(This is a combined blog between me and my spiritual twin of revelation that the Lord brought the other morning.)

There is so much more in here, I love it, I love Him, I am so captivated by Him right now, so overcome, oh God would this stuff transform every single breath we take, God it feels like something wants to pour out my mouth in a shout or a song, your Holy Spirit is welling up, show us how to express you, how to express your love.

As Mother Teresa said:

The work we do is nothing more than a means of transforming our love for Christ into something concrete. I didn’t have to find Jesus. Jesus found me and chose me. A strong vocation is based on being possessed by Christ. He is the life I want to live. He is the light that I want to radiate. He is the Love with which I want to love. He is the Joy that I want to share. He is the peace that I want to sow. Jesus is everything to me. Without Him, I can do nothing”

Anyways…

“So far we do everything to please the soul and the body. When we are hungry, we stop everything and go eat. When we are thirsty, we immediately go and get something to satisfy. Why aren't we that quick to satisfy the hunger of our spirit? Why don't I think of my spirit first and prefer it to the needs and desires of the flesh?”

“In taking that literally, one would be scared out of their mind of not following every single tiny morsel that fell out of God's mouth. Why is it a difficult thing to do, bring the flesh under submission of the spirit?

1 John 2:12-17 "I am writing to you, my dear children, because your sins have been forgiven because of Jesus. I am writing to you who are mature because you know Christ, the one who is from the beginning. I am writing to you who are young because you have won your battle with Satan. I have written to you, children, because you have known the Father. I have written to you who are mature because you know Christ, the one who is from the beginning. I have written to you who are young because you are strong with God's word living in your hearts, and you have won your battle with Satan. Stop loving this evil world and all that it offers you, for when you love the world you show that you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only lust for physical pleasure, the lust for everything we see, and the pride in our possessions. (KJV: The lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.) These are not from the Father. They are from this evil world. And this world is fading away, along with everything it craves. But if you do the will of God, you will live forever. “

Reading the above in part almost makes e more terrified than reading the judges passage purely because John is right, we have seen and we know God in a way that they did not, the passage above talks of relationship, talks of intimacy and love wheras before it was about the laws and commands of God. We are so covered, smothered in a grace we cannot understand, mercies which are new every morening which mena we are not nder condemnation or driven by legalism and yet have caued us to take for granted that which we have a treat our greatest love in such a taking for granted hurtful way. OH God oh God. Im sorry.

Galatians 5:16-26 This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to another; so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.

“Why is it that while there is so much grace and kindness being extended to me right now in the area of spending time with God, I am seemingly squandering it away?”

spot on

And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another. (NLT: Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there

Oh my gosh. oh sweet sweet Jesus, what do we do to the power of the cross when we devoid it of meaning by our compromised actions? You went to your very death for us to make it as nothing by using, abusing and taking for granted the grace and love beyond our understanding that it demonstrated and put into power. Oh JEsus, give us a sober realisatio of this that we might walk differently, you are my love, my beloved, the complete rapture of my heart and yet I treat you like such muck. Jesus I do not sit under self hating condemnation, i sit looking into your eyes on that cross and I cry 'change me', make me new, make me realise, that THIS would be the damascus road I see which changes me forever and pushes me Into the world, disregarding everything else but my adoring love for you to make you known and to live dead to all of this crud. Oh JEsus sweet sweet Jesus.

"Christ's teachings surpasses that of all the saints, and whoever has His spirit will find in His teaching hidden manna. but it happens that many are little affected, even after a frequent hearing of His Gospel. This is because they do not have the spirit of Christ. If you want to understand Christ's works and relish them fully, you must strive to conform your entire life to His." - Thomas A Kempis

And there Is the kick In the chest, the revelation, the midblowing truth, GOd how does that look?! what do you want me to do, to be, to say, how do you want me to live?! Teach me more of your word of your precepts oh God I do not wanna miss your manna because I am not totally conformed to you, oh God, make me more like Jesus, make every word I read of your Word hit me with power and revelation,may there be no complacency and apathy as we read your word, oh God forgive us for the numb areas caused by growing up in the church and your word, God reawaken the wonder and the newness and treausre of the words you speak, what you have done, how you see us, how you ask us to live, WHO YOU ARE

"Do you yet know me?"

Oh a question that has been ringing round and round and round my head for days and weeks now. I don’t, oh God I want to and yet i still don't, if I did know you I would not look like I do. I fi did know you I would be so differetn, i woud look different sound differnet walk differently, heck id even smell different, i know i would God I want to know you, really know you, that I may be transformed into your likeness and see the glory o fGOd resting upon the earth in a way and scale noone has even seen before, God, I want to truly be a laid down lover of yours, everything, take everything.

I would rather experience repentance in my soul than know how to define it." Thomas A Kempis

Amen and amen

"He who has a pure, simple and constant spirit is not distracted by the many thigns he does, because he does all for the honor of God and endeavors to remain inwardly free of all seeking of himself. What greater hindrance or annoyance is there than our heart's uncontrolled passions?

The good devout person first inwardly plans the words that he will outwardly do, and does not allow himself to be drawn by any unworthy inclination, but on the contrary, he accomplishes these works in accordance with the dictates of right reason." Thomas A Kempis

And yet how, without actually becoming a monk up a mountain, do we achieve this? How does this look whilst living in the world and impacting the world? Where is the balance? How do we find this God?

OH what a day. I left that entry halfway through feeling totally convicted and yet with no idea how to walk what I wrote, what I cried out for and then I began to understand. It is slowly slowly but so much of today I have been completely overwhelmed with love. I am not talking sentimentality, I am talking overwhelming love, I am talking loving onpatients, seeing their value, it mattering to me their emotions how they feel what happens to them, a love for people that rises up inside me when injustice comes, a love that means I lay down myself for others, a love that is budding slowly as a flower just like I asked Jesus for. As I lay down my food until it is simply functional in nature, as I lay down my sleep, as I give up all these things and just focus on Him as much as I can and gain greater revelation of grace and no condemnation when I fall plus a holy fear of the Lord that comes from all of the above stuff from this morning…man I hate that I cannot truly articulate what I feel except that it is not a manic high or a manic low as I spend most of my time, it is a deep sustained overwhelming, unable to quench love.

As I was writing that, this chorus came on:

“This is love, real love

This is love real love

This is love

Oh that she would be with me

This is love real love

This is love, true love

The Son of man, the Son of God,

Bleeding on a tree…

…oh the terrifying beauty of the cross

The terrifying wisdom of the cross

only love could ever entice me…"

The other day I was cleaning up a gentleman who I love so incredibly much who has had a stroke and is now unable to speak well or eat and just wept and wept. I loved on him so much until now I walk in and we laugh and laugh, oh thankyou Jesus. I was singing this song to myself as I walked in a found that he had had explosive diarrhea all over the bathroom due the antibiotics we had him on and he just stood there, covered in it, weeping. I stood there, almost retching and Jesus jst stood with me and I loved on this guy, I loved him so much it didn’t matter anymore. I got him comfortable and then went back into his bathroom instead of getting the cleaners cos I knew he was so embarrassed and he trusted me and I cleaned the whole thing by hand whilst humming the riff “This is love, real love”. I am starting to get it.Oh Jesus how beautiful are you, it is only the tiniest bit of what you did and yet it makes so much sense. So beautiful, so terrifying but so beautiful. Oh Jesus.

“I’ve got so much to lose if Im gonna try to prove myself

But you say

I Breathe deep

Cos it brings you pleasure

Il live, il live only cos your alive

I Breathe I breathe cos it brings you pleasure

I live, I live only cos your alive

I will love you, oh through the pain, til only love remains

I am your, oh Jesus I am yours

I will love you, oh through the pain, til only love remains

I am your, oh Jesus I am yours”

- He bled (Corey Russell album)

I am gonna stop trying to prove stuff to you God. My decision this lent is to live by that last line. I am going to love like Mother Teresa taught us to love. To love through the pain til only love remains.

Jesus, I wanna give you more, but what I have is yours. Thankyou for taking the time to make this make sense. Keep revealing yourself, I want to understand love in the context of service, I wanna understand love in the contetxt of seeing people as you see them, I wanna see love in the context of Justice but God, more than anything, I wanna see love in context of the cross, in the context of the bride, in the context that is too big to even comprehend. Put me deep in your heart daddy, I want to love as you love, it is so so beautiful here.

Thankyou

I have got to write it one more time:

As Mother Teresa said:

The work we do is nothing more than a means of transforming our love for Christ into something concrete. I didn’t have to find Jesus. Jesus found me and chose me. A strong vocation is based on being possessed by Christ. He is the life I want to live. He is the light that I want to radiate. He is the Love with which I want to love. He is the Joy that I want to share. He is the peace that I want to sow. Jesus is everything to me. Without Him, I can do nothing”

“I will love you through the pain, til only love remains I am your, oh Jesus I am yours”

amen