Tag Archives: 2 Corinthians 3:18

Dream Big

16 Dec

Sweet Sisters in the Faith,

I found myself challenged afresh this morning to define my dreams and so, I pass the challenge along to you. The challenge to open your heart and ask God what wild, holy, ambitious dreams He would have you ponder. To look into His Word and find His meaning of big as He desires to have it unfold in your life. And to continue to be present in the challenge of dreaming in Him daily.

Never cease to ask Him what sweet tastes of glory He has in the palm of His nail-scarred hand and the center of His heart specifically for you. Never shy back from pressing close to see the glory behind the veil. Continually ask Him to show you all you can take of Himself and astound you with beauty of His enormity.

Let your holy dreams transform your soul and bring you life no matter your location, your emotion or your physical condition. Nothing this world has to offer will bring you contentment, peace and joy like a growing, thriving, stretching, reaching relationship with Jesus. Gaining Christ, leaning into Him, chasing after Him is the only thing that will satisfy your heart and fill your soul. The only thing that will bring healing from the heartside out.

Beautiful Daughter of Abraham, my prayer for us as we think on the challenge of dreaming big is that we will give God permission to define its shape and form so our own baggage ridden definition will not leave us feeling small. That we will meet with Him on the bank of the river of grace, embrace the warmth of His light and breathe in His heart for us knowing that He is the Giver of all good gifts.

And my dream is that our dreams will bring us to a place of unity in our love of the Messiah, our awe of the Father and our wonder of the Spirit. That our ponderings will lead us to see one another with our hearts and we will reach across our comfort zones to encourage and to spur one another on. My dream is that as sojourners in the faith we would believe God to be for and not against us, that we would look to Him for our worth leaving comparison and competition behind and division would have no foothold in our midst. And from that place of linked arms and connected hearts, armed with big, ambitious, holy dreams . . . we would change our world.

These are the dreams of this daughter of the King.

Tell me Child of God, what are yours?

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We will Resemble what we Pursue

1 May

The words of God through the pen of the Prophet Jeremiah echo in my ears this morning . . . “They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves.” Bunny paraphrase – you will resemble what you pursue.

That is not new to you Dear One. You know it to be true. Whatever you or I choose to fix our eyes on will direct our footsteps. But we can’t fool ourselves for one moment into thinking we’re simply grabbed by the nose and dragged down the primrose path. No, in most—if not every—instance we travel that road all too willingly.

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We may not begin the journey with determined steps toward whatever shiny bauble has averted our gaze but it doesn’t take long until we’re making deliberate strides toward the thing.  And I know it may sound harsh and it may sting our hearts but the truth of the matter is that if we had been intentional, if we had made the conscious choice, to fix our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith . . . if we had chosen to keep in lockstep with the Spirit . . . we’d never find ourselves hot on the heels of the worthless thing and becoming worthless ourselves.

See Sister, that’s just not our destiny. Our destiny as believers and full-throttle followers of Jesus Christ is to keep our thoughts fixed on our Messiah and our eyes hard-and-fast on Him so that as we behold His glory we are transformed and little by little reflect the same image as the One who is absolutely Worthy.

18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. 2 Corinthians 3:18

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Sweet One, we serve no one well when we settle for less than God created us to be . . . when we allow ourselves to be distracted by the fading sparkle of this world. He has reserved far too much for us for us to dissuade so easily!

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 1 Peter 1:3-5

He calls us to keep our eyes and our hearts focused on Him not because He’s on an ego trip. God does not need our attention to be secure in being God. He invites us to look upon Him, to walk with Him, to be resolute in pursuing the holy life for our benefit.

Within the boundary of holy living lies the blessing.

Again, this is not news to you. Even if you’ve not read the Scriptures that flat out tell us the boundary lines have fallen for us in pleasant places or that we are hemmed in before and behind by the Hand of Glory, you know it by experience, I know it by experience.

And yet, you and I can look back over our lives and see the times we willfully walked outside His borders and ignored the Voice of Love asking us to keep our feet firmly planted and our eyes steadfastly focused. The outcome wasn’t good. The result was certainly not blessing. . . and might it be that when we pursued the things of this world the aftermath of the chase left us feeling empty and worn-out? Because we had not chosen, had not predetermined, to stand firm had we indeed chosen to move ever closer to becoming worthless?

Beloved, I will never practice life within the holy boundaries by accident. My pursuit, and may I be so bold Sister as to say yours as well, must be deliberate. The distance between temptation and participation is far too narrow for us to leave it to chance. We must be determined to live with our eyes fixed on our Savior and our hearts filled with the Holy Spirit . . . aware of our boundaries and resolved to live inside the blessing.

The next shiny object is just around the corner. The next opportunity to be distracted is never far off and another chance to follow and therefore become what is worthless looms in the distance.

Girlfriend, I may not know the specifics of your struggle or the identity of the thing that competes for your attention, but this I do know . . . if you will fix your eyes firmly on Him it will be Grace that you see looking back.  Gaze upon Him and you will be face-to-face with the Worthy One who has stooped from His Throne to lavish you with His attention and affection.  Lean in close and your heart will hear the Voice of Love spurring you on in your pursuit, assuring you that no daughter of the King is destined for a worthless life, whispering to your soul that you are of infinite value to Him and declaring from the Cross  . . . “She is worth it!”

CREATION SWAP worthy CROSS SILHOUETTE 26681_silhouette_of_cross_alone

 

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