Identity - We continually try to box things up. We read books, download apps and take quizzes.
We put ourselves in one box, our goals in another; our relationships in this one, and God in that. We label and define.
But we are not naturally organized. There's some scientific law I'm remembering learning during grade school that says, "everything tends toward disorder". Things don't just get organized by themselves. Broken down cars don't repair themselves when you leave them lay in the junk yard. Houses crumble when they aren't lived in.
We had two Sunday's of remembrance at my church in April. Communion Sunday and Easter directly following.
But do we really remember?? Did we understand enough in the beginning to actually grasp the severity of the gospel? To then remember and know the full power residing within us, as children of God?
Identity - "He didn't die for us because we were worth dying for, He died for us to make us worth dying for." [Mike Donehey]
It's not about me, as much as I'd like it to be. It's about Jesus. It's about His suffering. His struggle. His strength and resurrection.
Identity - It is Christ, making worthy the worthless. Beauty from ashes. [Is. 61:1-3]
"God isn't going to move because of me, He's going to move in spite of me... If you have grown weary, take rest in the thought that all He wants from you is praise, not performance. If we come to Jesus with anything more than nothing, we come with too much... Nothing is all we bring to Him, because nothing is the place He can fill" [Mike Donehey]
The label on my box should say, "nothing". But really, I don't even have a box. I am nothing.
"Job 28 speaks of the 'way of' wisdom and 'the place thereof'. It tells of how God finds the way for the wind, water and lightening. The way for the wind is the region of greatest emptiness, the way of the water is to the place of lowest depth, the way for the lightening, as science proves, is along the line of greatest weakness. 'If any man lack'. There is God's condition for His inflow of the spiritual understanding." [Amy Carmichael]
I am empty, so that Christ can fill.
I am lowest, so that Christ can be made high.
I am weak, so that Christ will be known as strong.
He, Christ, can only come to the weak, low and empty.
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted." Matt 5:3-4
"Even when were worn out, worn thin and feel like we've got nothing left to offer Him, all He demands is our nothing." [Mike Donehey]
"Make me broken, so I can be healed. 'Cause I'm so calloused, and now I can't feel.
I want to run to You, with heart wide open, make me broken.
Make me empty, so I can be filled. 'Cause I'm still holding onto my will.
And I'm completed, when You are with me. Make me empty.
Make me lonely, so I can be Yours. 'Til I want no one more than You, Lord.
'Cause in the darkness I know You will hold me. Make me lonely.
'Til You are my one desire.
'Til You are my one true love.
'Til You are my breath, my everything.
Lord, please keep making me."
-Keep Making Me by Sidewalk Prophets
