Lord help me be the me that looks the most like You.
And help my heart to beat the way that it's supposed to.
Guide each look today, each word a precious gift.
Use this simple life to bring joy, hope, faith and lift...
to those who's hearts have faltered, who's lives feel at their end.
Your Spirits touch. Your Fathers heart. A blood bought life. Amen.
Matthew 13:44 ...in his joy...
Which makes me wonder... where does that kind of joy come from?
It must come from a VERY deep place… a place where what I have (really what I am) is eclipsed by something VERY other, VERY extraordinary, VERY wonderful.
It seems like so often we approach passages like this from the wrong angle. All we see is what Christ is asking us to give (as if He needed anything) NOT what He is giving, completing, fulfilling, transforming, redeeming, awakening, confounding, bleeding for, remaking, restoring, beautifying, breathing life into, refocusing, recreating, healing… loving.
There is only one reason Christ calls us to give everything for Him and His Kingdom… so that He can be our everything.
Tim Hughes puts it well in his song:
God in my living
There in my breathing
God in my waking
God in my sleeping
God in my resting
There in my working
God in my thinking
God in my speaking
Be my everything
Be my everything
Be my everything
Be my everything
God in my hoping
There in my dreaming
God in my watching
God in my waiting
God in my laughing
There in my weeping
God in my hurting
God in my healing
Be my everything
Be my everything
Be my everything
Be my everything
Yes Lord, may it be as he has said.
Matthew 13:44 ...in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
The question is; what is everything...This is a tough question for us today. Clearly in this parable Jesus is talking about all of the man's possessions and "stuff"... very reminiscent of His conversation with the rich young ruler. But as He continues with the young ruler He seems to "raise the bar", so to speak, to include family, friends and lands (Mark 10:17-31). Everything. When I think about my "everything" I can't stop with stuff (it's all shadows and dust anyway isn't it). No, everything means much more than that... it means the patter of four sets of beautiful feet... little voices that call for "daddy" in the night... hugs, kisses and indistinguishable pictures "just for me". Everything means 13 years of marriage... over 20 years of relationship with the love of my life (and my best friend on earth)... tears, struggles, joys and life. No, everything is huge - worth more than gold, land or MacBook - which only makes the act of laying it down that much more special.AND what would you be willing to sell everything for?Now this is an especially tough question for us today. In this parable we see a man sell everything he has (filled with joy) for the treasure he discovers in the field... and Jesus says that this is what the Kingdom of God is like. When I read words like this it challenges me to my very human core. Oh how hard it is to let go of what I have... of what is "mine"... "my own, my precious." To sell it all for the sake of Christ and His Kingdom come (His movement & His purposes on earth)... seems like such a huge sacrifice. And yet, we sell them all the time for everything else around us. We sell our children for our jobs. We sell our marriages for our cravings. We sell our callings for our ambitions... our gifts for fame. And then we lay them all down before the gods of money, fame and power. But for Jesus... that seems like such a leap of faith (or is it trust)... let alone to do it because of shear joy.Which makes me wonder... where does that kind of joy come from?
Everything (3)
