He usually wakes me up around this time of the morning, these past couple weeks. For a few minutes' fellowship, then more sleep. And...I really want to get better about that--getting up, rather than lying there and praising, then falling asleep.
There's so much more to be had, as far as studying the Bible, prayer, and fellowshipping in the serenity of these quiet hours before sunrise.
Perhaps soon sleep won't be such a necessity. Thus, more time to fellowship and to learn. There's just so much to learn, and all eternity won't even see an end to what there is to know of the Lord.
That's such a wonderful thought. Seriously.
The knowledge that something so very dear is endless to the extent that no matter how ardently sought, no matter how wholeheartedly fulfilled in each finding, still there will always be more to desire and pursue and be fulfilled unto.
Such as it's been these past many months, to know Him.
Frankly, this past week, it's become more and more weary a thing to refer to Jesus as someone who's an impartial, distant charaterization of someone sought to know. It's very difficult to maintain that, especially given recent entrance into a dearer fellowship of brothers and sisters who have so been freed and blessed by Him to know Him likewise intimately in spiritual experience on an entirely personal level.
There are just so many things about Him which are just so absolutely and completely precious and wonderful, even as who He is...as He is...is so very, utterly fearsome in reality as so distinctly different and wholly superior to everything we are, here and now.
Just that...there HAS to be reverence. There absolutely MUST be an humbling which bows and trembles before His absolute majesty and fearsome supremacy and power.
There must be a trembling in awe and terror of Him, as He is.
Just...as He is so wholly superior and He is omnipotent. ALL powerful. He IS power.
...such that, even to Moses, He didn't reveal Himself wholly because it would have basically disintegrated Moses to be face-to-face with the Creator.
If that thought is not real enough as to strike some level of abject terror (which "abject" should imply that it's not a "level"...but, such is this world we presently live in..)..
..if not, then seek Him more ardently, as to know Him more deeply and truly.
As for myself, I know I don't yet fear Him nearly enough. There are certain times, certain things revealed strike a note of terror so real and complete that, momentarily, breathing halts...but, even then...even then..
..there's so much to who He is.
Knowing Him, to any degree truly, is loving Him. For those who so know Him, now.
For others, someday...there will ONLY be terror.
...a heart-wrenching thought.
Oh, just to have His heart, though.
For a moment, earlier today, I received a revelation of how barren is my own still...and it utterly devastated.
A small dog, lying snuffling in the beams of mid-afternoon sun...so love-starved, largely ignored as beneath notice except to periodically pet, periodically bathe, constantly feed and water. Always anxious, snuffling, sneezing. Overweight and with eye problems. Lying there, in the sun, relaxed yet anxious...a small, snuffling, tense bit of isolation wrapped in a fuzzy, anxious munchkin. And I looked at her with a small bit of affection, seeing her as precious in that moment, yet noting a deplorable and wholly degenerate lack of fullness of warmth within my heart, accordant. ...noting it, for having a momentary revelation of recollection of what it once was to love. Remembering, for just a moment, what it was to really care without condition, about all creatures.
It broke me, to realize the hardness which yet persists...the coldness.
I went and wept before Him, over it. Because it's terrible, and there's nothing I can do about it. Nothing except thank Him for the revelation and plead that He will break my heart wholly anew, create in me a clean heart, renew a right spirit within me, replace my heart of stone with one of flesh.
Further, further, further.
For, even seeing this so clearly today...it's still with full awareness that, even of the last many months has my heart grown more open than it was...more loving. And, so yet to have revelation of such coldness?
It's deeply disturbing.
I saw a glimpse of it, yesterday, interacting with a couple of folks unexpectedly who... *sigh*
...after the point of beginning dialogue, knowledge having opened a direct door to insult was realized. Feared. Then...gradually accepted, prayerfully.
It was somewhat a struggle, though not near what it would have been even two weeks ago...not to take to heart the insults, nor to respond in like spirit...it was only accomplished by grace, with an ardent desire to somehow relay the love of Christ...
...yet, realizing I was struggling to even feel it for them, let alone to convey/relay.
That's absolutely tragic.
The entirety of a Christian's walk is supposed to evidence Christ's love.
The entirety.
Even in truth. Not seeking to offend, but never dissembling.
Passionate, yet not raging.
As much as in spirit. Never taking on a sense of sarcasm, which is biting and full of the edges of mockery.
Never taking on scorn, nor arrogance, which assert themselves as dominant over whosoever poor soul is such a recipient.
A spirit of love, which is God.
A spirit of truth, which is love.
Walking in truth, acting in truth--never lying. Ever.
And there are still so many temptations to cut corners, there, so far as just desire to refrain from full disclosure.
The things said in secret will be brought into the light, though--He promises that. And it's a merciful promise, too...for if they're not, then will they be repented of? And if they are not repented of, then whence comes deliverance?
So, we must all walk in the light, as He is in the light. Doing nothing in darkness, having no part in hiding or dissembling.
I had lived in darkness. I sought it out.
One conversation with a fellow who was an ongoing aquaintance from 2005 to 2009 in New Orleans keeps coming back to mind. Maybe the first night we'd met, maybe further along...walking Decatur Street, toward Esplanade. And as he was talking to me about some breadth of his esoteric knowledge, he prefaced much by saying there were some people who were of the light, and there were those who were of the darkness. And, I remember...I caught my breath, for a moment, in fear--feeling caught out, of all things. It was so strange and made no sense, still makes no sense.
I asked him which we each were. He said he was of the darkness, then looked very curiously at me for a moment...studying me. And told me I was of the light... ...and my visible disappointment made him change his assessment to include that there was some darkness in me. That was satisfactory.
And as the Lord said--any darkness is total blindness.
Complete blindness.
So, it doesn't matter that...despising Christians yet thinking myself still holding some place in my heart for God, yet thinking that I had some sidelong claim on accepting Jesus for who He was...it doesn't matter what I thought, because my actions were a total abomination before the Lord.
The wisdom of Man is complete foolishness. The wisdom of the world is full of lies.
I was so deluded. So completely in error. Acting as such an abomination, in such rebellion, blaspheming by way of my thoughts and my actions. And it just had ever become worse and worse, as the years had gone by.
So, it doesn't matter what I thought, because the entirety of my system of thought was completely based upon lies. Lies from the world, lies from my own series of rationalization, lies upon lies--within and without. As such, though, what haphazard system of "morals" there were as "principles" were yet...twisted, by course of my own spiritual debasement.
Just...one of the biggest lies that permeates society is..."Well, I'm not so bad--I don't sin much. I like God, so I should be fine. Besides, a good God wouldn't send someone who was a decent person to hell."
That's a lie straight from the adversary. There's either redemption through Christ, pursuing Him thereafter wholeheartedly and continuing always as a living sacrifice to God...or there's continuing in the condemnation of the curse of the law which all of Mankind lives under, per the fall from grace come by our original parents...Adam and Eve. They fell from grace, their spiritual natures were changed...they were no longer pure, no longer chaste, but had fallen prey to the temptation of self-worth and conception of the worth of anything other than God...they rebelled against Him, by giving into thoughts which called the holiness and supremacy of God into question. And they fell short of His glory. And THEN propagated. Such that the same fallen nature, tainted by iniquity into a susceptibility to evil as a known/perceived/experienced thus "tempting" course, was propagated through them.
So, either you're still living under the curse of the law...which is that those who do not fulfill the entirety of the law will go to death, by way of the rebellion enacted against He who is sovereign and omnipotent...either you're living under that... ...or you're pursuing Jesus, wholeheartedly.
We have to stay strong, y'all. It's part of edifying one another in Christ, as to maintain the course.
The gate is small and the way is narrow which leads to life. We have to stay the course.
And He will keep us--nothing can snatch those who are His from His hand. Just...we live in an age where accountability is completely ignored, and discipline is next to extinct--at least, in the senses they were written of in Scripture. So, it has to be confronted some time.
He will correct those of His who stray. He chastises those whom He loves.
Just...if you're doing things which are written against in the Bible and you feel no conviction about the sinfulness--seek God with all your heart, that He will restore you.
As I have to now continue to seek Him further and more ardently, now having realized these further shortcomings which He is to yet deliver unto restoration to Himself.
He will, for He is good. He is faithful.
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