Dancing FreeSample

Day 1: Yielding my heart to His heart

Revelation:

The heart of Jesus is the very heartbeat of love, for He does not only love us, He is love personified (1 John 4:16). “When nothing else could help, love lifted me.” The words of this song have been my testimony ever since I encountered the relentless love of Jesus as a 20-year-old college student.

I was on a plane to New York City for the first time. I had left school, afraid to get on a plane by myself. I just wanted someone to hold my hand day by day until my confidence was restored. Then suddenly, Jesus spoke. I don’t remember the time, but it was dark, close to the midnight hour. As I sat in the aisle seat, tears streamed down my face. My tears had caught me unaware, and I couldn’t control them. They just flowed, and I tried to wipe them away for fear of looking foolish to the person sitting next to me. But Jesus, simply yet so powerfully, told me words that have forever changed my life: “I love you.” In that moment, I surrendered my heart of fear to His heart of perfect love, and I was set free from trying to earn His love.

I learned in that moment that we can’t earn the love of Jesus, for it is unconditional. His agapé love sees beyond our weaknesses, covers our sinfulness, and meets us at the places of our deepest needs. God proved His love for us in this, “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Paul describes the love of Christ through his prayer in Ephesians 3:17–18, “that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."

His love is revealed through the imagery of a tree and its roots, for Paul begins by praying that the believers in Ephesus are rooted and grounded in love. This connects us to the poetry of Psalm 1:3, when the psalmist speaks of the righteous as a tree, planted by the rivers of water. Just as a tree spreads its roots wide, deep, long, and high to find water, so too love is the nourishment our spirit yearns for and our soul continually searches for.

Finally, in verse 18, Paul describes the love of Christ as beyond knowledge that fills us with all the fullness of God! As a tree is fed by the sweetness of its sap, so too the love of Christ is the nourishment that heals our body, soul, and spirit, and literally fills us with God Himself!

Reflection & Release:

What fear has tormented your heart? Take a moment to write it down or say it out loud, then pray this prayer with me:

Prayer:

Beloved Jesus, here is my heart. Lord, I break every agreement with fear, and I run into Your arms of love. Please hold me, heal me, and pour Your perfect love like a river into every broken place of my heart. My heart is Yours, and with my whole heart, I receive Your love that casts away all fear.