impressed
15Mar08
What catches your eye? What sticks out to you as valuable? What makes you have to have something? What makes you really want to get to know someone? What do you realize you’ve just spent 3 hours doing and it felt like only 10 minutes? What gets you searching obsessively for a song or a book or a movie? Who makes you feel really alive when you’re around them? What gets you driving hundreds of miles to be a part of something?
What if, all of a sudden, only things with eternal value could touch you, impress you…move you like that! Look what can happen when God simultaneously grabs hold of peoples’ hearts and gives them an insatiable appetite for his Kingdom >>
It’s weird. I’ve just come out of my bedroom, where I was with the Spirit… talking about the same thing you wrote! I can’t imagine what would happen if we all get in love with God in that way!
When we are drawn to art, music, or a person who exudes that elusive something, it shows we are seeing something of God in the object of our desire. It is the spark of his Spirit illuminating a dark area in our heart. We see something that is needed we want to share in. Many are decieved into thinking the object of their affection is not Yeshua, but the created object, artist, cult leader, or christian brother. But the light we see and long for in this other is a reflection or glimpse into the true hero of our souls. God puts these longings in us for HIMSELF! Its His glory we are designed to glory in. He is all the truth love justice mercy sound smell taste touch beauty we long for. When we experience these things, get excited to know someone or participate in a cause, we should not be decieved and focus on the created thing. There is a danger of being led into all kinds of deception here. But we shouldn’t deny the truth or good we find either. Celebrate the source of every good and perfect gift!
so crazy…I just got back from driving 12 hours from Redding, CA just to see what God has been doing there.
I know I seek and desire to only be fulfilled by God. My hunger for him must remain insatiable because there is always more of him available..
however for some reason that doesn’t keep me from wasting hours a week on the internet not doing anything. But it’s definitely something that I am working towards in terms of recognizing that I still have that hunger and learning not to suppress or not temporarily quench my hunger for God with things of this world, instead choosing to let my hunger grow until it becomes too much to bear and then let the fulfillment of the Spirit flow upon me.
Another way to put it is “don’t pacify the longing for God. Wait.”
Wait until he chooses to fulfill it because he knows when it will be most effective for catching hold of you.
i tend to agree w/ leon on this.
Picture Jesus walking around Nazareth at age 14, Capernaum at age 21, Jerusalem at age 30. What would you guess impressed him? caught his eye? stuck out to him as valuable? made him have to have something, know someone, etc?
I wonder how much of the awareness of all manhood and all diety he walked around with. Was he conscious of creating the stars, the atomic structure of the materials he worked with, the DNA of the people he loved?
We do know he was consumed with “zeal” for his Fathers house. At 12 he was talking about being about his Fathers business. Do you think the word zeal comes close to what you are talking about?
Psalm 69
8 I am a stranger to my brothers,
an alien to my own mother’s sons;
9 for zeal for your house consumes me,
and the insults of those who insult you fall on me.
I get excited about learning new things, hearing new sounds, finding out more about the plans God has, and sharing these exciting new things with others. I think Yeshua was excited to share the plans he had for people with them, and making more plans, coming up with new ideas. He would see things in people that he wanted others to notice and appreciate. He would also see things in people he wanted to put an end to. I wonder if he dreamed of when he would go out of this world to work on creating new spaces for his people to live in. We see his creation here and wonder in awe. What else is he going to do! The Psalms are full of encouragement to sing a new song to the Lord. New creations of music and art are important to him.
You are really on to something with the zeal for Father’s house quote.
I’d guess that most people who read this site are very into music, art, film, ..creation. And no question I love how Jesus makes everything new: the new man, the new song, the new creation, new life - and life absolutely to the full!
Just realize that Jesus had roughly 3 years after he was baptized and anointed with the Holy Spirit, and during that time we can see very objectively how he lived - what he knew, what he did, where he was focused. I’d really challenge people to find any scripture that indicates that Father communicated with Jesus on earth any different than he communicated with Paul or Peter or you or me. Remember even when Father spoke audibly from heaven, it was for the crowd’s sake, not to give Jesus direction.
Especially the fact the he was tempted in every way just as we are (and without once giving in!) pretty much spells it out that he was conscious of exactly what we are (or can be) conscious of - no more, no less. Everywhere I see Jesus interacting with Father, it’s on a very dynamic, need-to-know basis.
So 3 years. You’re given the Spirit in an unlimited measure. You can do anything you want in God and it will succeed. Now…what drives you?
A government of His Spirit increasing. His Kingdom increasing. Seeing Father’s possessions being redeemed. The original intent being redeemed. The pattern of Jesus sweeping over nations.
I don’t know what people “read” when they read those words. But Lord knows what I mean, and I do mean it
Well said - very much where Jesus’ heart was when we first see him ministering.
The first part of John 3 really says it all. Here you have Jesus talking to Nicodemus, who is probably the most qualified man on earth to relate to Jesus at that point. The greek literally says he’s the “THE ruler of the Jews,” he’s thoroughly familiar with the Law and the Prophets, and he accepts Father’s confirmation of Jesus whole-heartedly.
The fact that he has no clue what Jesus is talking about really shows us something dramatic. And it’s not that Jesus is a superhero… Jesus came in the flesh making absolutely no effort to relate to man’s best - why do you think?
What you are saying about Nicodemus is right on bro. Man in all his intellect and wisdom, but still not understanding even elementary things of Father’s ways. Papa makes it crystal clear that we must receive something totally beyond/outside of us (and our ability). Jesus says “I say to you, unless one is born of water and THE SPIRIT, he cannot enter the kingdom of God”. I feel that Nicodemus represents man’s best in intellect, wisdom, and religion. But lets not forget Lazarus. I may be crazy bro, but I feel one of the deep things in Lazarus’ story is he represents man’s goodness. I mean a genuinely good person. We see Jesus loves Lazarus and I think we see just how good of a guy he is. You would say he truly is a lovely, good person. So we have moved away from intellect/wisdom/religion and now are in the realm of man’s best in being a “good guy”. BUT he still had to DIE then RISE. Even Lazarus had to die and come to life. Again, Papa makes it crystal clear that man’s best is not what He is looking for…
Lazarus coming back from the dead! What a powerful event. Jesus makes his purpose in raising Lazarus from the dead well known in John 11.4, John 11.14-15, and John 11.40-43.
And just like in John 3 with Nicodemus, John 11 ties together Jesus’ mighty works with his conversation in heaven. Jesus has a revelation of the miracle that will take place before it takes place - he’s already seen Father do it, so now he can do it along with Father. People come to Jesus knowing that Father will give him whatever he asks. Then when Jesus talks to Father publicly, he has absolute confidence that Father hears him - so his conversation with Father spills over into an authority to shout commanding Lazarus to come out of the tomb.
In both the accounts of meeting Nicodemus (John 3), and raising Lazarus (John 11); we see Jesus totally enamored with heaven, with the things of the Spirit, with the glory of God. These had become tangible to him. What he had received from heaven had become bigger to him than anything going on in the earth, so when he spoke heaven invaded earth.
So often when we witness about things of the Spirit, people just hear a loud “no no no” to natural things. It is temporarily painful to trade something you already have for something intangible. But if we are willing to admit how little of heaven we’ve actually tasted (compared to how much is right now available), and if we really understand how Father throws heaven open to the hungry - we’ll find ourselves not even considering the implications. If you dive into how you experience heaven, the earth will never be the same.
Amen and amen! Let us be a people surrendered to God in this way. What is it that we are clinging to? What is more precious than what Papa has in store? Do we want praise from men? I pray Father that the chains are broken and we allow Jesus to saturate us. Our hearts, minds, and will be governed by Your Spirit Lord.
Right on!
I just realized through this conversation that my picture of Jesus has been a bit different than perhaps what it ought to be… I’ve always thought of Him as having full access to nearly everything the Father had access to except the things clearly spelled out in scripture.
Matthew 24:36 “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son,[a] but only the Father.
I suppose it could be argued either way,
Colossians 2:9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form,
but your view certainly changes the way He would have depended on his communication with the Father for everything. He was still the second Adam without the first Adam’s sin nature.
still wrestling…
Oh man don’t bother wrestling over this. None of us claims to know anything of himself. It all comes by revelation, by being with Jesus and asking him to reveal himself for everything he is. And if any man loves God, the same is known by him!
For hundreds of years people have been trying to pin God down with theological theorems and postulates…”God is omnipotent, and God is omniscient, therefore we know God must be…” All the while Father is standing there saying, “Why don’t you just humbly come before me and tell me how much you love being with me and really want to know me?”
All I know is that while Jesus walked the earth in the same flesh I’m wearing now, you could not tear him apart from communion with Father for all the world. He had to hear Father’s heartbeat in literally everything he did and said. He’d run away into the hills in the middle of the night in the middle of mighty signs and wonders and people wanting to make him king…just so he could be alone with Father. He could listen to people quoting the Torah like machines, and see right through it to the essence of their (lack of) relationship with God. He learned early on to value only one thing: real relationship with Father. So Father gave it to him!
And out of that simple passionate desire to know Father and hear Father and obey Father - we now have all things in Christ.
all i know is you’ve got something i want. I’m not saying I never have it. when i do its awesome! but i do seem to be always wrestling for it. working out my salvation in fear and trembling since i grew up in the guiltfire and shamestone.
peace in Jesus. Freedom. shoulders relaxed. lettin it flow. amen all right.
my fam is praying for you on your trip to Nepal.