eph. 1:17 "i keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know him better."
my most beautiful moments with Jesus are found when Truth flows from head to the heart. it's in these moments when something "clicks" in me (the Holy Spirit) and i can say with confidence, "i love you Jesus!"
we are people who are constantly on the lookout for more to life (whether in right or wrong places), because we are after truth. especially as christians, we seek truth. we desire the truth about what a relationship with Jesus really means. but what is truth? if every sentence of the bible is filled with what we call "truth", why do we still fall flat on our faces and lack in understanding and knowledge of Jesus? why do the most simplest truths about His love for us demonstrated on the cross still fail to capture our hearts? why does it feel like, at times, that the gospel is just a nice story, and the "good news" now just seems like "old news"? why have the words in scripture failed to pierce our hearts?
maybe real Truth about Jesus isn't found in simply "knowing" or memorizing what we hold to be true. maybe the answer isn't found through logic. i am tired of logic. faith in Jesus isn't something that is obtained through proof or our ability to convince using rational arguments.
what if we didn't have to try so hard to fit Jesus in a box so that He can make sense to us? forgive me if i am harsh, but maybe it's cause i'm too much of a feeler and not enough of a thinker, and don't get me wrong, because there is much good in all of these. but maybe if we spent less time boggling our minds trying to rationalize Jesus, but spent that time getting to know Him the way we do relationships, the way we know our best friend, like treating Him as a person, a friend, and not a theology, we might actually love Him more.
"knowing" Jesus with our heads is not enough. our ability to regurgitate scripture and list every characteristic about Jesus is not enough. our "knowledge" of the cool things Jesus did, or even knowing all of the teachings on how much He loves us mean nothing if they stay in our head. heck, the devil knows the bible and the fear of the LORD and the character of Jesus better than all of us! and look where he ended up.
maybe there's more to Jesus than just to hear the truth. what if we allowed truth to do more than just to go through one ear and out the other? to do more than just hear about it, highlight/underline it, put it in our journal, and move on with our lives? is that really what truth looks like? i think we are tired of hearing the truth. our ears have become calloused from hearing the truth. we have lost our first love, we have become lukewarm, we have lost passion for Jesus in the cycles of religion. i say that because i'm guilty of that all the time.
i hate the spirit of religion. as a very performance-based person, it brings me to a place where i feel like i have to perform and do certain things, study the bible enough, go to enough meetings, be in the right posture, in order to find truth, to find Him. whereas throughout the entire process i have lost the heart of worship. and i wonder why He has "left" me even though i have been trying to find truth through doing and not being. and i am left wondering why i no longer feel joyful or peaceful even when i do all the "right" things for Him. hmm.
the spirit of religion has to die. it is makes me complacent, dry, weary, bored, and just tired of Jesus. the enemy loves to use religion to stifle my passion for Jesus.
i think the point i am trying to make is this: WE NEED REVELATION of the living God. WE NEED TO EXPERIENCE the living Jesus in such a way as His disciples did 2000 years ago. WE NEED A RELATIONSHIP with our Abba father.
WE NEED ENCOUNTERS with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth.
john 14:16-19 "and i will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever--the Spirit of truth. the world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. but you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. i will not leave you as orphans; i will come to you. before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me"
when Jesus ascended to heaven after His resurrection, He gave us the Holy Spirit. the Holy Spirit has one job only: to REVEAL Jesus to us. the Holy Spirit is the one that gives us real Truth. He is the one that, as we abide in Him, fellowship with Him, that we begin to encounter love and encounter Truth. it is through the Holy Spirit that all our head knowledge "truths" flow into our heart as we encounter Jesus, forever transforming us as we experience Truth. we begin to see Him in ways we have never before. that is where real transformation occurs. that is where we encounter the living Jesus.
thankfully, through His kindness, the LORD continues to give me revelations of His love and more truths. and it was done only through my friend, the Holy Spirit.
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He has finally made it clear to me that He is going to pour out the Spirit of adoption this year.
romans 7:14 "because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. for you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption. and by him we cry, "Abba, Father"
simply put, the Spirit of adoption is the Holy Spirit. this is the year where He wants to give us the Holy Spirit so that the revelation of His love for us as His children, His beloved sons and daughters, will be made known to us. and that Truth would be something beyond words in the bible. He wants us to experience the reality of the Father's heart, that we can approach Him with confidence that we can jump into His lap and call Him Daddy, (and not get weirded out by calling Him that). because that is the kind of Father that loves us. He wants us to experience His heart, His love, and affections.
Holy Spirit wants to know you. He enjoys you. He is dying to reveal Jesus to you. He wants to help you. His heart breaks that we have been struggling so much on our own strength (in the process, losing hope), trying to comprehend truth about an infinite God that is love. we can't love God on our own. we can't comprehend God on our own. trust me. i've tried and i've failed.
1john 4:19 "we love because He first loved us. "
