God

A People Set Apart for His Own Possession

~ alihake ~ 1 Comment

We have been in a season of life where Christians are needing to figure out where they are rooted and what they are going to choose to ground themselves on when it comes to their beliefs. The church is being shaken, and there are people who are wanting to land in the center of Christ no matter how unpopular that place is, and there are people who are hungry to stay relevant to the people around them and to keep everyone happy; ending up with compromise or twisting the words of God to make everyone happy and to feel good.

I have been deeply burdened by the division I have been seeing among the church, and I have been crying out for insight from Jesus. I don’t want to follow what feels good, and I don’t want to just accept the things that seem like they could be Jesus. I want my life to reflect Jesus; all of Him. I want to promote Jesus and His way in everything I do the best I can as a broken vessel.

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you. Titus 2:11-15

God’s grace is a sweet, sweet thing. His heart is so good and the way that so many of us have found His Love is why we claim Jesus like we do. But His grace is not for the sake of making people feel happy. His grace presents opportunity to all; opportunity we would never have without His grace and goodness. It presents opportunity to live freely in Christ AND reveals to us the right way to live. It does not give license. His grace is not a tool to mask the sins we feel like accepting and living in. It is not a phrase to use to defend our selfish choices or other people’s choices. It is instead a tool to teach us how to live in godliness and how to step out of those dark places. His goal in saving us through grace was to set aside a purified people for His own possession. Which means there is a process of washing and removal. He loves us and accepts us AND calls us higher. It’s all of the above, not just the ones you want to accept.

There is a real reason why the Bible says the road is narrow to the gates of the Kingdom. There is a way to live that will be different from the world. Being “progressive” or “relevant” is not the calling of the Christian. Being steadfast and faithful and SET APART is the calling of the Christian. 

When we contort the Word of God, we commit blaspheme, and we lead people astray. And the waywardness of the people we lead astray is our responsibility. This is a season to stand up to relevance and fitting in and to say, “I am standing with Jesus.” Not standing with sin simply to make people feel loved. Jesus never stood with people in sin for the sake of making them feel better. He always showed incredible love in someone’s sin and challenge. He encountered people with great love and told them to turn from their sin. He loved deeply and challenged deeply. How do we expect lost people to encounter a holy God and discover a transformative life if we are just telling them their sin is ok? We love them in their sin and show them a better way through Jesus.

The verse above doesn’t just end there. It goes on.

Be submissive to rulers and authorities, be obedient, and be ready for every good work. Speak evil of no one, avoid quarreling and be gentle, and show perfect courtesy to all people. For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to our various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out so richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

The calling as Christians that we have does not give us right or reason to judge people who have not experienced the goodness and kindness of Jesus through salvation. We are to relate to those who don’t know Jesus in remembering when we were lost and led astray; this means with COMPASSION not COMPROMISE. Just as Jesus showed incredible love and incredible challenge, so are we to follow the example. We see people where they are at, we show them love in the middle of where they are at, but it doesn’t end there. Our love isn’t our own. It’s the love of Jesus. And those who are lost need to know the love of God. They need to know and taste the experience of sweet salvation in Jesus. That opportunity is for all, and we are the ones who carry the ability to give all that opportunity. But we don’t leave people there. God’s grace through salvation teaches us how to live in godliness, and part of walking in the way of the Lord is walking OUT of our flesh and INTO the realm of the Holy Spirit. We are to be examples of holiness to a world that finds it absurd to have freedom in purity. It is a contradicting idea to the world, but God in his grace gives us the supernatural ability to do it for the sake of being an example to the world and to new believers as a people set apart.

We need to exhort one another to stay in perfect love AND obedience, not being led astray by new teachings or ideas, but adhering to the commands of the Lord and lining our lives up with the narrow road. The road unpopulated by the popular, but the one that gives us Light to shed on a dark world. Our compassion flows from this place; a passion for people in understanding their lostness, but also in understanding the freedom they could have in Jesus to come out of their sin and into the supernatural freedom of walking in holiness.

I want people to know the great love of God. And I want them to know it is possible to live a life of FULLNESS in purity and holiness. I want them to know they don’t have to be bound by their sin anymore. Jesus died for THAT freedom. I want to see chains broken and lives redeemed. I want the fullness of Jesus to sweep over people. That is revival. Transformation in thinking, in choices, in behavior. I want to see people discover their identity in Christ, an identity so much greater than anything they could make or plan for themselves. I want the discovery of their worth and value in the kingdom to cause people to “set aside every weight that slows them down” from running toward more of Jesus and His purposes for them.

The church is the only entity that holds the power to see a culture and society change. We are the vessels God chose to put His authority into to redeem and love and set free. We need to come together as a set apart people, understanding the power vested in us by Jesus, and move forward with revival mentality. If we are not united, we can’t do what we were made to do. Consecrate yourself to Jesus; let him set you apart. Let him give you compassion and endurance to walk that narrow road toward the kingdom and see what happens as you attract the darkness around you. You are an attractive light when you are lit up! And when we as a church are lit up, we are an immovable force that even the gates of hell cannot stop.

The Silent Season

~ alihake ~ Leave a comment

I have been in a long, slow, cold season with God. I feel nothing. Not His presence, not his power, not love, not value, not fullness. I feel abandoned. I feel alone.

It feels like God has left me.

When I was 19, my life was changed in a moment by God. I was sitting in a friend’s room, confessing the life I had been choosing for the past year and a half. She began praying for me and I felt this heavy weight of indescribable love fall over me. I could tangibly feel the presence of Jesus, and it was more than I could handle. I was sobbing from the acceptance and love I felt, despite being in the middle of ugly sin. I felt valued and cherished and for the first time in my life, I was able to see myself the way God saw me; full of potential.

That is how my relationship with Jesus began.

It’s easy in those intimate places with God to fully abandon yourself, to fully surrender and tell God that no matter what happens He will always be Lord. He will always come first. He will always be the first I think of in the morning, and the last before I sleep.

But no one warns you about the silent season. You can’t prepare for it, and you can’t do anything to avoid it. As a follower of Jesus, the season is part of the glory being produced in us. But that’s just a nice, neatly packaged sentence to read when you’re in the middle of this season. It doesn’t help you get through it, it gives no advice. It’s just encouragement for the future.

The first year of this season I grew bitter. Towards God, towards the people around me. I grew depressed. I became fearful of things that never phased me before. I walked through life in a state of numbness; checked out and waited for God to “come back” and be near again. I moved from this state to self-condemnation. I hated myself for being the cause of the season. I wasn’t enough for God, I screwed up too much, God didn’t see my heart as favorable, I was rejected and forgotten because I was too prideful….if I could think of a reason, then I blamed it on myself. Because I didn’t understand why else God would be allowing me to go through this. I reasoned it had to be because I did something very wrong and God was punishing me.

Because here’s the thing–when God remains silent, the lies begin to sound louder and more rational than anything else. If you aren’t holding fast to truth, the lies WILL take over.

The past few months though, I have found a new place to land in the middle of this darkness. I have landed on truth, and I have been able to hold my head a little higher and see Jesus a little more clearly and rightly.

God, in His mercy, drew me back to Himself when I was 19 through loving intimacy. I had been running around searching for boys to love me, and quickly made my bed in a dark hole of shame. God knew the only way to get me out of that was to give me what I was looking for–true intimacy; the intimacy I was created for. HIS intimacy. Those first few years with God were like nothing I have ever tasted or seen. When I called, He answered. When I prayed, He was there. When I sat at His feet in worship, His presence with thick and real and fulfilling. I could feel us moving in relationship and it ruined me for life in the best way.

But God has been showing me that this season is taking me to new levels of faith in Him. He doesn’t want me to just love Him because of what He does for me. He wants me to love Him simply for Him. So when the emotional gratification I get from God is removed, and I am left with emotionless times with God where I don’t FEEL what I used to feel, is He still worth it? Am I still devoted to Him? Is He still first in my life? Do I believe and know nothing had changed about Him or our relationship except the fact that I am not experiencing a spiritual high?

I can honestly say this has been the hardest battle with my flesh I have fought so far. The need for emotional gratification is real and it’s deep. We are made to experience God with our senses of feeling and emotion. It’s GOOD. But that’s the most shallow form of relationship. It’s easy to give myself to something I am receiving satisfaction from. There is no sacrifice in that. But when the satisfaction is taken away and I am left to make choices for God based off of what I know to be purely just true and right, am I making choices for God? Am I a sacrificial lover? I can say no to that right now. And God knew that. Which is why He is allowing this season of silence. I desire to be someone that will give my life to Jesus, no matter what the cost. And this season has uncovered a piece of me that has got to go.

Learning how to die to self is the hardest part of life. But on the other side, when the death has taken place, the JOY of finding the life that was intended for you makes it so worth it!

So this silent season. I hate it. I don’t enjoy it. But I do know this now. God is here. He is next to me. He is guiding me. He is speaking loudly all around me in His creation. He isn’t disappointed in me. He loves me. And He is making me into who I asked Him to make me into–a sacrificial lover. I don’t know how long this season will last. But I am learning to choose Jesus no matter what I feel, and that is where the enemy cannot touch me.

The Church Undone

~ alihake ~ Leave a comment

I have felt extremely heavy and perplexed all weekend. Ever since the law passed for same-sex marriage to be legal in all 50 states, I have felt heavy.

And it hasn’t been due to the fact that I disagree with that practice becoming a normalization in our society.

This post isn’t about my thoughts and opinions on the decision made this weekend by our government, although I do naturally have them like everyone else.

I have felt this weight of sadness that I believe is from the Lord. This weight isn’t for what the world is doing and choosing. It is for His church and what IT is choosing. I found myself reading hundreds of posts from believers everywhere this weekend all over the internet; fighting, arguing, debating, disagreeing, being hurtful, and being hateful to one another. I found myself getting caught up in it all and at one point discussing it as well with people who disagreed with me. But it all felt wrong. It didn’t feel right. Not because a couple people disagreed with me. But because I could feel us as a church growing in division and disunity. (The conversation I personally had was a healthy conversation, but I did see many to the contrary.)

I have been praying a lot this weekend asking God to search me and to give me wisdom and understanding for what is happening. I have been asking for peace and a place in His wisdom to rest in all of this chaos and discord. I wanted a right perspective from the one true God. I wanted to know what the Real Jesus was doing and feeling and thinking. I didn’t want the influence of others or even other believers. I wanted God’s perspective.

I almost immediately got a Bible verse from Him.

We are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.  –Ephesians 6:12

My heart quickened to this truth for the church. There is potential for more disunity in the church than ever before right now. The very thing the church is called to be we are quickly running from. We are building walls and divisions, and those walls aren’t just against the LGBT community. They are against our brothers and sisters. There is an agenda that supersedes all other agendas right now in our world. It is an unseen agenda with unseen powers and authorities, and it is moving forward quickly against the church. The agenda to break down the Church and turn it against itself is on the move and it’s happening.

We need to stop looking at our brothers and sisters and seeing a battle to be fought there, and instead begin asking Jesus for eyes to see what is really going on and how we can unify ourselves to come against the Ruler of the World, speaking the truth in love and encouraging one another. Not just that, but being humble enough to receive godly correction, and to sit at the feet of Jesus and ask Him for His thoughts and His heart, setting aside our opinions no matter how right we think we are. The New Testament repeatedly talks about how we aren’t called to get in “foolish arguments that only start fights” (1 Tim 6:20, 2 Tim 2:14; 23-26, Titus 3:9, ). Dissension leads to losing the very thing we are all arguing about–our effectiveness and influence as The Church.

The Body cannot function if each member thinks it is better than another. And it certainly isn’t effective when it forgets that its Head is Christ. We are all moved and empowered by Jesus Christ. We are called to work in Unity. And we need to figure out what that looks like in this new place the world has brought about.

God, would the fear of the Lord fall on us; would we know You in all Your glory and holiness and majesty alongside Your great love; that the gravity of the King we serve would cause us all to fall on our faces in repentance because of Your great splendor. We desperately need to be awestruck again by Your brilliance, Lord God. You aren’t one to be mocked, You aren’t one to be taken lightly, You aren’t powerless, You don’t bring fear or cause division in Your Body, and You have a deep passion in Your perfect heart to see Your kingdom come and Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us Your heart, Lord. Teach us how to carry Your heart in UNITY, that we wouldn’t quench your spirit with our fleshly quarrels. Let us work together in love and truth to see Your name glorified and Your kingdom victorious.

Summer and Girls.

~ alihake ~ 3 Comments

I’m writing about modesty.

Those who have issues with this topic and don’t hold the same values in Jesus and Christianity as I do can dismiss, since I’m not necessarily writing to that audience, though I wish those of you in this category would open your minds a tad to how your choices always affect more people than just yourselves.

But those who have issues with this topic and DO hold the same values in Jesus as I do SHOULD read this. I feel a strong need to challenge and call up higher the women in our generation desiring to be more like Jesus.

I also want to say that I haven’t always held this strong conviction. I once had a strong feministic view on reality, figuring that my decisions for myself were for me, and that people who disliked my decisions should get over it because my life shouldn’t affect them. The clothes I wore shouldn’t affect them either and BESIDES, being a curvy woman with a big booty made it hard as it was to wear things that didn’t bring attention to that area of my body.

But over the past few years God has been changing my heart. And this is the thing that I had to come to grips in order to look more like Jesus and HAVE more of Jesus:

MY LIFE IS NOT ABOUT ME. 

“Everything is permissible”–but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible”–but not everything is constructive. Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others. 1 CORINTHIANS 10:23-24

I have the ability and often the right to do whatever I want. I am able in and of myself to wear whatever I want, and that is permissible. But we are not called to live a life of doing whatever we want and getting away with whatever we want! We aren’t called to look out for ourselves but to look out for OTHERS.

Ladies, if you are following Jesus, or better yet claiming to be a follower of Christ, we live in a world that desperately needs to see what that looks like. We need to recognize that we are not living for ourselves; we are living to see God’s kingdom come. We are in a world that desperately needs to see a posture of respect for others and selflessness that exudes in how we dress.

The argument isn’t and CAN’T BE, “Guys need to learn how to guard their eyes.” or, “I shouldn’t have to worry about what others think about me.” This is selfish and the only interest in any of these statements is self-focused and self-centered.

We aren’t living for ourselves. We are called to build those around us up. We are called to “be an example to all believers in what we say, in the way we live, in our love, our faith, and our purity.” (1Tim 4:12)

Your belly shirts and butt cheek shorts aren’t setting an example. They are causing your brothers in Christ to stumble, and they are setting a bad example to the world of who Jesus is. Your tiny bikini tops and cheeky bikini bottoms are absolutely what the rest of the world finds normal and ok, but we are called to “not copy the behaviors of this world” (Romans 12:2). And if you struggle to see validity in this, I challenge you to go to a brother in Jesus you look up to and ask him what he thinks about swimsuit season and its affects on his mind. I give you permission to talk to my husband about it who has been fighting for purity in his thoughts for 10 years with a group of several other guys.

The goal of your life as a child of God is to learn how to “lose your life for Christ’s sake.” (Matt 16:25). It isn’t to get away with as much as you can and still be a Christian. The WRONG mentality in what you wear is wondering how low or how short you can go without getting talked to by your pastor or discipler. The RIGHT mentality is wanting and desiring to stay as far away from anything that causes your brothers to stumble as possible in what you wear.

I want freedom for my husband. I want freedom for his friends and freedom for the other men in the church that are painstakingly desiring to choose Jesus despite how hard us women are making it for them. I want US to passionately want it for THEM. Because the thing is, we want to marry pure men, but we have a hard time coming alongside them and helping them by admitting that we have a direct affect on their freedom. We want the very thing we are quenching with our selfish choices.

Let’s choose to be women that help men fight for their freedom. Let’s decide that our generation of men ISN’T stuck forever in cycles of impure thoughts by helping them and encouraging them with more than just words, but with OUR lives and the way we choose Jesus FOR them.

This is not a judgment or hateful post. Again, it hasn’t been until the past few years that the Lord began to open my eyes (and EARS) to the guys around me and to my own choices. But we are called to spur each other on and raise each other up. Your life isn’t meant for yourself; it’s meant to be a display of Jesus and his heart for the people around you.

Let’s be women who rise to the challenge of selflessness.