Psalm 139

You Know Me

 

You have been

And You will be

You have seen

And You will see

You know when I rise

And when I fall

When I come or go

You see it all

And You hung the stars

And You move the seas

 

And still You know me.

 

Whoa oh oh oh Oh oh oh Oh oh oh

 

You know me

 

And nothing is hidden from Your sight

Wherever I go, You find me

You know every detail of my life

Cause You are God, and You don't miss a thing!

 

You know me!

 

You know me...

 

You memorize me...

 

 

Love Letters

Song of Soloman 6:9 "My dove, my perfect one, is unique."

In in a tender moment of brokenness, I knelt before my King as he sang these words over me. Into my heart He whispered, "You are my perfect one."

On this day of brokenness, this series of love letters in the Song of Solomon was brought to my attention. A story of love between a man and his bride, what more beautiful thing is there? But I was not in the mood to hear about a love story...until I realized that it is mine. I have always thought of these letters being strictly literal, with no metaphorical value. But I think that others who believe like I have are missing out. I've come to realize that these letters were written with a very literal meaning, but also speak with the poetry of Jesus to his bride. Me. I am his bride. You are his bride.

"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loves the church. He gave up his life to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God's word. He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without spot or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault." (Ephesians 5:25-27)

So then, as Solomon loved his bride, so Jesus loves his. And he sees her just like Solomon saw his bride: perfect and without fault.

That truth hit me hard that day. I am His perfect one.

When I finally read the Song of Solomon in the context of Jesus speaking his love over me, all I could do is recieve it. I met Him in a place of brokenness, of lonliness, of shame and confusion, and He spoke these words over me. "You are mine, you are beautiful, and I see no flaw in you."

He is my love story. He pursues me. He rescues me. He challenges me. He laughs with me. He romances me. 

So often i've had an issue with feeling like I need to always be making myself better for Him, that I need to first improve myself in order to be worthy of His romancing. The song "A Little Longer" by Jenn Johnson hit my heart about this.

She begins, "What can I do for you? What can I bring to you? What kind of song would you like me to sing? I'll dance a dance for you, pour out my love for you. What can I do for you, beautiful king? …. 
Then I hear Him sing to me, 'You don't have to do a thing. Just simply be with me and let those things go. They can wait another minute. Please, this moment is too sweet. Would you please stay here with me? And love on me a little longer?'"

With a person you love, you always just want that little bit of extra time. That extra time to just love on them. Its amazing to think that this is what Jesus wants with us. Just time to love on us and to be loved on by us. I was having a conversation with my mom one day about me and Jesus, and how sometimes I feel guilty when I don't make much time to just be with Him in my day. She said something that stayed with me. "Bay, He's not angry with you for not being with Him more. He just misses you when you're away."

There it is. He misses me. Really? The King of the universe misses me when I'm not sending time with him?? 

Yeah, how incredible is that?

"You have captured my heart, my treasure, my bride. You hold it hostage with one glance of your eyes…. Your love delights me, my treasure, my bride." (Song of Solomon 4:9)

Can you imagine? We have captured the heart of Jesus. One glance of our eyes in his direction ravishes his heart, makes him breathless! And he delights in us. He is not burdened by our shortcomings and our failures, no, He delights in us, his perfect ones. We are the bride of the Son chosen by the Father. And the Son delights in what his Father has prepared for him! Let that just sink in. I'm still trying to take that in! But it brings me such a smile whenever that truth begins to touch my heart again. He is my love story, our love story. And He's writing us new love letters all the time. We just need to pay more attention to his handwriting:) 

It Is Finished

"It is finished!" With those words Jesus changed everything; past, present, and future.

God has been showing me recently how easily it has been for me as a Christian to continue to live in guilt and shame from my past choices. For past mistakes, we often feel like we have to carry our guilt in order to truly be sorry for what we have done. But in Jesus, the initial guilt we feel after doing something wrong is just a mechanism he has given us to show us that we've messed up so that we can change. Guilt is a tool to convict us, but His grace sets us free! Long-term guilt and shame after we have already stopped our sin is completely not of Him!

When Jesus said the words "It is finished" he took all of the punishment for our sin, which means that we shouldn't try to punish ourselves by remaining in shame when He has already taken our punishment! When we live in our guilt and shame, we ignore the the fact that His sacrifice was sufficient. As Max Lucado's book God's Story, Your Story says, "His sacrifice is a sufficient one. Our accomplishments don't enhance it. Our stumbles don't diminish it. The sacrifice of Christ is a total and unceasing and accomplished work." 


The words "It is finished" do not mean "it is begun" or "it is initiated" or "it is a work in progress". No. It means IT. IS. FINISHED. 

What greater freedom can come from that realization that Jesus has completely and totally taken our sins and our shame?? For me, that realization has given me so much more freedom than i've ever known! Instead of feeling like I need to continuously prove to Him that I can do better, that I can make up for what I've done, I realize that He has already taken it all. In fact, He's already forgotten about what I did! (Heb. 8:12) If He has forgotten about it, why would I feel like I need to remind myself of it in guilt?  

Sin is defined as us missing God's perfect mark, as us breaking His law. Our God has multiple facets in our relationship with Him. He is my Abba, He is my King, He is my Savior, and He is my Beloved. He calls me His Beloved! He absolutely adores us. When we sin, our Abba, our Beloved, does not look down on us in disgust waiting for us to come crawling to him weeping for forgiveness for the mess we've made. No, He is with us, and when we sin, He sees that we're giving up His best for us for something far, far less. He knows what is the very best that He wants for His children, His loves, His creation. 

I think that the church has for so long bought into the hidden belief that Christ's sacrifice was just almost enough to take away our sin. Maybe enough to let us go to heaven and get past our sin as a whole, but enough to take away our need to punish ourselves in guilt for our daily sin??? Never! I mean, we deserve to remain in guilt don't we?? No, not as his children we don't. How have we lost sight of His overwhelming love for us so far as to assume that He would EVER want us to remain in shame that would hinder our souls from being free in Him??

I think that this is a lie that satan (he doesn't deserve a capital S in his name) has been using in the church for too long. As "good Christians", we too easily fall into the trap of punishing ourselves for our sins, which ends up with us building walls between ourselves and Jesus as we try make ourselves righteous in his sight. Why don't we instead focus on being passionate lovers of Jesus and allow him to purge us of our shortcomings and draw us closer to Him? He has already made us righteous. 

Remember? 

IT IS FINISHED.