I have been so amazed at the revelation of God’s punching the care out of me. It’s not like this is a new event, it has been a lifetime of bludgeoning. But what I do have is a new perspective on it. I have new eyes and a new awareness of its meaning. This has come through much prayer, prophecy and revelation. When a path of suffering reveals its purpose and benefits to you, you have the choice to be free. So today I wanted to further expound on the process revealed in my last post.
As I wrote, the Lord has punched the care out of me. In essence, He has delivered loving blows upon my heart and person. These thwacks have been divinely purposed in the mind of God and I want to share with you what they are. They all have had a purpose and it is my hope that my telling of this will help you, too.
Crucified to the World
My pummeling is one thing and one thing only—the cross! I have continually been crucified to the world as it has rejected and scorned me for looking to it for love. It has been a death, but not a purposeless one. The reason? There’s no resurrection Life without crucifixion. What I am encountering in this life is the many blows of death that comprise my cross unto resurrection.
Every area of our lives has to die in order to be resurrected in the Life of Christ. His Life lived through us is predicated on our death. And no, we don’t have to experience the Life of Christ; we can just live our lives. But if we want His Life above our own, death will precede it.
And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.”
Luke 9:23-24
I have prayed bold prayers of wanting to be eternally as close to Christ as I can. I know my earthly life is but a vapor, and I want it to be a conduit into an eternal union with Christ. I don’t want to just go to heaven; I want to be as close to Him as I am allowed. What this entails is separation from the world. And God has systematically crucified my love for this world by leading me to be crucified to the world.
But as for me, God forbid that I should boast about anything except for the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The world has been crucified to me through Hm, and I have been crucified to the world.
Galatians 6:14 CEB
Crucified Love for People
I absolutely love people and am delighted to be fully engaged with them. I love being mentally and emotionally involved. I don’t like superficial relationship of: “I’m fine, you’re fine, have a nice day.” Puke! I want to be seen and see others because I love to love on a deep level. This has been my heart from childhood and I feel it was given to me by God. But what else was bestowed on me is an earnest desire to see God’s face. And oddly enough, these two things are completely complimentary.
My eternal desire is to be with Him and my earthly desire has been the very cross that Christ made for me to die upon. He infused into my DNA my desire and a cross to deliver me into His hands. We each are given an invitation to lay down our lives, and if we choose it, we will be rewarded with our eternal desire.
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Galatians 2:20 ESV
Here is another kicker: I am called to deeply love people with His Life. And as long as it has been my life rather than His Life, all that issues out of me is expectation of others. My human love is common and temporal, whereas His Love and Life is eternal. If I want my love to have eternal significance and to impart Life, then that will come in the wake of the death of my self-life—being crucified to the world. Funny, I have to be separated from the world, crucified by it, to truly give and interact with it in the deep way I wanted.
Everything in this life is about the Life of the Life-Giver. Christ’s Life issues forth eternity and eternal significance. All I can do is praise Him for His preeminence in seeing to fruition the desires He has placed within me. I can take credit for neither their placement nor fulfillment.
Simply put, if you’re not willing to take what is dearest to you, whether plans or people, and kiss it good-bye, you can’t be my disciple.
Luke 14:33 MSG
Thank you John for expounding on this post! It is very encouraging to hear the testimony of the Lord in you! Don’t know why, but as I’m reading this, I was reminded of Abraham. He had a great desire to have a child, and who planted that desire in him but God. And we know the story with all the ups and the downs and the process it took, but at the end even what God gave him, had to be offered back to God, in order for it to live. In other words you can’t hold it in your… Read more »
Hello dear John… You know, I found something I was missing in a specific situation in what you shared here today… That there is a CHOICE to make on the other side of suffering! Which is how to continue on from there… If I choose to try to get back up, Life is not the result… I look for it but it’s not there. All I find is exhausting frustration and an emotional migraine from trying to figure it all out… I must choose to go on by FAITH IN JESUS!!! And that’s the second exact same slap in the… Read more »
Thank you John for your witness. What an amazing and clear path of detachment, and what a joy to find one in such a knowledge of the Cross of Jesus. I praise God for you and your clearness and your sanctification. I really do. What came to mind while reading you was this: “You have not come to a physical mountain, to a place of flaming fire, darkness, gloom, and whirlwind… no, you have come…. to Jesus, the one who mediates the new covenant between God and people, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks of forgiveness instead of crying… Read more »
Correction: That the Cross IS intimate knowledge and the enjoying of Jesus…