Called to be different

I had the privilege recently of attending the memorial thanksgiving service for an incredible man of God. We heard about his life; the way he reached out to people with the Gospel and saw them saved, the acts of kindness he showed to the poor and needy. He was an elder and then pastor of a church and ran an organisation reaching out to Muslims. He was also a wonderful husband and father.

We can either be incredibly intimidated by such testimony or wonderfully inspired. We are intimidated when we compare ourselves to people like this and find that we are woefully falling short of the example they have set. 

However there are no comparisons in the Kingdom. Each of us is fearfully and wonderfully made and we are unique; there is no one like us either in personality, looks, gifting or calling. God wants us different; he made us that way.

We need instead to be inspired. The theme running through all the testimonies of this man was his enthusiasm for God and the Kingdom. That is something we can all have. It may manifest in different ways because of our different character and personality but we can all be really enthusiastic for God and the calling he has placed on our lives.

For some this will be a natural exuberance but for others it will be a deep joy manifested in much quieter ways. God will not ask us when we stand before him why we were not like another. Instead, as the parable of the talents shows, he will talk to us about the calling he placed on our lives and how we used what he gave us. 

This seems to be a season of God confirming and strengthening calling and then encouraging us to pursue it in ways that suit our personality. God only wants one of each of us because he made each of us unique. Together we make up the whole picture. Together with each of us playing our part to the best of our ability this world can be reached with the love of God. Together we can see our family and friends saved; we can see the hungry fed and the lonely placed in families. We can see the overthrow of the giants of our day; secular humanism, political correctness, the cult of fame and celebrity, violence and godlessness.

All it takes is each of us to love the Lord our God with enthusiasm and to walk in what he has called us to be and do with no comparisons but honouring and celebrating our differences and recognising, with thankfulness, our God given uniqueness. 

Deep in love with Jesus

Sitting at Your feet is where I wanna be

I'm home when I am here with You

Ruined by Your grace, enamored by Your gaze

I can't resist the tenderness in You

I'm deep in love with You, Abba Father

I'm deep in love with You, Lord

My heart it beats for You, precious Jesus

I'm deep in love with You, Lord

These words from a song by Michael W Smith touch something deep within me. So often the love of God is very theoretical – we know it to be true but we don’t feel it. Yet love is an emotion and should be felt. It’s not a piece of information.

For years this was my situation. I knew in my head that God loved me. I could pray with great conviction God’s love for another but I just never felt it. I kept talking to God about this. I knew that if only I could feel God’s love, so much else would fall away; feelings of inadequacy, guilt, shame and condemnation. These just would not be able to exist in the warmth of God’s loving gaze.

At this point I just need to say that feelings are not a reliable indicator of truth. Feelings follow truth not the other way around. What do I mean by this?

 ‘Feelings are just feelings. Nothing else,’ my boss used to tell me. He is a Godly man but this saying drove me mad. My feelings were very important to me and I felt that they were a very accurate gauge of reality.  Over the years I discovered by painful circumstances that he was quite right. 

What he meant of course is that feelings are in fact a very poor indicator of both reality and truth. Feelings can make us slaves to lies and whilst I am not for a second suggesting we ignore feelings, they need to be used as what they are – a pointer to our emotional or physical condition at that moment. They can be a signpost to blessings or problems but they are not necessarily an indicator of truth.

‘I feel so alone and rejected’ shows our emotional state. The truth is that Jesus said He would never leave us or forsake us.  We are not alone or rejected. 

So feeling God’s love is vital because the truth is that God loves us so passionately, deeply and dearly that we will never fathom it. We ought to feel his love but so often our feelings condemn us. It is at that moment that declaring the truth is vital.

The truth is that God loves us. The truth is that we are his dearly beloved children. The truth is that we are the apple of his eye. The truth is that there is no more condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The truth is that we are saved by grace; there is nothing we can do to earn or keep God’s love. The truth is that as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

It was at this point I got my breakthrough. God had forgiven me but I had not forgiven myself. I still condemned myself for my many mistakes but if God had forgiven me, who was I to hold myself in the bondage of unforgiveness? As I released myself, the feelings followed the truth and I knew God loved me and I could feel it.  It was a wonderful moment.

Now, like Michael W Smith, I love to sit and enjoy God’s adoring gaze, to reflect on his great tenderness and acceptance of me; to know I never need to do anything to earn this love but I can just sit and bathe in it.  What a blessing to know that God will never reject me, abandon me or get cross with me. I am his precious child. Hallelujah!