Good morning!
Welcome to your morning coffee! May our Heavenly Father call us back to live our daily lives desperately dependent on his son. Father, Jesus sits now at your right hand, creating a place for us with you in prayer, in worship, in fellowship, unto eternity. How grand a plan you have made for us and all of creation! And yet, Father, how quickly we daily forget your plan, lose the luster of its grandness. Father, in the name of Jesus and by the Spirit, help us to entrust ourselves to your will, knowing that as we admit our daily, desperate need for you, Jesus makes us able to and brings us into your presence!
Your Morning Song: "Boy Like Me/Man Like You" by Rich Mullins
Your Morning Scripture: Hebrews 4:14-16
Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
...
It is unsettling, unnerving, how easily my heart, when left unguarded, lulls me into a monotonous, barren wasteland, also known as taking Jesus for granted. If I am not careful, not intentional, then I will live my daily life according to my immediate, earthly, physical needs, and give no attention to my spiritual health. This is not a choice. It is something that many of us do quite easily. We do not choose. We simply react to the basic needs around us and our inner self, the inner man, the inner woman, is left abandoned by our un-choice.
And we will be able to make it without crying out for Jesus, for at least a little while. And then we will wonder why we feel so dry, why the world has dimmed, why even the most faithful earthly joys have faded, why our relationships are not what we thought they were, why it feels like stopping and stepping away from the daily grind of life feels like drowning.
There are only two ways to live.
Daily and desperately dependent on Jesus.
Or barren. Just barren. Dry. Faded. Dim. Drowning in the daily dust of shallow doings.
And perhaps the hardest part for many of us is the backwards way we relate to Jesus. He does not need or want our strength. He does not wait to love us until after we have volunteered to help with something at church. He does not hold us mercilessly to an impossible standard only he could meet. He does not wait for us to be okay before he will approve of us.
We are not okay. We are not strong. We are not deserving.
And he gets it. He understands us. He loves us. He has come to welcome us into a deep and richly right relationship with God our Father in Heaven. And all we have to do is accept and desperately embrace him.
Why do so few of us daily and desperately reach out to him in this way? Why do we so often and so easily try to do life on our own? He gets us. He knows us. He has experienced what we've experienced and more! Why do we not admit our desperate need with daily desperate prayer and worship?
It is not pious, admirable, humility that leads me to say that I am desperately and daily in need of Jesus. It is the panic of a drowning man who feels the small daily deaths of spiritual barrenness shallowing his breaths.
How sweet it is to know that Jesus, my savior, understands my struggle, the temptations, the weakness, and loves me anyway! The more I entrust my whole self to Jesus, the more I am comforted by and conformed to who he is. And I can do this because he has wept, he has hurt, he has been tempted, and he remained faithful. He can be trusted. He must be trusted.
What is the difference for you, when you live a day embrace your desperate need for Jesus? And when you don't?
The difference for me is me. I am a different person when I cling to Jesus. I am different person when I don't.
Comments