When the God of the universe Who wonderfully created us longs for an intimate forever-lasting relationship with us, what an awesome privilege it is.   To be sought after and called by name only to be wooed into the embrace of His love, what an honor it is.  Oh how He passionately longs to be known by us, believed by us and trusted by us for Who He truly is, a loving Daddy God Who lavishes us with Himself.

When we know someone deeply only do we trust him completely.  Truly KNOWING begets TRUSTING and TRUSTING begets RESTING.  When we begin to open our hearts to trust, it is the only time when we truly get to be FREE to be ourselves.  This is the time when we no longer put our best foot forward.  Instead we open ourselves entirely into the hands of the one we trust, fully expecting to be accepted, celebrated and loved for who we are.

Insecurity has eaten the world so much that to long to be stopped for and be recognized by someone has driven a lot of people to do things which are contrary to our well-being.  Many run to wrong relationships for the wrong reasons.  In actuality, no one really needs to tell someone what is right or what is wrong, but the struggle lies in doing what we are supposed to rightfully do.  Left on our own, doing the best of our ability, we still fail which a lot of times leads to discouragement and hopelessness.

^“I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate.  But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good.  So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.

And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t.   I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.  But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.” (Romans 7:15-20 NLT)

BUT GOD Who is rich in mercy and abounding in love gave us His Word to make us understand.  More so, He gave us His Word to unveil the EXIT door from it.

We were born into this world carrying the sin of disobedience, therefore, we couldn’t get ourselves out of it by our own ability.  We were grafted into sin by one man’s disobedience, Adam and the only way out is by ONE MAN’S OBEDIENCE, the second Adam, JESUS CHRIST (Romans 5:19).  We got into the trap by one man’s eating the fruit of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  But God always has His glorious redemptive way for us and that is by eating from the Tree of Life, JESUS CHRIST.

He gave us His BEST Gift ever all because of His great love for us.  He gave us His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, Who IS THE WAY, the only Way for us to get back into His presence and know the truth of who He is and who we are IN HIM for us to have LIFE in abundance to the full, til it overflows. He fully reconciled us to Himself.

What He desires is a relationship with us without pretense. He desires for us to come boldly before His throne of grace to obtain mercy and find grace in time of need.  It is a throne where we are accepted with His arms wide open. It is a throne where we can entirely open up ourselves confident that we will never be rejected, shamed or condemned all because of the finished work of Jesus Christ.  It is a throne where we find strength that comes from the joy of His presence giving us the tenacity to run the race that He has set before us.  It is a throne where we can be fully free, abandoning our whole selves, surrendered entirely to be changed and our lives re-arranged according to His blueprint.  It is a throne where He can coach us on how to approach things HIS WAY leading us to walk the path that He has in store for us, a smoothened, straightened, mountain-made-low, valley-raised-high path, like a highway before us.  It is a throne of promise that He will not only tell us what to do and where to go but He rest assures us that HE IS WITH US EVERY STEP OF THE WAY, never leaving us nor forsaking us, but upholding us with His righteous right hand all the way.

As we continually find time to be in His presence, our relationship deepens.  With God, we enter into a process of increased knowledge through personal experience every single moment. It is from glory to glory expedition.  He ultimately desires character formation that we can withstand the greatness of His glorious blessings set before us without compromise.

In the journey, there will be dancing and singing in celebration. There will be disciplining and pruning which we may find inconvenient but they are always meant for fruitfulness and NEVER a punishment.  A branch pruned is never meant for its detriment but increment.  Thus, when we see things in proper perspective, we can always COUNT IT ALL JOY when we go through various trials knowing that He is only leading us to a place of “lacking nothing”.

“My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.  But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.”  (James 1:2-4 NKJV)

As we yield to the overshadowing of His presence trusting Him fully that He SURELY knows us and what is best for us, only then we let go of our fearful grip of our own lives and trust His powerful-loving grip on us.  We allow Him to take us to soar higher with Him, go deeper in the realms of His love and go further in our walk with Him.  If He holds the universe in the palm of His hand, SURELY we can let loose of our control and surrender ourselves to Him Who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above and beyond what we can dare think or imagine fully trusting Him that it is He Who is all the while effectually at work in us, creating in us the power and desire both to will and to do for His own pleasure, delight and satisfaction.  Then we can safely say “I can do ALL things through Christ Who strengthens us (Philippians 4:13 NKJV).

I so love the Amplified version of this verse.

I can do all things [which He has called me to do] THROUGH HIM who strengthens and empowers me [to fulfill His purpose—I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency; I am ready for anything and equal to anything THROUGH HIM who infuses me with inner strength and confident peace.] (Philippians 4:13 AMP)

Where He leads us, we follow IN HIM.  What He calls us to do, we do WITH HIM.  IN HIM we become unstoppable.  His amazing perfect love takes away our fears of the unknown as we abandon ourselves to the Author of the unknown, the One Who knows all things.

A relationship with no pretense can take us to a lover’s dance, free flowing in the arms of our Beloved without resistance.  It is a dance to the unforced rhythm of our Beloved’s grace.

 

How awesome it is that when I ended this blog with a mention of a “lover’s dance”, I got to read the Facebook post from The Passion Translation.  Nothing just happens 🙂

“Can you imagine it, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, circling around each other in a divine dance.  In complete unity!  The mystery that has been revealed in the Good news is that God Himself invited mankind, His highest expression of Himself, created in His image and likeness into that dance with Him.  In the Garden we lost our role in the dance but through Christ it has been restored for ever more!!!  God has invited us BACK in the DANCE!