I often wonder what it must have been like for God to walk amongst His own creation and yet not be recognized. Jesus, true God and true Man, descended from heaven to earth and yet His people (with only a few exceptions) did not honor Him and did not love Him.

“He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.”  Isaiah 53:3

Rejection does not dissuade the God of great patience and great love!  Jesus perseveres and He waits for His Bride (His People) to fall in love with Him. He waits for His Bride to trust Him and He waits for the wedding gift He most desires…true repentance. God desires a Bride that is sorry for her sins. “A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise” Psalm 51:17

Jesus, Our Holy Saviour, embraces an instrument of torture, a Cross, and that Cross becomes the sign of our salvation. As Jesus was crucified He said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Luke 23:34.  Jesus was prepared to suffer and die for us.  He was prepared to wait for us to choose Him above all things and all people.

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  Romans 5:8

How many of us are willing to die to ourselves in order to become true disciples of Jesus Christ?

“Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” Luke 9:23

We live in a world where instant gratification is the order of the day. People don’t like to wait. The world trains us to think it’s our right to have what we want, when we want it, how we want it…after all it’s our life and we can do with it as we please right?  The main objective the world preaches is “be happy you only live once”.  But that’s not the teaching of Christ!  It’s Satan’s way of deceiving us into being self-serving people, full of lust, always wanting more and more. Satan does not want you to prepare for eternal life, nor does he want you to honor God.

“To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God…” Ecclesiastes 2:26

Only God can give us true happiness. Only Jesus can truly fulfill our hearts and souls. We can buy all the possessions in the world but we won’t be complete and at peace until we let Our Lord Jesus into our hearts.  I have learned personally that ‘denial of self’ opens up a huge portent of grace.  I have spent a lot of time in silence reflecting on the Word of God.  At first the silence was uncomfortable and I struggled to become truly quiet but as I persevered I began to be aware of the meaning of this Scripture:  “Be still, and know that I am God…” Psalm 46:10  The greatest mystery about denial that I can share with you is as I began to deny myself the pleasures I once rejoiced in I began to experience the greatness of God’s love.  The more I denied myself the more God indulged me and the more I began to rejoice in the simple pleasure of sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to His voice speak to my heart through reflection on the Word of God.

I now question most of what the world holds as truth (i.e., conventional wisdom) and believe that the reason we often offend God is because we have been trained to be selfish and superficial, not selfless, not patient, not willing to sacrifice, not wise. God will help us to become wise and that wisdom begins with fear of the Lord:  “And this is what he says to all humanity: The fear of the Lord is true wisdom; to forsake evil is real understanding.”  Job 28:28

God wants us to understand that He will take care of us if we do what He teaches us to do:  love, forgive, be charitable, kind, merciful.

“Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.” 1 Peter 5:7

Jesus please forgive us because it’s true so often we don’t know what we are doing. Please retrain us to think as You want us to think. Help us to honor You and to patiently accept our cross in life.  Your Bride is waiting for You! I love You!

Please join The Mercy Movement that is uniting followers of Jesus in prayer and remembrance of the Passion of Christ DAILY @ the time Jesus died for us 3pm (each of us in our local time zones).  Let us pray at this time for all souls to come to repentance.  Let us pray for peace and justice in our world.  So many people are suffering and they need your prayers.  Put a reminder in your calendar to join us daily @ the time Jesus died for us 3pm, if but for a few solemn moments.  God bless you!