Hola Peeps! So a current update has been LONG overdue I realize, I’m seriously so bad at staying on top of things…especially this blog. I ain’t neva had a blog before, but I will do better on staying current! But before I begin to share with you all, a HUMONGOUS THANK YOU to all my supporters both in prayer & finances I am already at $6,653!!! Over a third of the finances in, THANK YOU, I am beyond thrilled that you all have such a huge, important part in all of this!
Let me start by telling you about how much God has been revealing to me, and teaching me about His relentless, forgiving, powerful love, a love that cannot be received through human relationships, a love that we can only experience because He loved us first. A love that sets us free and lets us experiences liberty [freedom from slavery, independence, absence of external restraint, a negation of control or domination, freedom of access]. However, even after all He has taught me, it’s still impossible to wrap my mind around this love He has to offer each and every single human that He Himself has created, continuing to love on us, until we respond to this love that we will never find anywhere else!
Late on a Saturday night after getting off of a too-long night of work, I got an invitation from one of my very good friends to come over the next morning before church to catch up on life & enjoy some smoothies. She proceeded to tell me sorry that it was last minute, but that God had prompted her to ask me over. I told her yes & headed over bright and early the next morning!
You know those times you feel led to do something, but are not always sure why, or the point of it? This particular morning I felt led to fast, so I turned down her strawberry-banana smoothie, not too sure why at the time and stuck with my big ol jug of water.
As we began our catch up sesh, we covered both of our fundraising efforts and progress (she will be spending a year teaching in Haiti!! Please keep her in prayer!!), and all of our current struggles we were facing. I had brought over a book I was reading at the time, Because He Loves Me, by Elyse M. Fitzpatrick- A MUST READ FOREAL NOT KIDDING- because I wanted to share a passage from it with her that had hit me hard. So I opened up the book, and began to read:
“A skewed perspective on God’s activity in our sanctification will result in an overemphasis on outward conformity to the imperatives. It will breed one of two categories of moralism. The first is what I’m calling the Happy Moralist. The Happy Moralist is the person who thinks that his holiness rests pretty much on his own efforts but isn’t worried because he has reduced God’s demands for outward conformity to simplistic rules like don’t drink, don’t chew, don’t run with them that do, or any of a thousand outward commands that don’t engage the heart. If avoiding certain external behaviors, “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch,” is all God demands of us, then we can be happy with our righteousness and, while we’re at it, it’ll be easy to be judgmental and look down on others, too.
Of course, the problem that the Happy Moralist must face is that all of his conformity to mere external regulations is of “no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh” (Col. 2:23). The sinful heart is never transformed by conformity to the imperatives but only by relationship with the One who cleanses hearts. All of the Happy Moralist’s external law keeping doesn’t touch the source of his sin—the desires of his heart. In fact, his self-styled successes only serve to make him blind to his weaknesses and proud of his accomplishments. The rich young ruler was a Happy Moralist until he met the Christ who decimated his self-esteem and showed him his need. The self-indulgence that the Happy Moralist will inevitably fall into is simply an outworking of his faltering self-reliance; we can only keep up appearances for so long before we fall. The sole protection against self-indulgence is not to trust in self at all.
Now, let me introduce you to the Sad Moralist. The Sad Moralist is the person who understands the profound depth of God’s demands: to love him with all that we are, to love our neighbors as ourselves. He sees that true holiness is not a matter of mere externals, and in this he is right; but he os also crushed by the depth of his inability to even begin to achieve the righteousness God requires.. His conscience always accuses him, he wonders about his salvation, he is over-punctilious about every thought, scrupulous to a fault; he rehearses his failures over and over in his mind, is overwrought with guilt, and wonders about the joy and rest other Christians seem to have. And “instead of examining himself for biblical signs of regeneration through possession of simple faith, he ransack(s) his heart for foolproof signs of advanced holiness.” “Joy? How could I be joyful?” he wonders. “How could I laugh when I’ve fallen so short…when my awareness of my failures and obligations are annihilating me?”
Like the Happy Moralist, this unhappy soul will continually be tempted to fall into self-indulgence, perhaps by spending hours and hours in introspection, self-recrimination, and what might be called depression or anxiety. He’ll compare his walk with others, and instead of looking down on them; he’ll look down on himself. He is the overwrought Christian who claims to know God’s grace but never finds the freedom to serve Christ from grateful obedience, because he believes his obedience is never perfect enough. He needs to see that Jesus is greater than his sin, greater than his opinion of himself. He needs the humility that a true embracing of utter depravity brings and the reassurance that a true embracing of God’s sovereignty over his sanctification produces.”
Immediately after reading that section aloud, the tears began flowing. I found myself completely relating to the Sad Moralist. The instantaneous emotions I felt consisted of disappointment in myself, sadness that I found my mindset relating so easily to the Sad Moralist, confusion that I had been apart of the legalistic ways I thought I had understood and was free of, but most of all I felt complete, and utter relief. Relief that I was able to pinpoint what was going on; that this is what I had been doing to myself when I sinned, entrapped in constant condemnation, thinking that this is what our loving God was doing as well (HA!). I felt relief that my God had just pointed it out clear as day, and freed me from this entrapping of lies.
My Father set a Divine Appointment for me with a sister in Christ that morning, and we were both able to experience the revelation that he brought. We were then able to rejoice & praise our God together in the personal ministering the Lord had done that morning. I then went to my devotional and opened up to that morning’s date, and after reading the title, I stopped and looked up at Amanda who was staring right back at me with a huge smile on her face.
Just so happened that the title of mine was “Imperfect, But Perfectly Loved”, followed by 1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love (dread does not exist), but full-grown (complete, perfect) love turns fear out of doors and expels every trace of terror.
Amanda’s first lines of her devotion for the day consisted of: “Jesus came as the Son of Man to rescue us from the great plight of man: we have a sin problem, and we are powerless to help ourselves. I can remember being so devastated over a sin I had allowed to ensnare me that I repeatedly begged God to forgive me. I confessed my sin with great sorrow and turned radically from it. Still I continued to plead for forgiveness. Then one day in my Bible reading, God revealed these Scriptures to me from Luke 5. He spoke to my heart and said: “Beth, My child, you have an authority problem. You think you can do your part, which is repent. You just don’t think I can do My part, which is forgive.”
The Lord continued to break me apart piece by piece through more of His Truth that morning, including:
- Romans 8 (Free from indwelling sin)
- Romans 8:2 (For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death) Made Free: To liberate, acquit, set free, deliver. Justification by faith. No fear of condemnation, does not want us feeling condemned. When we continually make the same mistake, know that the condemnation and judgment is removed- WE ARE FORGIVEN.
- Hebrews 12:6
- Galatians 2:16
- Matthew 5:17
- Galatians 5:13
I then realized I had been prompted to fast to just feed on the spiritual food He had to fill me with that morning, focusing my entire mind on Him & His Truth.
After being completely filled up and fed spiritually, we headed off to church with a couple of Amanda’s delicious smoothies in hand. When we got there, our worship leader told us he was led to sing an impromptu song over the church body that morning, about an hour before the service had started. He then began to sing; lo and behold the song was about the Lord’s love & forgiveness, followed by a powerful message.
So in recap to my lengthy wordiness; I (and you!) was created out of a perfect love, to simply receive His love. I am imperfect, always and forever will be, and I would continually dwell on my sins, continually ask for forgiveness (even after He had given it the first time I asked) and live in constant guilt and condemnation of what I had done. However, He pointed exactly to what I had been doing, freed me of it in the process, revealing to me His Truth, and flattening the lies I had been believing for too long.
Shoutout to my beautiful baby girl Amanda for inviting me over for smoothies and sharing in that special morning with me. I am truly blessed to have you in my life! I’m truly impressed if y’all made it to the end, foreal they won’t always be this long- had to make up for my long period of silence obviously hehe 🙂 Love and thank you all for your support!!! I appreciate each and every single one of you taking the time to read 🙂
