All of Me

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s comands and remain in his love.” (John 15:9-10)


Spiritual formation is foundational to living a Christian life that is pleasing to the Lord and worthy of his sacrifice and calling.

Spiritual transformation requires obedience. It requires intentionality on my part to do what the Lord commands, but it cannot be accomplished by depending on my will alone.

Spiritual transformation requires that I (heart, soul, thoughts, feelings, will) work together with the Holy Spirit in interaction with the grace of God to let God’s love change me in the core of my inner person.

Hungering for righteousness, longing and wishing for my attitudes, motivations, reactions, desires, and focused action to be beautiful and good, even Christ-like, won’t happen automatically while my attention is consumed in other things.

Spiritual transformation requires that I make love the central focus of my life. Jesus says, “Now remain in my love.” (John 15:9) Remain. Stay there. Don’t leave.

Love is the very least and the very most I can do.

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Quenched

"Dedicate your life to a cause greater than yourself, and your life will become a glorious romance and adventure." Mack Douglas


Thirst. Unquenched desire, longings—all of these are an invitation to passion. When we’re hungry and thirsty, that's when we get to the place where we realize that nothing we are doing really satisfies us—we are desiring something more. Something deeper. Something real. And then we are ready to hear Jesus: "Those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty again." (John 4:14a)

Lord, if this is true, give me this water!

When we come to him thirsty, the Lord Jesus gives us the Spirit of God. He gives us himself. He is the refreshment we desire. He alone quenches our souls’ restlessness and emptiness. He alone satisfies. We are set free. Freed from the ceaseless need to find something that will satisfy. Quenched. Well-watered. No longer obsessively, yet perhaps unknowingly, driven to be loved. When I come to Jesus, his Holy Spirit flows into my life and turns my passion to find something to satisfy my deepest longings into a passion for Himself and a passion for sharing his love and goodness on earth. Life becomes a glorious romance...and adventure.

Passion lived.

Every day.

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Longings

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you.” Matthew 7:7-8


Do you know what your heart longs for? Perhaps what you are looking for is God. After years of restlessness, seeking acclaim from the philosophy department at Harvard, something happened in Thomas Kelly’s life. No one knows what, but somehow the longings within him finally led him to God. He spoke to a group in 1938:

“I want to speak as simply, as tenderly, as clearly as I can. God can be found. There is a last rock for your souls, a resting place of absolute peace and joy and power and radiance and security. There is a Divine Center into which your life can slip, a new and absolute orientation in God, a Center where you live with Him and out of which you see all of life, through new and radiant vision, tinged with new sorrows and pangs, new joys unspeakable and full of glory.”

Jesus invites us to be seekers. Let your longings lead you to go deeper. Seek and you will find. God can be found.

’O God, Thou hast made us for Thyself and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.” Augustine  

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