Mikki's Blog - Living in the Grace and Love of God

Can You Remember Your First Love?

Mikki — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:43:05 +0000

Ah, the first love. The one who first consumed our hearts, our thoughts, our dreams. What do you remember about that one? Often thoughts of first love are mixtures of happy thoughts of hopes and dreams and painful memories of crushed hearts. Later we may wonder if it was really love at all because we more clearly identify the blind desires with which we embraced another in immaturity. Yet there is a reality of a first love that is true.

The apostle John wrote to the church of Ephesus to remind them of their first love experiences with God. He spoke these painful words to them, “…you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen…” (Rev. 2:4-5).

Ouch. Those words must have stung when the believers at Ephesus read them. Left. Fallen. No fault on God’s part obviously. The Ephesian believers had moved away from the place of first love.

How did it happen?

They were still involved in working for God. “I know your works, your labor…”

Their lives still bore evidence of the fruit of His Spirit. “I know you patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and found them liars, and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for My names’ sake and have not become weary.” Patience. Discernment. Steadfastness.

But John’s indictment (and God’s indictment) rips through all the works and good stuff to the area that God’s Spirit was lasering in on. “Nevertheless, I have this against you, that you have left your first love.”

What did your first love experiences with God look like? I remember mine.

Hours and days and weeks and months of sensing God’s presence, being full of love for Him and others, the ease of worship and fasting and witnessing.

I am not speaking of an experience that is only emotional. Most of us have had those. Perhaps we heard a message preached and we recommitted to pursing God’s heart. Maybe we were motivated by guilt. Although God does indeed use our emotions and stirs us in our emotions, as the old saying goes, “The proof is in the pudding.”

What were the lasting results of your experience(s)? A life changed is the proof that we have encountered God.

A verse that has resonated in my heart as of late is Jesus reminding those who appeared religious that they should bring forth fruit worthy of repentance.

True love bears fruit.

Where are you today spiritually? Has there ever been a time when your life bore more fruit? Ever been a time when the fires of first love burned brighter than today?

How do we engage God fully in first love? John told the Ephesians that they should “Remember where you’ve fallen from; repent and do the first works…” (Rev. 2:5).

Remember… we need to remember what it was like to experience the first love experiences with God. Although painful, we must remember where we’ve fallen from. Remembering stokes the fires of desire.

Repent… let go of all the things that have separated you and God. Turn from them.

Return…to the first works. The works that you did for God from a heart filled with love. Not works of obligation but works of love. Ah, they are so different. One is dry and lifeless. The other life-giving.

So as you remember, can you imagine what your life would look like today if you were madly in love…with God? What would your life look like in revival? What would your marriage look like in revival? What would your children’s lives look like if they were pursuing God wholly? What would your friendships look like if God’s love and presence invaded your conversations? What would your life look like if your heart were wholly abandoned to God?

Can you imagine it? Will you dare to let your heart dream of it?

Remember, repent, return. Your first love awaits.

Can You Remember Your First Love?

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Mercies in Disguise: Finding God in Your Trials

Mikki — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:14:57 +0000

Seasons of trials and troubles, pain and suffering, disappointments and dying dreams can leave all of us with more questions than answers. We find ourselves unable to box our theological answers as neatly as before. We wrestle with questions like, “Where are you, God?” “Why have you deserted me?” “Are you real, God?” In our trials, we reach for our false strengths and we find that they were only illusions.

My greatest trials thus far lie just behind me. I can still see them in the rear view mirror. And yet, I move forward looking unto the road before me.

As Laura Story so beautifully sings in her song, Blessings, I have found blessings in the raindrops, healing in the tears, God’s presence in my sleepless nights. Somehow, in the ways that only God can, my trials have brought me God’s mercies in disguise.

I don’t like it. In fact, I hate it, this process where God allows us to be stripped of our defenses and our facades. I hate the process and cherish the result.

And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And…the man touched the hollow of his thigh. Genesis 32:24-25

God met Jacob when he was alone. All of Jacob’s assets were of no good to him when he met God one on one. There was no one or no thing for Jacob to rely on that night. And maybe for the first time in his life, he didn’t run. He stayed, he wrestled. And God blessed him by wounding him.

Forevermore Jacob had a change of identity. He would no longer be identified with his false identity. He would now be, "Israel", He had stayed in the battle and not run away. He had prevailed.

He was now marked by his encounter, his wounding.

For Jacob, now Israel, the wound would forever be with him to remind him that he had encountered God. He was blessed. He was forgiven. He had found his true identity and could leave his past behind…except for that limp.

He could never take a step without his limp.

God’s strength would be shown in Jacob’s weakness.

Our God encounters have a way of showing us the eternal perspective of all we use to give us value in false ways. Whether money or beauty or influence, it can all be lost in an instant and suddenly one finds that the only things of value in this world is that which has been touched by God.

Our most transforming wrestling matches are between our own fleshly strengths and God’s supernatural strength. We will always lose, and yet, in losing, we win.

We become marked and there is no shame in the limp because it anchors us to the true hope we can only find in God.

Take a moment and listen to Laura’s song and ask yourself if there are blessings in your raindrops, healing in your tears, the nearness of God in your sleepless nights, and God’s mercy disguised in your trials.

Mercies in Disguise: Finding God in Your Trials

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Seize the Day!

Mikki — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 15:26:12 +0000

A few years ago the movie "Dead Poets Society" resurrected a Latin phrase, Carpe Diem, or Seize the Day, an exhortation to live life to the fullest, getting the most out of each individual day.

I thought of that phrase this morning as I read Ecclesiastes 9. Ecclesiastes is not on the top of my reading list, but I found myself there today. Throughout the book, Solomon struggles with issues like the vanity and futility of life. Not exactly the book you turn to in order to be encouraged. Yet that is what I found in this passage!

Solomon’s journey had taken him through seasons of pursuing God wholeheartedly to times of seeking his own paths. His wrong choices left him empty, broken, and dis.heart.ened. He had lost heart.

Solomon had great wisdom, wealth, and every whim of his heart was his, yet his long season of pursuing selfish desires had left him disillusioned. We believe he wrote Ecclesiastes toward the end of his life. He reflected on his life and on life in general and shared what he had learned.

“Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. What profit has a man from all his labor in which he toils under the sun?” … “I communed with my heart, saying, ‘Look, I have attained greatness, and have gained more wisdom than all who were before me in Jerusalem. My heart has understood great wisdom and knowledge. And I set my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is grasping for the wind.” (Ecclesiastes 1:2, 16-17).

Wow, that will stoke your fire, huh?

Chapter nine continues with Solomon’s exploration of how both good and bad come to all, “To him who sacrifices and him who does not sacrifice. As is the good, so is the sinner,” (vs. 3). And just when you think you want to close the book before you are overcome with discouragement, he offers these truths:

“Go eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart: For God has already accepted your works. Let your garments always be white, and let your head lack no oil. Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life…Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going,” (cheerful, huh?) [verses 7-10].

And yet, there is a simple wisdom for us.

Enjoy the day. We don’t know what will come tomorrow. (Click post title to read entire post)
Be thankful for what you have. Enjoy it.
Know you are accepted by God.
Live in purity.
Pursue the fullness of God.
Find joy in your relationships.
Whatever you do, do it with everything within you!
Life is short. Make it count. Seize the day!!

I love the fact that God doesn’t sugar-coat His Word. He allows us to see the humanness of His servants. The highs, the lows. The victories. The failures. The times when they soar on eagle’s wings and the times when they fall in the pit. We can learn from others’ experiences.

And God whispers to us in every season that He is with us. We can find Him in good days and in bad days. And with Him, we can seize the day and find reason to rejoice, to enjoy, to live life fully, moment by moment, day by day.

Will you seize your day today?

Seize the Day!

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