I love love.
Seriously…. I really do! I love being in love, thinking about love, matching people up I know will fall in love…I love everything about LOVE! I’m one of those insanely passionate head-over-heels-in-love-makes-you-sick-to-your-stomach-to-watch-in-movies kind of characters who would rather DIE than be apart from my true love.
I know, I know…. it’s enough to make you vomit, but THIS is how God made me so I’ve decided to embrace it! I really am this way about anything I feel strongly about. I’m one incredibly passionate person and THANK GOD that also translates to my love of Christ…although I have been in seasons where I am sad to say this wasn’t always the case.
As a Christian life coach, I have seen firsthand how intimacy issues here in-the-flesh on earth can greatly affect our relationship with God. Typically, if we keep people at arm’s length and not ever let them in, this also translates to how we interact with God in our relationship with Him. This causes us to not want to spend every waking moment with Him, or crave our time with Him. But rather only to go to Him when we have no other option and then pick and choose the areas of our life we want to open up to Him.
As dangerous as this is for our in-the-flesh people relationships, this will 100% keep you from the type of intimate relationship God calls us to through being a Christ Follower. He calls us to Crazy Love. In my passionate life, I have held things I “loved” in 2 categories…
1. Reverence
- A feeling of profound awe and respect and often love; veneration.
2. Intimate
- Marked by close acquaintance, association, or familiarity. Relating to, or indicative of, one’s deepest nature: intimate prayers. Essential.
This week’s chapter is all about examining the love we have for God. I really like this thought-provoking quote from John Piper that Chan shared in today’s lesson:
“The critical question for our generation—and for every generation—is this:
If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth,
and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed,
and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted,
and no human conflict or any natural disasters,
could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ was not there?”
Well, could you?
This certainly has the potential to be a very convicting question for us to ask ourselves….
Blessings,
Megan 🙂
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Let’s Pray:
Lord, help us today to yearn to be with You as often as we can and not ever want to live without You! Some of us are struggling with obtaining this passion love for You, Father, but we do want it! We need Your help and we thank You in advance for wooing us closer to You and helping us to finally be free of anything that is keeping us from having this deep passion for You! We thank You in advance for all You will do. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen <3
You’re Assignment:
Balance in our relationship with God is important so that we don’t “humanize” God to the point that we infer the failures of humans on God. How often do you think of God as more of a concept rather than a real person? Which is more of a struggle for you: intimacy with God or reverence for God?
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If you are interested in joining this amazing online Bible study for Crazy Love, click HERE to sign up. Once you are registered, you will receive an email with further details.
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About Megan Smidt
answer to your question (prompted by pastor piper’s provoking statement): i could NOT! now to your ‘assignment’ question: the reverence (fear of the Lord) i have for our AWE-inspiring, aMAZing, incredible God is sure and steadfast…and, by His grace, is becoming more&more intimate with His! it IS such the balance, megan! sometimes, i think, my heart responds in one way rather than the other is due to the particular situation i am currently facing. <3
it can be so hard, coleen……. but the easier it will be the more you continue to press in! i love your heart for our Lord so much <3 I am honored to walk out this season with you, my friend!!
It seems that we are back to that balancing act of “reverent intimacy.” I agree with Coleen that my heart responds in one way or the other depending on the particular situations.From Tozer’s prayer at the beginning of the chapter I have underlined the sentence, “Begin in mercy a new work of love within me.” That is my prayer, to fall more deeply in love with God on a daily basis. To do that I have to “go to great lengths to be with the one I love.” Thankfully, He is always there waiting. 🙂
amen. He IS always there… and will never ever leave you or forsake you <3
Answer to John Piper: “No.” My favorite song: I dreamed I went to a city called glory. I saw Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob there, but I said, “I want to see Jesus, the one who died for me.” And yes, I feel I do have a deep reverence for God. As for intimacy, I long for a deeper level of intimacy with Him, which I think comes as I spend more time with Him.
It sure does come that way martha…. and he yearns for us to drop all the baggage we carry with us that keeps us from this closeness with Him, too. I think so many times we keep ourselves at a distance because we feel like we are not worthy, but that is a lie from the devil himself! God wants this intimacy with us more than anything <3
I definitely have a deep reverence for the Lord, but I do crave a deeper intimacy with Him. I want to walk each day – every MOMENT of each day – side by side with Him. I want to give complete control of every area of my life to Him. I’m slowly doing it, with His help!!