In the Father’s Embrace

John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life and the life was the light of men.

We are  familiar with this passage.  We realize that Jesus was God and He was with God and He created all things.  We realize He is the light of all men and we are fortunate when we realize our need for Him.  Yet, we don’t realize what has been given to us.  Our minds cannot comprehend the vastness of the goodness of God.

John 1:18 says, “No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.”  I looked up the original word translated “the only begotten”; the word is monogenes.  The editor of the Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible, Spiros Zodhiates, admits that this word is “unfortunately translated as the only begotten”.  He states that the word monogenes is used to show a very special relationship between the Father and the Son.  When we read the word (begotten) we get the idea that Jesus was generated by the Father.  A better description is “the unique Son who being in the bosom of the Father, He Himself brought Him out.”  In verse 1 when it says that the Word became flesh – the word for became is a word that means “to become something you have never been before”.

So, here is what the Lord has been speaking to me this morning: Jesus, for the first time in all eternity, was brought out of the Father and chose to be placed, from that unique and glorious position of unity and oneness, into flesh.  He became like one of us because He wanted us to be united with Him as He is united with the Father.  Jesus, in the last few hours of His life, while with His closest 11 friends prayed, “Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one, even as we are one.” (Jn. 17:11) Then in the last breath of His prayer He said, “I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known; that the love with which You loved Me may be in them.” (John 17:26)

So, Jesus allowed Himself to be brought out of the Father so that we could be brought into the Father!  Do you see that all of creation is groaning for the sons of God to be revealed? Rom. 8:19

Jesus said, “In that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me and I in you.”  The truth is that if we are in Christ, we cannot distance ourselves from God.  The deceiver whispers "you are far away from God and you must hide", but Jesus stepped out of the Father, so that He could bring us into that most intimate of places: into the embrace of God (into the bosom of the Father).  Sons and daughters will discover their identity in the embrace of the Father.

Let yourself see and know this truth: If you are in Christ… all things, all things are new.  You are someone who you have never been before.  If you are in Him  all things work together for your good; i.e. every circumstance and situation does not have its’ origin in Him, but He will use all things, good or bad, of your doing or of someone else’s doing, for your good.  As Don Finto says, “God wastes nothing!”  If you are in Him, you are in the Father and you cannot be separated from the Father or His love or His adoration or His constant delight.  All things belong to you, and you belong to Christ; and Christ belongs to God. (1 Cor. 3:23)  Know this truth and this truth will set you free!!!

Sons and daughters of God, know who you are and know Whose you are.  Sons and daughters of God, the earth is groaning for you to lay down your orphan way of thinking, your striving and your fear, and be revealed in truth and identity and love.  Sons and daughters, there is no greater place in all of eternity than in the Father’s embrace.

Will you say "yes"?

God is looking for laid down lovers; a people who are willing to go anywhere, do anything, lay down their very lives if necessary to follow Him.  His heart has been waiting for a group of people completely sold out; people who look more into His eternal face than at the temporary fixes this world has to offer.  His heart yearns for a people who say “yes” whatever the cost.  He laid down everything: His rights, His godly attributes of omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence to be with us.  He emptied Himself and became obedient to the point of death… a most gruesome death, hanging on a cross after being betrayed and abandoned and beaten and mocked and scourged and for the first and last time in history, separated from His Father, the very essence of Himself.  
 

He calls out: Who will go for Us?  Who is willing to lay down whatever it takes to pierce and expose the darkness of this world for what it is?

His heart yearns for you to know Him.  His heart yearns to give you every bit of your inheritance.  He waits.  Who will go?  Who will say “yes” to Him?  This generation has a call like none before it.  Sin has increased and become so easily accessible.  The truth has become twisted and His heart aches as He watches those He gave everything for, give everything to idols and sin and relationships whose ends lead to destruction; maybe not eternal destruction, but a destruction of the soul because sin will take its toll.

He paid so great a price; He gave it all and He is asking you to do the same.  Not because He has some longing to control you, but because He knows the greatest life that exists for you is the one where you are so woven into His heart you don’t even need to question the next step, you naturally move in unison with Him.

Let Him love you.  Let Him have His way.  Listen to His heart and how it is calling you; wooing you.  Recognize the deceptions that lay all around you that lead to nothingness.  Their reward is temporary and ultimately meaningless.  But when you delight in Him, He will give you the desires of your heart because when you delight in Him… He becomes the desire of your heart for He is the desire of the nations. 

He calls you by name.  He knows you more than anyone on this earth will ever know you.  He knows the plans that He has for you and they are to prosper you and give you a hope and a future. His thoughts of you are more than all the sands on all the seashores.  The very hairs of your head are numbered.  Why does He even tell us that?  Because He wants us to know His nearness; He wants us to realize His intimacy and His unfailing love.

The enemy also has a plan for your life… it is to kill, steal and destroy and he will use every scheme and plan to keep you from realizing your calling.  He will distract you with good things and good people.  He will offer you water from so many sources, but none of them will quench your thirst.  You will need to go again and again and all the while He waits.  Jesus waits to give you living water so you will never thirst again.

His longing is for you and whether you know it or not and whether you choose to submit to it or not, your longing is for Him.  He is looking for laid down lovers… those who will follow Him anywhere, through anything.  Will you say “yes” to the call He has on your life.  Will you say “yes” to lay down everything for the Pearl of great price?  He is the Treasure.  Nothing else will satisfy.  Nothing else will quench your soul.

He did not come and give His life a ransom for many so that we could go to church on Sunday.  He came to seek and save those who were lost; those who were perishing.  He came to restore you back to your original purpose.  Then as He died and we were crucified with Him and He was buried and we were buried with Him and He was raised and we were raised with Him and seated with Him in heavenly places, He said “Go into all the world and tell them the good news of what I have done”.

We live in a world that is dying.  Look around at the faces of the people.  What do you see?  Despair, darkness, distrust, disorder, loneliness, hurt, selfishness, protection, people rushing around and going nowhere.  There is such a deception among men.    Don Finto recently spoke of God’s people allowing life to take them along instead of them taking up their lives with direction and purpose.  Are you being driven along by the world and busyness and by what you think you need… or are you truly loving God and loving others? 

I see a picture of someone standing in the surf of the sea and being tossed about.  Their knees are getting bloodied by the sand and shells beneath the surface of the water.  This is what happens when life takes us.  But Jesus walked on water; He commanded the sea to be still and it became perfectly calm.  We can let the sea take authority over us and over our lives and we can live with it drawing us in and out, sweeping us under with the current, or we can walk on the water in Him.  Laid down lovers live in the authority that walks on water.  We may not do it perfectly, but we press on to take hold of That which took hold of us.

His desire burns for you.  This generation has been set apart for such a time as this.  He will not take away your choice.  He will not force your hand… if that was His will from the beginning there would be no Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden.  From eternity, He has wanted your love which cannot be love without choice.   He who is Love is wooing you and calling you.  Will you say “yes”?

God, make us a people who will follow you anywhere.  We long to live in the place where we know You as Savior, Lord and Life.   Lord, we want more of You at any cost, we’ll pay any price.

The Father's Love

(From John 1) And the Word that created everything became flesh and dwelt [tabernacled; camped out] among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the Only Begotten [the unique One, the only One of His kind] from the Father full [completely filled to the top] of grace and truth.

This fullness [completely filled to the top] we have all received, and grace upon grace.  For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth [that fullness from the Father] were realized through Jesus Christ [the Messiah].

No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God [the unique One, the only One of His kind, Jesus the Messiah] who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him [brought Him out; the unfolding of the Father; helped us understand who Father is].

(From John 14 - Jesus talking to His friends) If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him and have seen Him.  He who has seen Me has seen the Father.  I am in the Father and the Father is in Me.  The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His work.  You shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me and I in you.

(And in John 17 at the end of Jesus’ prayer) Oh Father, I have made Your name known to them and will make it known, that the love that You have loved Me with will be in them and I in them.

May you recognize the grace and truth which you have received from the Father through the Son; that fullness of grace and truth to know the love that the Father has for you is the same love which He has for His Only Begotten, His unique One, His Son [Huios].  May you realize that the Father, your Papa in Heaven cannot love you less than He loves His own Son.  May you know this love and that nothing can ever or will ever separate you from this love.

If Love Crafted Me

If Love crafted me, then my destiny is to love and to be loved.

If Love crafted me, then I am wanted…

I am secure…

I am loved…

and I am valuable.

If Love hand-crafted me in my mother’s womb, then that Love and only that Love defines me.

If Love crafted me, then I belong to Love.

If Love crafted and created me, then I am His and I am known by Him .

I am made in His image and I love the way He loves.

I seek to know Him and be known by Him.

I am captivated by His gaze and my heart beats in unison with His.

If Love crafted me, then I can rest…

I can be still…

I can draw life from the arms of Love.

Peace in the Storm

These last few years have been difficult years.  The circumstances in our lives have shaken the very foundation of what we believe and why.  Tough circumstances stir lies deep within our souls and bring them raging to the surface.  We begin to question ourselves.  Sometimes we question the commitment and love of those around us, and sometimes we even question God.

God has given me a picture in this season.  The picture originates from a story:  One evening, Jesus and His closest friends (disciples) decided to get into a boat and cross the sea.  Well, Jesus fell asleep while they were making their crossing.  While He was sleeping a violent storm arose.  A majority of His closest companions were fisherman and very familiar with the sea.  So, this storm had to be fierce because these men believed they were all going to die that evening.  As the waves crashed over their boat and it began to fill with water, they woke their Friend; their Savior, Jesus.  Now at this point in the story, many of us want to get frustrated at the disciples:  “Guys, really, don’t you get it!  How many times does He have to prove Himself to you before you finally realize that He is love personified and He will never leave or forsake you!”

You see His friends were looking at the color of the sky, the wind, the waves, the water in the boat… they were looking at every circumstance and making determinations based on those circumstances.  How often do we do the same?  When things get rough and the waves rise, and sometimes the storm gets so bad that water begins to fill the boat… what do we do?  We may question ourselves: “I must be doing something wrong?  Do I have some hidden sin in my life?  Is God mad at me (and it’s my job to figure out why)?  Or sometimes our focus is on others: “If you would just do this or that, everything would be ok (as if our “okayness” is based on someone else)?  And then there’s always option number three: i.e. blame God. “If God really loved me…; If He really cared…; He is in control of everything, right?” How different are we than His closest friends who could not connect to Him because they were too focused on the wind and the waves? Did you ever stop to think that  Jesus would not have rebuked a storm that His Father had caused.

I think all of life comes from one place… Him.  “Apart from Christ I can do nothing.” John 15:5.  Jesus did nothing of His own initiative; He did what He saw the Father do and even the words He spoke originated from the Father!  He showed us the perfect Christian life; the only one that has ever existed.  That life is one of perfect dependence.  So here is my picture:  The storm is raging with such intensity that it looks as if death is imminent.  Jesus is in the boat.  I can look at the wind and the waves.  I can even look at the other disciples and connect to their fear or anger or disappointment… or I can connect to the One who is perfect peace in the storm.  I can connect to the One who says “Peace”.  I connect to the One who is Peace.  Let us choose to take our eyes off of the wind and the waves and the others around us and their words and actions and discover Him and His truth in this storm.  He is the answer.  I want to lay down next to Him in the boat and put my head on His chest and listen to His heartbeat.  I want to look up into His eyes and know what He is saying in this storm.  He will either speak peace to the storm or He will speak peace to me while the storm rages, but whatever He chooses, I know He is always enough.

Let Us be Reminded of Our Treasures

I married young... 19 years old. Since Scott had more college under his belt, we decided "I'll work and Scott can finish college first, then we'll switch places."  Needless to say, he graduated and we found out we were going to have our first child.  I instantly became a stay-at-home mom and went to college for the next 7 years... one class a semester at night.  I wouldn't have it any other way.

I always had this feeling that I was putting my career on hold.  In the beginning of our marriage it was, "I'll sacrifice and you can get your education." Then it became: "I'll sacrifice so that we can give our children the best." Then we took it a step further... I won't just sacrifice for 5 or 6 years, but for 18 or 19 so that we can home-school and offer our kids an education designed for them by someone who delights in them and understands how God designed them.

Now I'm an empty nester.  As I ended that season of raising my children for the next, I realized... it was not a sacrifice at all; it was always a gift.  My career awaits... but my children have grown. Yesterday I could swaddle them in my arms; today they're adults, moving into their careers and into their lives.

So, you see... it was not a sacrifice.  It was never a sacrifice, but an opportunity.  An opportunity to be with some of the greatest treasures in my life.  I realize now that God knew that one day I would not look back and think of what I'd lost, but I would look at what I've gained... treasures that are stored up in my heart that can never be taken away.

Daniel and Erika have been and are some of the greatest blessings of my life. I am blessed that the last 20 years of my life have been spent with them first. I am blessed for every sleepless night and every day of spit up and later, wrestling over school work... because they were days... Some were hard, some were glorious... but all were days. 

Seize these days with your children while they are young, for tomorrow they will be adults.

Things Unimaginable

1 Corinthians 2:9-10  However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived” the things God has prepared for those who love Him— these are the things God has revealed to us by His Spirit.

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.

Ephesians 3:20 ‘Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,

So… God is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or even imagine!  And… He has prepared things that eye has not seen and ear has not heard and (and not for my favorite…) things that have not even entered into the heart of man!

I don’t know about you, but this blows my mind.  This gives me permission to dream big with God and however big my dream; however big my request, He longs to do immeasurably more!

The orphan heart says, “You should be thankful for what you have.”  The heart of a son/daughter says, “More, Papa, more!”

Let us live as sons and daughters and continue to dream the dreams that God has placed in our hearts.  Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.”  I have learned that when I delight in the Lord, He is the desire of my heart.  Isn’t it great that He sets us up in that way!!! 

So when we ask Him for more… the answer every time will be “yes!”  Yet, the answer will always be greater than the request.  Let us dream big and then let us know with certainty that however big we dreamed, God will top that because that is His character; because it is His pleasure to give you the Kingdom. (Luke 12:32)

It's Jesus.... period.

Sometimes God gives me revelation too deep for words.  I say that to let you know that this note will be insufficient as I try to explain what is in my heart.



I am in a season of seeking the Lord's will for my life in ministry.  For the past 19 years my first job (or shall I call it an opportunity) has been that of stay-at-home mom and then homeschool mom.  My second opportunity for the past 13 years has been in the area of ministry (this has been part-time because of my first opportunity); i.e. Christ-centered discipleship counseling and now inner healing ministry.  The latter included discipleship and inner healing for individuals, teenagers and couples, teaching classes and conferences, training interns and periodically public speaking. My first opportunity has just drawn to a close as my son and daughter have begun the adventure of life as adults.  I am now seeking the Lord about the next step in following Him.


In my mind I had it mapped out this way: Point A - intimacy with Jesus.  From that place I discover Point B - ministry, speaking, teaching, training, etc.  You know!  Go into all the world and preach the gospel.  Right?   Point A - Love God and Point B - Love others.

So, I was talking the the Lord yesterday morning and asking Him what this is supposed to look like.  I said, "Lord, I know that all things are rooted and established in You and I know that all things flow from a knowledge of You... I just don't know how to get from Point A to Point B.  I feel stuck in this place of knowing the things you have placed in my heart and not knowing how to put feet to those visions and dreams.  As I sat before the Lord, I heard His still small voice, "There is no point B."

You see, unfortunately most of us have not discovered Point A.  Most of us are too busy to posture ourselves before the Lord.  We want a formula, a plan, a principle that will help us get to the next place, but when we get there we will need a new plan or principle once again.  Jesus told us to seek first His Kingdom and all of the other things would follow.  But we don't know how to do that.  We don't know what it's like to seek God.  We are spending so much time doing life that we don't have time to spend with the Life Giver, Creator and Sustainer.

Remember the story of Martha and Mary.  We must remember that Martha was doing a good thing.  She was feeding the Son of God!  But she wasn't choosing the "one thing" (Luke 10:38-42)... really the only thing that mattered: sitting at the feet of Jesus; i.e. point A!

You see, Jesus is Point A and Plan A.  There is no Point B.  He is it!  He is everything and dicovering that truth is like a man discovering a pearl of great price in a field.  He sold all that he had just to buy the field... because he knew that he had discovered the treasure that was worth everything.

So where do we go from here.  We must find a way, a place, a time to posture ourselves before the Lord and discover the "one thing" as Mary of Bethany discovered.  As we discover the one thing, we will discover a rest and a peace and a joy and a love that will follow us into all of the other things of life.