I'M BACK!

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For all those who have faithfully checked this blog over the last 5 months and found nothing but disappointment, I now say both: Thank you and sorry. It's quite exciting to be returning to the blogosphere and as I've told a few, I will be discontinuing the Marvel-themed posts (even though Peter Parker snuck in here). It was fun for the one, but I obviously did not feel a great enough drive to write more; there were some ideas, but I never liked them enough to actually post them, hence the unplanned hiatus. So, as I let Parker yell for me, "I'M BACK!" and am here to tell you about how ridiculously much God loves you!

"Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things - and the things that are not - to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God - that is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption." - 1 Corinthians 1:27-30

Ever feel like you're not good enough? A lot of times, we feel this in areas that we are passionate about. If you're athletic, maybe you feel like you could always do better in a certain part of your game. If you're a musician, even though people say, "It sounded great," even people who actually know what they're talking about when it comes to music, all you can think about are the mistakes you made rather than what went right. (Hello. Yes, I've done that.) Whatever it may be, you just don't feel good enough. When we take this same mindset and transfer it to the practical aspects of everyday life, things can get really nasty. It is so easy for us to view life as a performance and then, rather than enjoying all the good things, we jump out of our bodies, sit in the front row with our arms crossed, and become our harshest critic.

I have done this way too much in my life and have beaten myself up over the dumbest things. Sometimes the soundtrack to my life sounds like this:

What's crazy about that is, when you let yourself think these thoughts long enough, they eventually become your reality. Or as Bruce Lee put it, "What you habitually think largely determines what you will ultimately become." Or another quote, this time from the book 'The Bourne Identity', goes "The easiest thing in the world is to convince yourself that you're right." This is especially true in the negative. Negativity permeates this world, and all it takes is turning those negative thoughts inward to fall into depression and self-condemnation. But the Bible is totally the opposite. Romans 8:1 says that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

That means if you know Jesus, any condemnation you get or feel, from yourself or others, is a lie. This is why, as if we need more reasons why, it's so important to spend time with God and in His Word. Joshua Harris put it this way: "The greatest hindrance to knowing God's forgiveness is ignorance about Him." So stop trying to "fix" yourself and fix your thoughts on Jesus (Hebrews 3:1) Philippians 4:8 also tells us what to fill our minds with, and it's not our own thoughts.

If we get into a cycle of viewing God for someone He is not, it's so easy for us to think we've messed up too much to be forgiven; so easy for us to imagine God as that incessant "That's not good enough!", beating us over the head for every failure. Because I know He could do it for way more than an hour if He wanted to... but He doesn't, because that's not His character at all. You may be weak and wounded, but you're also more loved than you could ever dare to imagine.

I'll share some of my story where I had my personal revelation of God's intimate, personal, and unfailing love for me. Just over 2 years ago, I went to Creation 2011. A week of worshiping the Lord passionately, amazing times with Him, and reaching new heights spiritually. Not even two days after I had been home, I fell right back into a sin and addiction that I had been struggling with for years. It was as if I reached the mountaintop and then fell right off, all the way down, and fell further then ever before, straight into an abyss. The thoughts that plagued my mind were thoughts of condemnation, hatred, and despair. I doubted not only God's love for me, but even His ability to heal me; felt like I couldn't even be put back together. I couldn't bring myself to pray, because I couldn't believe God still wanted anything to do with me at that point. So I decided to put on the new Disciple cd I had just bought after having seen them for the first time at Creation, I think in an attempt to escape and get lost in the music... but man, God was up to something. Sitting there in my room, feeling lost and believing that there was no way God still loved me, the first two songs went by. But then the third song started. It was a song called "Invisible". You can listen to it below if you want.

This song being played in my room at that very moment, was a divine appointment. God was chipping away at my hardened heart that first verse, and then the second verse came:

I need you to believe Me

Can you trust Me?

That what you see is not what I see

The reflection in the mirror's telling lies

Cause nothing you have done could change how much I love you!!!

BOOM! There it was. I fell over on my face and cried more than I think I've ever cried in my entire life. Not only did Jesus still love me, but He loved me just as much as if I hadn't even failed him. Truly incredible. That was my personal 1 John 4:19 revelation. "We love Him because He first loved us." This is the revelation that will define our very lives.

This is a lot already. In fact I'm going to stop here 1) To keep this post from going unreasonably long and 2) because I want you to reflect on this revelation. Seek the Lord and let Him reveal His personal, intimate, unchanging love for you in a way you've never experienced before and a depth that you've never known before. May we know what it is to live loved by you, Jesus.

Part 2 soon, Lord willing...

Brian