My One and Only

Easter was just a couple of weeks ago, and I thought I'd share a couple of reflections. At our Christmas eve service at church, one of our pastor's asked if our hearts were prepared for Christmas. I'd been working crazy holiday hours at the Mace, been shopping for Christmas gifts, helping with decorating at church...it was a crazy time of year and as I sat there I realized...my heart was not at all prepared for the very holiday I had been running myself ragged to celebrate. I think everyone has had this realization, and, if you're anything like me, you probably have it every year. *Sigh* But at that moment, I decided that I didn't want to feel that way about Easter this year. I really wanted my heart to be readied for Easter. I picked out a Bible study that would focus my heart on Christ and began it shortly after Christmas. I didn't necessarily time it this way, but I finished it Easter day and it was such a blessing. Easter has never meant more to me, because I have never been so intimately acquainted with the life and heart of the One who bled and died and then rose again on that day. Here are the highlights of what God taught me in the past several weeks:

• Jesus' birth was preceded by a 400 year period of silence from God. How the people must have ached for a Savior and how much faith it must have required to continue to believe that Christ was coming when it had been generations since God had been heard!
• God is faithful and inconceivably enjoyable even when a request goes unmet (Zechariah and Elizabeth)
• Jesus' mother Mary was chosen by God for a special role. Her song (Luke 1:46-55) reflects that she must have loved scripture and had a unique heart for the Lord, including more than 12 Old Testament references.
• Christ's very job description is given in Isaiah 61, including to heal the brokenhearted. The original word for heal means "to mend by stitching." He had to be pierced to make us whole again!
• Every need humanity possesses is secondary to the need to hear and receive the gospel.
• Christ holds us responsible for the things we only say to ourselves. We are accountable for our thoughts! (Luke 7:39 and surrounding story). Our innermost places need daily purification. Part of the process is recognizing and confessing judgmental, impure, or critical thoughts before they make their way into our mouths and actions.
• Hearing God's Word is fundamental to growth of any kind! (Luke 8:11-15)
• "Wrath" means "utter abhorrence to sin but with longing mixed with grief for those who live in it." Even in His wrath, God is merciful!
• Few things cause people to sin like unforgiveness!
• The four cups of the passover meal represent the "I will" statements of Exodus 6:6-7: I will deliver you, I will redeem you, I will take you as my people, I will be your God. How profound that we are His chosen ones.
  
• The cost for me to become a new creation was beyond what I can fathom!
  

Things I am praying as a result of this season:

• That God would motivate me to actively engage myself in every message I hear or read, to be teachable because His Word is always living and active, regardless of delivery.
• That I would develop God's taste: desire what He loves, hate what He hates, marvel at the things He finds marvelous...
• That God would give me a longing for the sinners of this world to be forgiven, not for the sinners of the world to be judged.
• That God would search my heart, soul, and mind for vulnerabilities to foolish decisions.

On the last day of my study, Beth Moore poses this question:
"Has Jesus become your One and Only? Is he transcending all else in your life? Is he beyond compare? Your one and only Savior? Your one and only deliverer? The one and only lover of your soul."
I am so blessed by God's goodness. He does not allow me to draw near to Him without changing me. I feel like I know Him so much more now and I can honestly answer more truly than before, yes, He is my One and Only.