Passion

Our ability to live out our call to love the Lord and to love others, and to live the teaching of Jesus is directly linked to our ideas and images of who God is, how he relates to us, and how we see our self. True theology actually believed is crucial.


Nurturing our inner life is about spending time letting truth sink down deeply into our belief system, especially the knowledge of how cherished we are by God.

How can I let truth permeate my soul? Spend hours over several months in contemplation and meditation on the love of God specifically for YOU, and the goodness and beauty of his character. He is good. He is trustworthy. These truths are core fundamentals, the bedrock on which to build your life in Christ.

The hours I have spent coming to more richly know the love of God has been in 5-10 minute blocks of time, morning by morning, sunrise after sunrise. Then it has been more fully experienced at The Springs retreat. The love of God is the rain that has to pour down on my heart and seep into the ground water of my soul. It’s the ground water my roots find to sustain me during drought. It’s the spring that never fails.

I’ve taken words of God written in Scripture and personalized them as if he spoke them to me. “You are my beloved – on you my favor rests” “I’ve known you before you were born.” Reflecting on them has made me stop and seriously wonder, can these words really be true? Is it possible? Yes. The Father loves me. Passion begins in knowing I am loved, because once I truly know that I am loved, then, I want to love him back.

I want to experience divine love, God’s passion for me.

Every day.

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Beloved, Listen

“You are my beloved. On you my favor rests.”

Jesus heard these words from his Father as he was baptized by John. Treasured words. Is it possible that the Father would say such words to us?

Henri Nouwen thinks so. He writes: “We are the Beloved. We are intimately loved long before our parents, teachers, spouses, children and friends loved or wounded us. That’s the truth of our lives. That’s the truth I want you to claim for yourself. That’s the truth spoken by the voice that says, “You are my Beloved.”

“You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests. I have molded you in the depths of the earth and knitted you together in your mother’s womb. I have carved you in the palms of my hands and hidden you in the shadow of my embrace. I look at you with infinite tenderness and care for you with a care more intimate than that of a mother for her child. I have counted every hair on your head and guided you at every step. Wherever you go, I go with you, and wherever you rest, I keep watch. I will give you food that will satisfy all your hunger and drink that will quench all your thirst. I will not hide my face from you. You know me as your own as I know you as my own. You belong to me. I am your father, your mother, your brother, your sister, your lover and your spouse…yes, even your child… wherever you are I will be. Nothing will ever separate us. We are one.”

Take just a minute right now. Close your eyes and open your heart to the Lord. Listen attentively to the voice of the Father calling you his Beloved.

Do you notice any movement within your spirit of being drawn? If so, that’s the Lord. If so, it is his Spirit calling your spirit.

Open your heart. 

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Boundless Love

Watch a sunrise… Ah! The Father really likes me. He’s very fond of me. He is a compassionate God who loves me in my brokenness. When we look to Jesus, we find him looking at us with a gaze of infinite tenderness.


Jesus told a story: Day laborers arrived at various times throughout the day. Some only worked an hour while others had worked hard all day, yet the extravagant farmer paid all of them the same.

God has opened heaven and extended his boundless, extravagant love for all who will come. Come, experience the love of God for you, today, right now, as you are. His love overflows for you.

His love may scandalize all who think that people have to work hard to earn his love. The truth is, his love knows no bounds. We are fully, completely, boundlessly loved by God even if we are broken and arrive at the last hour.

“I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?” (Matthew 20:14-15). God’s generosity is boundless.

Watch the sunrise tomorrow morning. Let the beauty of dawn speak to you of the beauty of God’s boundless love. His love extends to you.

Even if it’s the last hour, it’s not too late to come. 
 

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An Invitation - Come in April

AW Tozer writes: "The facts are that God is not silent, has never been silent. It is the nature of God to speak.

"The second Person of the Holy Trinity is called the Word. If you would follow on to know the Lord, come at once to the open Bible expecting it to speak to you. Do not come with the notion that it is a thing which you may push around at your convenience. It's more than a thing; it is a voice, a word, the very Word of the living God."  (from The Pursuit of God)

Statues at St.Anthony's Retreat Center

Come to The Springs Retreat for prayer and reflection and let the Living Word strengthen you as you contemplate the mystery of Good Friday and the Wonder of Easter Sunday.

Let Jesus enfold you in His love (God demonstrates His love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us).

It is the experiential knowledge of the Savior's love that will quiet your anxieties and fears, give you deep physical rest, and restore your soul as you enjoy the beauty of His creation.

Hear Jesus, the Living Word of God, inviting you to come away from the demands of your life so that you can spend a few days with Him.

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Vast, Immeasurable, Boundless, Amazing

"Regardless of what you have come to believe about God based on your life experience, the truth is that when God thinks of you, love swells in his heart and a smile comes to his face. God bursts with love for humans. He is far from being emotionally uninvolved with his creation. God's bias toward us is strong, persistent and positive. The Christian God chooses to be known as Love, and that love pervades every aspect of God's relationship with us."

(Surrender to Love, David Benner)

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Feelings and Desire

What role do our feelings play in our devotional life?

As I've been paying attention to my passion for the Lord every day, I am aware how much my "feelings" play a role in my spiritual life. We are so prone to do what we feel like. Our desires do lead us to the choices we make. There are mornings when I come to my desk for my quiet time and I feel like responding email, working on some work, cleaning my desk. Other days, I easily turn everything off and begin my devotional time.

I had no desire to do work this morning. I wanted to read and pray. That's what I felt like so that's what I did. A couple of weeks ago I was up against a deadline and I had a strong desire to finish my talk, and that made it nearly impossible for me to focus on my devotion. I tend to follow my desire, do what I feel like, and if I choose to go against my feelings, then it takes a whole lot of discipline and self-control.

So the easiest way to live would be to get my feelings, my desires, to be in line with what my good intentions are. If I intend to read my Bible and pray, and I have the desire to do that, for sure it will happen if it is at all possible. However, if I'm dieing to finish a project, I'm really enjoying working with a new software program, I'm up against a deadline, then I may be more driven to do my work than my devotion. So how do I get my feelings to line up with my good intentions?

Desire really is key to having passion and to determining how easily I'll give myself to do what I actually sit down and do. How do I direct my desires to help me grow in my love for Christ? Can I develop practices or exercises that will help me get my feelings and desires to pull me toward Jesus rather than compel me toward distractions and avoiding Him.

"There is only one big thing--desire. And before it, when it is big, all else is
little." Willa Cather

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Entering a Life of Worship

What is the chief end of man? What is the purpose of life? According to the Westminster Confession the answer is clear: To glorify God and enjoy him forever. As a young adult, I puzzled over what it meant to "glorify God," but as I've gotten older and continued to ponder it, I think that glorifying God has a lot to do with how I think about God, His Person, His character, His glory (Exodus 34) and how those thoughts draw me in to worship Him, and worship isn't to just be something that I do at church on Sunday morning, but to become a lifestyle, a 24/7 practice of my life.

What is the purpose of our lives? I think I would say, to live a life of worship. (Rom. 12:1-3)

Let the words of Christ dwell richly in you. Let the psalms and hymns and spiritual songs create an undertone of worship throughout our lives. Join in with the angels who are worshipping in heaven right now. "To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever." (Rev. 5:13) And let our love of God, our worship of Him, overflow into a life of compassion and mercy--loving others.

Willard writes: "Worship is the single most powerful force in completing and sustaining restoration of our whole beings to God. Nothing can inform, guide, and sustain pervasive and radiant goodness in a person other than the true vision of God and the worship that spontaneously arises from it. Then the power of the indwelling Christ flows from us to others."

Matt Redman in his book on worship encourages us to set apart something in our lives that will serve as a call to worship. That seemed like a wonderful idea. I've set apart the sunrise and for months now, every time a see the sunrise, it calls me to stop, turn my focus to the Lord, and worship him.

Worship isn't something that I have on my to-do list -- another chore. That's not the spirit of worship.

Worship overflows from my heart. Fill my heart, soul, mind with the words and thoughts and visions of God...pay attention to His fingerprints in my life, the wonderful points of grace, that I might be deeply grateful to Him for all He is doing and has done. Caring for my soul in these ways is my responsibility -- it's my responsibility to walk with God -- and when I do, love and worship overflow and transform me from the inside and overflow in love and mercy as I live out my worship in service and ministry.

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Devotion

Time to Contemplate the Cross and the Love of God

Everywhere you go there are reminders of the Cross,

God's demonstration of his love for us

"Love the Lord your God with all your Heart, Mind, Soul, Strength"
St. Augustine wrote: Decide to love God and do what you please because when you love God, then what you will want to do is what will please the One you love.

I know I've used this quote at The Springs, but because of my life experience this week, now I just want to say, "Maybe." Because even when I really am loving God, I can quickly want to do my Bible study preparation or work on a Christian project and totally ignore spending any time truly loving Him and experiencing his love for me.

Living passionately in love with the Lord everyday begins with putting up a hedge and not letting work creep into my devotional time. Writing on this blog, preparing a Bible discussion, working on the questions for the panel discussion for the Return Conference has a very different focus from devotional time. It's so tempting for me to give up spending time just being with the Lord and focused on loving him -- in order to work on ministry.

The focus of my quiet time is very different if my goal is to increase my devotion to the Lord. If devotion is my goal then I nurture my heartfelt love and a deep sense of gratitude for who God is and for the gifts he has blessed me with.

Devotion comes from knowing His love and choice of me, even in my brokenness.
Devotion comes from seeing the glory of the goodness of His character and focusing on His glory in wordless prayer.
Devotion comes from knowing He is with me -- filling the universe but also filling me, and being alongside of me as my companion.

When we focus our prayerful attention on these truths, we experience a love and adoration and passion for the Lord. When we don't -- we don't. My desk work in preparation for ministry does not nurture my devotion. It's amazing how in love I can be with the Lord, and then decide in the morning to work on some aspect of preparation, and then the next morning do some preparation, and before I know it...my whole devotional life is shot. I've reduced my relationship with the Lord to a business partnership. And it takes intentional work to regain my devotion.

Love God and spend time loving Him always throughout the day. Everyday. What a challenge to let work, even Christian work, come second.

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