In my life these past several years, I have been experiencing a return to my First Love Jesus and a deeper realization of the grace of God. I know that I barely know God and even if I spent every second of my entire life pursuing him I still would not even begin to know him in his greatness. It is far beyond human comprehension and I will be spending the rest of eternity getting to know him. I am reminded that just as any other relationship is developed through interaction, so my relationship with God can only come through spending time with him in prayer and his Word.
The reconnecting of my First Love relationship began while I was still sick and on much prescription medication, various pain killers and several experimental drugs. The prescription medications really messed up head and one Sunday morning service God began to deal with me about trusting him with the pain rather than continually popping pills. I sensed him telling me to ask him prior to taking pain medication. I decided to give it a try and this resulted in my totally abandonment of all my meds. As I began to walk in obedience to this it was much more difficult than I expected because all kinds of emotions came to the surface. The only thing left to hang on to was the love of Jesus and the Romans 5:5 scripture became an anchor for me. I believe that learning to exercise the love muscle has growing pains that are unique to each individual and I am learning at ever increasing levels that even the desire to pursue God is only present in my life because of his grace.
I have been reading and meditating on the book of Hebrews , and began reminiscing about a time long ago when I was directing Overcomers' Support Groups at Open Homes. We always began by stating our name and asking, “Will you help me?” One night, there were so many girls named Patty that people began laughing every time someone said their name was Patty. I went home and looked up the meaning of the name Patty and it is “Noble”. I remember clearly hearing God say, “take care of my noble ones.” Reading Hebrews 2:6-10 reminded me that God sees each one of us as his noble ones because he sees us as complete, those that are addicts, those that hate us, those that do not yet know him, those of us that stray from him or whomever. It is by his grace alone that we even have the desire to pursue and love him. It is by his grace that we have the honor of giving love back to him, learning to love ourselves and allowing it to overflow into the lives of others. It is by the grace of God that Jesus came to earth, suffered and gave his life for us. I am so grateful for his love. He is our entrance into the throne room of God where we are invited to feast with him and experience treasures beyond our wildest dreams.
“What are mere mortals that you should think about them, or a son of man that you should care for him? Yet you made them only a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You gave them authority over all things. Now when it says “all things,” it means nothing is left out. But we have not yet seen all things put under their authority. What we do see is Jesus, who was given a position “a little lower than the angels”; and because he suffered death for us, he is now “crowned with glory and honor.” Yes, by God’s grace, Jesus tasted death for everyone. God, for whom and through whom everything was made, chose to bring many children into glory. And it was only right that he should make Jesus, through his suffering, a perfect leader, fit to bring them into their salvation.” Hebrews 2:6-10 NLT
It says He gave us authority over all things and nothing was left out because Jesus suffered death for us and is now crowned with glory and honor. He provided for us the way to enter heaven itself by the precious blood of Jesus Christ.
Debi Neiberger
Comments
very helpful and encouraging...thanks