A Favorite Quote on True Beauty

Today I was thinking about this quote, one of my all-time favorites. It was written by Jonathon Edwards of the woman who would one day become his wife. It is my prayer for Jesus to make and mold me into such a breathtaking woman, evincing the truest, purest beauty of Jesus Christ and drawing all eyes to Him, never to myself. 

"They say there is a young lady in New Haven who is beloved of that Great Being who made and rules the world. They say that He fills her mind with exceeding sweet delight, and that she hardly cares for anything except to meditate on Him. If you present all the world to her, with the richest of its treasures, she disregards it. She is unmindful of any pain or affliction. She has a singular purity in her affections. You could not persuade her to compromise her true Love, even if you would give her all the world. She possesses a wonderful sweetness, calmness, and kindness to those around her. She will sometimes go about from place to place, singing sweetly. She seems to be always full of joy and pleasure, and no one knows exactly why. She loves to be alone, walking in the fields and groves, and seems to have Someone invisible always conversing with her."

Follow your Heart?

I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard people tell other people or counsel me to “follow your heart.” It’s said all the time on movies, and it’s what I grew up believing. When a character is faced with a hard decision, they are usually instructed to “follow your heart.” This advice, presumably, will lead one to the greatest happiness. After all, our hearts know what is best for us, right?

So, what happens when to “follow your heart” means to commit adultery?

What happens when to “follow your heart” means to abandon your kids and chase after wild dreams that you think will fulfill you

What happens when to “follow your heart” means getting into a relationship with someone that you know will only result in dishonor to your King?

What happens when to “follow your heart” means stealing something in order to provide for those close to you?

What happens when to “follow your heart” means pursuing a dream, career, or ambition that is in direct disagreement with the Word of God?

What does the Bible say about following your heart?

“The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; who can know it?” Jeremiah 17: 9

“For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, and blasphemies: these are the things which defile a man.”  Matthew 15: 19-20

“Therefore, God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts…” Romans 1:24

Our hearts, according to the Bible, are deceitful and wicked. One of the major misconceptions in Christianity today is that we base our closeness or nearness to God upon feelings. If we feel close to God, then He’s happy with us. If we feel some spiritual “high” after summer camp, then we are great Christians. If we feel like praying, we will. If we feel like reading our Bibles, then we will. We will only serve if we feel like doing it and have some sudden burst of compassion.

Christianity is not based upon how you feel about something. Christianity is based upon fact. Therefore, true Christianity is not based upon what your heart “says” about something. True Christianity is based upon what the rock solid truth of God’s Word says. And when our feelings are in contradiction with the Word of God, we side with the Word of God, despite how we may be feeling at that moment.

If God has called you to pray and you don’t feel like it, you pray anyway. If God has called you to get into His Word and you don’t feel like it, you study anyway. God has called you to serve those around you and take the lowest place always. So, you serve and pour out for people, no matter how much you feel like doing it or not. We are to guide or lead our hearts (Proverbs 23: 19). And the amazing thing is, that as we guide our hearts and base our lives on fact rather than our feelings, our feelings with come into alignment. If you serve other people whether or not you feel like it, eventually the feelings will come. Jesus made us to feel and delights to give us the feelings, if we will just ask Him for them. He wants us to feel deeply for those around us. However, we must learn to base our lives upon His unchanging Word, no matter what this world or our own deceitful hearts may say against it. His Word must be first and foremost in our lives. He will then change our hearts so that they conform to  His Word. 

"A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you. And I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put My spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statues, and you shall keep my judgments, and do them."  Ezekiel 36: 26-27

Ours is not to reason why

A certain quote has been on my mind recently. As I have been going throughout my days, there seems to be an increase in the bait and temptation of the enemy to give into self-pity, the desire for down-time, and to just stop, put down my spiritual sword, and quit for a while. I mean, everyone needs a break, don’t they? I have found the thought, Jesus, what You have called me to is just plain hard…present itself to me numerous times. That’s when this quote has been in my arsenal:

“Ours is not to reason why. Ours is but to do and die.”

I first heard this quote in the amazing devotional book, Streams in the Desert. So, whenever those thoughts and temptations to just set down my sword, stop fighting, or to give into the self-pity of a hard battle come, this quote is what I proclaim.

As soldiers of the cross, we do not have the luxury of sitting around, whining about how hard the battle is. We are in a battle! It’s going to be hard. It’s going to be grueling. It’s going to be difficult. But that’s also where I have found great joy!  When I realize the utter and complete impossibility of the task that He has assigned me and how utterly, completely, laughably weak I am, it causes me to lean all the more upon the strong, right arm of my Beloved. I cannot even lift up my sword to slay the enemy in my own strength. However, He has already defeated the enemy! I go out to battle against a defeated foe—I just stand upon His Word and His promise. I go out with His strength and His victory!

“Strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness.” Colossians 1: 11

This is why we are to be constantly engaged in the battle—we have His very strength to do so. A very real spiritual battle is being fought for the souls of those around us. We cannot afford to set down our swords, for when our swords are lowered is when the enemy will attack. We must rise up, as true soldiers endued with the almighty grace of God, and FIGHT!

We do not get “down-time” as many people would call it. A soldier who is the in midst of a battle can’t just sit down for a while in order to take a break. He must continue to fight. We do not let our minds go numb in front of a television or whatever else may be posed to distract us. We are constantly engaged. Dear friends, this is only by His grace!

A friend of mine said this in an email recently, “Let us stand firmly in the gap, as the Church of Jesus Christ, ready to battle against the forces of the Enemy, and volunteer for the front lines, without looking back.”

I loved how she said that we are to volunteer for the front lines. We, as Christians, are to be the first ones to risk our lives and stand to fight against the forces of the enemy! On our watch, the enemy will gain no ground!

Fellow Christians, ours is not to reason why God has called us to what He has or where He has. Our duty and focus is to simply charge into the front lines of battle and spill and spend our lives for that which is valuable in His sight!

The Father's Will

Lately I have been meditating on John 6: 38-40:

“For I came down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me. And this is the Father’s will which has sent Me, that of all which he Has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.”

What if this was our mindset wherever we go? For me, I did not come from Bloomington to Campbellsville University to do my own will. I came here to do the will of Him that sent me. I am not here for myself. I am not to take a thought of what my will would be while I am here. I have no right to my own will. Instead, my every thought is to be what His will is and what He wants of me. And one thing He has made completely clear to me is that I am to be pouring out my life and serving those around me. This would not, out of my flesh, normally be my will. However, my will is being conformed so that it matches His. I am been bought with a price, and I am not my own (I Corinthians 6: 19-20). I am His bond-slave, ready and willing to do whatever He would bid me.

What if this was also our mindset even in the day-to-day, seemingly mundane activities of life? I am not in this classroom, in this cafeteria, out to eat with this friend, at the grocery store with this cashier, hanging out in my room with my room-mate to do my will? I am here, whatever circumstance may be, for others. I am here (it doesn’t matter where ‘here’ is) to do His will and pour out my life for others.

        Jesus goes on to tell us what the Father’s will is. The Father’s will is that we should lose nothing. What in the world does that mean? I believe verse 40 helps to give us the answer:

“And this is the will of Him that sent Me, that everyone which sees the Son and believes on Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

If we truly have the mindset of Jesus, in that wherever we are we are not there to do our own will but the will of the Father, then we will, as a result, become outwardly focused. We will no longer be focused on our needs (our will) but rather how we can showcase Jesus to those around us. Jesus is saying that we are to lose nothing: we are to not let anyone fall by the wayside on our watch. They are to see Jesus in us constantly.

I want to live such a life that people don’t even remember who I am. It doesn't matter if they remember my name or anything about me. What matters is that I so radiate Jesus that they are drawn to Him through me. This is to be the testimony of my life, and this is the will of the Father.

“Father, make of me a crisis man. Bring those I contact to a decision. Let me not be a milepost on a single road. Make me a fork, that men must turn one way or another on facing Christ in me.”

                                                                             -Jim Elliot

Wisdom: Resting in Jesus

          For the past week or so, I have found myself praying a lot for wisdom. Because of circumstances and just by His grace, I have been realizing how much I truly need wisdom. If left to myself, I fail and mess up the decisions in my life. No matter how “small” a decision may seem to be, I want to know God’s plan and God’s purpose for it. I don’t want to make it myself. He knows far better than I do what is good for me! Even if He laid out all the options and said, “Krista, you can choose,” I’d fall flat on my face and say, “Jesus, You choose! You know me far better than I do!”

          What was interesting was last night I got an email from a friend ,who is serving in Haiti, asking her friends to pray that she would have wisdom about how to relate to the children and showcase Jesus to them. A little while later, I was reading in Proverbs 9, and this really stood out to me:

Wisdom says, “Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled. Forsake the foolish and live; and go in the way of understanding.” Vs. 5-6

It really stood out to me that this is the Gospel!  It parallels so well to I Corinthians 11: 24-25:

“And when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said, ‘Take, eat. This is my body, which is broken for you; this do in remembrance of Me. After the same manner also He took the cup, when He had supped, saying, ‘This cup is the new testament in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.’”

We partake of His body as our own, thus receiving His strength and all that He is. We partake of His blood, receiving His life. Then, in return, we give Him our body and blood, to do with as He wants.

So, how does one get true wisdom? By partaking of Jesus. Jesus is Wisdom (I Corinthians 1:30). If we want to really have wisdom, we simply need to get IN Jesus. He is all the Wisdom we need. And, it not’s a super-complicated formula or something we have to try to brainstorm. We simply give Him all that we are and allow Him to give us all He is. Wisdom will be a natural result.

What should I do when I need to make a decision and want wisdom for it? Seek Jesus. He is faithful.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.” Proverbs 9:10

       In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the word “knowledge” is translated as “ginosko.” Ginosko is the intimate knowing, like as between a husband and wife, where they are so close that they learn everything about one another.

True wisdom and understanding are simply by-products of knowing Jesus intimately. Oh, how I long to know Him better! So, next time when you have to make a decision, don’t stress out about it (I’ve tried it; it doesn’t work!). Simply seek Jesus, and He’ll reveal what you need to know.