Faithfulness. A top quality.

I am grateful that my God is faithful. Even when I am not.

Each day with my emotions and moods and thoughts and actions... I forsake Him.

I am an unfaithful bride to my faithful bridegroom.

As much as this sickens me and breaks my heart, because I love my bridegroom; sin just takes over, what makes me grateful, is my bridegrooms faithfulness. It is all inclusive: full of grace...

He pursues me, He redeems me, He forgives me, He loves me, He is faithful to me, He is merciful to me.

I know Him. And I don't just know about Him, but I KNOW Him. I know His character, I know what makes Him mad, I know what makes Him happy....He has made Himself known to me, and I know that He knows me. Better than I even know myself. He knows what I need, He knows how to bless me and how to hold me back. He knows my character. He knows my heart. 

And still He pursues, He loves, He forgives, He desires...

     

  Who wouldn't love a man like that?

Responsibility of a Disciple

You know those moments when you are just going about your normal everyday life, and out of nowhere this crazy realization comes to you and everything seems to make sense.....I had one of those  this past week. It brought quite a bit of conviction, but it also brought immense joy that a

I have been missing recently.

This was my realization...

    There comes a time when we, as adults, and as disciples, need to start taking responsibility for ourselves. We need to move on from immaturity, to maturity. 

    It's seems so simple...and like a 'duh' moment, but it's so much more complicated when you are living in it; and this is why...

    When we are being discipled, there is a point (especially at the beginning) when all of the attention is on us, and on our growth and areas we need to work on and become more like Jesus. We have people who are constantly pouring into us, constantly encouraging us, constantly pushing us and taking notice of us....but there comes a time, when that stops. It doesn't stop completely, but it stops enough to almost make it feel that way. We begin to feel abandoned, and fall back into old thought patterns and probably even new ones.

   We become dependent upon our disciples. Dependent on their attention, and pushing and encouragement in order for us to grow...but we must move onto maturity. 

   Moving onto maturity is us taking responsibility for our own growth and not depending on other people to make us do it. Maturity is us having learned how to follow Jesus and then following. Maturity is us being dependent on Christ, rather than on our disciplers. 

So we as disciples have a choice...whether to continue growing once other disciples have come along to be discipled, or to just mope in self pity because we are no longer the ones with all the attention. Our identity and purpose and confidence can very easily be put into the attention our disciplers give us....but I beg you, from experience, pray against that. Pray that no matter what, your identity and purpose and confidence is and will always be grounded and rooted in Jesus Christ. That is where your unending joy comes from! 

Take responsibility. Grow. Be a true disciple. Move on to maturity. Depend on Christ. And Follow Jesus.

"For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil." Hebrews 5:12-13