All Of Him, Loves All Of You- LAVISH DAY 1

All your curves and all your edges, all your perfect imperfections. Give your all to me, I’ll give my all to you, I’m your end and your beginning, even when you lose you’re winning”

JESUS

As I sat to begin typing this letter, I heard the Father sing that song over you. Yes you.

Yes. I opened this series with lyrics from a “secular song”. Yes, the Holy Spirit chose the song.

Please forget everything you think you know about God and his love. He wants to minister to you in a special and different way. Only those who are ready to receive like babies will enjoy this series. Can you drop the church personality and fiery christian armour and be yourself? Ready? Good. Let us begin.

I want you to inhale, then exhale. Close your eyes. Inhale again, exhale again…

Good.

Now I want you to drop all your apprehensions around perfection in devotion/spending time with God. Trust me, it happens to me as well. I agonise so much about whether I’m spending time with Him the right way that I forget to just enjoy his presence. For the next few weeks, we’re simply going to show up and enjoy God’s presence together. Nothing too deep. Just basking in the atmosphere of his lavish love and letting it penetrate our hearts.

Sometimes I do this thing where I play songs that remind me of the presence of God, His loving warmth and tenderness and I just lie down and close my eyes (don’t worry I’ll share some over the coming days).

As I lay down this evening after spending a few hours on my computer, Father began to talk to me about enjoying intimacy. Here’s what he said:

When a man and a woman cuddle, especially after they’ve just had sexual intercourse (note from Raks: God was referring to MARRIED COUPLES), they simply just lie there basking in their love for each other without speaking. Yet, without words, they are communicating a lot. I want my children to be comfortable enough to simply enjoy me in silence. Without music, without reading, without speaking, without writing. Just skin to skin. Heart to heart, intimacy beyond words…

Remember God created marriage, so He has the best ideas of intimacy. He invented intimacy. However a lot of us are so caught up in routine and our understanding of what spirituality means and what spending time with God means that we end up more exhausted after we spend time with him than when we started. Think of the times you’ve had a checklist for your time with God. It’s probably something like this:

• Play worship music on YouTube for 10 minutes
• Pray in tongues for 15 minutes
• Read two chapters of the Bible
• Say the grace

Am I right or am I right? Don’t get me wrong, I do not discount the place of discipline, consistency and routine in helping you grow in Christ. However, do some introspection. Do you truly know God or do you know of Him? Does all this activity draw you closer to his heart or does it make you feel like you’re ticking the right boxes of being a good Christian?

Think about it. Are you able to trust him more and move in faith or do you know a bunch of Hebrew words?

Do you know HIM! Have you gazed into his eyes, has his love filled your heart to overflowing such that laying down your life for him barely feels like a sacrifice?

Reader, the truth is that a lot of us struggle in our walk with God because we do not know Him who we profess to know. His love does not dwell richly in our hearts. It is why we love this world and the things in it and sin so easily besets us. We have lost delight. There is no more delight in devotion, only duty.

Think about people like Abraham. There was no scripture or Bible for him to read but he fellowshipped with God and walked with Him. He was a friend of God. He was ready to sacrifice his only son simply because God asked him to. He didn’t go to church, nor could he speak in tongues. In fact, he lived among a pagan people. However he knew Yahweh intimately. He spoke to him, he trusted him, and he obeyed him. God wants you to know him more than Abraham knew him. Yes! In this day, he has revealed Himself to us in Christ. We have what Abraham couldn’t have. God’s very Spirit dwelling in those who believe in Him.

Please note that I am not asking you to stop reading the Bible. It is important for us to read and meditate upon scripture, but we must know that scripture leads us to a LIVING BEING who wants to be known. Scripture is filled with the encounters people like you and me had with God. That God is still alive. The testimony is that each generation should know him more than the last. That the revelation of His love dwells so richly in our hearts until we come to a place of perfection, lacking nothing.

Think about David. A man who God testified about saying “You’re a man after my own heart”. He not only read the word of God as laid out in the Law, he sought God’s heart. Think of all the Psalms he wrote. You can only write such beautiful poetic pieces after gazing on the wonder of God and getting lost in Him.

These men knew God so much that their physical circumstances paled in comparison to the glory that they consistently gazed upon! This is how they were so joyful. This is why they didn’t really care about their lives. They knew there was more. They had gazed on the unseen so much that it birthed unshakable faith…

'For God, who said, “Let there be light in the darkness,” has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ. ' 

2nd Corinthians 4:6

The Bible records that Stephen while being stoned to death had his gaze fixed on Christ. Honest question, can you joyfully give your life for the sake of God? Think about it properly. Don’t say a mechanical yes because that’s what is expected of you as a Christian. If someone showed up with a gun now shooting people who believed in Christ, would you identify yourself with him or would you mask your cowardice and self preservation with “God understands”.

Discipline can only take you so far. Dear reader, you were not designed to be fuelled by (just) discipline but by delight. Intense love for God filling your heart, mind and soul and overflowing. I know this. It is my lived reality. I love Jesus so much. I wasn’t always like this, so I know that even if you realise you don’t truly love Him, you can grow to love Him.

Please don’t condemn yourself. We can only love Him because he first loved us…

You reading this? It’s His love.

And if you already love him, you can love Him even more. Our hearts have infinite capacity to love God.

Please close your eyes and play the song below. Let the lyrics be a prayer and a salve to your weary soul. The Father wants you infinitely more than you desire Him…

Now know that God loves you so much that he died for you. All you need to do is just believe that he came to the earth as a man, to take the punishment due to you because you’re a sinner. Instead of death, you have received life. You just have to believe and surrender your life to Him.

It might sound too good to be true, but when God led the Israelites out of Egypt, they sinned against him and the natural consequence was that snakes came to bite them. Even creatures and animals know when we’re being unfaithful to our maker. Anyway, the remedy for that was just for them to look at a bronze snake and they were healed. They only had to gaze upon a mere object and they were healed.

'So the Lord sent poisonous snakes among the people, and many were bitten and died. Then the people of Israel set out from Mount Hor, taking the road to the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom. But the people grew impatient with the long journey, and they began to speak against God and Moses. “Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die here in the wilderness?” they complained. “There is nothing to eat here and nothing to drink. And we hate this horrible manna!” Then the people came to Moses and cried out, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you. Pray that the Lord will take away the snakes.” So Moses prayed for the people. Then the Lord told him, “Make a replica of a poisonous snake and attach it to a pole. All who are bitten will live if they simply look at it!” So Moses made a snake out of bronze and attached it to a pole. Then anyone who was bitten by a snake could look at the bronze snake and be healed! ' Numbers 21:4-9 

God Himself came down in the flesh to save you from sin so why do you think you need to put in any additional effort, when people merely had to look at an object to be healed from SNAKE BITES. Please do not doubt the saving power of God or the completeness of his redemption. Jesus himself said:

‘And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life.

John 3:14–15

PLEASE JUST BELIEVE. YOU ARE NOT TOO FAR GONE, AND NO SIN (INCLUDING MURDER), HOLDS A CANDLE TO THE FIRE OF HIS SAVING GRACE.

To learn more about salvation and what it means, you can read a post Jesus and I wrote here.

Finally, if you’re a new believer (or old) and looking to grow in the faith, my friend created a really helpful guide that you can find here.

Like I said, this series is about you connecting with God and basking in His love. Play the song below and just talk to Him, or be silent. Know that He’s right there with you though and He’s glad you came. Don’t forget to share this with your friends and your network.

In case it wasn’t clear enough, JESUS LOVES YOU.