Sometimes I think we have this sense of counterfeit fullness.
While I’ve been on the race, the message that God is my portion has been a consistent reminder.
“My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” Psalm 73:26
“The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup.” Psalm 16:5
This past week I made out this list of wants and desires and prayers and dreams.
But then God said to me, if you would never hear my voice and would never know me and would never feel my presence, would you still want all of that?
That led me to ask the question, Is God first thing in my life? Truly truly deep in my heart is He first? Is He my full portion?
In Matthew 21 Jesus curses a fig tree. He was pretty fired up about this fig tree that had only produced leaves and not fruit.
In this story, the leaves symbolize lots of religious activity, lots of people crowding into big buildings to hear a preacher, and lots of concern for doing church right (that’s causing division).
Honestly, only a few want nothing more than to come to Him. Without the activity.
The leaves are evidence of life, but Jesus found no fruit in the fig tree.
Nothing to enjoy.
Being on the World Race and doing ministry everyday has the possibility to fool me into thinking I’m producing fruit when really it could possibly just be a bunch of leaves.
The ones who work in churches and their lives are ministry can be the ones most easily fooled they are producing fruit and that their hearts are full.
It really all goes back to self-obsession. Self-fulfillment, self-promotion, self-realization. We plan for tomorrow with personal comfort in mind.
We can become agenda-driven and not just want to meet with the sole desire to share Christ.
So this brought me to the question, am I being honest with myself and with the Lord? Am I naked before the Lord? Is God, and not ministry or anything else, my first thing?
When you read Psalm 51 and realize that you’re broken over how far you have to go to become like Jesus, holy desires rise to the surface. It led me to Psalm 37:4 again.
Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.
The desires will take their place at the center of my heart by just delighting in Him and checking my heart of my motives.
When I really sit with God, I can really sense what He wants the most.
Sitting with Him with the goal of just knowing Him leads to eventually praying His intercessory and petitionary prayers and not my own. How does HE want me to pray for my loved ones who are running from Him? What does unselfish prayer look like?
I’m learning that it’s so important to present your honest self to God. All your real feelings. It’s important to know where you’re at, to reflect on where your heart’s at. Who am I in this moment? Where am I at? Unrecognized self-obsession and getting our own way is sin. The World Race really emphasizes self awareness. To give yourself a heart check.
David was a man after God’s own heart because he consistently presented his real feelings which always ended up in Him recognizing who God truly was and becoming broken and naked before the Lord.
I confess that every morning these past two weeks I have woken up at certain times in the night wide awake, and I knew God wanted me to get up to spend time with Him and I didn’t. Sometimes I just want to keep in control of what he wants me to walk through in my own timing. If He puts something on my heart, I’ll make a note of it in my phone and come back to it later. Timing is everything to God. That kind of says a lot about my heart and my priorities. Those are some honest feelings of mine. Some much needed realization.
When I finally did get up and start listening to what He wanted me to hear, I heard Him say, “My heart is the treasure.”
Matthew 6:21 says, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” So if His heart is my treasure, then my heart should be where His heart is. My desires will be His desires.
Additionally, My heart is His treasure. It was so strongly on my heart that He loves those heart to heart talks. He loves just spending time with me.
Our greatest treasure is communion with God.
I want Him to pour his very prayers through me. God-inspired, God-answered prayers.
After coming before Him and presenting my honest self, He put John 15:7 on my heart, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”
John goes on to say, “Abide in my love…You are my friends if I do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends for all that I have heard from my father I have made known to you… these things I command you, so that you will love one another.”
We are His friends if we are abiding in truth. He will make things known to us that’s on His heart.
I love the verse from Psalm 25:14:
“The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear Him, and He makes known to them His covenant.”
If God is our number one, that shows a healthy fear of the Lord. We care more about what He wants than what the world wants. That’s friendship with God and not the world. And then, as our friend, He shares His secrets with us.
That’s when our joy may be complete.
1 John says that abiding in Him is walking as He walked, and in keeping His word, the love of God is perfected.
No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.-1 John 4:12
If we love one another, His love will be seen in us and God will be shown to the world.
Abide in His love.
If we are truly abiding, we will love one another with His love and be humbled to the point of brokenness. The union with Christ transforms us.
Loving someone looks different from person to person. It might look like building up your brother or sister in Christ by just sitting with them and being there for them. Or it might look like helping someone learn english like we do with the college students in Vietnam.
Oftentimes, as we are sitting in coffee shops in Vietnam, a student will come up and ask us if we will practice English with them. One student asked me to help her translate a video word for word. In those moments, we can listen to what God is leading us to do. Sometimes I get nervous sharing Jesus with people here because we aren’t even allowed to use the word missionary. But whenever I sense God pushing me to, because it’s His desire, I do.
It’s not about me or our squad though. It’s about God and this amazing relationship and Him revealing more and more of who He is.
The unveiling of the mystery. The secrets being shared. To know Him better.
So, all that to say, I’ve learned that we will experience emptiness if our aim in this world is to feel satisfied and full, and not to know Him, because He is our full portion.
And if we aren’t truly naked before the Lord, we will actually think we are living from that full portion, when we really aren’t.
It’s easy to fool ourselves into thinking God is our number one and full portion when He is not. I’m traveling the world on a chance of a life time with some of the greatest people I’ve ever had the chance to get to know, fulfilling the great commission but none of that means anything if He is not my full portion and it’s a bunch of leaves and not fruit coming from abiding in the Father. I have to check my heart every single day and spend time with Jesus every single day, not having any other thing that takes first place.
So pay whatever the price is to know Him. It might mean waking up in the middle of the night to spend time with Him. It might look like doing some hard soul searching or heart checking. Or asking some hard questions.
Sit at the feet of Jesus and stay there.
Honestly, just get naked, spiritually naked.
