality, but the Bible isn’t talking about our physical death. Instead it is referring to the fate of our souls. 

What does this mean? How are we dying from sin? The Bible says “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).” It also says, “That the wages of sin is death (eternal death), but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 6:23).” Many of us think that we are basically good; that we’ve never done anything bad enough for God to punish us for, but that’s not the case. As soon as we told our very first white lie, disobeyed our parents, or failed to return something we had borrowed our souls were sentenced to everlasting punishment in hell. 

God is a pure and holy God which means he can’t live with sin. There was once a time when men and women were without sin, but they were given free will and they chose to disobey God. In that instant they cursed the human race with a disease called “sin.” From the moment we take our first breath to the moment we take our last we are condemned to the punishment sin has placed upon us—separation from God and an eternity in hell.

But that isn’t the end of the story. God loves us so much that he gave us his only son to come down to earth as a man and die in our place. The amazing wonder of this act still astounds me; that an almighty God loves us enough to die in our place. It wasn’t an easy death either. He was beaten, tortured, and ridiculed. They whipped him (probably with a whip that had glass pieces on the ends), placed long thorns twisted into a crown upon his head, made him carry his own cross through town, nailed him to the very same cross, broke his legs, and shoved a spear through his side. 

Dying on a cross is not a pleasant death. They take 3 inch long nails and pound them through your wrists and feet. Then they hoist you into the air to hang by them. Death isn’t caused by the nails but rather by suffocation. Once you are no longer able to hold yourself up you slowly suffocate. With your arms above your head it is impossible to draw enough air in after a while. I was once told that the pain of having those nails pounded into your wrists would be 10 times worse than hitting your funny bone. 

Can you imagine going through all that pain just to save people who hated you, broken your heart time and time again, turned their backs on you, and worst of all ignored you. And yet he did it. That He would love me this much dumbfounds me. I know I’m not worthy of his love and yet he offers it freely every day. There are no strings attached all I have to do is accept it.

Where we will go when we die is up to each one of us individually. It’s not up to our grandparents, our parents, or our siblings. It is a personal decision each one of us must make on our own. So where will you go—heaven or hell? Without Jesus there is no hope of eternal life in heaven. 

So the question is what must we do to be saved? Acts 16:31 states, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” Jesus is the hope we all need--the One who brings life to our dying souls. Jeremiah 29:12-14 says, “Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord.”

Jesus is calling your name today. He is calling you to himself, begging you to notice him and his all-encompassing love and compassion. If you can feel him calling you today and would like to answer, all it takes is for you acknowledging that he is God, that you are a sinner, and that you need his saving grace. Please listen to his call. He loves you so very much and he wants nothing more than to enfold you in his loving arms.

If you accepted him today I beg you to find a fellow Christ-follower and/or church. Choosing to follow him is just the first step. Just as young children need guidance and support so to do we. 

I would love to hear from any of you, whether you made a decision today or not. Maybe you have questions or just need someone to talk to. Either way I’m here to help or listen. If you would like to contact me my e-mail is maijamae@gmail.com. If you send me message please title it “Relentlessly Pursued” so I know it’s from you. I would feel horrible if I accidently deleted a message from someone thinking it was junk mail.

On a closing note I just want to let you know that once we’ve asked Jesus for forgiveness and invited him into our lives all our sins are forgiven and forgotten, but that doesn’t mean the scars from the past are gone. We may still be broken and hurting but Jesus will walk with us through the pain as we begin the healing process. Sometimes he sends people into our lives to walk with us through the pain and sometimes he tells us his grace is sufficient, but either way he won’t leave you alone to walk unaided.

Sin, Life, and Scars

             Imagine that a plague has swept the world and there is no known cure. The disease has already wiped out millions of people and it continues to kill millions of others every day. No one is spared from its devastating touch. You watch as friends and family members succumb to its deadly grasp knowing that soon, you too, will die. The devastating symptoms are already setting in and you imagine you can feel the cool touch of death brushing your neck. All hope seems lost until one day you hear of a vaccine that can cure the disease. Stories are circulating of those who received the vaccine and are now completely cured.

This rumor, for that’s all it is at present, shoots a bolt of hope through you. You immediately begin searching for any sign that this story could be the truth. You search for days following any lead you can find, until finally you discover the stories are indeed true. Now that you know the truth nothing will stop from you from getting this vaccine for yourself. You scrap everything you have together to pay for the medicine knowing that such a cure will probably cost you all you own; but when you get there you find the vaccine is free. All you had to do was show up and ask.

If this scenario was true wouldn’t you do anything to attain the medicine? Wouldn’t you stand in lines for days just for the hope that you might be one of the lucky ones to receive it? And if you received it wouldn’t you want to shout it from the rooftops? Wouldn’t you want to tell everyone about the wonder of this cure? How the power of it saved you from the very clutches of death. What I don’t imagine you doing is going home, locking yourself up inside, and never telling a soul. Such a huge life changing transformation would make us want to tell everyone we met about it and where to find it, especially our loved ones. 

If you had the knowledge to bring life back to the dying wouldn’t you? Because you do, right now, in the here and now. The world over is dying of a plague called SIN. It sweeps over the hearts and lives of men, women, and children. No one soul is spared from the ugliness of it. It brings only death, but in the darkness there is hope for there is a cure for this life consuming illness. Jesus is the cure. He came to be the remedy we all need so desperately.

So the question is why aren’t we sharing it? This joy is completely awe-inspiring and life changing and yet we never utter a word to a hurting and dying world. If this plague were real in the sense of the scenario above we’d be doing everything in our power to save those we know and probably even those we don’t.

            I’m sure this analogy has been used many times before, but I wanted to add something else. Sin leaves wounds—either ones we’ve caused to ourselves or ones caused by others. Sin can leave behind scars just as many diseases leave disabilities and scars in their wake. A lot of the time we see these as handicaps that God can’t use, but it is the broken spirit that he most often uses (2 Cor. 12:7-10). 

Most of us have become adept at hiding our wounds because they often leave us feeling vulnerable and defenseless. We put on our shells and build up our walls. But just because we hide our hurts doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Everyone has wounds; some of us just hide them better. Some are less severe than others, but everyone has scars that mar their hearts and souls. It’s impossible to escape them in this world. Some wounds may be mere scratches while others leave deep gashes through our very souls. The good news is that all wounds can be mended over time, but the truth is the deepest ones will always leave scars. They will be a part of who we are no matter how much we might wish otherwise. These scars may shape us and make us into something altogether different, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be healed, that we can’t be used. God can use these scars in ways we can’t even imagine. We may see ourselves as broken beyond repair, unusable for anything good, but God sees it so differently from us. 

The country duo, Thompson Square, sings something very similar to this in their song “Glass.” The chorus particularly speaks to the subject: 

We may shine,

We may shatter,

We may be picking up the pieces here on after.

We are fragile,

We are human,

We are shaped by the light we let through us.

We break fast

‘Cause we are glass.

We are shaped by the circumstances around us and so often those situations leave us feeling battered and bruised. Sometimes the hurt done to us is just too much and we’re left feeling as though we’re forever picking up the pieces; wondering if we’ll ever feel whole again. The problem is we’re fragile beings. Just as glass breaks easily so too do we; we are easily hurt and it’s hard to piece our hearts back together once they’ve been shattered. It doesn’t take much to splinter a mirror, a glass, or a window. Too much pressure and we’re left with spidery fingers spreading out across a formally perfect surface. Our hearts are very similar. It doesn’t take much and we’re left with scars that will always be there. 

            However, there is hope in our brokenness. Just as a beautiful mosaic or a breathtaking stain glass window is made from broken glass so too can we be made into something new and beautiful. Our brokenness doesn’t have to be the end- it could be just the beginning. It is in our brokenness that God truly works. He takes the weak and broken things of this world to truly let his glory shine forth for the world to see (1 Cor. 1:27-29).

            Just think of the all the people in the Bible that God used that we would have written off from the very beginning. Rahab was a prostitute. Joseph was betrayed by his brothers and sold as a slave. Not only that but he spent seven years in prison. David was an adulterer and murderer. Paul persecuted the church. The Woman at the Well had gone through 5 “husbands” and yet God used her to bring her town to himself. Everywhere you look in the Bible God is used broken people to work his purposes. 

            Notice how all of these people were broken before God chose to use in big ways them. They weren’t perfect, they definitely weren’t whole, and I’m sure there where days, maybe even years, where they felt as though the world was falling down around them.  That is the point though--we must be broken before the true work can begin. Psalm 51:16-17 states,“You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.”

            A couple of months ago this point was brought up by someone in my parent’s church. She used the analogy of tilling her garden as a comparison to our lives; that just as the earth is broken to make it pliable and fertile, so too must we be broken. We can’t begin to plant our gardens until we break up the ground. Once it’s soft and pliable only then can we plant our seeds. It’s from this broken place that fresh vegetables and beautiful plants start. Just as these began someplace scared and broken and came out whole, so too can we. It is through the breaking of the soil that we receive new abundant life. Our scars are a great place for us to beginning growing. For from scars new life can begin and fresh things sprout.

It is also through our broken times that we grow closer to God. It is in time of pressure, hardship, and hurt and that we seek out the Lord the most. God gives us these times to test us (1 Peter 1:6-9), discipline us (Heb. 12:5-11), and bring us closer to him (Psalm 34:18). True these moments are not what we would have chosen, but they are needed for us to grow in him. 

In 2 Cor. 12:7-10 Paul pleads with the Lord to take away an affliction he is suffering from. The Lord responds and tells Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Instead of complaining Paul responds with a much more positive attitude. In verses 9-10 he writes, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I will delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” How many of us have this attitude when it comes to our own sufferings and hurts? We beg and plead with God to remove them, but maybe we’re looking at our problems the wrong way. Maybe we need to start seeing that God is at work and start rejoicing in what he is doing. It doesn’t mean the situation is going to be any easier, but the attitude we choose can change how we see the circumstances.

There is comfort in the pain though. God gives us many promises throughout scripture that he is with us through the pain. 

Psalm 34:18 states, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

Psalm 9:9-10 “The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. Those who know your name trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.”

Jer. 29-11-14b “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.  You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord.”

Isaiah 43:1b-3b “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.”

           1 Cor. 4:16-18 “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

            All through the Bible God gives his promise to be with us through it all. The ups and downs, the high points and the low points, the deserts and oasis’, the storm and the calm, he’s going to stick with us through it all. Nowhere we go is outside of his reach (Ps 139:1-18).

            God is going to be with us in the breaking and in the healing and he’s going to use the experience to bring glory to his name (1 Cor. 1:26-29, 2 Cor. 12:7-10). We just have to learn to be pliable even when we don’t understand and it hurts like crazy.

 "GLASS" by Thompson Squared

Remind Me Who I Am

~~ I sit on the garden bench waiting for him. Normally I am happy and excited for him to arrive, but today I am nervous, and yes, a little scared. For I have done something shameful and I have broken his trust. I know I must confess, but he must already know. How could he not?  In agitation I begin to pace. I am torn between wanting him to show and hoping that he doesn’t. If he doesn’t come I won’t have to face what I have done but I know that if he doesn’t it will be all I can think about.

There! I hear his soft footsteps on the grass. As he comes around the last shrub I am half turned away, poised to flee at the slightest hint of anger. He comes and stands before me and for several tension filled moments silence reigns. Finally he speaks and the pain I hear in his voice breaks my heart. Tears course down my face. I managed to choke out that I am sorry and I beg for his forgiveness. 

I feel a feather light stroke on my hair and I hear his soft voice uttering the three words I long to hear-- I forgive you. 

Those three little words should be enough, but I find no relief. He may have forgiven me, but I have yet to forgive myself. I turn to flee for his presence is too hard to bear at present. He reaches out a hand to grasp arm, to bring me back to him, but I shrug it off and disappear behind the gate.~~

A couple of weeks ago I crawled in to bed and sent up my normal nightly prayer. I hurriedly asked that God would keep us safe during the night and that I would have peaceful and restful night of sleep.  I shied away from anything more than that because I was afraid, insecure, and ashamed.

 I knew that I had disobeyed God, and while, I had gone before God, confessed my sin, and asked for his forgiveness I felt as though I was repeating the same sins over and over again. It was as if I was in a vicious circle that went around and around and never ended. I knew that God forgives us and casts our sins as far as the east is from the west, but how could he keep forgiving me? Yes, I was truly sorry for what I had done and I was prepared to accept his discipline, but surely there was an end to his patience and forgiveness. So in my humiliation and pain I chose to avoid God. Afraid of what I would find if I let myself back into his presence.  So I shut him out, put my headphones in, and turned on my music. 

God, however, had other plans. He had been whispering into my heart for a while, asking me to stop running, but I had ignored his whispers to insecure and angry at myself to listen. But in my hurried attempts to avoid God I forgot one very important fact. He wasn’t going to sit passively by waiting for me shape up and listen. No, he was going to keep on doing what he’s always done—relentlessly pursuing me. That is the beauty of God’s all-consuming love--he fights for us even when we feel we’re not worth fighting for. So even though I shut God out he still found a way to creep back in. 

That night as I turned my music on a song began to play that I had never heard before. From the very first verse I could hear God speaking to me and for once I listened. The song was entitled “Remind Me Who I am” by Jason Gray. In the song he sings, 

When I lose My way,
And I forget my name,
Remind me who I am.
In the mirror all I see,
Is who I don't wanna be,
Remind me who I am.
In the loneliest places,
When I can't remember what grace is.

Chorus:
Tell me once again who I am to you.
Who I am to you.
Tell me lest I forget who I am to you.
That I belong to you.
To you.

Verse 2:
When my heart is like a stone,
And I'm running far from home,
Remind me who I am.
When I can't receive your love,
Afraid I'll never be enough,
Remind me who I am.
If I am your beloved,
Can you help me believe it.

Those words pierced my soul. I had forgotten what grace looked like and I had been running far from home. I was having a hard time receiving God’s love because I felt I wasn’t, nor would I ever be, enough. God saw things differently though and he wanted to remind me of it.  For no matter where I go or what I do I WILL ALWAYS BELONG TO HIM. Those words hit me like a mac truck. How could I have forgotten that? 

God used the song to reach into my heart and make me pay attention to him. I needed to be reminded of who I was in him. That no matter what I did, no matter where I went, I would always be his beloved. Just because I am faithless doesn’t mean he is (Rom 3:3). Even in my sin and shame he is always faithful. God’s character and how he acts towards me is not based on my faithfulness towards him. I can grieve him and break his heart but that won’t change his love, his very character. He has always and will always remain faithful to me even when I am faithless.

Since that night God has teaching me about grace. Grace is not deserved in any sort of way. It is a gift that is given freely. It is not something I can earn or buy my way towards. I know that, I’ve always known that, but that doesn’t stop me from feeling as though I need to prove myself to him. Sure I’ll come before him and confess my wrongs, but I don’t feel free to spend time with him until I’ve proven that I can conquer the sin. Somehow I always seem to forget that I am sinful creature and no matter how hard I try I am always going to commit some form wrong at some point or another. I cannot beat this. It is the reality of being a part of a fallen world.

At some point I realized that I had been imagining God coming to meeting me in the garden of my soul. Once there he would tell me that I needed work on a certain area of my life. Just before he leaves he turns around and informs me that once I’ve fixed this area then I may come back and look for him. I believe this is a vicious lie that Satan has placed in my life in order to separate me from the God who longs to help me. Yes, he asks me to clean up parts of my life, to change those things that don’t honor him, but he doesn’t leave me alone to accomplish the task. He stays by my side to encourage and help me through the often painful ordeal.

Lately I haven’t felt as though I’ve really allowed God to work in my life, but as I write this I’m coming to the realization of how much he’s been teaching me. It’s amazing how much he touches my life even when I’m a stubborn, annoying, and willful child. I honestly can say that I could never put into words how much he truly loves me and I am humbled by that realization. To realize that the almighty God loves me more than words and actions can say even when I am horrible wretch in need of his saving grace.

~~ I enter the garden hesitantly afraid that he will be there and rebuff me. I peer around a shrub only to see him sitting on the bench quietly staring off into space. My heart sinks a little, but I know must go forward. So I take a deep breath and slowly slink around the bush until I am fully in garden. I no longer have anything to hide behind and I am terrified. Suddenly he looks up and sees me standing there hesitantly. I imagine I resemble a rabbit poised to flee at the slightest hint of danger. But instead of the anger or indifference I expect to find a radiant smile breaks out on his face. He stands and opens his arms wide beckoning me to come to his warmth and love. With a sob of relief I launch myself into arms and there I find the refuge, love, joy and  relief I’ve been searching for. He whispers quietly, so quietly I almost miss it, “Welcome home Beloved.” ~~