First of all, it is rather cold. It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the wind. The wind is..... chilly! Yesterday, our family ventured out and forged forth in the cold to lay out in the sun. There we lay, in our bathing suits with goose bumps from head to toe, but by-golly, we were laying out at the beach! Others fought the cold and joined us.....in their sweatsuits and blankets....I'm not lying! It really was that cold!
Today, I waited til later on in the day and decided I would just go out for a couple of hours and then come in. I got my book and ipod and headed to the windy beach for some "sun". As I lay there, these gusts of wind would sweep by, almost blowing off my ball cap and wrapping me up in the blanket underneath me. I got cold.....real cold. And just about when I thought I could take it no more, I would tense up and hold onto the lounge chair until the wind died down so I could stay a little longer. It is then that the Lord spoke to me, and asked me, "Jena, what would you withstand for Me? What are you willing to do to be with Me?"
My mind went straight to the Scripture where Paul says,
Philippians 3:7-14, "But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."
Do I really want to know Jesus? Know His love? Know His heart? Above ALL things? Am I willing to do whatever it takes to really pursue Him?
God, give us Paul's heart to want to know You above all else.
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