God's Love - it's a jealous kind of love

here's what I e-mailed my small group this morning. thought it was worth posting here too!

*****

So interestingly enough, at Charlotte One last night, a lot of Stuart Hall's message had to do with God's "jealousy" of us. He even brought in the story of Hosea and Gomer. Coincidence? I think not! (For those of you not at small group on Monday, we had a lot of discussion around how the Holy Spirit "envies intensely" when we give anything in our lives precidence over the Lord. I'm telling you guys, this is the stuff like that makes me keenly aware of the realness of our God. Perhaps this is a message that really needed to be heard a couple of times!

And then that verse from James 4 keeps coming back to me "but He gives MORE grace." (emphasis added by me)

We sang this song last night Oh How He Loves Us which was written by John Mark McMillan. This guy writes some amazing lyrics. Here are the verses.

NOTE THE FIRST LINE!!! Crazy how it went with small group....and then the message last night. Crazy cool in my opinion.

He is jealous for me,
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden,
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realise just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.

Pre-Chorus:
And oh, how He loves us so,
Oh how He loves us,
How He loves us so

Chorus 1:
Yeah, He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves.
Yeah, He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves.

Verse 2:
We are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If grace is an ocean, we're all sinking.
So Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss,
And the heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don't have time to maintain these regrets,
When I think about, the way…

Verse 3:
Well, I thought about You the day Stephen* died,
And You met me between my breaking.
I know that I still love You, God, despite the agony.
...They want to tell me You're cruel,
But if Stephen could sing, he'd say it's not true, cause.. (back to chorus).

*By the way, Stephen was a follower of Christ, an early Christian, who was stoned for his faith.

Thoughts from Sunday

So Bruce was talking about giving yesterday -- not just about money, but of your time, of yourself. And the motive not being about what it can get you, but more of giving as an outpouring of the passion that God has instilled in you.

A couple of things I jotted down were:

"Until your heart is captivated by gratitude, you will wait." You will just sit around and let life pass you by until you tap into that passion that resides within and it motivates you to act.

"What would be too much?" How much giving is too much? I'll let you ponder that one.

"You've got to get your passion." "You've got to know who you are."

Amen and amen. I'm still processing, but this resonates with me. I'm on the path to discovery...

Vid

Okay, I'm sure you've heard that Travis Barker was in a plane crash. He is an AMAZING drummer. Here....you can see for yourself.

Thirty two

My birthday week got off to a great start by racing in the SheRox Triathlon up at Latta Plantation early on Sunday morning (and I mean early). I should blog about my race experience in another entry because I have a lot of thoughts about it, but right now I'm basking in my being thirty-two years old. I am no longer just barely in the thirties; I'm solidly in my thirties. Any age with a two at the end sounds so much more substantial.

I'm 32 and I'm just fine. 31 started off with a lot of turmoil - a relationship ending, but quickly started to get better as I got involved with my wonderful small group! I found some new friends as well as continuing to invest in my tried and true friends. I found peace and hope in the midst of some hard family stuff. In April, I launched into training for the triathlon which helped me get to a level of fitness that made me feel so good about myself and what my body could do. I deepened friendships through long bike rides and runs and trips to the pool. I gained confidence. So, thirty-one was good to me. I can only hope thirty-two will be even better!

Yesterday was a great day. I received so many birthday wishes (thanks to Facebook) and received phone calls, got taken out to both lunch AND dinner and I smiled...a lot.

From the previous post, I'm still confident that "The Lord will perfect that which concerns me..."

Meditation

It's less than 24 hours until race time.

This is what I read this morning and what I'm meditating on:

"The Lord will perfect that which concerns me; Your mercy and lovingkindness, O Lord, endure forever -- forsake not the works of Your own hands." Psalm 138:8