Motivated by love

1 Corinthians 13- love as the only thing of true value above all else--more than signs and wonders, more than spiritual gifts, more than sacrifice--the Lord was asking me if I would be willing to lay aside missions and my desires for ministry to cultivate a heart of love and intimacy that will sustain. To learn to abide.

During an awesome worship time recently (04/19/13, I was praying something like this: "Lord I don't want to look clean on the outside and be defiled within. I don't want to be a white-washed tomb (as my friend had termed it). What is it really like to be a son, a daughter of God? What is it like to not be a slave? To not be driven to obey laws, commands, expectations...then the verse came to mind that Jesus spoke: "If you love me, you will obey my commandments," and I heard the Lord say, "It's not obedience first, it's love. That you might be motivated by love, that you would be driven by love, by LOVE, by LOVE, by LOVE! As you grow in love for me, you will grow in obedience. You don't have to strive for perfect obedience. That's why I sent my Son for you! He was perfectly obedient for you. No matter how many times you fall, no matter how many times you fail, I accept you. You are accepted in my Beloved Son." This was an answer to prayer, a question I've asked the Lord many times over several years now. I never understood. I would go in circles wondering, "Lord do I really love you? I'm not even sure I obey you. I feel like I'm failing most of the time. I don't understand your expectations, how can I meet your standards? They're too high. I wanted so badly to love the Lord, but I figured if I didn't always know His will for my life and obey it, then I'd failed at loving Him. Most of the time I'd try to go in the prayer closet I'd feel like I fail at my duty to pray and intercede for others, and I'd get frustrated because I couldn't get past this wall. That wall was probably my own self-righteousness, and I didn't realize that prayer flows from His heart in a connection to ours--He is the One that lives to intercede for us. He showed me that He grows love in my heart for Him as I get to know Him and learn to trust Him. And that its out of this love inside of me for Him, which ultimately comes from a experiential knowledge of His love for me, will flow obedience. I think I'd probably heard this before, but in that moment it became real to me. My heart was overflowing with love for Him, and I felt the pleasure He has in me. Sitting at His feet and receiving from Him--doing nothing--is what has been teaching me this. This past year, as I began to face my brokenness like never before, and my inability to overcome these weaknesses, He had me write down the lies that some of my broken, innermost parts have believed about Him and myself for many years now. Most of these lies I already knew I believed. It's a project I haven't finished, but I knew I had to find the truth in His Word about the painful reality of these wounds and write them out on paper and begin to post them on the wall to look at continually, and make declarations over my life with them. In one of the verses I found for the lie of insufficiency and my inadequacy, He showed me that Jesus was and is the ALL SUFFICIENT, PERFECT offering to God FOR ME. In Leviticus 22:17-25 it says, "And whoever offers a sacrifice of a PEACE OFFERING to the LORD, to FULFILL his vow (covenant promise) or a FREEWILL offering from the cattle of the sheep, it must be PERFECT to be ACCEPTED; there shall be NO DEFECT in it..." And in Hebrews 5:9 it says, "And having been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him". Jesus became a fragrant offering and pleasing sacrifice (aroma) to God. He is that perfect sacrifice described in Leviticus! He was the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. He is the eternal High Priest. It's ok that I can't get it right and that I'm a weak and broken sinner. That's what He died and lived for, to fulfill the righteous requirements of the law that were against me and held me in judgment. He took them away and nailed them to the cross. The Word says the law is a tutor to lead us to Christ. Not so that we can be 'saved' and continue to live under judgment and condemnation, but so that we can be fully accepted in the sight of God! The enemy doesn't want us to understand this, because if we do, we will live as conquerors, living out our potential through the power of Christ in us, rather than as powerless failures unable to be good enough to be accepted by God--(one way we think this is in saying something like this: "I'm such a sinner, how can God possibly really like me or use me for His kingdom when I'm so weak and messed up?"). I may be wrong, but I don't think I'm the only one that's ever thought this. The reason I know, is because it's obvious this is not my own thought--it's from the enemy! It's a statement of condemnation, and Romans 8 says there is therefore now NO CONDEMNATION for those who are in Christ Jesus! But we don't recognize these thoughts as coming from another source, because we hear ourselves think them, we feel they are true, and a part of us actually believes they are true. This is another revelation for another post, and an important key I believe the Lord has begun to reveal to me. But back to the message of this post--the Lord wants us to know: "You do NOT have lack, you are NOT insufficient. You are NOT rejected or turned away." The Father gladly accepts our defected 'freewill offerings' to Him, but our forgiveness and righteousness has been accomplished through the sacrifice of His Son alone. Nothing can be added to it, nothing taken away. We who have believed in the Christ, the Son of the living God, have been stamped and sealed with the King's signet ring, sealed with His love that He has poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, and clothed with His holy, royal robe. Praise the Lord! He could have left us as we were, completely unable to change our hopeless state of broken and sinful humanity. But He came to redeem us and restore us to Himself. "Oh wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thank God-- through Jesus Christ our Lord!