The Ultimate Ambition

It's now 4:00 AM on a Sunday morning. I've already been up for a couple of hours. It wasn't what I wanted, but the dog had other ideas. I couldn't go back to sleep, so I started reading and praying through a few Psalms. The Lord was kind and met with me this morning, stirring my heart to share a few thoughts.

The closer He draws us to Himself, the simpler everything gets. The highest ambition a person can have is this: to be carried away in His dreams, to desire the fulfillment of His dreams more than anything. I want us all to lose ourselves in His dreams!

Is God Angry with You?

Do you feel like God is angry with you? Believers often struggle with repetitive, unresolved sin issues in their personal lives, failings that they can't seem to get beyond. It's easy to see God as angry...angry with me, angry with you...because of our sin failures. We often see our Heavenly Father through the same filter that we viewed our earthly dads. In most cases, that's a bad thing and gives us a very poor understanding of our Heavenly Father. I certainly hope that my sons don't use me as the lens through which they view God the Father.

Here is the main thought of this Post: If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, a true believer, you are not subject to God's wrath. You are subject to His correction, but not His wrath. There is a huge difference. His goal is to fix you, not to punish you. His goal is to conform you to the image of His Son (Romans 8:29) so that He may love on you and enjoy your company forever. His correction will be complete, not half-hearted and not half-way. He knows what it will take to get to every last drop of badness. His ways may seem rather strong and stern at times, but His correction will not be done out of wrath.

All My Desire

It's Sunday morning. I'm ready for church a bit early and some verses I read an hour ago are still speaking to me. The first one is Psalm 38:9: "Lord, all my desire is before You; And my sighing is not hidden from You." 

He knows what I need and what I'd like to have and have happen, all of it. I've put it all in front of Him. But that's not what I want to be wrapped up in. Me getting wrapped up in my stuff and you getting wrapped up in your stuff is normal, common, every-day existence. But that doesn't make it right or good or desirable. It definitely doesn't make it the best way to live. In fact, it's a poor way to live, a way that doesn't end well.

I don't want to be normal, whatever that is.