Hooray! I did it again...

Look, Mom, I've blogged again.

I have been reading some other women's blogs - you know, the "famous" ones, and have really learned a lot from them and have been inspired by their words.  So, I am back again, hoping maybe to inspire someone with my words...or at least have my words down for my kids to read (make fun of?) one day.

I finally found the John Piper book I had started previously in my quest to fall in love with Jesus more.  Man, John Piper is HEA -VY!  But what an amazing man!  So blessed by God to be able to comprehend and explain what seems to be incomprehensible and inexplicable.  (Big words - I AM an English teacher, after all).  So I picked up where I left of - on reason 5 of why Christ had to die ( You too can download it free online! and stump your human mind with such Godly wisdom).  Not sure I can explain it, but I will try.

Reason 5 To show the wealth of God's love and grace for sinners -

Basically, we are so unworthy of God's great gift to us, but is there a better way to show unconditional love than to sacrifice your own son for a people who are unworthy of even a small second in your presence?

My favorite quote is this -

There is only one explanation for God’s sacrifice for us. It is not us. It is “the riches of his grace” (Ephesians 1:7). It is all free. It is not a response to our worth. It is the overflow of his infinite worth. In fact, that is what divine love is in the end: a passion to enthrall undeserving sinners, at great cost, with what will make us supremely happy forever, namely, his infinite beauty.


If you think about having kids, deep down don't you really want to make your kids supremely happy forever? Yes, I know that that's a horrible idea and our kids would turn out to be horrible spoiled lazy brats, but forget that for a moment.  Wouldn't you make all of their mistakes for them if you could? Take care of them forever? Give them whatever they want? While none of that compares to what God has to offer, it is all we can wrap our human minds around.  If we didn't believe in God or heaven, and wanted to be happy with what we have here, we would want our lives to be easy and trouble-free with everything we could ever want available to us at any time.  But thankfully, we DO believe in God and what He has for us to make us supremely happy forever is SO much better than anything this world has to offer.  So what does He do?  Because He loves us, he has scarified His OWN SON (great cost) to give us what will make us supremely happy - Himself.  And He did that for our underserving selves.  I love that line - "a passion to enthrall undeserving sinners..."  not just a desire, but a PASSION.  Not just to invite us to join him, but to ENTHRALL us.  He wouldn't merely like for some people to join Him, but He has a passion to draw us to Him and to make us SUPREMELY happy.  Not just happy.  Not just REALLY happy. SUPREMELY happy.  When was the last time you were really happy?  Date night? The last time all the kids went to bed early.  I've been really happy.  I've even been VERY happy.  But supremely happy????  That isn't even a blip on my radar.  


Oh, and I missed the BEST part of this quote...look back near the beginning....IT IS ALL FREE!!!  Did you catch that???  It is not a response to our worth, because compared to a holy God, we are worthless.  He just does it because His love for us is so great.  That concept, while incredibly amazing and welcoming, is another thing that is just so difficult for our worldly minds to accept.  Everything we do seems to have something tied to it.  We work to make money.  We drive to get where we want to go.  We do a favor for someone in case we need one in return.  While we may not call it karma, we all believe that what goes around, comes around.  But there is NOTHING we could ever do to make ourselves worthy of God's love and sacrifice.  Nothing?  Yup, nothing.  How about reading my Bible every day? Nope.  Fasting for 40 days? Nah.  Selling my children and giving the money to charity? Uh- uh.  Giving all of my designer clothes to the poor? Nada. Selling all of my possessions and becoming a missionary in the poorest area on earth? Not even close.  Giving up sweets or beer for Lent?  REALLY????  Our piddly little sacrifices mean nothing to God and they certainly won't help us earn his love and forgiveness.  What WILL work, you ask? You!  Me?  Yes you!  God wants each and every one of us to accept His free gift of SUPREME happiness.  So why do we resist??  Why do we find it so difficult to accept a gift?  Why do we want to attach strings to everything?  God wants YOU...ALL of you.  All of the sin, the anger, the heartache, the pain, the doubt, the worry, the fear, the pride, the selfishness, the good, the bad, and especially the ugly...then HE will make you SUPREMELY happy and beautiful...in HIS image...


That's all I can handle for tonight.  Gonna go to bed and wrap my head around my pillow.  Until next time...