Love rocks my world!

Love rocks my world!.

Love rocks my world!

‘If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.’

This description of perfect Love has been my lifeline in the past, a firm ground beneath my feet… when nothing else makes sense these three remain ‘but the greatest of these is Love’.

I’ve heard people write accolades to the beautiful ‘imperfection’ of Love but I think they’ve missed the more beautiful truth, the imperfection resides in the loved one not Love itself, that’s what makes Love all the more beautiful, it is Redemptive… you are not Loved because you are perfect but because Love is perfect.

The most beautiful stories are glimpses of life through a love shaped lens… Beauty loves the beast and breaks the spell, Jamal pursues Latica across India, it doesn’t matter what life has done to her, in ‘pay it forward’ Trevor believes the best in his mum and always forgives her…

it’s not because we deserve it, it’s because Love is redemptive.

Love is not blind.

Real love is discerning, real love delights in the truth. Love sees it all and still forgives.

We live in a Love starved world full of spiritual orphans, consciously or subconsciously aware of the absence of the perfect, unconditional Love that should have fathered them all their lives.

I was one… having a Dad that didn’t know how to be a dad, being bullied from age 6 until I left school age 14, I went out into the world and gave my hopeful love away, desperately wanting recognition, desperately wanting to feel worthy and valued.

I learnt the hard way that believing the best in someone doesn’t mean they’re the right person for you, that doing anything for someone you care for wont mean they understand you or Love any better unless they’ve first had a revelation of what perfect love really is….God watched my heart get trampled on again and again, how painful for him to watch the daughter he loved live as an orphan not trusting him with her heart instead.

His Love ‘never fails’. He gave everything for us on the cross.

I love people so so much but I can never give them my very best unless I depend on the unfailing Love that brought heaven on earth.

Love is not a romantic concept though all true romance is wrapped up in it.

There is no power on earth that can come close to the transforming power of love.

It’s sacrificial, it’s hopeful, it’s the truth, it can turn lives around, it’s what life is about.

The truth is Love rocks my world!

God Loves me, and that makes everything else possible.

Happy Valentines day Beautiful people. You are beautiful because of what he says.

Lights in the Snow

Running in the snow… This was an email i wrote almost exactly two years ago and I was reminded of it today….

 

My lungs are frozen but it was worth it. My chest hurts but I know I’m really breathing.

There’s something about treading on unbroken snow than clarifies a moment in time, I was there, I was first, tomorrow I’ll be gone just like the snow that melts away.

Running through the snow, fighting the freezing wind you feel the leap of the survivor’s spirit rushing through your heart, wild and free and alive. There is a lot to be said for living in the moment, not living for the moment because that has no future, but in it, because this is what life is made of.

In a white world faces glow with the warmth of life, strikingly more clear against the snow that fades all else from prominence under one blanket of deathly slumber.

Is this how we look in God’s eyes?….. like lights in a shadow world? I blur my eyes and up and down the snow covered streets wonder little flames of humanity.

The snow shrinks the world, the distance is blotted out by falling flakes and the world becomes the frozen bubble that surrounds you. The snow draws the world close and people closer; you are an ally to the stranger across the street as they battle the weather, just like you.

Thank God for the seasons! Changes help me see the world in a different light. The snow takes away the ‘everyday’, I have seen things today like I never saw them before.

Do Something!

http://www.jesusculture.com/m/infusions/love#/m/infusions/the-people-that-do-something

Love this talk from Banning Liebscher. I don’t think i’ll ever be satisfied unless I’m trying to live the dreams God has put in my heart.

Perspective: ‘we sit together in heavenly places in Christ’ (Eph2 v4-6) I thank God the visions are his not just mine, I thank God I don’t have to do them in my own strength, I thank God for his people, my family. So come and sit with me and Jesus for a moment and Dream about the things we’ll do to bring heaven on earth…

Then let’s go do something!

Transient Transitioning

Mirrors, Ice, pain and Glory

‘But we all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.’

Imagine a room full of mirrors and Jesus has a mirror and he’s saying ‘look this way here is your image, my reflection’.

(It’s not empty or fragile self esteem anymore it’s ‘Christ esteem’ as Greg Boyd would put it).

Unveiled faces, ‘not hidden’ ‘Aletheia’ truth. The truth is we are being transformed. We are transitioning.

In this room lots of people are going to hold their mirrors up and try to tell you how you look and who you are…Broken, distorted or simply static like windows into you past. Don’t stunt your transformation by spending time ‘reflecting’ on and believing these disappointing reflections. Trust in the Transforming power of love. You are ‘a new creation’.

(1000 melting figures – the world wildlife fund raising awareness of global warming)

Being in transition can be hard sometimes, it means things are changing, you can’t stay in your comfort zone or hide from the truth.

Another facet of transition is transience, temporariness which can feel sad.

But when you realise what you have now is transient and will not last it doesn’t lose it’s value, far from it, it becomes all the more precious infused with meaning. Like watching a child’s first steps, hugging someone goodbye or stopping to watch the morning sunlight shining through ice that will soon melt away and be gone.

How can we bear to lose not just the painful but also the beautiful moments (and people) to the past?…

For me it’s knowing God has something greater just around the corner… another fresh glimpse of His Glory.

Today is my birthday and it’s been fun, but from an eternal perspective age is pretty meaningless, worrying about it is like ‘chasing after the wind’, what’s important is that each year faith matures you and Love makes you a little younger.

I Love ice, I love the way it captures light, it’s so beautiful… it reminds me to live in the moment, to appreciate transient transitioning and to look for God’s Glory in each new day.

‘He has set eternity in the human heart’  you don’t belong to this world.

‘So we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.’ 2 Cor 4 v 18

My mum read this Blog (she’s great like that) and forwarded me an email I wrote to her….. two years ago I went on a trip to Sri Lanka to work as a prosthetics technician, making legs for people in the North, an area abused by civil war and still heavily militarised. The trip taught me a lot, it hadn’t been what I expected, it was one of the hardest trips I’ve been on and I struggled though it….

‘Being around people who don’t understand you is like looking into a distorted mirror - they bring out versions of you, but not the person you know you are (it’s not your best). It’s close, it’s still you, but not a true reflection; you’ll adapt, you’ll twist and turn until you find something close to the reflection you know… sometimes it’s good exercise and you learn something… but it’s uncomfortable. The image is often disappointing.
How wonderful when you find someone who knows you, who reflects your opinion, someone you can rest easy with; the relationships we hold close are so important.
In a similar way that’s why a relationship with God is so important too; He knows you through and through, in Him you can find your home, if you look in His mirror He’ll show you the person He wants you to be with no distortions.

The mirror here, in my dusty Sri Lankan bedroom, is full of ripples, some of the distortions even make me look better; but if I want the truth it’s just right of centre and down a bit…

at least I think so, maybe I need to come home to check.’

I’ve changed since I wrote this, I’ve been in transition. Sometimes it takes time to learn the lessons God is teaching you, what I was trying to grasp back then I’m still learning now …..

in the room full of mirrors I’m learning to fix my eyes on the one Jesus is holding.

Grandmother and grandson, both injured by the same air attack. This bubbles photo; a transient moment I will always remember.

Openness

I didn’t realise it at the time, but my baptism testimony brought me closer to people; they felt they knew me because I had shared my life and heart with them so that they could know me. I love testimonies, they are real, they’re people standing on God’s truth, unhidden, unashamed. I simply love it, I want every preach in every church to be born from a testimony of Love.

I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise. I choose to risk my significance; to live so that which came to me as seed goes to the next as blossom and that which came to me as blossom, goes on as fruit. fully alive – dawna markova

… ‘To allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid’…. ‘perfect love drives out all fear‘…. it ‘rejoices in the truth’.

I am convinced Openness is an underrated virtue in this world. People are drawn to authenticity because it’s so precious, rare and beautiful. Everyone is so busy trying to appear perfect and cover their imperfections and brokenness, they don’t realise they are isolating themselves. We all long to be known, but in a judgemental world we have all, understandably, become past masters at hiding.

…What’s so amazing is that God’s saving Grace gives beauty to our brokenness, because it gives us the ability to be fearlessly authentic. We know we are fully known and, in spite of all our faults, fully Loved, our security is in Christ. ( -perfect love is redemptive.) 

In 2Corinthians 6 V13 Paul begs the Corinthians to open up their hearts, not to withhold their ‘splanchnois’- ‘inner most parts and emotions’ from him… “I speak as to my children – open wide your hearts also”.

Open wide here is the word ‘platunthēte’ from the Greek root word ‘platus‘ meaning: to make broad, a wide street…. our hearts are like a pathway on which others can journey with us- if we let them in.

Making ourselves open makes us feel vulnerable, it can be a scary thing! But fear is not a God thing: God promises his perfect love will drive out all fear. We’re not alone, God’s gonna help us become open hearted…

A word connected to ‘plantus’ is ‘plassó‘ meaning: to form, as a potter his clay, created…. if we make ourselves vulnerable to Abba Father first, then He can shape a wide pathway in our hearts, a highway to heavenly places (Isaiah 35). But even that takes courage!

I remember a Kris Vallotton talk where he spoke about Secretariat- a horse with a 22lb heart, 3 times the normal size!- a heart that made history. God has given us hearts to be history makers, because His spirit is in us, because we’re resourced beyond our physical abilities, because He pours His love on us.

In Latin the root word for heart is ‘cor’ and it’s where we get the word courage from (the Old English definition for the word courage was ‘to tell your story from your heart’). Our hearts were made to discern truth and make us courageous (-the truth of eternity has been set in the human heart Ecc 3v11).

It’s gonna take courage to be known and not to hide.

When the disciples are described as speaking openly the word ‘parresia‘ is often used, meaning: Boldness, confidence, frankness, courage, openness.  This word is made up of two root words- ‘Pas‘: all, whole, always, and ‘rhema‘: spoken word (often referred to as the ‘now’ word of God, implications of being spirit filled, open to hearing his voice). There’s a wholeness and integrity in speaking truth: by being courageously truthful we gain completeness.

‘Aletheia’ is the Greek word for truth, literally translated it means ‘not hidden’. As people of God we are called to be courageously visible with who we are or we won’t represent the truth….

What a challenge! but also what a reward!- deeper more authentic relationships, God’s Love breaking through!

A call to Prophesy

This is a poem by my beautiful little sister (and the holy spirit). It’s a vision for the church that I stand by, that I’m in love with, when we see the church unite and Love like Jesus I believe we will see joy breakout and grace break through in a way we’ve never seen before.

 

The Call to Unity

Do you hear the trumpet call?

The call to gather,

the calling together

The voice crying out in the desert ‘make straight the way of the Lord’

The summoning of the Father ‘build up, build up, prepare the road! Remove the obstacles out of the way of my people’

and the crying of the son for his bride to be one.

This is the yearning, the churning in my heart,

the thirst for the first on His heart.

To leave behind the divisions that were brought about by the visions of those whose security was found in religions.

Instead to inherit the inheritance, 

the ground taken,

the dreams that were forsaken, 

the momentum that brought us here, 

the goals buried due to fear.

To reach over the walls that at present we lean on 

and join back together the limbs of the bride who for too long 

has lain disjointed 

not dancing the dance of love to which she was appointed.

Let this be our vision:

To love without measure, 

to always behold the treasure 

in the soul of the person that to know appears to be far from a pleasure.

To live life not by whimsical principles, tainted until they’ve fainted by the culture by which they’re increasingly painted but to live by the principles of the prince himself.

The kingdom of the king.

Let’s no longer dispute over doctrine or form

but unify in healing the heart of our nation that has been torn apart.

Let us gather at the banqueting table 

And drink and eat until we’re unable

to do anything but love

unreservedly, unconditionally, authentically.

And let love be the banner under which assemble, 

and Jesus be the one that to look on we resemble.

This is my prayer:

for the church to wake up, 

to shake up, 

to choose to be hungry, 

to choose to be angry 

and real. 

To choose to feel,

and not reel away from the orphans that steal,

the orphans who cheat, who lie, who truth be told, are scared to die,

That I for one would love them exactly as they are,

all covered in tar, 

in soot, 

in rags, 

in a shiny car,

in a top paid job, 

in a business suit, 

with a tough guy walk and stolen goods in the boot,

in the media, in the club, in Sainsbury’s, in the pub. 

In the rain when I’m worn out

because it’s not me that it’s about.

I’m sure of this that we hold the answer 

to why the girl with the gift never became the dancer,

to why the boy born a prophet lives unaware 

of the heavenly secrets concealed in the air

to why the one with a leaders voice 

never realised they had the choice

to live the dream,

to choose the option

to be all they could be and more

and here we are with the door 

to adoption

through which comes the sound of the father affirming 

‘I love you and it’s not due to earning,

It’s simply because 

I do’

Church, arise from your slumber and fall in love again with the one you fell asleep beholding and since have only beheld in your dreams 

unable to touch,

It seems 

there’s a stirring, 

an excitement burning, 

a renewed mind we’re learning, 

a blank page we’re turning to write the next chapter of the history book.

It’s a revival chapter, look,

you can feel it coming,

an earthquake that shook 

the very hearts of the angles that are assigned to this age

to welcome the king’s coming at every stage

through the story of time 

that is now yours and mine.

It’s on the horizon, the Glory of the lord has risen upon us his church, lets break though the deep darkness of depression that engulfs our world and bind up the broken hearted with the healing power of perfect Love. (Isaiah 60&61)

Perfect timing.

‘God has made everything perfect in its time he has also set eternity in the human heart’

You were designed for eternity, it was set in your heart, ‘who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?’

God’s timing is perfect.

When Trust looks a lot like Liberty (deciphering Kingdom vocabulary)

Freedom: exhilarating, amazing, exciting renewing and transforming liberty.

Do you ever find your heart has been saturated with the world’s vocabulary? Where Love is romantic instead of perfect, hope is wishful instead of resilient, prayer is sympathetic instead of powerful and significance is achievement rather than living in the presence of God….

The one that I’ve taken along time to get hold of is the truth about trust…. Trust is not naivety it’s the key to liberty. Liberty is found in God’s perfect Love.

It’s such an easy thing to brush over, but when I really examine my heart lack of trust in God has been at the root of every decision I’ve ever got wrong.

My breakthrough came when I handed every last piece of my broken heart over to God, instead of just saying ‘I trust you God’ but letting the hurts from my past still define me, instead of holding fast to the thought that I knew what I needed and that certain things had to happen in my life to redress the pain before I could truly be restored, no, this time I ran towards God and for the first time in my life I really trusted that ‘Abba Father’ was gonna catch me.

For many of us ‘Father’ is another word messed up by the ‘world’s dictionary’. In my world vocabulary Father had never meant what God intended but I’ve discovered not one of us has to remain an orphan of Father Love.

I trusted that he could heal my heart…… and that’s when I found trust looks a lot like freedom.

I just love this verse in Isaiah:

‘The Spirit of the sovereign Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.’ 61 v 1

Inspiring. I want that anointing. But how can I help release freedom unless I’m living in it?

The Hebrew word for liberty here is derovr meaning: freedom, spontaneity, out flow, pure, clear…. it makes me think of open heartedness.

Liberty, freedom; this is God’s Heart for us and what he wants us to release to others. ‘where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty’ 2Cor 3 v 17

In this verse Isaiah says there is an ‘anointing’ for bringing freedom, anointings can only come in the presence of God.  Trusting his Love and pressing into his presence is the key to my freedom, spending time with God, asking for his vocabulary to define my life with.

‘Trust in the lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your path’

This doesn’t seem like naivety anymore because I know it’s Freedom.

I changed my dictionary and God transformed me. I believed that he really did love me despite everything. I trusted.

Delight your self in his presence (Psalm 37 v 4), seek first his Kingdom (Mat 6 v 33), trust your loving father God with all of the mess of your heart, don’t hold back and just see what happens next….

Forward to the past

to walk where he walked....