I think my heart has always searched for Jesus, even when it didn’t know what it was searching for. In my teen years I got lost. I had been taught of God and was in church my whole childhood, but I drifted from my commitment to God and I got tangled in a mess of self destruction. I went in search of perfection, the earthly kind, and not the kind of perfection that can be found through the blood of Jesus. I felt emptier and emptier. I somehow had to discover that the only perfection to be found, was in the unblemished lamb of God Jesus Christ. Truly loving him… was the missing link between me and God. I weep when I think about what I put my family through, and even more with what I put the Holy Spirit through.
What do you say to your best friend when you’ve lost touch, hurt them deeply and want to somehow apologize and ask for another chance? I didn’t know what to say either. I just prayed the truth. I prayed how sorry I was, how lost I’d gotten myself, and I begged for God to help me…and I prayed it in Jesus’s Holy and Righteous name, amen.
This is the beginning of my falling in love with who Jesus was and what he did for us. This was the beginning of a real friendship, not just my taught childhood faith. He took pity on me in His great mercy.
I believe firmly that God has healed the part of me that no one including me, could heal. As I reached out to Him more and more, He washed me and covered my emotional wounds with ointment, and patiently nursed me back to spiritual health. I finally realized what had been missing…it was the peace of God and the love of Jesus as my best friend. He had never left, he was always knocking. I just had to open that door. I know I said this on my last post about the Strong Willed Child https://mountainsandmustardseedssite.wordpress.com/2017/10/25/strong-willed-child/ but it is true. My heart had to open so he could come in and clean me up and heal the wounds. He is still in here cleaning away. I am a spiritual slob sometimes and I need his help so much.
Have you ever wondered why there is power in the name of Jesus? I did. How can just a name have power?
Acts 4:12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
There is power in his name, because Jesus’s name is the key to the pearly gates of Heaven. I’m not talking about an object. I am talking about the acceptance of him, what he did for us, and a true and undying love for him. A close relationship with him changes us. We become less like ourselves and more like him.
I choose my best friends based on the people they are. Their hearts being the most important detail. I choose friends that I would like to be more like. People I admire and respect. I do this because we tend to become like the company we keep, and I want my company to be outstanding, encouraging, and refilling. Having Jesus as my best friend and confidante, brings me such joy, peace, and guidance. I need that so much as I walk through life. I hope to be less like me and more like him because he is the only example who’s love never failed, and who’s heart was purity and selflessness. Peace is brought to our hearts, when we know this:
John 14:13-21
13. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
14. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.
15. If ye love me, keep my commandments.
16. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
17. Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
18. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.
19. Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.
20. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.
21. He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
We can have peace because we have an abiding comforter, a Savior. When souls don’t have peace, they grow angry, argumentative, and unsettled. Vices develop, that begin numbing the soul and drowning out the still small voice of the Spirit of God. I think the anger comes from misunderstanding who Jesus is and the loneliness that comes from being without an abiding comforter. The qualities that God possesses, begin to fade away. If God is love, and the person is rejecting God, they won’t be able to embody love either…because real love is of God. They can’t have comfort because they lack the Holy Spirit, who is an abiding comforter. They feel an absence but refuse to acknowledge it and are always flailing around trying to fill that absence with anything else. The truth is, acknowledging the need, also means acknowledging the responsibility it entails. If they don’t want to accept that responsibility, they don’t have to. They are free to choose, because faith is a choice. Sadly, if we don’t embody the qualities of God, we can only embody the qualities left, which unfortunately are the qualities of a devil, because there are only two sides and we have to pick one. If we don’t choose God’s armor, we inevitably put on the armor of the other warring side. Hatred, accusation, hopelessness, pride, anger, and unforgiveness. You will see ’em coming from a mile away. They carry a contention deep inside that can only be healed by the missing link that a Savior is. Seeing a reflection of Jesus Christ is the only hope their soul may ever have to recognize that healing is still possible.
My Father in law and I talked this morning about this. He told me about this quote from a presentation from Hillsdale College. It moved me, and I want to share it with you: https://online.hillsdale.edu/courses/theology-101/lecture-02/lecture-2?appeal_code=MK517EM35&utm_source=housefile&utm_medium=email&utm_content=lecture_2&utm_campaign=theology_101&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9T7aBObPtVKZoGe1bdPtI9l6SV7MOWv6oktsGH9jGVB0YxLoHn3v-Bym6nf7Ig3c5iQ78PfQu9aQgh9i5mx73MKQiagA&_hsmi=50810288
This idea describes so well our part in this huge plan of God. The statement is made that the,”The Ten Commandments, are not a job description. The Ten Commandments, were a prescription from the ultimate physician, for a very sick and dying world.”
As believers, we carry the prescription for a sick world with us wherever we go. This actually makes me look at difficult interactions with other souls so much differently. It explains why it’s so important for God to put us into situations with unbelievers that take us out of our human comfort zone. These situations are crucial. God asks us to present a prescription of healing to souls who are very sick and are very difficult patients. These are usually very unpleasant experiences, but the only experiences that present an opportunity for us to set an example and be set apart from the world in how we deal with them. In these situations, we will be attacked for carrying this prescription. Count it all joy brothers and sisters. We get to be persecuted for His name sake. What an honor. Was it not Jesus who did this very thing? He carried a prescription for every sick soul on earth and he was hated for it. Should I not have to share this same burden? Patience, love and forgiveness is of God. It’s a prescription for not only the situations we face, but for every sick soul.
This last week I had a conversation surrounding Creation or the “Big Bang,” as the beginning of life. It was a cordial conversation, though I didn’t agree with those who were of a different perspective. Regardless, the argument against Creation, always goes back to matter in space that heat and pressure, and other events, somehow spurred life into being. Where did the matter and cells and heat come from? We still need the origin of those things. No matter what happened or how long it took, they can’t tell me the real missing link.
What spurred nothing into something? Nothing is always nothing. It’s the absence of anything. How can nothing ever make anything? Especially, how can nothing make everything that functions in perfect design and cycle? Science has not successfully done that once. Scientists always have to have some type of matter to work with, even if it just comes down to a cell. Where did the original matter come from and why did it create life with perfect design? If you can answer that…I’ll debate. Until then, God is the missing link and science has yet to prove otherwise. Without successfully reproducing an idea with science, it’s still just a theory. God is science. He is the reason scientists have anything to play with in the first place, and there are plenty of scientists who believe that science backs up Creation.
Peace can not be found without the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit is peace. The missing link is Jesus.
John 14:26
26. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
27. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
The Holy Spirit is one with God and Jesus, so it makes complete sense why my heart feels restless and lonely when I neglect that relationship. The Holy Spirit in me, yearns for the unity with God and grows restless in my soul, calling me back to my Father because I am meant to be one with Him. It’s like a game of hot and cold where God is hot and the further away I get from Him, the more the Holy Spirit yells cold colder COLD! If I fill the emptiness with anything but God…I only grow emptier. I must feed my soul with God and my relationship with Him through Jesus Christ, because it’s the only thing that can soothe and wholly fill the emptiness.
At some point, I realized that I have to be a best friend to Jesus as he is to me. I will defend his name. I will be loyal. I will be his servant, his disciple, his defender. I have to be his ally on earth. I have to help him when he asks and I must listen when he calls. Jesus always points to our Father, and I must too. Jesus reflects God, and so must I. Oh my…I feel like Elijah. Fall on my face with heaviness. So often this is me. It’s shameful.
Hilarity aside, I’m actually so sad that this is true so often. Sometimes my stumbling block is just one small loose soul pebble that I hit and recognize as soon as the fall ends. How great a weight that feels when I recognize how weak I really am. I know I don’t always reflect my Father, and it saddens me. Reflecting God, is the only hope that I have in ever presenting those lost souls with a prescription that can heal them. Reflecting who God is, with love and peace, is exactly what Jesus did. It’s what Jesus will profess on my my behalf…whether he knew me or whether he didn’t. It is my firm foundation and not loose pebbles.
Mathew 7: 20-25
20. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
21. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
22. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
23. And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
24. Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
25. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
This is a heavy yoke at times, but it’s much easier to pull that yoke with Jesus next to me. If I chose to pull it alone, I’m sure I couldn’t bear it.
We do know this. Phillipians 2: 9-13
9. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:
10. That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;
11. And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
12. Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
13. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
It is God that works in us to do His good pleasure. It is His Holy Spirit, that abides with us that guides us, and it is Jesus Christ who we confess, because he has bought us. He was THE missing link between us and God.He bought us with his blood, and he will profess if we are his. Whether believer or unbeliever…when the time comes, “Every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord.” Even the atheist scientists and philosophers…will confess Jesus is Lord. How sad that the missing link they have searched high and low for, has been at the front door of their heart knocking all this time.
There is Power in the name of Jesus because he was the missing link and he is the key to the pearly gates of heaven and he holds the prescription for a sick world.
No matter the storm I face, or even the confusion in my mind…I am drawn to Him through the Holy Spirit, which Jesus granted us in perfect love. The missing link of Jesus, completes a perfect story that starts with creation and can end with an eternity of joy or complete emptiness.
I want to share a song by one of my very favorite artists. Her name is Audrey Assad. Her songs flood my heart and mind. I have a few Christian artist favorites, but when it comes to lyrics…she expresses my heart exactly. I hope you enjoy her beautiful gift and that her lyrics bring you comfort. I send you my huge hugs and I pray each one of us on, as we strive to carry a prescription that can heal this world.
Mountains and Mustard Seeds 