A LOVE THAT LASTS.

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Jesus,

We uplift everyone involved with the Connecticut shooting to You. We don’t understand why it happened Lord, but we know that You are involved. You are there. You are in the midst and You understand. Thank you that You are not a God who is high on His throne and looks away when evil happens, but rather You are a God who is high on His throne and who came down to earth to suffer and die for us- for sin- for our sin- and who rose again. You are a God who intimately knows our suffering, who suffered more than we will ever know. And rose again, offering HOPE and life for us.

Lord we pray for the kids who were there- who saw the shooting, had friends killed, heard the gun shots. God please hold their hearts. Please comfort them. Lord, I pray for the teachers and adults- please show them Yourself. Show them that you love them, You’re in their midst, You are a Refuge and in Your presence there is no fear. Lord please give the police wisdom of how to handle the case– to bring justice, to do what’s right. Lord may You be glorified in this situation. Please bring people to You–restore, comfort, save, hold, uplift, and be ever present now.

And Lord, we look forward to the day when You’ll return– when we’ll be with You forever, and there will be no more tears or suffering. But in the meantime, thank you that You are a God who is here, who understands, who enters into the mess. We love you Lord. Amen.

Seized By A Great Affection.

REDEMPTION.

What a beautiful word. Defined as an act of being redeemed; deliverance; rescue.

Let that sink into every pore of your skin and every crack in your heart. Breathe it in. Marinate in it. Our God is a redeemer. It’s who He is. It’s what He does. He redeems. Which means, among other things, “to make up for. to restore worth or value.” Jesus makes up for our lack. He restores our value. By dying for us, He gives us a value and worth that we could have never had or achieved on our own. He didn’t die for us because we were worth dying for, He died for us to make us worth dying for. Does that make sense?

His life was worth mine.
Not the other way around.

When you are exhausted, and tired, and worn out, remembering that one day REDEMPTION will win brings hope. Knowing that we will be RESCUED from the things that attack us. We will be DELIVERED from sin and REDEMPTION will triumph.

So there’s beauty to be had in every moment. God isn’t going to move because of me, He’s going to move IN SPITE of me. He isn’t bringing glory to Himself by saving a bunch of people who get it right and who never wear out. He brings glory to Himself by redeeming the people who never got it right and who always wore out. It’s when we’re in our moments of greatest weakness that He is in His moments of greatest revelation. After all, “His strength is made perfect in weakness.”

I once heard it explained that the earth is like a garment, and where injustice prevails, that is where the garment has worn through. What Christ has done, then, and what our great privilege is to do, is to rework the fabric where it has grown thin.

He reworks the fabric.

Do not grow weary. And if you have grown weary, take rest in the thought, that all he wants from you is praise, not performance. If we come to Jesus with anything more than nothing, we come with too much. All we need is need, because He’s the one who does the work, and He’s reworking all things into good for those who love Him. He’s after a grateful people, not a perfect people. He’s after a responsive people, not a self-helped one. Live loved. That’s our call. That is our job. Even when we’re worn out, worn thin, and feel like we’ve got nothing left to offer Him, all He demands is our nothing.

Nothing is all we bring to Him
because nothing is the place that He can fill.

Anonymous asked: You're so beautiful. Any man would be lucky to marry you someday. Your heart for the Lord is inspiring and authentic. Don't let people tell you that you aren't good enough, you are. You are a daughter and princess of the King and He has a plan for you that is so much more than you could ever imagine.

Thank you so much. You are such a blessing. This just made my entire day. Wow, your heart is so kind. I’m speechless.

Teach us how to pray.

We are always praying. For things we want and miracles and basically just going to God and giving him a list of to-dos. 
I think about Jesus and the way he prayed. And I wonder if I pray the way he did. Because Jesus had like all this fame and all these people following him, he had a revolution at his fingertips. If he would have just snapped his fingers he could have rallied all these people to go fight against Rome. But you look at Jesus in the same way and see that he has this huge crowd surrounding him, and then all of the sudden he goes “peace” and he goes up on a mountain side to pray. And he goes out into the wilderness to pray. He had confused the disciples so much that they said “RABBI, TEACH US HOW TO PRAY, because you seem to love it way more than we do. There has got to be some sort of pleasure in what you are doing that would make you leave all of these things that we think are so important, like fame, and prestige, and following, and success, and you just calmly and coolly shrug it off just so you can go be alone with God. “ 
I look at this and I say the same thing. “God, teach me to pray, teach me to just go off and enjoy your presence that much.” I feel like we go through this routine and we get up and we read our bible, “The Lord is my Shepard, I shall not want.” and while reading we are half asleep or literally going to sleep or just completely doing it in vain.  
I am gonna throw out a challenge, because I know this isn’t just me feeling like this. Let’s try praying allowed. Yeah, I know this isn’t a huge revolutionary thought, but a lot of us never do. 
When I started praying out loud, I realized how little faith I had, because I was suddenly aware that people were literally gonna think I am muttering to the air, they are gonna think I am insane. So, in doing this, it brought up a very deep question… ” Do you really think God is listening?” 
I feel like we try to hide parts of us and what we think and what we do from God because we don’t want him to know that we question, or doubt, or hurt, or AREN’T PERFECT. That’s what it boils down to. We want God to think we are these perfect beings that have no flaws, BUT WE AREN’T. We are broken and bruised and flawed. And when we come into the presence of God, we can lay these things down at his feet. We can be completely honest with him and him still say, “I LOVE YOU. I GAVE MY SON FOR YOU SO YOU MAY HAVE AN ABUNDANT LIFE.” 
I suddenly came to a place where I woke up one morning and I got my bible and read, “The Lord is my Shepard, I shall not want.” and then I just unravelled myself to the Lord. I literally sat there and was like, “God, I know what I am reading, but, I do want. I want worldly things. I want to feel loved by people. I want people to like me and want to be my friend.” and all of the sudden, I felt that suddenly God was really listening and he could hear my cry, and in a still voice I heard, “I LOVE YOU. Run to me, come and lay your burdens at my feet and I will give you rest.” 
So let’s go back to the beginning… Lord, teach us how to pray. How can we view prayer not as a means to an end, but an end in itself. It’s a huge shift when that starts to happen. When the reason you start to pray is because you believe that his presence is the most beautiful precious thing ever, and so you pray just to pray. Not so he will give you something. But so we actually learn to pray, “Thou father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give me this day my daily bread, and forgive me my sins as I forgive people the same was you forgave me. Keep me far from temptation, deliver me from evil.” 
This. Everyday, Every way. My prayer is that we would all learn to love to pray.

steeleanneamber asked: Some day someone will come to you asking for advice, they'll tell you about all of their struggles and how they feel worthless because of the way people have treated them. You'll give them a huge hug and know exactly what to tell them because you've been there too. I was about to say i'm sorry you had a rough night, but I take it back. Everything happens for a reason, there was a grand plan, bigger than us, in place tonight. When you look back on this night I hope you see how it serves your life

I just have to say, you are so right. I’m glad you didn’t say sorry and come to me feeling bad, because I don’t want people to feel bad for me. I am so blessed, and out of a horrible night, I got a huge blessing. A HUGE blessing. The Lord renewed me last night and I am so free. Free of hate and free of anger, and so blessed.
Thank you.