Almighty God, you alone can bring into order the unruly wills and affections of sinners: Grant your people grace to love what you command and desire what you promise; that, among the swift and varied changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
-Book of Common Prayer, from Elisabeth Elliot's Passion and Purity
This the cry of my heart. Grace to love what you command and desire what you promise. A fixed heart.
The Lord has been refreshing my heart with the promises of his identity on me. I see more and more often that it is good to grow to deeper places with the Lord, but to to continue to cling to those things that I think of as basic. Basic, but foundational.
His identity on me is foundational. It is through his eyes that I see him, see myself, and everything else.
This summer I was reading through the Gospel of John, focusing on the Jews and the Disciples. So many of them had these expectations of who God was going to send as the Messiah. They thought they knew! They had studied the Torah and had these oral traditions passed down through the generations. Everyone shared an understanding that the Messiah was going to be a conquering warrior who would save them from Rome.
And then Jesus came, and he was nothing like what they expected. He looked like any other man. "He had no beauty or majesty that would attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him" (Isaiah 53:2). And He wasn't about to overthrow the Roman Empire or be their warlord warrior.
If I were a Jew back then, there's a good chance I might have rejected Jesus because he didn't fit my paradigms of what I expected. If I just saw Jesus and heard about him, maybe I would dismiss him like they did.
But, here's what I love: The Jews thought they knew what Jesus should be like, but when they saw what he did, how he loved--when they saw his power, authority, and the work that he did among the people--there was no mistaking that he was the Christ, the Messiah.
Let this be the condition of my heart. Lord give me an open heart to receive all that you are. Let it not be said of me that I dismissed the plans of the Lord because I did not think it was in your nature.
Lord give me eyes to see. Give me ears to hear. Let me see what you are doing and not be blinded by my expectations. I give you my heart to unfold, fill me with a new revelation of what you have in store. Even though I think I know what to expect, sweep through my assumptions and help me perceive and understand. I have seen your love and power and all that you've done among us. Let my heart be transformed by the revelation and true realization of who you are.
-Book of Common Prayer, from Elisabeth Elliot's Passion and Purity
This the cry of my heart. Grace to love what you command and desire what you promise. A fixed heart.
The Lord has been refreshing my heart with the promises of his identity on me. I see more and more often that it is good to grow to deeper places with the Lord, but to to continue to cling to those things that I think of as basic. Basic, but foundational.
His identity on me is foundational. It is through his eyes that I see him, see myself, and everything else.
This summer I was reading through the Gospel of John, focusing on the Jews and the Disciples. So many of them had these expectations of who God was going to send as the Messiah. They thought they knew! They had studied the Torah and had these oral traditions passed down through the generations. Everyone shared an understanding that the Messiah was going to be a conquering warrior who would save them from Rome.
And then Jesus came, and he was nothing like what they expected. He looked like any other man. "He had no beauty or majesty that would attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him" (Isaiah 53:2). And He wasn't about to overthrow the Roman Empire or be their warlord warrior.
If I were a Jew back then, there's a good chance I might have rejected Jesus because he didn't fit my paradigms of what I expected. If I just saw Jesus and heard about him, maybe I would dismiss him like they did.
But, here's what I love: The Jews thought they knew what Jesus should be like, but when they saw what he did, how he loved--when they saw his power, authority, and the work that he did among the people--there was no mistaking that he was the Christ, the Messiah.
Let this be the condition of my heart. Lord give me an open heart to receive all that you are. Let it not be said of me that I dismissed the plans of the Lord because I did not think it was in your nature.
Lord give me eyes to see. Give me ears to hear. Let me see what you are doing and not be blinded by my expectations. I give you my heart to unfold, fill me with a new revelation of what you have in store. Even though I think I know what to expect, sweep through my assumptions and help me perceive and understand. I have seen your love and power and all that you've done among us. Let my heart be transformed by the revelation and true realization of who you are.
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