Our Servant/King

“Every house is built by someone, but He who built all things is God.” Hebrews 3:4

Jesus is still building things. He’s still the gentle Carpenter from Nazareth as much as He is the King of Kings. Just as He did at the Last Supper when He laid aside His garments to wash the feet of His disciples, He still takes on the quiet role of a servant as He works in our lives.

Often when the Lord speaks to me, He gives me pictures to help me better understand a concept. In recent months, I saw Jesus working on a set of wooden stairs, descending from heaven. They were being completed top down, not yet touching the bottom floor (only God can do carpentry like that!). Jesus glanced toward me, unusually attired in blue jeans and flannel shirt. He was incredibly gorgeous, with short dark hair and a gold earring that glinted from one ear.  An earring? I was so surprised, yet I recognized Him and my heart skipped a beat.

In that moment, with the full force of Jesus’ loving gaze upon me, I felt like a spoiled rich girl, incredibly pampered by her Heavenly Father, who had just fallen in love with a Worker in His house. All I wanted to do was be with Him. I didn’t care if the project wasn’t completed that He was working on. I didn’t want to just be recipient of His work in my life; I wanted to join in.

Just like in this analogy, throughout Scripture, we see Jesus inviting us to join Him as active participants in the life of faith He’s called us to. In fact, He sometimes slows His work to a halt until we join Him because everything He does depends upon our willingness to participate in relationship with Him. 

In psychology, we learn a lot about causal and correlational relationships. Causal is when Jesus speaks and the world comes into being. Correlational means Jesus speaks and we have a choice: free will. Will we act on what He’s said or squirm away from the truth He’s imparting to our hearts? When we edge out of Jesus’ project, it comes to a standstill. He’s perfectly capable of building staircases without us, but He’s chosen to seek our cooperation. He won’t force us to accept His truth.

Isaiah 28:9-10 says, “Whom will he teach knowledge? And whom will he make to understand the message? Those just weaned from milk? Those just drawn from the breasts? For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept,  line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little.”

In this way, God stays radically committed to His plan of redemption: a people who have chosen to surrender and get on board with His ideas and His plan. The Holy Spirit reminds us in Isaiah 55:8-9, “’For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ says the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.’”

Maybe that’s why I saw Jesus building the staircase from top down, because my human wisdom isn’t going to connect me with His plans for my life. Rather He imparts His vision and His heart to me, adding to it, step by step, as I participate in faith. Oswald Chambers says in My Utmost for His Highest, “When God gives a vision, transact business on that line, no matter what it costs…. When God gives a vision and darkness follows, wait. God will make you in accordance with the vision He has given if you will wait His time.” When we get on board with God, He gets the work done in us, yet it is our great privilege to kneel down next to Him, holding the nails and boards in our hands, giving them to Him as He asks.

As for the earring I saw, the Holy Spirit whispered a reminder to me about a law in the Old Testament concerning servants. Exodus 20:5-6 says, “If the servant says plainly, ‘I love…my master, I will not go free’ then his master shall bring him to the judges. He shall also bring him to the door …and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl and he shall serve him forever.”

Philippians 2:7 proclaims the amazing truth that Jesus “made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.” Hebrews 5:6 says of Jesus, “You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.”

Jesus truly is our Servant/King who has a bigger plan for us--a bigger work that He’s doing in our lives--than we can ever accomplish on our own. Do we have such a yearning for Him that we will join Him, no matter what He’s doing? Building staircases, washing toilets, revitalizing our hearts?

Yes, Jesus! I’ll join You. No matter where You are or what You’re doing, I choose to jump on board with Your plans. Thank You for the power of Your Spirit at work in me, accomplishing in my life what I can never do on my own. May I always give You all the glory!!!

Lavishly Loved by Jesus

We’re pampered by Jesus. We don’t hear that very often, but we are. Oh, not in the way the world views pampering: few of us drive around in fancy sportscars or wear diamond watches on our wrists. But we’re pampered nonetheless.

Just listen to John’s exaltation: “How great is the Father’s love that He has lavished upon us, that we should be called children of God!” (I John 3:1) And Paul exclaims in the same fashion, “How blessed is God! And what a blessing he is! He’s the Father of our Master, Jesus Christ, and takes us to the high places of blessing in him…. He wanted us to enter into the celebration of his lavish gift-giving by the hand of his beloved Son.” (Ephesians 1:3&6 The Message)

The Sons of Korah proclaim in joy, “The Lord will give grace and glory! No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly!” (Psalm 84:11)

Are we righteous on our own? Not at all! Jesus took our sin debt and placed us in right-standing with God. Our Heavenly Father sees us through the lens of His Son’s deep love and sacrifice for us. What is good? Not the riches or fame or beauty that the world chases after; not the lusts of the flesh or of the mind; not the pride of life. Everything became confused at the Fall in the Garden of Eden: our perception became distorted. But oh, how much our heavenly Father loves us! He longs to restore us to His vision for our lives, His way of looking at things.

Just look at the picture God Himself paints in Ezekiel 16: “’I anointed you with oil. I clothed you in embroidered cloth and gave you sandals of badger skin; I clothed you with fine linen and covered you with silk. I adorned you with ornaments, put bracelets on your wrists and a chain on your neck. And I put a jewel in your nose, earrings in your ears, and a beautiful crown on your head. Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your clothing was of fine linen, silk, and embroidered cloth. You ate pastry of fine flour, honey, and oil…. Your beauty…was perfect through My splendor which I had bestowed on you,’ says the Lord God.”

This chapter is a pleading of Father God for us to come before Him with hearts full of praise and adoration for the lavish gifts He’s given. He knows how temptation steals into our hearts, beckoning us to squander the oil and pastry, the silk and the gold on false loves and fleshly idols. “’She decked herself with her earrings and jewelry and went after her lovers, but Me she forget,’ says the Lord.” (Hosea 2:13)

Proverbs 21:20 declares, “There is desirable treasure and oil in the dwelling of the wise, but a foolish man squanders it.” In Scripture, oil often represents the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Oil is useful for a fragrance, an antibiotic, and a cleansing potion. Oils were used to purify the system of contaminations, to soften the skin, and to saturate individuals with such a beautiful scent that they were intoxicating wherever they went.  Tommy Tenney devotes an entire chapter in his book Finding Favor with the King on understanding the use of oils in the purification process that Esther went through before she was allowed to approach the king. How much more should we, God’s favored children, long to immerse ourselves in the presence of the Holy Spirit so that we are well-pleasing to the King of Kings, our Beloved Husband?

So what are the pastry, the silk,  and the adornments that Ezekiel speaks of? They were literal for historical Israel at the peak of her glory, but they also represent an ongoing truth about our souls. Stormie Omartian writes in Just Enough Light for the Step I’m On: “Hunger for God’s Word like food. Thirst for it like water. Soak in it like a Jacuzzi. Put it on like a garment. Weave it into your soul so that it becomes part of the fabric of your life. When you do, you won’t just be trudging up the trail. You will be dancing in the footlights.”

Jesus longs for us to spend time with Him; He loves to pour over us His fragrant perfume and to beautify us with the radiance of His love. Most surely, yes, most surely, He loves to pamper us!!!

Jesus, I’ll adorn myself with Your truth! I will bask in the glory of Your grace and let You weave faith into a beautiful garment for my soul. Yes, I’ll sit at my Father’s table and partake of the Bread of Life and the Wine of Your love! I’ll rejoice in Who You are and remember that all these gifts come from Your hand—not for me to look at my own reflection in a mirror, but for me to stand in amazement and gaze and gaze and gaze in breath-taking wonder at the love in Your eyes.

Grace Like Oxygen

As a mom, I’ve changed a lot of poopy diapers, cleaned up a lot of messes. Very young children must eliminate waste the same as the rest of us; they just haven’t learned how to control when or where. They also aren’t able to clean up the mess they’ve made, so moms, dads, caregivers—we do it for them. We wipe bottoms and wash vomit from faces because we love them and understand that our toddler’s body is just doing its job: getting rid of unwanted elements. That’s how bodies stay healthy.

God has also designed our souls to eliminate waste, to reject the harmful substances we swallow. But like little children, sometimes we don’t know how or where to get rid of the waste. Hurtful words spill out of our mouths onto others; bad attitudes create messes nobody wants to clean up. But God does. And so do other loving, mature Christians who understand that “closet-time” must be learned. As we grow in our Christian walk, we discover that God is gently training us to expel our frustrations, self-pity, and angsts in time alone with Him. In the quiet of His presence, He helps us identify the things that harm us, eliminate them, and wash our hearts and minds anew in the cleansing water of the Word through the power of His Spirit.

As with physical children, if proper and private elimination of soul-waste is not learned, friends and family begin to express concern for their loved ones who are not progressing toward maturity. A pervasive illness of the soul often occurs from the intake of a toxin or from an untended wound that turns to gangrene. The soul warns us of its unhealthy state through symptoms that bubble to the surface, showing up in bouts of bitterness, anger, self-pity, and lack of self-control.

When we are not experiencing Christ’s peace, joy and love in our lives, do we submit to checkups from loving friends and family to help discern the reason for their absence? Can we accept others’ insights if they share concern about symptoms of illness? Even more, do we accept the medicine provided by the Master Physician, the Great Lover of our souls who sees the exact reason for our illness?

His truth “divides between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12) How wonderful to know the Counselor who never misdiagnoses a trauma, never prescribes a wrong medicine, and never turns His back no matter how nasty the smell and sight of our souls’ gangrene may get!

Jesus, thank You for loving me enough to peel back the bandages of works that I slap over wounds I don’t want others to see. Thank You for exposing the injuries inside me to the pure oxygen of grace so that infection loses its dark power. I praise You for the oil You pour over my heart, burning into my very core as Your love destroys the lies that contaminate my trust in You. And I bless Your name, precious Savior, for the price You paid so I can be laid upon a bed in Your Father’s house and receive the fullness of Your loving care!

Pursing the King of Kings

So where do we begin in our pursuit of this Jesus who loves us so passionately and gave up His Kingly rights to romance our hearts? Scripture tells us where to start this journey to meet with Him: “Enter His gates with thanksgiving; enter His courts with praise.” (Psalm 100:4)

Yes, Jesus, we praise You and thank You for the incredible gift of Yourself. And unlike any other gift that we could live without, we desperately need You. Marie Barnett says it so beautifully in her song Breathe: “This is the air I breathe…Your holy presence. This is my daily bread… Your very word spoken to me. And I can’t live without You.”

Tommy Tenney writes in his book, Finding Favor With the King: “Most of the time, we enter the court of the King according to the protocol of His presence…. We thank God because He has done something wonderful in our lives that we want to acknowledge and remember. We praise Him because of who He is, because of His attributes, or because of His ways. He is worthy of praise—period—whether we are having a good day or a bad day.” (p46)

Tenney continues, “But there are more rooms in the palace than the outer courts and the inner courts…. [W]orship…transports us into the Holy of Holies, the inner chamber, the sacred dwelling place of God’s glory…. We humble ourselves before Him simply because of who He is.” (p47)

Yahweh, God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, requires humility in the person who craves His glorious presence. Why? Because while He is passionately in love with us, He is also a holy God. Pride simply cannot be in our hearts if we desire to have a heart-to-heart encounter with our wonderful Savior. Jesus shared this in His parable about the Pharisee and the tax collector. “Do you think this man went home justified [who praised himself and condemned others]? No, but God accepted the man who beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’” (Luke 18:11-14, my paraphrase)

James and Peter both felt it necessary to warn the church: “God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.”(James 4:6, I Peter 5:5) And God makes it very clear when He proclaims in Isaiah 66:2, “On this one I will look: on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit and who trembles at My word.”

So what is humility? One of the key ways the enemy can trip us up is by redefining the words we ought to know, skewing their meanings away from God’s intention into a human perspective. But in order to run after our Heavenly Bridegroom, we must know what pleases Him. Humility always acknowledges my frailty and gives all the glory to God. Are there areas in our lives where we tend to pat ourselves on the back, saying to ourselves, “Good job! You were really smart to think of that. You’ve really done well with the gift God’s given you?”

Oh, dear friends, I hope that we catch ourselves and direct all the praise where it ought to go. Proverbs 27:2 says, “Let another man praise you and not your own mouth. A stranger and not your own lips.” If someone compliments you, well and good, but let us always seek to turn the attention to the Master who gave us the talents. Without Him, we are nothing. We can do nothing. “So why do you boast as though you have not received?” Paul asks the Corinthian church. (I Corinthians 4:7)

True humility directs all the glory to God. It is a conduit of praise and thanksgiving and worship. And then we find ourselves stepping with bare feet onto holy ground.

Everything I Need

Jesus has the funds. He has the funds to make every one of us millionaires if He wanted. He has the funds to meet my expenses today. He said so. Not me. (Malachi 3:10, Matthew 6:30)

So why doesn’t He? If He has all this treasure in heaven, why doesn’t He pour out His riches from His storehouse instead of holding it up? Christians have spent a lot of time delving into what might be the reason or reasons. Almost always the reason involves a lack of something on our part: a lack of faith, lack of tithing, lack of wisdom, lack of responsibility, lack of ____________. You fill in the blank.

May I suggest that maybe there’s another way to look at this dichotomy? Maybe we have it backward. Maybe it’s not our lack that shuts up heaven’s blessings. After all, Jesus knows we lack—in every area of our lives. In fact, we don’t just lack, we’re powerless to achieve anything good without Him. Jesus said, “Without Me, you can do nothing.”

But we do have Jesus. As Christians, we’ve placed our trust in Him and accepted His Spirit in our hearts, transforming us into children of God. Isn’t it true what Paul said: “He who did not spare His only Son, but delivered Him for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32) Yes, it’s true, so may I suggest that we turn the equation around?

We deserved NOTHING, yet God spilled His own blood to redeem us from Sin’s grip. He looked at us in the filthiness and weakness of our obsessions, lusts, addictions, and pride…and said, “I want them. I’m passionate for them. I’ll pay the price to buy them back from the Taskmaster of demonic wisdom that seeks to seduce them every day, saying, ‘If you’ll do it, you’ll get what God’s denying you.’” Oh, the love and mercy of God!!! Satan’s lie fell through at the Garden and it’ll fall through every time we act on it. So God stepped in. Jesus said, “Enough! I’ll show you TRUE life, and if you’ll have Me, I’ll make sure you never lack again.” (John 10:10; my paraphrase)

So why do we look at our pocketbooks and feel lack? Why do we see lack in our relationships, workplaces, emotions, and prayer times? May I suggest that the frailty of human flesh must become the springboard for seeking more of God? Not more of His blessings, but more of Him. Just Jesus.

It makes sense after all, when Jesus says, “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things shall be added to you.” (Matthew 6:33) “For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 14:17) Yet, how can we experience joy when the bills are piling up? Where is peace when a relationship ends abruptly? What has happened to right-living when I give into the same old sin?

Scripture always points us back to the Person of Jesus Christ. Psalm 16:11 says, “In Your presence is fullness of joy.” Isaiah 26:3 promises, “You will keep him in perfect peace whose thoughts are stayed on You because he trusts in You.” I Corinthians 1:30 declares, “Jesus…became for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” Oh, Jesus—YOU are the answer. Every single time.

This amazing discovery does not ask for mere intellectual assent to the Word. No, rather Jesus Himself is calling to our hearts, creating in us such a desperate need for Him that we won’t be content until we’ve seen Him—seen Him face to face and prostrated our war-torn bodies before His nail-pierced feet.  Then His peace sweeps in and we know—we KNOW—that we are safe, so utterly and completely safe, in His hands.