I'm celebrating freedom this week. Not the independence type of freedom, but the upside-kingdom type of freedom... freedom {in} dependence on Him! And it is such a relief.
He has been extending me {and you} an invitation to the promised land- a land flowing with milk and honey, a land of security, a land of peace and joy... this is what sanctification looks like: a life wholly possessed by God. He longs for us to cease striving, to give up our independence, to surrender all. He is calling us to just breathe and live in love with Him, right here. All that He asks is for us to love Him, to walk in obedience to Him and to hold fast to His hand. He does all the rest! He even causes us to desire Him and gives the ability to obey! It's all Him! Hallelujah!
A few truths I'm learning to celebrate since attending Thrive Retreat:
- Truth #1: He just wants me to walk with Him in love, holding fast to His hand- to do the things I see Him doing, to heed the small prompts of His Spirit, and to only take up what He lays upon me each day. His yoke is easy, and His burden is light.
- Truth #2: I am His temple, the place He has chosen His name to abide, His dwelling place. And so all that I do in this body can be my offering. I can rejoice in all to which I put my hand.
- Truth #3: He wants to enlarge my borders- He is the God of freedom! Within His walls I am absolutely free to do whatever I please, because He is within me. My delight in His gifts brings joy to His heart. Even my care for this "temple" {self-care, rest, exercise, healthy eating, getting a shower} ministers to Him.
- Truth #4: Service then becomes overflow of the heart. I want to please Him, because I adore Him and enjoy Him. He fills and fills as I allow Him to take care of me and then my cup runneth over! Pure gift.
- Truth #5: Since it's all Him, I can ask for help. I need Him and I need others. Dependence is good for me and good for community.
I'm overwhelmed today by His grace and goodness. And kicking myself for making this Christian life harder than He ever intended. Let's get this party started!
{The Scriptures inspiring these thoughts come from our daily reading in the Autumn Harvest Challenge. Deuteronomy 10:8, Deuteronomy 11:22-24, Deuteronomy 12:5-7, Psalm 44:8}
Stay tuned tomorrow for Celebrating Community!
What are you celebrating today? Leave a comment!
Such life-giving truths, Kelly! Pure, contagious joy radiates from this post. So glad you're sharing the transformation that you're experiencing. Celebrating with you!
ReplyDeleteKelly, thanks for linking up so we can celebrate with you. I love that "extending our borders" can look so paradoxically backwards :).
ReplyDeleteDr. Maurice Bucaille is a surgeon by profession. He is also a renowned scholar. In order to be able to read Quran in its original text and to study its meaning and purport through direct access to its early and modern commentaries, he devoted himself to the learning of Arabic language at the ripe age of fifty.
ReplyDeleteThereafter, he made a beginning by trying to reconcile proven scientific truths with religious axioms. As a result of these studies, he wrote his famous book "QURAN, BIBLE AND SCIENCE" in 1976, which caused a furor in high academic circles - particularly in the Christian world.
After a deeper study of Islam and the Quran, he has authored another book titled, "THE ORIGIN OF MAN". It comprised Quranic explanations of some of the queries raised much earlier than the period when those queries were logically and satisfactorily resolved by scientific experimentation, to be fully in conformity with the explanations provided by Quran about 1500 years before. The Church acknowledged and accepted these researches of Dr. Bucaille to be a valuable contribution to human knowledge and the author became famous all over the world, like Cambridge, and Oxford Universities in U.K. & Yale and Harvard in USA. He was invited to give Extension Lectures in their academic institutions. By dint of his Quranic thought, and by virtue of his unprejudiced and realistic approach to Quranic thought, and by virtue of his unprejudiced and realistic discussion and research work, Dr. Bucaille has converted a number of high ranking scholars to agree with him and to subscribe to his view that the Quran is a Divine Book, not authored by any human being and actually a Book of Revelations from Almighty God to His Last Prophet, Mohammed, Peace Be Upon Him.
M. Bucaille is of the view that his findings in this behalf are a cause of consternation and chagrin to Western scholars because of their earlier exposure to false and fictitious propaganda against Islam and its Prophet (S.A.W.), by the Christian clergy and by biased Western writers and authors. This misguided class of people could not believe that Quran was the only Scripture which had remained sacrosanct and free from all additions, alterations and interpolations and consequently it still retained the purity to guide mankind in all ages, places and in every conceivable crisis.
For over 1400 years it has been the only treasure house of ecclesiastical and cosmic knowledge about the universe and life itself. Mankind has not yet to progress and proceed to a stage where it can fully be au fait with all the pearls and gems of wisdom and truth, garnered in its bosom by this miracle of literacy, excellence and academic purity which could not be matched even in one small sentence by the literary giants of yore, in spite of an open challenge to this effect.