ROOTED RENEGADE

God’s love cannot be defined through a lens of culture. It must be defined through a lens of Scripture and through Jesus’s life from the moment He began, came to Earth, then ascended to Heaven.

When we think of God’s love each of us will have a different response, thought, emotion, etc. We typically think of it based on our own personal life experience with other people, with prayers answered or yet answered, and other factors such as the culture in which we have grown up in. Many project onto God those views and characteristics that should be reserved for the people in their lives who they cohabitate with every day. After all, God is not those people and vice versa. Yet we are usually not taught the right way in which to view the authentic love of God or how not to put hurts, hang ups, or other wounds onto God. Our relationship with Him varies based on what is happening in our lives and typically it is like a boat being tossed in the sea on any given Sunday. Yes I said Sunday. Our churches are filled with people who are only Sunday goers and even that may vary as to whether or not the attendance is authentic or dragged to appease a family member. God wants authenticity because He gave us authenticity. His love. His love is so authentic, yet we fail to realize it most times, if not all the time.

Jesus was the word and was with God and was in the beginning (John 1:1, 14). Jesus denied himself and his position in Heaven – by choice and came to Earth to experience our lives from a human perspective. He gave up, for a time, being able to walk among the heavenly beings, with God and the Holy Spirit, His unity, to experience the process of being born a man of a woman. True childbirth in its original form. Then Jesus chose to grow up on Earth, with us, not living richly in the heavenlies. He had to grow up an outlaw, forced to live in different regions, an immigrant, hunted, wanted dead as a child by King Herod, but hidden by his parents who trusted in God (Matthew 2:13-23). God also trusted in them to fulfill His purpose. Mary had to birth him while Joseph had to protect them both. They each had a task in nurturing Jesus in the right order under God. All the while, Jesus chose a sinless life to display a love in its purest form to us. As a man, He gathered and led other men, teaching (discipling) them in the ways of God despite ridicule and persecution. Standing up to leaders in the community by example to us with truth and in love. Only when necessary did Jesus flip tables in righteous indignation, showing us how to protect God’s holy temple from being defiled and profaned – yet He DID NOT SIN (Matthew 21:12-13, Mark 11:15-18).

His purest form of worship was authentic love and obedience to God, His Father, so we could have the raw, real, reverent example of what the intimate relationship is supposed to look like. Pure in its form, only hating sin – NOT the people. Love – authentic – from Jesus – who showed us how to live in unity without division. NOT what we are doing now trying to fit square pegs in round holes.

Jesus who taught us, showed us, exemplified to us that LOVE is pure, kind, doesn’t fail, keeps no record of wrongs (1 Corinthians 13:4-8), and is as far as the East from the West (Psalm 103:11-13). It believes all things and endures all things because the Creator God, in His infinite wisdom sent His Son Jesus to walk in love and truth. Jesus walked all the way to the cross, then the grave, and from the grave to be seated at God’s right hand, in order that we may be seated with Him, in the heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6). That is authentic love.

We were not meant to walk this Earth in a manner that is ungodly, unloving, unkind, disrespectful, and in a nature that hurts other people. Have we all done it? Yes. Is there a time for repentance and change? Yes. We are called according to purpose that is greater than what many of us realize, yet we are still called (Ephesians 1:11, Romans 8:30). We are chosen. We are redeemed. We just need to walk in it. The authentic love that walked to the cross willingly didn’t do so in order that we continue to sit around and act like it didn’t happen. No friends. Jesus walked to the cross so we didn’t have too. So we could be free to experience mercy and grace and not the wrath that the cross brought upon His life. It was His greatest act of love for us. Now it is our turn to love one another in truth. We can do that. We can forgive and walk in that forgiveness. I do know how hard that is for some of you. Forgiveness however, is key to unlocking your prison and allowing you to experience a true intimacy with Jesus that is waiting on you. Don’t let unforgiveness be the hinderance to the overwhelming authentic loving intimacy that is waiting on you. People may never apologize…that’s okay. You can still be free to experience the blessing.

My prayer for you is that in understanding God’s authentic love, by way of sending His Son Jesus, you will begin to see through the lens of a Father’s heart, through the lens of Scripture, that His love for you is so far reaching no words could ever describe it. There are not enough pages to write about it. You didn’t earn it and you just need to take hold of it. You don’t have to strive for it. You don’t have to work for it. You just need to come sit at His feet. He is just wanting your intimacy with Him. Forgive who you need to forgive and lay it at His feet – He can handle it all! The cross already paid for it so you don’t have to keep carrying the burden of it!

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ – won’t you come before Him and let Him show you His authentic love so that His glory can be revealed through you? Revelation 3:20 says this: “Behold, I’m standing at the door, knocking.If your heart is open to hear my voice and you open the doorwithin, I will come in to you and feast with you, and you will feast with me.”

God bless you,

Faythe

Originally written September 8, 2022

Scripture references:

John 1:1, 14

verse 1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

verse 14: “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Matthew 2:13-23

“And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him. When he arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt: And was there until the death of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son. Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men.

Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not. But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeareth in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, Saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel: for they are dead which sought the young child’s life. And he arose, and took the young child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judaea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither: notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee: And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.”

Matthew 21:12-13

“Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buyingand selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves.13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’[a] but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”

Mark 11:15-18

“On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’” The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching.”

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 TPT

“Love is large and incredibly patient. Love is gentle and consistently kind to all. It refuses to be jealous when blessing comes to someone else. Love does not brag about one’s achievements nor inflate its own importance. Love does not traffic in shame and disrespect, nor selfishly seek its own honor. Love is not easily irritated or quick to take offense. Love joyfully celebrates honesty and finds no delight in what is wrong. Love is a safe place of shelter, for it never stops believing the best for others. Love never takes failure as defeat, for it never gives up. Love never stops loving. It extends beyond the gift of prophecy, which eventually fades away. It is more enduring than tongues, which will one day fall silent. Love remains long after words of knowledge are forgotten.”

Psalm 103:11-13

“For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His loving devotion for those who fear Him.  As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.  As a father has compassion on his children, sothe LORD has compassion on those who fear Him.”

Ephesians 2:6 TPT

“He raised us up with Christ the exalted One, and we ascended with him into the glorious perfection and authority of the heavenly realm, for we are now co-seated as one with Christ!”

Ephesians 1:11

“In Him we were also chosen as God’s own, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything by the counsel of His will,”

Romans 8:30

“And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified.”