Ears To Hear # 51

SHALLOW

         The word “shallow” was foremost in my thoughts when I awoke this morning. Shallow relationships; surface portrayals of deeper possibilities. I resisted this shallowness and wondered why.
         ♫Lift Jesus Higher♫. Again the song played in my mind. Jesus is higher and greater than shallow relationships.
         “Deep calls to deep”, I heard in my spirit. It came from Psalms 42:7. Jesus is higher. Jesus is deeper than what is seen on the surface. With Him, there is always “something more”. God is limitless, eternal, self existent, continually creating.
         When God has been lifted to one height in our awareness of Himself, the Holy Spirit encourages us to lift him even higher. He is higher and deeper than man will ever understand on this earth. Yet, our longing to know Him better is constantly in our hearts because that is His desire also. He abides in us and at some point we recognize the sharing of our mutual desires. He wants us to know Him better today than we did yesterday.

FRIENDS

                 

         Someone recently said to me that if a man desires friends, he must show himself friendly. (Proverbs 18:24). Since this wasn’t explained to me, I took it to mean that I had not shown myself friendly. I thought that, indeed I had, in many ways. What do different people mean when they say, “show yourself friendly’? Surface friendship?
         I know how to be polite, encouraging, and laugh freely with people. But this was not what I considered being a true friend.
         It was then that I recognized my personal desire for deep relationships with those I loved. I wanted to share more with them than SURFACE LOVE. I desired something much deeper.

THE POTTER and THE CLAY

         “Well Lord, why did You make me this way? People don’t understand my kind of love.”
         That’s when the Holy Spirit reminded me of the Potter and the Clay story in the Bible. God is the Potter, we are His clay. Romans 9:21a asks, “Hath not the Potter power over the clay?” And verse 20 sounded like it was talking to me. “Who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing (me, the clay) formed say to Him that formed it, ‘Why hast Thou made me thus?”

JOHN 17:21

         Then I realized just how much the desire of our Lord had grown so deep inside of me. His prayer to the Father is: “That they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be One in us….” Verse 22, “…that they may be One, even as we are One.” Verse 23, “…that they may be made perfect in One and know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them as Thou hast loved Me.”

SURELY GOD HAS A PURPOSE

  

         So, God made this little lump of clay (me) as one who is never satisfied by a shallow pretense of love. If it doesn’t come from my heart, it is false and my love of the TRUTH cannot abide it when I desire to give my very best to those I love. It must come originally from the heart of God.
         “Okay, Lord. So You made me this way. Although people often misunderstand my kind of love…and sometimes it hurts, but since this is the way You made me, I accept it as a part of Your Big Plan. I shall continue to love deeply and Trust You that what rises from a pure heart of love, will rise to the surface and can be seen by those who need Your Love.
         “I’m just a vessel, Lord. But, oh how very much I love You and the people You have put in my path for me to show myself friendly. I pray that I give them our best…Yours and mine.
         “Father, Your Word explains this better than I can.” 
         I John 3:1-2 says, “ Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
         “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. (2 Corinthians 3:18).

         The Father continues to mold us into His likeness and should the “deep call to deep”, let’s go there with Him. If our heart is saying, “Lift Jesus Higher”, let’s rise up with Him. The main thing is to go where He goes and do what we see Him doing; to be what He wants us to be…pliable in our Father’s hands. Even a little lump of clay, all different, each for His Purpose and His Plan to bring His children home to Himself.

  

“One in the Lord!”