Lately as I’ve been reading the Word and meditating on it and praying it back to Him… He has taking me just a little bit deeper into understanding of who He is and the greatness of His love… and my response has often been an awestruck “… really?” As in, ‘You’re really that kind? You are that merciful? Like, Your Word truly means what it says when it says all those incredible things about You? That’s really who You are??’ Not that I didn’t believe those things before, but it’s like they’re coming alive to my heart… and I’m so in awe that this beautiful God loves me.

And then I was a bit sad too… that so many (… and even sometimes my own little heart) buy into the lie that God is a mostly angry deity, looming over us full of hostility towards us, just waiting for us to slip up so He can give up on us, cast us out of His presence and into hell. But when we read the Word we see the truth about Him… that He is the One who delights in mercy (Micah 7:18), has compassion on all that He has made (Psalm 145:9), the One who is compassionate, gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness (Psalm 86:15), the One who carries His people close to His heart (Isaiah 40:11), the One who so loved the world that He gave His only Son that we could be with Him forever (John 3:16), the One whose love for us is so much greater than our hearts’ tilt towards sin, the One who remains faithful to us even when we are unfaithful, the One who judges in perfect righteousness (Revelation 19:11)… and so on and so on… I can’t write it all out, so go read the Bible…

I want to know truth about Him… I want to know Him as He is… I want my eyes to see the King in all of His beauty (Isaiah 33:17)… for He is too good to settle for believing less than the truth of who He is.

Aaaaaaaargh. I used to have a really bad temper when I was little… and I’ve pretty much grown out of it… but ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I still have my moments. And today I spent the second half of a lecture trying to chill out from one such moment…

I love the Word of God… I can’t argue with it and win (Job 40:2). It is truth (John 17:17). And it pleases Him when I try to live it (1 Samuel 15:22). His Word chills me out when I feel that temper bubbling away underneath the surface…

Good ol’ Proverbs… gets you every time…

• A quick-tempered man does foolish things… (Proverbs 14:17)
• A patient man has great understanding, but a quick-tempered man displays folly (Proverbs 14:29)
• A hot-tempered man stirs up dissension, but a patient man calms a quarrel (Proverbs 15:1
• Better a patient man than a warrior, a man who controls his temper than one who takes a city (Proverbs 16:32)
• Do not make friends with a hot-tempered man, do not associate with one easily angered… (Proverbs 22:24)
• An angry man stirs up dissension, and a hot-tempered one commits many sins… (Proverbs 29:22)

*siiiigh* my pride has to die. I want to be like Jesus.

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross!” Philippians 2:5-8

This verse belongs on the list of verses that do my head in:

“You number my wanderings; put my tears into Your bottle; are they not in Your book?” Psalm 56:8

I was never big on crying… until I went to IHOP. Ohhh dear. Yep, I became a crier. No longer pushing emotions down and out of my mind… but allowed myself to feel. Fear, tenderness, frustration, repentance, joy etcetc… it all made me a bit teary. Still does… but to a lesser extent… and I don’t know if that is a good thing or a bad thing. Whether it shows I have matured or my heart has gotten harder.

Buuut enough about me, I am here to blog about the verse…

Sooo… I like that. That God treasures my tears. That in all my distress He too is distressed (Isaiah 63:9). That even though He is so much bigger than all my problems that seem so overwhelming to my little heart… He is upset that I am upset… because He loves me. He cares about me… and so beckons me to cast all my cares upon Him (1 Peter 5:7). It is incredible enough that He even sees my tears and hears my cries (2 Kings 20:5)… but He even stores my tears and records my laments.

When it came to this verse I used to be… and, well, sometimes still can be… part of the “Bible-but Club” (yep, Stuart Greaves has a way with words…). For example I would think that “… the Bible says God stores my tears but… obviously it’s only when I’m crying about the ‘right’ things eg. feelin’ all tender towards Him, getting fresh revelation of His mercy etctec…” and somehow thought that when I was crying about things like me not understanding and being unable to see past something that was making my little heart feel overwhelmed He was disappointed in me for not understanding and so somehow my tears didn’t ‘count’ before Him… that those ones didn’t make it into God’s bottle. Believing that when I don’t “have it all together” my cries mean nothing to Him. Twisting the truth that His ears are attentive to the cry of the righteous (Psalm 34:15) to not include me… despite the fact that through Christ Jesus I now have the gift of righteousness before Him (Romans 5:17). Telling myself that He knows me better than I do (Psalm 139:1), and I am feelin’ pretty overwhelmed by all the darkness in my heart… so obviously He is mad at me too… forgetting that yet He sees the darkness… but He also sees the weak but true desire to fully love and obey Him… and so calls me lovely (Song of Songs 1:5). Forgetting that even when I was His enemy He loved me enough to die for me (Romans 5:10). Forgetting that any righteousness I work up in my own strength is still as filthy rags to Him (Isaiah 64:6), the Holy Lord God Almighty (Revelation 4:8)… forgetting that I could never ‘earn’ His love. I could never come before Him confident in my own righteousness… but I can boldy come before Him (Hebrews 4:16) because of His great mercy and His righteousness (Daniel 9:18)… the righteousness He has given me.

I need revelation of just how much he loves me… just how tender He is towards me even in my weakness… for my heart to truly believe all the time that my sin, weaknesses and all the little unsettled issues don’t overwhelm Him… yet one little weak glance ravishes His heart (Song of Songs 4:9)… and every little tear is seen… and treasured.

I am an NIV fan. Yes, I am aware of the “Nearly Inspired Version” jokes… buuut I like it (props to NKJV and ESV though). All that to say… in the NIV account of the gospels, Jesus says “I tell you the truth…” 78 times.

78 times!!

In a world full of people who speak deceit (Psalm 5:9)… I want to hear the voice of Him who is full of grace and truth (John 1:14). The One with grace poured upon His lips (Psalm 45:2). The One whose words are spirit and life (John 6:63). His Word is truth (John 17:17).

He IS truth (John 14:6).

Oh, to spend my life at His feet, listening to what He has to say (Luke 10:39)… and being filled with joy at the sound of His voice (John 3:29).

I have been hearing lots of talk lately about hell being disproven… and I’m thinking, ”how can you disprove a Biblical truth?”

So I biblegatewayed ‘hell’ and got 37 responses… haha, well actually only 34 of them were actually about the place hell, the other 3 showed up because ‘hell’ is part of ‘Hellenist’… sooo there is no question then that hell is Biblical, and is therefore a reality.

But if you don’t get your information from the Bible and instead rely on ‘human wisdom’ (1 Corinthians 2:4) I can see how people find it pretty easy to ‘disprove’ hell… with the arguments such as “the Bible says God is good… but a good God, a God of love, even… wouldn’t send people to hell so obviously the Bible is wrong… hell doesn’t exist.”

But I think that the reality is that instead of the Bible being wrong, our understanding of what exactly goodness is and who God is is what needs correcting. I believe that human ‘logic’ isn’t strong enough to defeat the ever-enduring (1 Peter 1:25), perfect word of the Lord (Psalm 19:7).

Oh, that this would be a generation who knows their God… loving all that He is… seeing the beauty in all that He is (Song of Songs 5:16)… Bridegroom (Isaiah 62:5)… King (Matthew 27:11)… Judge (Revelation 19:11… among others…)… and so on and so on ad infinitum…

I helped out with the kids ministry today… and I was discussing Hebrews 13:6 with two of the kids…

“So we say with confidence, ’The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?’“

And part of our discussion went roughly as followed:

Me: “… so we can pray to God all the time and ask Him to help us and He will.”

Boy: “That’s not true.”

Me: “Why do you think that?”

Boy: “Because I’ve asked Him to help me before and He didn’t do anything.”

And ohhh that was heartwrenching… my heart went out to the little guy… he was so sincere about it and I was like “ohhhh…” on the inside (by the way, I did keep talking to and encouraging him and imparted some truth [yay for the Bible :D]) Buuuuut… I again realised how often I am so quick to doubt or get offended when it doesn’t feel like God helps me the way I want Him to. Argh working with little kids brings up your own heart issues, that’s for sure!!

I am grieved that I get offended at God… I cry out for Him to help me… and He does (*starts singing* Jesus loves-and-helps me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so…). Buuut I get offended and hurt and confused if He doesn’t help me in the way that I, in my weak understanding, think I should be helped… and yet He remains faithful and loves me no less… I am so in awe of His love!! Unfailing (Psalm 6:4), unchanging (Malachi 3:6), knowledge-surpassing (Ephesians 3:19)… everything I long for is found in Him. Argh it seems so clear now but my heart is sooo quick to forget. Oh, how I want to love Him like He loves me…

Ugh and I go on and on about how I feel misunderstood… when God is the most misunderstood out of anyone. Jesus, the One who laid aside His glory and came to earth as creation (Philippians 2:6-7)… all for the sake of love… was despised and rejected (Isaiah 53:3)… sentenced to a slow, painful and humiliating death by the very ones He loved enough to die for… truly there is NO greater love than this (John 15:13). Truly this IS love (1 John 4:10). He was misunderstood, even to the point of being despised enough to be killed… He was misunderstood then and He’s misunderstood now… even by people who love Him… like me … but He doesn’t say to us “you know what?? Forget you guys, you can all just go to hell…” He continues to love… and continues to show mercy… His kindness leading us to repentance (Romans 2:4).

I stand in awe of this love…

“… while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son…” Romans 5:10

“We love Him because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:19

“This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” 1 John 4:10

I want to see God rightly. I want to know His love and have it made manifest in me… abounding in and overflowing from my heart. This is what I want out of my life… to know Him and His love (they are inseparable… He IS love [1 John 4:8]) and to make it known… God help me.

… and you know what?? He will

I have been pondering comfort lately. I remember Stuart Greaves saying something along the lines of “what comforts you is what you use to comfort others.” That has stuck with me. Because I want to be someone who directs hearts into the love of God (2 Thessalonians 3:5)… but I am aware that if I am not running into His love and getting experiencial knowledge of the comfort His love alone brings, I won’t be so quick to tell others to run into His love… because I won’t really believe that it helps. Or I’ll be calling people into something I myself am not living. Now, I don’t ‘have it all together’, but I at least want to be trying to do something and bringing others along for the ride instead of “you need to do ‘this, this and this…’” but not actually be doing/trying to do it myself.

So I have been observing myself lately… watching what I run to when I’m needing comfort. Some stuff definitely has to change… food and sleep are the two I have in mind!! There has been some progress though. Back in the ‘dark days’ (hmm… I don’t think I’ve ever shared my testimony on this blog… I should…) I used to listen to depressing music when I was depressed… thinking it would make me feel ‘better’. Surprise surprise… it didn’t. Buut I don’t do that anymore More and more I am starting to go to the Word and feed myself on truth… gaining perspective on the way things really are… the way He sees them. Not the way I see them after they are filtered through my emotions and weak understanding.

I refuse to be comforted by lies. An example of this is how back in the ‘dark days’ I used to stop myself crying by saying “Helen, no-one cares.” But I now know that that’s not true. So now if I cry I take comfort in the fact that God sees and hears and cares about the fact that I am feeling sad (Psalm 56:8). I want to be one who finds truth the source of her comfort.

I want my comfort to be found in the Truth Himself, Jesus Christ (John 14:6)… not only for the sake of my heart, but also that I would direct others into Him too… this One who sympathises with us in our weakness (Hebrews 4:15). This One who Himself is well-acquainted with suffering (Isaiah 53:3), beyond anything we have ever personally experienced. I want to run after Him and into His presence… for in His presence is fullness of joy (Psalm 16:11).

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” 2 Corinthians 3-4

… reading books about the Bible/God is no substitute for reading the Bible

… talking about God is no substitute for talking to God

… having friends who go deep in God is no substitute for going deep in God yourself

… planning lots of fasting days and huge chunks of set-aside prayer time etcetc… but always intending yet never actually doing… is no substitute for being faithful with a little (Matthew 25:21)

… being able to quote a whole bunch of verses off the top of your head is no substitute for having them written on your heart (Proverbs 7:3)

… knowing facts about God is no substitute for intimate knowledge of the Person of God

… speed-reading your way through lots of chapters is no substitute for long and loving meditation

… having numerous commentaries sitting on your bookshelf is no substitute for actively pursuing the knowledge of God

… listening to a worship CD is no substitute for actually worshipping the Lord

… physically being in a prayer meeting is no substitute for actually praying… just your heart crying out to the Lord…

… hearing the word of God is no substitute for putting it into practice (Ezekiel 33:31)

… sacrifice is no substitute for obedience (1 Samuel 15:22)

… having His name ever on my lips is no substitute for having Him close to my heart (Jeremiah 12:2)

… “having it all together” on the outside is no substitute for a heart of truth, humility and righteousness (Matthew 23:27)

… being able to put Daniel 9 in a nice little timeline is no substitute for a heart that is truly prepared for the End Times

… having the role of a lead worshipper is no substitute for encountering the Lord in worship

… a big ministry is no substitute for personal fellowship with the Lord… where it’s just you and Him alone…

… a quick ‘thanks God’ when everything seems to be going well is no substitute for truly living with a grateful heart in all seasons and situations

… saying all this ^^ is no substitute for actually living it

Those ‘first things’ I listed aren’t bad… but in my own experience I have done them and thought that it was ‘enough’… in His kindness, God has convinced me otherwise… buuut I think that maybe I still need more convincing because I don’t always live like I’m convinced… I am so quick to say “it’s all about LOVE!!” … buuut I don’t always live like it. I am so quick to try to achieve the ‘end product’ that I miss the love… and without love it is all nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).

Oh and here’s an update on the 30 day challenge (today is day #8… yep, I am still pluggin’ away at it…)

Yesterday I was driving and was like “hmmm, I don’t want to waste this time… I’ll meditate on Revelation 4…” so I was driving and singing (yes, I sing to help me meditate on Scripture… to IHOPers this is not weird but maybe to other people it may seem so…)… and I was having so much fuuuun … a bit too much fun maybe. I suddenly realised I wasn’t actually paying too much attention to the road and was also speeding. Hmmm. It was a bit of a hazard.

… he’s no longer missing seeee, this prayer thing works (haha if you have no idea what I’m talking about, check out this previous post…)

Ooooh that thought sends me off on a bunny trail…

I help out with my church’s kids ministry, and this week we were teaching them about prayer… especially the fact that God hears and moves at their prayers. And I was so struck by the fact that I was like “Helen!! You need to believe this too!!” as I was talking about prayer with the kids. It’s so easy to tell kids “God hears you always (Psalm 4:3) and you can talk to Him about anything (Ephesians 6:1 and He cares (1 Peter 5:7) and He loves to hear your voice (Song of Songs 2:14)…” and they happily believe it… yet you have to wrestle on the inside with “well, do I actually believe this??” (well, this might not be your experience, but it is mine…)

Oh, that I would take Him at His word… that I would truly consider His Word the truth (Psalm 119:160), not the way I see things… my understanding is so weak. I want to lean not on my own understanding and put my trust fully in the Lord (Proverbs 3:5).

Working in the kids ministry has been such a great growing experience for me… I am one of those people who learns best by explaining stuff to others (hehe no wonder I like blogging about God….), and so answering questions like “what is salvation??” helps ME learn too oh and it’s humbling… I’ve been assigned the job of ‘dance leader’… basically means I get to come up with and lead the actions during worship… I can be all ballet/floaty/twirly/etc just fine, and I go to my ‘happy place’ of sorts where it’s just me and the Lord and little or no self-consciousness… but leading a room of kids (and other leaders!!) in occasionally cheesy actions brings up the heart issues!! Priiiiiide… argh I want it to go awaaaaay… oh Jesus… You who humbled Yourself and came as a man (Philippians 2:8)… You who show me Your humility by the fact You even hear my prayers, let alone answer them… please help me be humble…

Yep, I bunny trailed my way through at least three topics there… hope you enjoyed

I believe that if it’s anything vs. God… God wins. That most definitely includes me vs. God. So when I read something in the Word I don’t understand I do not try to play around with it until it fits my little ideas and possible misconceptions about God. I don’t want to try and ‘change’ God to fit my ideas, I want Him to change me that I would be in alignment with the truth of who He is. I want to take His Word as it is… and let myself be changed. I don’t want to twist His Word to feed misconception… I want to allow His Word to shatter them and fill me with truth. Which really spurs me on to know the Word… and to know God. Not just what other people tell me about Him… but what God says. To be washed with the very water of His Word (Ephesians 5:26), proceeding from His mouth (Deuteronomy 8:3). I want to fellowship with the Spirit (Philippians 2:1) that searches the deep things of God (1 Corinthians 2:10)… the same Spirit that dwells inside of me (John 14:17). The very Spirit that proceeds from the Father (John 15:26) has taken up residence inside of me (Romans 8:9). That does my head in a little bit…

I want to learn from God who God is… for who is a Teacher like Him (Job 36:22)? And He is holy… there is no-one like Him (Revelation 4:8). He alone can fully comprehend Himself (Isaiah 40:13)… so I want to know God, according to God. Now I am not disregarding the importance of being taught by others… I do believe that the fullest expression of the spirit of wisdom and revelation (Ephesians 1:17) is in a corporate context (1 Corinthians 13:9-10). Haha I once went through a stage where I was all “I am not going to read books about God other than the Bible!! Why should I learn from anyone other than God who God is??” God is so tender… He gently corrected me… I’m sure He delighted in my heart (Song of Songs 1:5), but all the same, I was a bit deluded… but His kindness led me to repentance :) (Romans 2:4) He blesses me with so many people who reveal Him to me… whether they are preaching a sermon, the author of a book I’m reading, someone discussing the Word with me or simply a friend being a display of His splendour (Isaiah 60:21) just by being themselves.

But at the end of the day… I don’t want to live off other people’s revelations and encounters. I want my own… I want a personal history with God. I want my roots to go deep in Him. No amount of depth someone else has in the Lord will send my roots down deep. He’s coming and going to shake everything that can be shaken (Haggai 2:6)… knowing people rooted and grounded in His love (Ephesians 3:17) and the knowledge of Him doesn’t make me rooted and grounded. So I fast, I pray and I read the Word so that I can grow in relationship with God… and let that overflow into relationship with others… to spur other people to pursue God in their own lives. I want to be spurred on by others to go deep in God. I want to spur others on to go deep in God.

I want to learn from God who God is. I want to be one who chooses the one thing that is needed… to sit at His feet and listen to what He has to say (Luke 10:38-42). For surely He wants to make Himself known (Isaiah 65:1), and if only I seek to listen will He tell me great and unsearchable things that I do not know (Jeremiah 33:3).