Recently, my husband and I attended a Friday evening worship service at a church that was begun not long ago by several of our friends. Looking forward to worshiping with them, we were additionally pleased to learn upon our arrival that the speaker that evening would be a visiting Apostolic leader, whom we had heard speak once before.

Called by God to equip Christians for greater personal ministry, the Apostolic leader freely shares the work that God is doing in and through him, teaching others through modeling and guidance. By sharing testimonies from his own experiences, he draws others into active participation through his encouragement. Then, in providing opportunities for others to have their own first-hand experiences, a ripple effect of benefits is generated.

On this particular evening, he was demonstrating the specific prayer method that he was then currently using to lead others in acquiring greater awareness of both God’s Presence and God’s personal knowledge of individuals. The method that he was using in his submission to God for the purpose of allowing God’s love to flow through him is simple. While shaking an individual’s hand, he mentally asks God to reveal something to him about that person. Once he hears a response from God, he speaks the response aloud to the person to reveal specific knowledge from God about him or her. Then, while maintaining hand contact, he repeats the prayer and response process three more times to reveal a total of four pieces of information. By the time the fourth word is spoken, God, not the leader, has the individual’s attention.

Though he stipulated that the order of the four revealed words is important, the leader also quickly admitted that he didn’t always understand why. Only God, “the builder of everything” (Hebrews 3:4b), has the complete picture.

After explaining the process, the leader called a few volunteers from the congregation forward to help model the prayer. The first time, he did the praying and asking. But after that, he stepped aside to give others opportunity to pray and speak. Since the responses were all from God, they were all equally accurate, no matter who received and spoke them. The words that were revealed, such as palm tree, nose and white farm house, sounded innocuously generic to most of the people present, while proving to be most meaningful to the specific individuals to whom they were delivered.

After the completion of several prayers, the leader asked if anyone present had been sick for more than five years. Half a dozen arms went up in the air, including my own.

I consider the fact that I raised my hand to be a “minor miracle” (an oxymoron, I admit). For most of my life, I have concertedly tried not to be noticed, especially when it comes to volunteering in group settings. But on this night, instead of scrunching down in my seat, I raised my hand. Apparently God had prepared me to do so, for the leader called me forward.

Taking my right hand in his, the leader smiled before closing his eyes for a few moments. Then, opening them, he said, “I see you in a gymnasium type place with pine floors.”

The memory that the words called to mind was of my first day of teaching. Before the common use of computers, the high school, where I had been hired to teach, assembled all students and faculty in the combined gymnasium-auditorium that had pine floors on the first day of school. One by one, the teachers had to stand at the microphone in the middle of the room and read their homeroom roles. Petrified of public speaking, the event terrified me. But somehow, despite the fear, I did what needed to be done, marveling since then that it went as well as it did.

After I had shared the memory, the leader briefly closed his eyes for a second time. Then he said, “After that, your life was threatened.”

Anything but innocuous, this word from God really surprised me, as well as others. I replied, “Yes, by a student.”

Nodding, the leader confirmed, “He threatened your life.”

The he, who had threatened me, was an angry young man, with a reputation among school officials and local police officers as a regular troublemaker. When other students confided to me that he had threatened to put an explosive device in my car, I became apprehensive about where I parked each day. With the threat replaying each morning in my head, I made a point of arriving at school early enough for the remainder of the school year to park in the tiny lot next to the office, avoiding the more isolated field behind the school.

Following my affirmation, the leader spoke for a third time, saying, “Then you had a broken relationship.”

I did, and it was no small matter. Turmoil, having sprung up unexpectedly, had brought with it an ongoing apprehension of extended duration before resolution was attained.

Astonished, I said, “Yes!” Then the leader spoke the fourth and final word, saying, “Then you were robbed.”

I was, multiple times. My husband would remind me later that evening that we had been robbed physically twice, first of appliances in the new home that we were building and then of our car from the parking lot of a neighborhood grocery store. Despite the appliances being replaced by insurance and the vehicle being found abandoned across town three days later (contrary to police assurance that it was already in pieces in a chop-shop), the robberies left behind a sense of vulnerability.

But when the leader said “robbed,” neither of those two events came to mind. All that I could think about was my regular use of the word to describe what disease does, stealing both God-given time and opportunity.

Jesus once said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it to the full” (John 10:10). Jesus left no room for doubt that God isn’t the one who steals from the life that He gives.

But that evening at the church, God did want me to lose something in order to gain more life. Looking straight at me, the leader said, “Let go of the trauma.”

Trauma is the lasting effect that either a physical or psychological injury can inflict. Unlike the cause of the injury, which becomes history, trauma continues carrying forward to threaten future wellbeing. The residual fear and anxiety that exist in trauma can produce a victim mentality that is forever expecting the other proverbial shoe to drop at any moment.

When the leader said, “Let go…,” nothing appeared to happen. But when he repeated the words, they apparently struck a chord, causing me to gasp. Surprised by my audible response, I was then more surprised to feel myself beginning to fall backwards, only to again be surprised when unexpected hands behind me lowered me gently to the floor. Startled, I laid still for a minute, while the service continued without me.

But my greatest surprise of the evening was yet to come, for when I tried to stand up, I couldn’t. The discovery was bizarre… beyond worldly explanation. Neither paralyzed nor weak, I was just plain “stuck,” as if I had been super-glued to the floor. I could wiggle all parts of my body slightly, but I couldn’t separate myself from the floor in the least. I felt like a chunk of metal being held firmly in place by an overwhelmingly powerful magnet.

For over an hour, I remained where I had been placed, talking with a friend, who remained at my side, until the eventual release arrived. Only after the slow release had worked its way from my toes to my head was I finally able to be helped to my feet.

That night, I returned home clueless as to the meaning of the evening’s events. Later, in giving testimony to another individual about what had happened, I hoped to gain understanding. I was certain that the events, being from God, had purpose that would prove beneficial. But no understanding came, until the time of this writing. Then I received one word:  commitment.

Prior to the leader telling me to let go of the trauma, he had made one other comment. Smiling, He had said, “God was always there with you, through everything, wasn’t He?”

I had nodded, intellectually knowing that it was true. But still, I sensed that I was missing something deeper:  unshakable personal conviction of the statement’s truth.

The four events in my life to which the statement had specifically referred had all occurred in the years between my confession of faith as a teenager and the time when I came to begin having a more personal fellowship with God. Though I believed in God’s existence during that time, my awareness of God’s Presence was negligible. Though God had been with me, I had noticed Him very little. Yet God was always faithful in His care for me.

Even before time began, God anticipated with delight the creation of each and every unique person with whom He would come to share His life. (See Jeremiah 1:4, 5 & Ephesians 1:11, 12) Forming us in His image (See Genesis 1:27), God has birthed us each into specific times and places (See Acts 17:26) to suit His good and perfect purpose. We are designed to share in His eternal love in Christ Jesus (See John 17:23 & 1 John 3:1) through His unmerited grace (See Romans 5:17 & 1 Timothy 1:14) that sustains us (See Matthew 6:31-33).

In His desire for eternal fellowship with us, God has placed a God-sized need within us that only He can fill. Additionally, to assure that we never get our fill of God, He also has provided us with an outlet—one another—into whom we can pour out His loving grace that we receive, producing an ongoing desire to receive and share “more” of God.

God alone is our Saving Grace. Saving us from every lack (which isn’t really lack, but opportunity to ask and receive from God—See Matthew 7:8 & 21:22), God draws us deeper into fellowship with Him—the fellowship that He desires and that we need. Everything—everything—in existence depends upon Saving Grace—Jesus. While infants are born into a life of grace, the more mature must continue relearning so.

When Satan subtly planted the seed of doubt in Adam and Eve’s minds regarding God’s goodness to them, they chose separately to tend the fear that doubt produced. In doing so, they reaped destruction upon themselves and the world. Their lack of commitment to live according to God’s Words enslaved them to lives of toil, pain and shame. Still, God’s commitment to mankind never wavered.

Even in our doubt today, we are blessed by a God who is fully committed to accomplishing the highest good for all, which includes every individual’s singular wellbeing. God’s necessary faithfulness to His own righteousness holds the world together in Christ Jesus, despite every unfaithful act of the world at large. In using  the nails that held Jesus to the Cross, God proved His commitment. He proved Himself the Consummate Provider, meeting every need with His personal Sacrifice. This is the committed care into which God births us.

 “He who did not spare His own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”  (Romans 8:32)

When I was lying on the church floor, unable to get up, I had a singular viewpoint: my own. I lacked God’s knowledge, understanding and perspective. But later, in His commitment to change that, God expanded my vision to enable me to see the situation from a point of view that is more in line with His. Zooming in initially on me, in order to meet me where I was, God then panned out, as with a camera, to show me the bigger picture of which I am a part.

The floor, to which God had stuck me and from which I could not separate myself, is part of the entire church (the body of Christ in this world and His Bride in the next)… which is connected by its foundation (Jesus) to the entire world… which is connected to the entire natural universe… which is connected to all of Creation, both the natural and supernatural alike… which is of  its Creator:  God.

As bizarre as my experience seems by this world’s accounting, it was right on target, exactly as God had aimed for it to be. God gave me exactly what I needed:  assurance of His firm hold on me, despite any evil suggestion that tries to lead me into doubting otherwise.

Trusting God is not a difficult task. When we awaken in the morning expecting that the Earth has continued to rotate while we slept and that the sun will rise, signaling roosters to crow and bees to buzz, we are employing faith that God is holding the universe—Creation—together. We—part of Creation—are inseparable from the totality of God’s plan. We who are in Christ Jesus are more firmly held in plce than are the stars in their galaxies.

When mankind fell from grace and couldn’t right itself, God maintained a firm grip on all of us via Jesus, who would be lifted up upon the Cross for us all.  In lying at the foot of the Cross, we are positioned by God to gain right perspective in looking up at Him. From that vantage point alone can we see that we are precisely where we need to be:  in the Church Universal… in the Body of Christ… in Provision… in Saving Grace. The inescapable Truth is that, squirm as we may, we can’t stand on our own. We never could, and we never will. Without God raising us to life, we would be down and out by our own lack if ability to raise ourselves.

We need a continual Hand-Up from Jesus, the only One strong enough to maintain our right standing with God. Using His Son’s Blood, God “stuck” Himself to us forever, fulfilling Eternal Promise. His ironclad covenant grip on us in Christ Jesus will never let us go, nor will it ever let us down.

And to those with a limited view who scoff at the power of Jesus’ life-giving Blood, know that its reality is not bizarre in the least, no matter how it may sound to any particular individual..

It is simply plain commitment… pure, eternal commitment—a commodity that is much needed by all the world, no matter what our individual perspectives may be.

 .

“Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”  (Lamentations 3:22, 23)

 

A number of years ago, maybe five or so, I was at home one day, immersed in my morning routine. Playing praise and worship music while sitting in the living room, I had completed my daily Bible reading and devotions, but was not yet ready to move on to household chores. Caught up in the spirit of the music, I turned the volume even higher and remained in the living room for some time, singing and praising God. With a joyful heart, I declared the Truth of the songs’ words with an unaccustomed boldness that arose from my spirit, welcoming God into both my heart and my home, denying God’s enemy access to either.

Then, in the midst of my adamant celebration of faith, God made His Presence known, filling me with what I can best describe as tangible love. The love felt something akin to liquid warmth or glowing embers, only much richer and more pervasive. Far more than just a glorious sensation, the love seemed to be comprised of unseen substance that infiltrated every minute part of my spirit, soul and body, encompassing me completely. Try, though, as I may to describe the experience, I can’t do it justice. Words are insufficient.

Fully enveloped that morning in the love, I was sent into my day to go about doing what normally would have been routine. But on this day, the ho-hum was accomplished from a new perspective that gave increased significance to everything. Harmony reigned in both “doing” and “being.”

Though functioning normally by outward appearances, I was anything but what I had known “normal” to be. My mind performed its duty, getting my work done, but my consciousness was caught up in euphoria. I can only compare the experience to having always lived in a light that had been unknowingly set on dim, only to have someone suddenly switch the light to a much higher setting, greatly increasing its intensity.

That afternoon, as my husband returned home from an outing, he walked into the kitchen where I was working. Instantly, without thought or effort, the love that continued filling me to overflowing ratcheted up another notch, intensifying even more.

I cannot explain how something so complete could become even more so, but it did. The love multiplied not only itself, but also my joy that was a part of it. I am convinced that had anyone else entered the room with my husband that day, both the love and the joy would have compounded even more.

For fourteen hours, I remained in this extraordinary state. Every moment of its continuation felt like a “triumph” of sorts. Knowing that I had done absolutely nothing and could do absolutely nothing to deserve, create or sustain the experience made me nothing but appreciative. The love was a most generous outreach from the Heart of God, handed to me free of charge. With an excitement that was too great either to contain or to share with others, I celebrated in thanksgiving with God alone—the way that I now imagine that He had planned it all along.

Since that day, I have heard two well-known Bible teachers attempt to describe what must have been similar events in their own lives. Even though their personal experiences lasted much longer than mine—one having lasted several weeks and the other one a couple of months, they too had a great deal of difficulty conveying their experiences.

One of the individuals could only describe the event as a time of walking around in “La-La Land,” an apt description for what I consider to have been an out-of-this-world experience. Likewise aptly put was the other individual’s description of an imaginary scenario of the top of one’s head being removed to have warm honey poured in to overflowing capacity.

But my personal experience contained an aspect that I have not heard addressed by anyone. For during the fourteen hours that I was immersed in God’s love, I had not a single symptom of disease in my body, verifying that the experience was not solely an emotional high, but was physical as well. The love was a real and a powerful entity.

At the time that I experienced the love, Parkinson’s disease had been knowingly present in my body for about thirteen years. Having moved in and taken up residence, it took no vacations and offered no reprieves. The absence of symptoms that day cannot be explained as remission, for Parkinson’s disease has no remissions. Rather, the disease was in submission to the overpowering perfection of a love that allowed no room for anything less than itself.

Feeling fulfilled in every sense, I had no concern or needs, including the need for medication. I took not a single pill that day, never even giving the matter consideration. Medication would have been superfluous, meaningless compared to the perfection of the love that had freed me from the plague of infirmity and disease. As love flooded my body, as well as my heart and mind, I was made whole, aware that love was all that mattered.

A story is told regarding the Apostle John, who, in having had recently returned to Ephesus in his later years, was recognized during a worship service one day as the last living Apostle. As such, he was begged to share his personal knowledge of Jesus and, hence, God the Father. Acquiescing, John made his way to the front of the group, causing quite a stir among the people present. As they awaited John’s every word with great anticipation and expectancy, they could hardly believe their good fortune in having access to the wealth of John’s first-hand knowledge.

But when John spoke, he stunned the crowd, condensing the entire Gospel into one simple statement. In essence, John declared love to be the focal point of everything. Then, having said all that needed to be said, he sat back down, leaving the crowd speechless. True or not, the story’s point is both well made and well taken.

Though I say this with admitted conjecture on my part, John perhaps had the greatest personal comprehension of any apostle (while in this world) concerning the love of God. Having had lived with Jesus, experiencing Jesus’ compassion first-hand, witnessing Jesus’ Self-sacrifice, receiving revelatory knowledge of King Jesus and then living longer in Holy Spirit guidance than any other original Apostle, who is to say with certainty that John did not experientially know far better the perfection of God’s love than most, if not all, others?

John has been the brunt of many jokes regarding his references to himself in the latter portion of his Gospel as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” (John 13:23, 21:2, 21:20; see also John 20:2) But the statement isn’t a joking matter. Though to the world at large, John’s terminology sounds like bragging, it is anything but. The statement is one of Truth, displaying genuine humility, acknowledging the greatness of God’s love that supersedes by far every lesser form of imitation.

By restructuring John’s description of himself, we more readily see the statement’s message:  “Jesus loved the disciple.” Jesus is the subject; the disciple is merely the direct object of Jesus’ affection. The emphasis is on Jesus and what he did, not on John, the disciple. We may think that saying “I love Jesus” is being humble, but the statement focuses way too much on us, instead of upon Jesus.

Following the Last Supper, when Peter earnestly declared that He would willingly lay down his life for Jesus, Peter effectually proclaimed a “love” for Jesus that would see him through to the end. Many of us valiantly proclaim likewise, declaring complete allegiance to Jesus and/or to one another.

But Peter’s “love” failed before the rooster finished crowing, and our imperfect love doesn’t last much, if any, longer than did Peter’s. (See John 13 & 18) More than anyone else, we let ourselves down, unable to love as we want to love, trying all the harder to be more lovable in a perfection that we can’t attain.

In the end, God’s love laid down Jesus’ life for everyone, including Peter. In the reality of what true and perfect love is and what it is not, the story couldn’t have unfolded any other way. God loves wholly; we love in part.

As Peter experienced, people fail to love perfectly time and again, creating pain and regret. To expect differently is to create even greater havoc in the world, demanding impossible specificity from others and ourselves in a desire to feel good about ourselves always.

But, as seen with Peter, fear and pride sometimes interfere with our ability to love, concealing themselves even from the ones who harbor them… until they do their damage. Daring to hide even in good sounding intentions, fear and pride eventually rebound to show their true colors, betraying both self and others in a breeding ground of guilt, shame, disappointment and sorrow.

Peter, like most of us, envisioned himself to be a “good” man, true to his word. He expected to act honorably, being a source of fulfillment, meeting his own and others’ needs. But in betraying himself, Peter fell short in striving for the self-preservation to which he had yielded:  a love for his own life that exceeded his love for others… even Jesus.

But Jesus, knowing beforehand the restoration that Peter would need following his betrayal of Jesus, made Himself present later to be Peter’s Provision, specifically going out of His way more than once to be so. After first meeting with Peter privately following His resurrection, Jesus then met Peter publicly on a lakeshore, Esteeming Peter during Peter’s time of confrontation with the Truth, Jesus remained steadfastly loyal to Peter, fully loving him in the ways that Peter best needed to be loved. (See John 21)

By the love of God that dwelled in Jesus, Peter was strengthened in his weakness, empowered by forgiveness to face the future with honor and dignity. In personal restoration, so loved by God, Peter was prepared for his life and ministry that were yet to come. Forever changed by God’s merciful forgiveness, Peter was made ready to love others more fully through the love of Jesus that he personally received.

Likewise, each and every Apostle had to face the same truth about his own shortcomings, meeting the Truth of the love of God in Jesus head on. So must we today. To learn what love is, we must first admit what love is not. Only then are we enabled by our acceptance in Christ to pay forward the love that we receive from Him.

Jesus is our One and Only Example when it comes to eternal love. Knowing that He was fully loved by God the Father, He fully loved us, giving us relief in the present and hope for the future. In handing Himself over to death for our sake, Jesus showed the world what love looks like.

This is what Jesus did:  “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

He died—“died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6b)—right in the middle of all of our wrong thinking and hurtful actions. Even knowing that all men would continue sinning after His Sacrifice, Jesus gave Himself, also knowing that we would need all of the love that we could get.

Jesus didn’t require us to be lovable before He loved us. Nor did He expect us to perform acceptably before He accepted us. He just plain loved us as we are.

“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” (1 John 4:10-12)

Perfect love, fully applied, fully perfects. Nothing else comes close. Only the love of God provides proper perspective, building futures upon hope in Jesus.

Never wavering or diminishing, never extinguishing, the love of God is eternal reality. It is without beginning or end, for “God is love.”  (1 John 4:16b)

Is… right here and right now, in each and every moment, God is loving us perfectly, because “God is love.”

John was right in reminding us, as well as himself, that he was “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” Unable to fully comprehend or explain the love of God, John could only accept it, keeping his words to a minimum and letting love speak for itself.

In understanding the limitations of men’s words, God drew a self-explanatory picture that would explain His love. He drew a Self-Portrait, using the Cross.

With that Cross, God “spelled out” His love, using the blood of His Son to give love a whole new dimension.

“Greater love has no one than this:
to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
(John 15:13)

When we truly see the picture that God has drawn for us personally, we become “the disciple whom Jesus loved.”

The realization leaves us speechless. It always has, and it always will.

.

“Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”  (John 13:1b, c)