Encounter His Love // Receive God's Gifts For Youഉദാഹരണം

How to Find Your Way Back to Me

You know how to find your way to Me. It is written on your heart. It is not complicated. There is no formula. There is no prescribed list of rules to follow, no conditions I set for you to be near Me. But you are most ready to hear Me when you have a contrite heart. And that is most difficult to come by unless you want one, unless your heart is soft and open, unless you see yourself with true eyes.

I look on you, and I love you. I consider whom I have made, and I am not disappointed. I do not wish for contrition because I want you to feel bad about yourself. I encourage contrition because it is the way you remember what freedom is: knowing your God goes before you, and that any attempts to measure up (because I love you more than you know) are lost. I already love whom I have made. I already want to be with and restore what I have made. And that restoration, the continuing to grow in My fullness, the fullness I dreamed of when I first thought of you, comes with knowing that your strength, your hope, your love all comes from Me.

We are connected, you and I. I am yours. You are Mine. My life lives and breathes in you. My hope inhabits you. My joy overflows through you. There is no where else I would rather be.

So when you feel far away from Me, when you feel lost and distant, when you feel, surely, you are alone, you must do one thing first. You must let your heart receive My love. It is when you struggle to receive My love that, to you, I feel most distant from you. It is when you struggle to receive My love that you become overwhelmed, distant from your own heart, lonely and forlorn. 

Let Me open the pathways so you can receive more of My love for you. Do you want Me to? Let Me show you what is getting in the way of you believing I adore you. Spend time with Me. Trust that I am here. Trust that it was My love that first created you. Trust that My love will never leave you. Trust that the love that I am is never extinguished; it is more plentiful and abundant than you, right now, can possibly understand.  

So receive what you cannot understand. Receive what you feel you don’t deserve. Give Me your whole heart, all distrust, all hesitation, all remorse, all regret. I have taken your sin, by My Son. I no longer see it. But until you know I take it, until you let Me come in and release you from the bindings of sin, you still feel the effects of it, and it pulls you away from Me. 

I don’t want you pulled away from me. I want all of you. We are made to be together, you and I. So lay down your whole heart, and I will help you to love Me with the love that is in you, from Me. Lay down your whole heart, and I will show you how you struggle to receive My love. I will reveal to you what is blocking the freedom and joy and hope I have for you. Nothing can get in the way of Me, unless you want it to. I let you choose. Do you want Me? Do you want to receive My love? I want to release more of it on you. I want to grow you deeper in My love.

Exercise:

In our last episode, we looked at confession—and we actually did some. We talked about how confession—how being known, fully—is a critical component of a healthy spiritual life, and how it’s an important part of robust Christian community. We talked about how confession is necessary. But what we didn’t talk about is that, while necessary, it is not, by itself, sufficient. 

Only when we connect confession with repentance do we complete the process.

You see, confession is making our sins known—to God, to spouses, to trusted friends. Repentance, though—repentance involves turning from those sins; turning our backs on our old selves, on the people who committed those sins—so we can change. Repentance is saying, we don’t want to be those people anymore. Repentance is turning toward God, and His way. It’s a declaration of a renewed willingness to continue becoming more and more like Jesus.

Confession is critical, but it’s only the first step. Repentance is the ultimate step.

Now, ironically, while confession requires lots of courage, repentance just requires a soft, willing heart. In the parable of the Prodigal Son, Jesus taught us that it’s not sin itself that imperils us, but rather a hard, stubborn heart—an unwillingness to turn, an unwillingness to repent. The younger son in the story lived a life with ostensibly more and greater sin—if there is such a thing. The older brother simply harbored resentment and jealousy. The younger repented of his sins, though—and the older did not.

The father welcomed his youngest son and celebrated his return, despite his sin. He said “this brother of yours was once dead and gone, but now he is alive and back with us again. He was lost but now he is found!” That is from Luke chapter fifteen. And the father tried to do the same with his older son. He pleaded with him to join in celebration also. He pleaded with him to soften his heart. But the older brother would not. Without repentance, we continue in our sin. Without repentance, we continue on our own path . . . toward death. Jesus says, “unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” That’s from Luke chapter thirteen.

So, let’s do some repentance right now.

Jesus, I come to You now. My heart is soft; my spirit is willing. I want to learn how to live all my life with a soft, willing heart—so that You can work in me more, and make me more like You. But I need your grace. I need the power of Your Spirit to soften my heart and to give me a willing spirit. Give me that power now.

Jesus, I want to turn from the sin that I so easily fall into. I want to be done with it. I want to move into new life, into a new chapter of my story.

Jesus, I repent of this sin now. With Your power flowing through my being, Holy Spirit in me, I turn my back on the person I’ve been, on that person who committed these sins. I want to be different. You make me a different person—new. So, I am ready to turn. I turn now, with Your help. I turn away from this sin, and I turn to You.

Astonishingly, Jesus will always let us start anew. Always. No matter what you or I have done. We are always able to start new. And we are starting new right now.

Luke wrote in Acts chapter three that, when we repent and turn back to God, our “sins will be removed, and . . . times of refreshing will stream from the Lord’s presence.”

That’s a promise. God is telling us how things work in His Kingdom. So your willingness to repent today, to turn today—it matters. It changes things. Because you have repented today, get ready for Jesus to release times of refreshing. It’ll be in His way and with His timing, but get ready for times of refreshing to stream into your life. Amen.