To be Known by God

Every moment we make a choice. We make a choice to either hide or to allow ourselves to be known.

It's scary to let God know us. It’s terrifying to invite Him to examine our hearts.

Of course He already knows every single thing about us but its so different to confess it ourselves. To confess, “This is who I am Lord, every part. Will you still have me?” 

And to hear Him say, “I know who you are. I know everything about you and I will never ever stop loving you.”

Such grace.

Being known by God develops intimacy with God. He knows how I’m feeling, me coming to Him with how I’m feeling is what matters.

Coming to Him and laying out every part of who you are, brings you to a deeper appreciation of the fact that He loves every part of who you are. When we don’t come to God with the hard things, its as if we are pretending those things don’t exist. We pretend that God only see’s the qualities in us that we would like Him to see.

When we bare our hearts before Him we come away assured that we are still unconditionally loved and accepted.

It’s beautiful to think, ‘Jesus knows the ugliness in my heart today and He loves me anyway. Jesus knows my bitterness today and loves me anyway. Jesus knows my selfishness today and loves me anyway.'

 

Think about it for a moment. God doesn't love you because He is obligated to. God loves you for who you are as a person. He loves you for everything that makes you, you. 

We do ourselves a great disservice when we hide from God. When we try to earn His approval by presenting Him with what we think He wants to see. More than anything? He just wants your, real, honest heart. He is the one who will accept and understand you in a way that no one else on this planet is able to.

Fear, insecurity, and shame are things that teach us to hide from God. Allowing your whole self to be known by God brings freedom, security, and joy in who God has made you to be. 

Knowing things about God and being known by God are two completely different things. One is simply head knowledge and one gives life. Its one thing to believe that God already knows you completely, its another thing to open up your heart, lay it all out there, and say, "Here I am God."

The other day I said, “Lord I trust you.” And I heard, “Yes, but are you daily entrusting yourself to me?”

So I realized I must now choose to entrust to God the knowledge of who I am, every single part of me, every single day, every single moment. 

Be brave enough to let him know you. Trust Him with who you are, who you aren’t, and who you hope to be.

Can we really be known by others until we have allowed ourselves to be fully known by God? Can we even know ourselves until we have allowed ourselves to be known by God?

It is a choice that we must make everyday. To not try to put on a show for God but to finally take off the mask and let Him see us. He is waiting to comfort us, waiting to heal us, if only we would turn to Him and be real. If only we would let ourselves be known.

Every moment we make a choice. We make a choice to either hide or to allow ourselves to be known. Today I choose to be known.

It Is Finished

Three days.

That is how long the disciples waited; probably feeling disappointed, confused, and crushed. Their savior was gone, just like that. How could the one they saw heal lepers and restore vision to the blind be killed and buried, just like any other man? Can you imagine the thrill of walking beside Jesus everyday and then suddenly, nothing? I feel for those disciples, because I know something they didn’t yet know. I know about the Sunday. I know what happened three days later.

 I have never had to wonder if Jesus will stay dead. But I do know of a hopelessness that comes from a life of running from God. I do feel Peters pain as he must have imagined how Jesus could possibly forgive him after he had fallen so far.


John 20:1 “Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.”

I love how Mary Magdalene gets up while it is still dark out and goes to be with Jesus. She saw him crucified, she expects a body to be in that tomb, and yet she just needs to be near her savior. Even buried, He is her hope.

It reminds me in John 6 when Jesus asks the disciples if they too would leave and Peter replies, “Lord to whom shall we go?”

Even with Him supposedly dead, they had nowhere to be but with Jesus.

“Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying…. At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.
He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”
Jesus said to her, “Mary.”She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).
Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.” 
 

Mary stood weeping because her Lord’s body was gone, the last thing that she had left of Him. I love that though Jesus knew why Mary was weeping, He asked her how she was feeling and why.

Jesus’ relationship with Mary was intimate and He called her by name. Isn’t it so true that all He has to do is say our name and we KNOW that it is our Lord? I imagine His eyes tender, full of love and compassion as He says her name. In the same way, the Lord calls me by my full name, “Kaitlyn,” and I feel safe and loved. 

I can relate to Mary when Jesus tells her not to hold onto Him. After watching Jesus crucified and finally having Him before me, I would not have been able to restrain myself from throwing my arms around Him and weeping.

Mary’s hope has returned.

Your hope and my hope has returned.

The tomb was empty, Jesus is alive.

Jesus’ words three days earlier on the cross, “It is finished,” had proven true that morning.

Three little words that change everything.

 Because of Jesus’ death on the cross we are FREED from the penalty of our sins. We are not only freed from the penalty of our sins, we are also freed from the POWER of our sin. And because He rose again three days later, hopelessness is finished. Our guilt, our shame, it is finished.

Never again will we wait three days for our savior. He is here now. Death has been defeated. Chains and bondage and consequences of our sins and sins committed against us, THEY.ARE.FINISHED.

Jesus won us victory on the cross. How often do we not walk in that victory?

When He said, “It is finished,” He meant for you to drop all of the things you are trying to finish, to fix, and all of the ways you are trying to save yourself. Drop them all at the foot of the cross where He finished it for you. All of your burdens, everything you are carrying, they are finished. Lay them down. 

To swim to Jesus

Here’s a revelation I am being reminded of:

GOD DOESN’T JUST LOVE US ON OUR GOOD DAYS. Crazy right? Jesus doesn’t smile and pat us on the back on the days when we are patient and kind and honest and shake his head in disgust when we are bitter and inpatient and afraid.

Logically this makes perfect sense based on the all loving, kind father that we know God is. But sometimes I forget to live out this truth.

When I fail, after I repent and ask for forgiveness, I often hang my head in shame and refuse to meet my Father’s eyes. After a day my head slowly rises as I feel I have beaten myself up for a long enough time.

Letting our circumstances control our emotions is like being on a boat in a storm, with us bobbing up and down with every new trial.

It’s enough to make anyone a little seasick.

We NEED to be anchored in God’s truth. We have to be, there’s no other way.

And the truth? We are loved. God does not condemn us, he convicts us with the intent to quickly forgive and restore us. We need to be constantly aware of the father’s tender heart toward us.

One disciple who knew Jesus’ heart was Peter.

Peter denied Jesus not once but THREE times. There is no denying that he blew it big time. Peter promised that he would lay down his life for Jesus but instead he denied even knowing His savior.

So after the resurrection when Jesus called to the disciples Peter hid behind the others and averted his eyes in shame, right?

Nope. Instead, Peter jumped out of the boat into the cold water and swam all the way to Jesus. I imagine that a dripping wet Peter fell down at Jesus’ feet and threw his arms around him. Because Peter walked with Jesus and had seen firsthand how Jesus LOVES to forgive.

When we sin, when we fail and mess up and fail to measure up, that is when we must jump out of the boat and swim to Jesus. Don’t wait until the boat reaches shore, jump out and get to your savior as quickly as possible! The quicker you get yourself to Jesus, the quicker your reconciliation and redemption and cleansing can happen.

We don’t bring Jesus our good deeds and hope that they outweigh the bad. We bring Him a repentant heart that’s only longing is to be close to Him once more. I don’t want sin or shame to steal one single precious moment of intimacy with my Jesus.

I frequently find myself falling at Jesus’ feet and confessing my great desire to be reconciled to him.

Hebrews 4:16 “Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

Like Peter, I too have walked with Jesus and I have seen His mighty hand working powerfully in my life. I have seen with my own two eyes the way that His gracious kindness is quick to forgive my stumbling little heart.

In my life I have seen Him as one who breaks chains. I have seen Him as one who heals. One who redeems. One who restores. One who loves. There is no one who will love you more or better than Jesus. His love brings freedom and wholeness. God is ALWAYS good and we are ALWAYS loved.

 

Romans 8:37-39 “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

To be made well

I have been thinking a lot lately about a certain woman found in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, AND Luke. In that day women were not highly regarded, if they were regarded at all. But not according to Jesus, Jesus loves women. Anyone who says Jesus does not love women has not read their bible enough.

 This woman’s story was written about in THREE different gospels. And I have been thinking about her lately because I am reading the book of Matthew and I feel for this woman.

The Bible says that this woman had been bleeding for twelve years. Imagine the kind of suffering it would be to bleed for twelve years. Imagine the frustration, the shame and embarrassment, the hopelessness.

She had spent ALL of her money on doctors whose practices were apparently painful and for all of her money she grew worse instead of better. So she is broke and probably homeless and STILL bleeding, WORSE in fact!

Because of her bleeding condition, she was also an outcast from society, not allowed to participate in the religious ceremonies because she was considered unclean.

Considered unclean because of something that wasn’t her fault.

Here’s a woman, who, if she talked to God, spent a lot of time asking, “Why Lord?”

In biblical times illness was also commonly associated with sin. So this woman must also spend a great deal of time wondering what she had done to deserve such an illness. A lot of time must have been spent ignoring the gossip and the accusatory looks.

This woman must have felt so alone, thinking that no one could possibly understand her kind of suffering. But there was someone who did understand, and she was hearing all about Him.

She came up to Jesus in a crowd, not thinking herself worthy enough to even see Him face to face. The law stated that if an unclean person was to touch another person, they too would become unclean.  This woman had a lot of lose by touching Jesus, but she did it anyway.

All of Jesus’ goodness is bigger and more powerful than all of our dirtiness.

Despite everything that this woman had been through she still had faith that He could heal her. She said in Matthew 9, “If I only touch His cloak I will be healed.” Was He her last hope?

I wish that I had this kind of faith. When I made the decision to follow Christ, freshman year of college sitting on the floor of a large group setting during worship I was not one hundred percent sure of this God I was finally starting to really get to know.

As I prayed I said, “God, I don’t know if you can save me, I don’t know if you can fix my life. But I have tried everything else and You are my very last hope. I have nowhere else to go. You are it.”

Had any part of my life been any different, I don’t know that I would have been driven to my knees in such a desperate need for Jesus.

My life caused me to reach out for Jesus, aching to be made well. To be made whole. Wanting with all my heart to be redeemed and restored and renewed.  Hardly believing it possible, but wanting it so badly.

I wonder if she thought it all worth it, just to meet Him. That meeting changed her life. Not just because He stopped her bleeding, but because an encounter with God always radically shakes up our lives.

And He was already busy! He was on His way to raise someone from the dead. But He stopped for her. He stopped because He valued her enough to look her in the face and give her back her dignity.

And as she fell at his feet trembling in fear, she was made well. She was freed from her suffering. That is exactly what Jesus came to this earth to do, to free us from our suffering. Maybe not in all the ways we would like sometimes, but in His perfect ways.

He came to bring us the kind of freedom that comes from meeting Him face to face and knowing that you are saved and loved by Him as your heavenly father. Knowing that no matter what happens on this earth, Jesus has made you well.

And my favorite part of the story? He called her daughter.

No longer outcast, no longer unclean. No longer sick, no longer ashamed.

Daughter. 

A brand new life is calling and I owe it all to grace

I just finished a book where the author was telling a story about a hike she went on. She said the trail through thorn bushes, swamps, and mud was a difficult one, but it was all worth it when she reached the her destination. She ended up on a cliff overlooking her whole journey, and the view from the top was incredible.

That story hit me like a ton of bricks. Because that’s my life. My life before Christ was a journey through mud and thorns and swamps. But finally accepting Jesus as my savior, looking back over the long hike, it was all worth it.

At the time, those difficult situations seemed like swamps, looking back, they were stepping stones. Its funny how time can really change your perspective. Years back, in the midst of hardship I only felt despair, from where I am now I no longer feel shame or guilt.

Because I’m on the other side, I see how God has beautifully worked everything together and I feel hopeful.
 Hosea 6:1

“Come, let us return to the Lord; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.

Because I know the ending point is beautiful, I can look back on the journey with peace. Now that I see Gods redemptive power in my life, the past no longer seems so daunting.

The darkness of the past no longer matters because the future is so much brighter than I ever could have imagined. Because of the brightness that surrounds me I can look back and laugh where I used to cringe.

Jeremiah 30:17

For I will restore health to you, and your wounds I will heal, declares the Lord, because they have called you an outcast: ‘It is Zion, for whom no one cares!’

God is full of promises and He will never ever ever break a promise. My God is a God of restoration. What a beautiful promise.

Looking back is reassuring. You can say to yourself, “Look how faithful God has been to bring me this far. How could I doubt that He will carry me the rest of the way through?” He has been faithful before, He will be faithful again.

God has brought me so far, but there is still so much further for me to go! Sometimes its hard to see that I’m standing in victory, sometimes all I see is defeat. But I know that God wont leave me here.

Philippians 1:6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

I no longer look back and see regret

Now I look back and see God creating beauty out of chaos.

I see God supplying love where there was none
I see God softening the hardest of hearts
I see God bringing strength where there used to only be fear
I see God bringing peace and driving out worry and anxiety.

But most of all…

I see God bringing healing where gaping wounds lie
I see God making whole what was shattered
And I see God restoring and redeeming all that had been lost

Out of the ashes we rise.

Song Recommendation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd9VEgsM2G4