oh HAPPY DAY!

I'm in Fort Collins, Colorado, where there are gathered, thousands of people who are all on this earth for the same reason... to love and follow and teach the good news of Jesus Christ. This morning was our first corporate session and as I looked out across Moby Gym, I saw the Kingdom converging. Each person walked into this place with their whole lives behind them and one purpose before them. Reality is, there was a lot more preoccupying each of their minds, because I was experiencing a lot more in mine. As the worship started, songs of God's promises, His truths, and His grace being sung, I was able to put all those things down. I let them go as my heart bowed before the Cross. Behind each voice that was crying out to the Lord was and is a heart that has been changed by Him and will continue to be changed by Him. Together we are a family that is constantly growing and expanding. All of it for His glory.

Oh happy day, happy day
You washed my sin away
Oh happy day, happy day
I'll never be the same
Forever I am changed

I got a clearer picture of the gospel. I saw clearly that I have not been experiencing it fully. I never will be able to with my own intellect. We had the privilege of hearing from Tim Keller today. He is obviously full of the Holy Spirit and the way it spills out of his heart is through the words that he shares with us. There was a lot that I wanted to retain from the talk, but I walked away with one thing that changed my perspective of the good news of Jesus Christ. I briefly want to share it, but let me just say that I do not have the words or the concise and thought-provoking ways that Tim Keller does. Here it goes:

As a society, we face a lot of pressures to justify our existence with what we claim to be; an artist, a mother, a thief, a student, a friend, a busy business person, a dentist, a therapist, a murderer, a musician, a "what every label or title you carry". These things are what people know us as, and we see them as our identity, our "valid" excuse to perfect who we are and become who we want. Our idea of receiving God's forgiveness is to come to Him whole, put together, perfect and blameless. This is self-righteousness. This is what keeps me from experiencing the gospel.

God doesn't require us to be perfect when we come to Him. He actually prefers that we aren't. Imagine that! This righteousness we try to find in ourselves is a mere counterfeit of the righteousness of Christ that God offers us through the Cross. In Christ we are perfect. We are blameless and with out blemish before God. When we apply this truth to our lives we can recognize that our efforts to clean ourselves up are wasted.

I learned today that justification doesn't stop at forgiveness. When we are forgiven, it's as though we are let out of jail, the chains are cut from our wrists and ankles and we are free to run from the negative things that we were enslaved to. Justification is a welcoming, warm and comforting, positive invitation into a new kind of life where we will be refined and polished, constantly changing as we rely on the Holy Spirit. As we turn from sin, we should turn to the one who saved us from it, rejoicing with all we have inside us!

Oh happy day, happy day
You washed my sin away
Oh happy day, happy day
I'll never be the same
Forever I am changed

When I stand, in that place
Free at last, meeting face to face
I am Yours Jesus You are mine
Endless joy, perfect peace
Earthly pain finally will cease
Celebrate Jesus is alive
He's alive

Imagine

Lately I've been taking notice of attention snagging happenings that turn the heads of all people.
The sun as it's setting.
The comfort of a rainbow.
The contentment of elderly holding hands.
The grandeur of lightning.
The captivating joy of children at play.
The shade of a full tree.
The radiance of the moon.
The strength of the wind.
The passing of clouds.
The roar of a waterfall.
The giant stature of mountains.
The vastness of the ocean.
The sun as it's rising.


Imagine if the whole world was captivated by the complete sufficiency of Christ.
Imagine if the whole world gathered in the shelter of the only tree that matters.
Imagine if the whole world stopped to stare at the brilliance of the Cross like they do sunsets.
Imagine if the good news got caught in the wind.

Grace.

"Grace will never be amazing to us if we do not understand the suffering that happened on the cross."

I lived my whole life, up until I was about 19 years old, staring at the cross, where I gained an awareness of the appreciation I should feel for the suffering that Jesus Christ endured for my sorry sinful soul. I was guilty. I was the one who nailed Him there. He felt so much physical pain.

But it was not only the flogging of His body that caused the pain that He experienced. While he was beaten by Roman guards, whose sole intention was to kill Him long before He ever had to be hanged, He experienced the suffering that we deserve for our sin. He was separated, forsaken by the Father Almighty, the God we are quick to recognize as kind, gentle, compassionate, and loving. He is all those things. But He's also just and wrathful. To Him the sins we commit are acid to His love. When Jesus bore all our sins, He experienced His wrath, being struck again and again for the punishment of all. God is repulsed by our sin and desires to destroy it. When we cling to our sin, it destroys us, it separates us from the love that God has for us.

Why would we choose that separation when we know Jesus has experienced it for us?

It's a daily struggle for me to accept that. I have a hard time believing that Jesus' death is enough to cover the craziness of my life, the repetitive determination to overcome my sin and defeat it on my own. It's easy for me to be convinced of my sin, but incredibly difficult to be convinced of the grace of the Cross.

My prayer is to remember daily the blood shed on my behalf, so that my response to God, the Father is forever humble thankfulness, causing me to turn from my sin and run towards the Savior of my soul, Jesus Christ.

Once restrained, now set free.

I'm in a place that is completely conducive to new beginnings. Fort Collins, Colorado. I am surround daily by the warm and comforting hearts of close friends, who fill themselves on the beauty of the Holy Spirit and only offer me what is true and what is good. I am ever so blessed to be in this place, where God is truly doing a work in my heart. He has shown me clearly that I am not supposed to leave here the same as when I arrived, and there is no way I will arrive by the time I leave.

If any of you know me, even in the least bit, you would know how much I love nature, trees especially. I love finding God in nature, how He reveals Himself to me. Being in Colorado has heightened my God-in-nature sense greatly. I've felt restricted the past few weeks, like an adolescent tree in a park that the gardeners forgot to untie. Think of this image, a tree obviously strong enough to stand alone, but with in inches are two posts flanking the two sides, all attached by two thick rubber bands. There's no budging. The strongest winds seem to be no contest. As this tree grows the bark of the trunk grows around the bands. The posts start leaning, so does the tree. All the while, the tree is nourished by the right things; sun from the sky, nutrients and water from the earth.

I am this trees. I have established a support system around me, posts on which I depend on, lean on, strap myself to. I cling so desperately to them, finding my strength in them, I'm completely dependent.

A gardener visits the park again. He makes his way to the deepest corner of the park where this tree has grown. He stands back to assess the problem. He takes out his clippers and cuts away the bands. The posts give way. The tree seems to stumble at the loss of its support.

These past few weeks have been a process, God is my gardener. He cut away the bands that hold me upright. I shuttered a little, put up a fight. My bark grew over the bands, attempting to hide them. I didn't want to let go because I was afraid I would fall. But to my surprise I stayed standing.

His hand keeps me upright. His love and concern, and promises support me. He is my strength to stand. While the scars are left in my bark, where my self-made support was attempting to make its way to my core. But He sees that and my poor stature as beautiful. He works with the messed up tree that I am. He provides me with fresh water. He pours out His mercy in the rain. He prunes my branches, and harvests fruit from under my leaves. He takes me through seasons and reveals His plan. He brings people into my shelter and cares for them in the shade of my limbs. He is the reason for my life. If I had been confined to those posts and bands, I would have never had the capacity to grow. I'm a tree undone. Though I'm scarred, He uses me. Though I'm leaning, He loves me.

________
I'll try not to make all my posts so cliche. I just wanted to explain the "Trees Undone" name of my blog. :)