Wow here we are in Banos, Ecuador at our Final Debrief! The 11 months are officially over…this time next week I will be squeezing the literal life out of my entire family ahhhhhhh!!!!!! And hopefully eating something amazing. Fingers Crossed!!!!
Anyways, this past month I have spent a lot of time with Jesus, the Father and Holy Spirit and I have learned ALLLOOOOOTTTT. Like life transforming stuff you know. I was worried that when someone asked: “What did you do this month for ministry?” That I would sound lazy and not impress anyone with my answers. However, sometimes actually all the time the best thing you can “do” is nothing. The best thing is just to know and be known by your Father in Heaven. To spend time letting Him really get to know you and you to really get to know Him. To just RECEIVE His love and not work for it. You know that passage in Matthew (kind of scary) where the people are like Jesus we did all these things for you in your name (all this ministry) and He is like depart from me for I never knew you? Well, notice He says depart from me for I never knew you. For someone to know you, you have to spend time with them. It is so easy to get obsessed with working and being busy, because being busy is what makes us look good to other people. However, it is time to cut the crap. Being busy does not make Jesus love you more or less, make you more righteous or less righteous, it does nothing but give you dark circles under your eyes and high blood pressure. It’s time we all become so OBSESSED with hearing the applause of heaven over the applause of man. It’s time we become so OBSESSED with learning the nature of our Father that we really KNOW Him, because facts are you are what you eat!! If you eat and take in the nature of the Father which we can only learn from spending time with our Father, then you will display HIS NATURE ALL THE TIME!! And how much sweeter to know your Father’s voice than to have a list of accomplishments masked as ministry and never even know what it sounds like to hear Him say he’s proud of you. He’s always talking we just gotta listen.
Ahhh that’s such good news! You wanna know what else is good news?!! Guys I am just so fired up about all this new truth that Holy Spirit has been wrecking my old thought patterns with!!! I have to share it all ahhh. More good news is WE ARE ALREADY RIGHTEOUS. RIGHT NOW! Not in 45 years after you read through the Bible 70x, spend hours “doing ministry” (like what does that even mean??!!), or after you say i’m sorry enough times to God for falling into the same sin cycle. Like God is so infatuated with you right now!! You are already righteous right now. Not because of what you did or do, but because of what Jesus did on the cross. Yes, faith without works is dead, but when you know who you already are in Christ, your works come from an overflow of love and delight in the Father. Because you want everyone around you to wake up to the reality of how loved they already are! If you are doing good works expecting that, that will make you righteous you are saying what Jesus did on the cross wasn’t enough, and that you have to take matters into your own hands. (STUPPIIIIDDDDD which we all do it, but how dumb).
Like seriously guys all Jesus wants from us is for us to RECEIVE His love, and He sent us a “helper” a friend, the incredible Holy Spirit to HELP us receive everything God has already fully has given us! We aren’t striving we are striding with our friend Holy Spirit!
You know a caterpillar’s DNA is that of a butterfly? Because a caterpillar is already fully a butterfly it just has to mature into who it already is, and that’s all we have to do. We are just maturing into who we ALREADY ARE!! When we receive the love of Jesus every day Holy Spirit is right there showing us His nature and teaching us, helping us to walk out everything we already are (we have the fullness of God dwelling in us RIGHT NOW, everything Jesus is dwells in us right now and we didn’t do a dang thing to deserve it). It’s all about maturing into who we already are, by receiving the love of Jesus into our lives everyday.
Christianity is not about sin management, it’s not about a list of don’ts , it’s not about how i’m a terrible sinner just trying to make it to Heaven, or about how I always mess up. Guys I literally used to always say ugh i’m such a mess I can’t believe I messed up again to God, like my prayer life was me telling God how terrible I was and sorry I was for falling into the same thing over and over, and you know how much good that did??? NADA. NOTHING CHANGED, clearly because i was still doing the same thing I kept “repenting for”. Repentance though is not about saying God i’m sorry I did this and messed up. It’s about saying God I took on something that is no longer a part of who I am anymore (fill in the blank, for me it was lust and sexual impurity but it could be anything impatience, lying, etc.) and saying I choose to walk out who I am because of you INSTEAD. I’m not focusing on the negative (because whatever you give thought to you give power to) I’m focusing on who I already am in Christ, setting my mind on things above not on things of this world. I am a pure daughter of God and even though my previous actions didn’t display that, those actions don’t define me, I am defined by who I already am, and repentance is about receiving the love of the Father and knowing those actions are not who I am. Those actions were fruit of me believing wrongly about myself.
It’s all about receiving the Father’s love, walking in friendship with the INCREDIBLE Holy Spirit, and trusting that what Jesus did is enough which makes you enough! It’s about leaning back into Holy Spirit, about developing such a closeness with Him that you know how He would respond in every situation. Like Holy Spirit is our helper, our friend, a gift, the crescendo of the cross, He wants to help us through every day life. He is how we can never feel lonely again, how we can have a sustainable life with Christ. I want to get to Heaven and the Father say thank you for using the gift of Holy Spirit and not putting Him on the back burner of your life.
Ahhhh I could go for hours about this, but I won’t. Just know God is crazy in love with you!!
Also, quick story. I have a little guitar I got in Thailand that God provided so generously to me. I prayed at the beginning of this month that God would provide someone for me to give it to, because it’s better to give than receive. holllaaaaa!! But I would need to find a left handed kid because i’m a lefty and the guitar is so small haha. Prayed and God provided! We worked with a lady this month who goes to a really poor area every Saturday. Every Saturday they have a guitar lab for these beautiful kids (cause music heals your soul truly), and wouldn’t you know there is one little left handed girl that can never participate because they have no left handed guitars! BOOM! Look at the kindness of our Father! I got to give it to her and God did that.
Ahhh He’s freaking cool and kind and I love Him!
Liv
