I don’t have a true concept of love.  No matter how many sermons I’ve heard at the hop, no one or nothing truly defined what Love is.  I always heard, “God is madly in love with you.”  By saying that, I’m simply taking the emotions of what we think love is here on earth and attributing them to God, but times infinity.  In essence, I once again created God in my image.

Blaise Pascal, I think, wrote something to the effect of, “God created man in His own image and man returned the favor.”  The hop was consistently speaking out against doing that, but consistently did that in every message and sermon preached!  Their message made so much sense to me, but now it seems like foolishness.  God’s Love, Jesus himself, is the very essence of love – not some feeling or emotion that moves me to tears.  It comes from a different reality.  And that’s what I am consistently seeking to find – true reality.

God does not give me the concept of love or, my favorite, humility.  God gives me His Son and He forms in me love and humility.  He is the one doing the work, not me.  His life within me is what creates these fruits, not my own strivings, and fastings, and Bible readings.  I could read the Bible until the end of the ages and still not get this unless Christ forms it within me.  I could fast every other day until the end of time and still not have this formed within me unless Jesus manifests His life within me.

A picture that makes sense to me about this is being in a darkened room and feeling depressed and thinking the room is colorless.  But then, tiny bursts of light begin to dispel different places of darkness in the room, and I realize that it is not colorless, but full of vibrant, living color!  There’s nothing else like it on the earth because it does not exist from the earth!  It is from a completely separate land that has nothing to do with my former view of reality.

This is a hard road to walk.  I spent twenty seven years solidifying in my mind what I thought was true reality, only to find out it’s not.  I was merely giving Jesus human characteristics and emotions when He wants to replace those, that are borne of the soul, with His life – the only true reality I can be founded on.

Part of my struggle has stemmed from what I feel like is every woman’s struggle – the need to feel beautiful. So, knowing that I really just need to see beauty from God’s perspective instead of my own carnal mind’s perspective, I began to ask for insight, and I really feel like He gave me some on Sunday.

My pastor was talking about eating at this restaurant in Cali that’s on the beach and watching the sun set, and what a holy experience that moment was. And I felt like the Lord told me that our inner beauty, the kind of beauty that matters, is like that sunset. You know how some sunsets  just make you stop everything and just stare in awe?! I remember I left late to drive to my parent’s house from Waco one day, when I was in college, and I almost stopped the car and got out to just stare when I saw this sunset that was purple! Yes, purple! It was stunning!

So the juxtaposition that was set in my mind was that the beauty that God intended for us to walk in, the beauty that God intended us to exude is not a beauty that the world sees with their physical eyes. Physical beauty is only a whisper, a shadow of the beauty that God created in us. And that inner beauty has power! Just like we are stunned by the power of a beautiful sunset, we were created to stun others with the beauty that God has put within us.

But it’s not a boastful experience of sharing our inner beauty.   I know the most exquisite beauty that we have comes from the perseverance through trials and fellowshipping in His sufferings. But those “light afflictions” are forming in us a beauty that is of God, the Beautiful One! It is holy. It is pure. It draws people.  The Cross has made our beauty worth boasting about because its roots are in Jesus!

The other day, I sat in on a meeting with two girls from my homegroup who were hashing out their differences because they were both super offended with each other. The homegroup leader just wanted me there because she’s seen my gift of encouragement and thought it would be good in this situation. It was a really stressful meeting! They were both about to either beat each other or run away, and the whole time I was asking for insight, praying to have words of life and unity to speak over them. And then I did. And I know what I said was words that testified to Jesus within them both. But I would not have had those words to speak to them, words that ended up bringing reflection and not regret, if I had not given the past ten years of my life to submitting to the Cross working itself out in my life.  I know that I have a great amount of beauty wrought within me because I have said yes to Jesus so many times in the hard things.

After the meeting, one of the girls, whom I’ve been getting to know, walked me out to my car and just spoke to me of how stunned, in a holy and enlightened way, she was by what I said. But I know that what had happened to her was this: she saw the beauty that God has put within me, and she had the same reaction to it that we do to a sunset – thankful awe.  My beauty was seen!  But it wasn’t my physical beauty that drew those precious women into a greater revelation of Jesus, it was my inner beauty, the awe-inspiring splendor of a spirit given wholeheartedly to Jesus – it drew them, it humbled me, and we are all changed.

Outward beauty is so much lesser than.  How can we hold on to the faint glimmerings of physical beauty when the stunning spotlight of God-bred beauty far outshines it all?

I’m disoriented.  I thought I knew what live in Jesus is, and then all my paradigms get thrown off, kattywomper.  Is that how you spell it?  Anyway, this is mainly to process what I’m thinking.

Jesus is not about improving my life; He’s tranforming it.  And it’s not just my life that He lives in and me in Him, but a different reality.  Abram was told to leave and go the land God will show him – a picture of us leaving one reality and entering into a whole different reality.  I knew there was something to reality!  That’s what I’ve been praying for, for years!  Give me a true reality!  I guess I didn’t have full understanding of what I was truly asking for!  It’s a whole different land.  All the visions and prophecies and miracles are only a foretaste of what is to come in the new reality.  But the best part is, this is not a reality we have to wait for when we get to heaven!  It’s a reality that is already alive inside of us. 

  But we are so blinded.  We are surrounded by darkenss that is our natural mind/reality.  Obviously, we can’t reach the true reality by ourselves because God is the only one who can shed light.  But that’s what it is!  Light!  For years, I’ve been praying for the spirit of wisdom and revelation to open up the eyes of my heart to see Jesus, and I feel like it just now is.  And it’s disorienting!  You know how when you’ve been sitting in a really dark room for quite a while and someone suddenly turns on the light?  It hurts your eyes!  But that’s what I’m feeling.  It’s painful because the lights are turning on in my heart and I’ve never “seen” this way before.  It’s discombobulating!  But it’s a different reality. 

  There’s lots of talk that’s been going on about giving birth in my homegroup lately b/c one of the girls is about to have have baby boy.  I was thinking about this, ironically, as I sat on the toilet, and realized this new reality is kind of like giving birth.  Jesus has already put the new creation within us – Himself – but we don’t automatically live out of that creation/reality.  It’s a process of lots of pain that we come into the light and are birthed into a new reality! 

  Pain.  I always new that was a must in our walk with Jesus.  But I didn’t understand, and perhaps I still don’t understand fully, the connection between pain and living in a new reality.  But I feel like this explains it and is scriptural b/c Romans 8 talks about the pains of childbirth!  It makes so much sense!  Pain is only so that light can shine!  We have so say yes to the process because our minds are so darkened that we cannot see what is best for us.  And, it coincides with Hebrews 2 where it says He was made perfect through suffering!  We must suffer to come into a new reality!

  It is like he said, when we come into a new reality, the past reality feels so foreign.  Now that I’ve said yes to the cross working itself out in my life, I can’t remember how I used to think.  Now, it feels so just to allow suffering in my life because I know the fruit it brings, the reality it brings.  Justice!  A totally different view than the muddleness that IHOP told me.  It’s true fact to me now.  So, now my issue is, how do I deal with the fact that no one is hearing this?  And I don’t feel like I have enough grasp on this reality to be able to impart knowledge of this reality to others.  But I know I’m only at the beginning of the beginning, so I don’t really have to now.  And surely, Jesus will cover whatever I say that is not truth.  Or maybe I should just keep my mouth shut until I have more of an understanding!  OMG!  Where have I been my whole life?

I don’t know why I’m so hurt.  I had this kid in my class, one whom I love dearly, flip me off behind my back.  I know part of my pain is because, more than any other kid, he’s the one who I’ve prayed for the most.  I know he has a high calling and I guess the Lord has just highlighted him in my heart.  There’s a spiritual connection there, I know, because of the energy and time I’ve put into interceding on his behalf.

  God, I don’t want complacency and carnality as the definition of the rest of his life!  He was made for a different reality!  Oh God, why?  Why did it have to be him?  Why is he being attacked to forcefully?

  I guess my email to all the coaches a few weeks ago was kind of a “game on!” sign in the spirit.  So, I can venture a guess that this happened with me because I’m the one who has a tender heart towards him – I know it has to get dealt with.  And maybe this is the open door to change that I’ve been praying for.  But so painful!  It was an interesting commentary on how powerful my emotions are – maybe it’s because I give them control too much or it just is a result of being very in tune with my emotions.  But it shut me down!  Thankfully, it was in the last few minutes of class, so they had seatwork to do, but it was seriously debilitating for me.  I wanted to throw everyone out a window and scream.  Debilitating.

  But I know this is what I’ve been asking for.  I’ve prayed for his heart, and God is bringing it to light – he has a a huge ton of bitterness and unforgiveness and it’s EATING at him!  Consuming him!  Oh God, let him see.  Give him sight!  Do not let your words that he has heard be rooted in his heart.  Now is the hour.  The fullness of time has come.  Have you way.

#8: “You will not steal.”  Jesus promises us the riches of His inheritance, so why should we steal?  At the heart of stealing, there is the desire for more which means there has to be an emptiness deep within to merit that need to take from someone else.  If that begins to define us – an emptiness borne of lack, then receiving from Jesus becomes impossible.  In America, that seems to be the definition of who we are – we are needy, so we take; it doesn’t have to be stealing possessions, but stealing people’s innocence, purity, and childlike faith.  It’s what the world, the sin nature does.  We have taken things that are not ours in our selfish graspings for pleasure.  Jesus has a rich inheritance in us.  He longs to lavish his grace on us – freely!!!  That’s the key concept – freely.  It’s not something that we have to take for ourselves but that is a priceless gift given to us. 

  They’re not just cheap gifts either.  In Matthew 7, God speaks of his nature in comparison to an earthly father.  If an earthly father loves to give good gifts to his children, how much more so will God who is perfect and tender in His givings!  It seems like the church has given us an erroneous view of how God is – He just wants to take from us – we give Him our praise, we give Him service with our giftings, we give Him our obedience by the laws mandated for us to follow in the Bible.  Little is spoken about the tender, merciful love lavished on us – the very foundation that we stand on so we can even able to give back to Him with.  We cannot love unless we first know we are loved.  We cannot give unless we are first given to.  But it has to be experiential. 

Yes, Jesus gave us the free gift of salvation, but that doesn’t mean anything to us unless we have personal experience of it.  We cannot share it with others unless we first experience it.  God gives so that we can give.  There doesn’t need to be a focus on lack because the God of the Universe holds all the riches of the world in the palm of His hand.  Stealing is out of the question when our hearts rest in the knowledge that we are safe in the communion of the Godhead.  We steal?  We have Jesus!

For years, I have been drawn by the subjects of pain/suffering/the Cross.  All of the above is written about time and time again in the new testament.  Knowing this, I believe these subjects are part of our inheritance.  As a western church, we often miss the value of pain because our focus is on prosperity and happiness.  I think some of the “Christian mystics” of old have a better idea of our true purpose and inheritance more than any pastor who touts the favors and blessings of God as utmost in importance.

  The following are excerpts from two books talking about suffering.  These have ministered to me in many great ways.  The next five posts are in this same vein. . .

“The enemy was fleeing in all directions, except for one division – Pride. Completely undetected, it had marched right up to the rear of the advancing warriors and was about to released a hail of arrows. I then noticed that the mighty warriors had no armor on their backsides. They were totally exposed and vulnerable to what was about to hit them.

Wisdom remarked, ‘You have taught that there is no armor for the backside, which means you are vulnerable if you run from the enemy. However, you never saw how advancing is pride also makes you vulnerable.’

I could only nod in acknowledgment, for it was too late to do anything. It was almost unbearable to watch, but Wisdom said that I must. I knew the kingdom of God was about to suffer a major defeat. Though I had felt sorrow before, I had never felt this kind of sorrow.

To my amazement, when the arrows of pride struck the warriors they did not even notice, However, the enemy kept shooting. The warriors were bleeding and getting weaker fast, but they would not acknowledge it. Soon they were too weak to hold up their shileds and swords; they cast them down, declaring that they no longer needed them. They started taking off their armor, saying it was not needed anymore either.

Then another enemy division appeared and moved up swiftly. It was called Strong Delusion. Its members released a hail of arrows and they all seemed to hit their marks. It only took a few of the demons of delusion, who were all small and seemingly weak, to lead away this once great army of glorious warriors. They were taken to various prison camps, each named after a different doctrine of demons. I was astounded at how this great company of the righteous had been so easily defeated, and they still did not even know what had hit them.

I blurted out: ’How could those who were so strong, who have been all the way to the top of the mountain, who have seen the Lord as they have, be so vulnerable?’

‘Pride is the hardest enemy to see, and it always sneaks up behind you,’ Wisdom lamented. ’In some ways, those who have been to the greatest heights are in the greatest danger of falling. You must always remember that in this life you can fall at any time from any level.’

‘Take heed when you think you stand, lest you fall,’ I replied, ’How awesome such Scripturesseem to me now!’

‘When you think you are the least vulnerable to falling is in fact when you are the most vulnerable. Most men fall immediately after a great victory,’ Wisdom lamented.

I looked at my mantle. It looked so plain and insignificant. I felt that it made me look more like a homeless person than a warrior. Wisdom repsonded as if I had been speaking out loud.

‘The Lord is closer to the homeless than to kings. You only have true strength to the degree that you walk in the grace of God, and “He gives grace to the humble.” No evil weapon can penetrate this mantle because nothing can overpower His grace. As long as you wear this mantle, you are safe from this kind of attack.’

I then started to look up to see how many warriors were still on the mountain. I was shocked to see how few there were. I noticed, however, that theyall had on the same mantle of humility. ‘How did that happen’ I inquired.

‘When they saw the battle you just witnessed, they all came to me for help and I gave them their mantles,’ Wisdom replied.

‘But I thought you were with me that whole time.’

‘I am with all who go forth to do the will of My Father,’ Wisdom answered.

‘You’re the Lord!’ I cried.

‘Yes,’ He answered. ’I told you that I would never leave you or forsake you. I am with all My warriors just as I am with you. I will be to you whatever you need to accomplish. My will, and you have needed wisdom.’ Then He vanished.”

-pgs 59-62 from The Final Quest, Rick Joyner

“I looked at the old eagle and for the first time I noticed the scars among his torn and broken feathers. However, the scars were not ugly. They were lined with gold that was somehow not metal, but rather flesh and feathers. I could see that this gold was giving off the glory that emanated from the eagle and made his presence so awesome.

‘Why did I not see this before?’ I inquired.

‘Until you have beheld and appreciated the depths of the treasures of slavation, you cannot see the glory that comes from suffering for the sake of the gospel. Once you have seen it, you are ready for the tests that will release the highest levels of spiritual authority into your life. These scars are the glory that we will carry forever. This is why even the wounds our Lord suffered are with Him in heaven. You can still see His wounds and the wounds that all of His chosen ones have taken for His sake.

‘These are the medals of honor in heaven. All who carry them love God and His truth more than their own lives. These are the ones who followed the Lamb wherever He went, willing to suffer for the sake of truth, righteousness, and the salvation of men. True leaders of His people, who carry genuine spiritual authority, mast have first proven their devotion this way.’

I looked at the leader of the company of angels, that followed me. I had never witnessed deep emotion in an angel before, but these words were unquestionably moving him greatly, as well as the rest of the angels. I really thought they were about to cry.

Then the leader spoke: ‘We have witnessed many wonders since the creation. But the voluntary suffering of men for the Lord and for their fellow men is the greatest wonder of all. We, too, must fight and and even suffer at times, but we dwell where there is such light and glory that it is very easy to do this.’

‘When we see men and women choose to suffer for a hope they can see only dimly in their hearts, it causes even the greatest angels to bow their knee and gladly serve these heirs of salvation. We marvel at the dedication of you who dwell with so little encouragement in a place of such darkness and evil.’

‘At first we did not understand why the Father decreed that men would have to walk by faith, suffering great opposition while not having the benefit of beholding the reality and glories of the heavenly realm. But now we understand that through these sufferings He proves their worthiness to receive the great authority that they will be given as members of His own household.’

‘This walk of faith is now the greatest wonder in heaven. Those who pass this test are worthy to sit with the Lamb on His throne, for He has made them worthy and they have proven their love.’”

- pgs 89-90 The Final Quest, by Rick Joyner

The merit of a soul that loved Jesus Christ come from loving and suffering. Here is what the Lord said to Saint Teresa: “My daughter, do you think that that merit consist in enjoyment? No, it consists in suffering and in loving. Look at my life, so full of affliction. Be sure, daughter, that the more my Father loves anyone, the more distress he sends to that person; it is a measure of his love. Look at these wounds, your sufferings will never match them.” “It is a great mistake to think that my Father welcomes as friends those who are strangers to suffering.” And Saint Teresa adds for our consolation: “God never sends a trial without immediately compensating for it by some favor.”

One day Jesus Christ appeared to the Blessed Battista Varani, and told her of three great favors that he does for his beloved souls: the first enables them not to sin; the second, still greater, is to do good works; the third, and the greatest of all, is to suffer for his love. Saint Teresa used to say that whenever anyone does something for God, the Lord repays him or her with some affliction And therefore, when they suffered any trouble, the saints thanked God for it. Speaking of his bondage in Turkey, Saint Louis of France said: “I rejoice, and thank God more for the patience he gave me in the time of my imprisonment than if I had acquired all the earth.” And when, after her husband’s death, Saint Elizabeth, princess of Thuringia was banished from the country along with her son, and found herself homeless and abandoned by everyone, she went to a Franciscan monastery, and there she had a Te Deum sung in thanks to Gof for favoring her by making her suffer for love of him.

- pg 46  The Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ by Saint Alphonsus Liguori

Let us be persuaded that in this vale of tears true peace of heart cannot be found except by those who endure and lovingly embrace their sufferings to please God. This is what comes of the state of corruption that has left us all infected by sin. The condition of the saints on earth is to suffer as they love; the condition of the saints in heaven is to enjoy as they love. Father Paul Segneri the younger once wrote to one of his penitents to encourage her in her suffering. He advised her to have these words inscribed at the base of her crucifix: “THAT IS HOW ONE LOVES.”

Not just suffering but the will to suffer for the love of Jesus Christ is the surest sign that a soul loves him. “And what greater gain,” said Saint Teresa, “can there be than to have some proof that we are pleasing to almighty God?” Alas, the majority of people are dismayed at the mere mention of the cross, of humiliation and pain. Still there are not a few loving souls who find all their happiness in suffering, and who would be almost inconsolable were they to pass their time on earth without suffering. “Looking at Jesus crucified,” said one devout person, “makes the cross so lovable to me that I think I could never be happy without suffering; the love of Jesus Christ is all I need.” Here is how Jesus advises everyone who would follow him: “Let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily” (Luke 9:23). But it must be taken up and carried, not by constraint or with repugnance, but with humility, patience, and love.

- pg 49  The Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ by Saint Alphonsus Liguori

A soul that loves God has no other goal but to be wholly united with him. But to reach this perfect union, let us listen to what Saint Catherine of Genoa said: “To achieve union with God, one must have adversities because God uses them to consume all our evil impulses within and without. And therefore insults, scorn, infirmities, abandonment by relatives and friends, confusions, temptations and other adversities are all supremely necessary, so that we can fight on, until, thanks to the victories, all our vile impulses will be extinguished within us so that we no longer feel them. And until all the adversities n o longer seem bitter but sweet for God’s sake, we shall never arrive at divine union.

- pg 50  The Practice of the Love of Jesus Christ by Saint Alphonsus Liguori