“The dilemma of the Story is this: we don't know if we want to be rescued. We are so enamored with our small stories and our false gods, we are so bound up in our addictions and our self-centeredness and take-it-for-granted unbelief that we don't even know how to cry out for help.”
― John Eldredge, EPIC
PSALM 73-74
Psalm of Asaph (musician and singer in the Temple)...
23Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.
24You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will take me into glory.
25Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
26My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever. (73:23-26)
ROMANS 5
Paul explains that faith and glory is not about circumstances but persists and lives through circumstances...
1Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, wea have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And web boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3Not only so, but wec also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.
JOURNAL
To see this lived out...to see the Gospel lived out in the Psalms, in the life of Christ, in the writings of Paul and the lives of all the disciples is such overwhelming proof that something has truly gone wrong in our hearts and we need to connect back to what we were originally created to do and be.
We were never created to satisfy ourselves through accumulation or pleasure or duties or actions. We were created simply to live in full, intimate relationship with God. To seek him in all his goodness, to serve him without reservation and as a result to spill our lives out in love to the rest of God's creation. This is our purpose...this is our mission...yet is seems so simple but so impossible. It just goes to affirm that there is a part of me that longs to rebel...that longs to distance myself and seek to be my own God...yet in doing so God allows that to bring a discontent and a misery and thirst that can't be quenched. This is extreme grace and it is also affirmation that it is not the life I was created to live.
We were never created to satisfy ourselves through accumulation or pleasure or duties or actions. We were created simply to live in full, intimate relationship with God. To seek him in all his goodness, to serve him without reservation and as a result to spill our lives out in love to the rest of God's creation. This is our purpose...this is our mission...yet is seems so simple but so impossible. It just goes to affirm that there is a part of me that longs to rebel...that longs to distance myself and seek to be my own God...yet in doing so God allows that to bring a discontent and a misery and thirst that can't be quenched. This is extreme grace and it is also affirmation that it is not the life I was created to live.
23Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. 24For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. 25What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? - LUKE 9:23-25
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