Just for a little bit of background information -- God has given me a spiritual gift that sometimes I wish I did not have. I don't know the name of the gift, but it is a gift related to feeling the heart of the Father all of the time. When the Father's heart breaks, it breaks my heart immensely and leaves me paralyzed in pain, weeping at His feet, interceding. When my Father rejoices, I rejoice to the point where I seem like a maniac and I cannot stop dancing and praising.
Well, my heart is broken for His bride. My heart breaks because we are a bride to be preparing for that day, the day of His wedding, yet no one is paying attention. This is our Bridegroom, desperate for His bride to be together with Him, and relentlessly He pursues her, but it breaks His heart that she does not pursue Him back.
Imagine being in relationship with someone who loved you. Like really, really loved you. And they pursued you day in and day out. Your friends and your family knew briefly of this person in your life, you would even go as far to say that you loved them and were in a relationship with them, but as they continually pursued you, you never saw yourself putting forth the effort to pursue him or her back. "I love you a lot," you would tell them at the end of the day. "I'm glad you're in my life," sometimes you would mutter. But, after hearing these words, the person could only weep because they did not feel that you truly loved them back. Your actions did not line up with your words. Sure, you knew them. And sure, you briefly talked about them. But they weren't like that. They pursued you. And pursued you. And pursued them. Yet, their heart was broken because there was no true communication of love between the two of you.
This is how God feels toward His bride, the ones who claim to know Him, to love Him, to be in a relationship with Him. Pursue them relentlessly, He will continue to do, no matter how broken His heart becomes. Thankfully He can do that. We, as mere humans, do not have the strength within us to continually pursue the one who does not desire us. But, He, as the I AM, can and will continually pursue us with His heart broken for us.
Just read the book of Hosea.
13 I will punish her for the days
she burned incense to the Baals;
she decked herself with rings and jewelry,
and went after her lovers,
but me she forgot,”
declares the LORD.
14 “Therefore I am now going to allure her;
I will lead her into the wilderness
and speak tenderly to her.
15 There I will give her back her vineyards,
and will make the Valley of Achor[b] a door of hope.
There she will respond[c] as in the days of her youth,
as in the day she came up out of Egypt.
16 “In that day,” declares the LORD,
“you will call me ‘my husband’;
you will no longer call me ‘my master.[d]’
(Hosea 2:13-16)
And what amazes me even more is what the LORD says in chapter 11 of Hosea:
But how can I give up on you, Ephraim?
How can I turn you loose, Israel?
How can I leave you to be ruined like Admah,
devastated like luckless Zeboim?
I can't bear to even think such thoughts.
My insides churn in protest.
And so I'm not going to act on my anger.
I'm not going to destroy Ephraim.
And why? Because I am God and not a human.
I'm The Holy One and I'm here—in your very midst.
(Hosea 11:8-9)
He pursues. Relentlessly. And He HATES to be separated from us. But, as Hosea says, we have turned to other lovers and chosen to forget Him. We, His bride, have chosen to turn our backs on Him. We claim to know Him, but we look to idols. We are the Israel in this story. We cheat on our Beloved King with other lovers. This does not mean people -- though it can -- it means anything that we look to because we really don't believe He is enough. We see other things in this world that we want, so we turn our attention away from Him.
When you look at the life of a lover, you see love. You SEE love.
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| source: tumblr.com |
God wants this from us. Like that couple's relationship, love is not boring. Love was sweet like lemonade. Love was active like walking. Love was thrilling like exploring. Love was relaxing like quilting. Love WAS. Love IS. Love is an action verb. It means being together. It means DOING together. It means ACTING together. It means PUSHING ASIDE what stands between love.
But we aren't willing.
God calls us to pursue this thrilling, relaxing, active, and sweet relationship with Himself. He calls us to deny ourselves. Not to punish us, but because He wants to be able to share with us His love, the most choice wine possible. But when we allow STUFF to come between us, His heart breaks because He can't share His love with us. His love that is greater, wider, and longer than we can ever understand.
So, His heart breaks. Not because we are being condemned, but because He has so much to offer us and we deny it. We deny drinking the tastiest wine there is.
And until we open our hearts enough, until we learn to deny ourselves even a little and push aside this BROKEN WORLD, we cannot taste that love. And until we truly TASTE His love, until we truly ENCOUNTER THIS MAN, Jesus Christ, who is ALIVE, and who is ACTIVE, and who is ENDLESSLY pursuing us... we will continue to desire other things.
So He calls us to open our hearts. To be radically loved. To just make the choice once. Then twice. Then three times. Deny ourselves. Deny ME, ME, ME. And soak in His presence. Take a walk with Him when you feel like playing a video game. Sit and drink coffee with Him when you feel like watching that movie. Try it. Just try it. Once. Twice. Three times.
Just choose to be loved. That choice to be RADICALLY loved will create a desire in YOU to love HIM endlessly beyond just the "I love you" statement. We love because He first loved us. We love because He first loved us. We endlessly pursue Him because we ENCOUNTER the relentless love of the Bridegroom.
Take this as a challenge.
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