Revelation

Last night my friend Heather and I were supposed to study chapter one of Revelations. I say "supposed to" because we only read as far as verse 9 and we only went in-depth as far as verse 5. Haha! God had other plans and we just went with it, and I am so glad we did. God totally showed up and revealed so much of Himself  and His desire to us. It all started at verse 1 with the word revelation.

In the Merriam-Webster dictionary, revelation means an act of revealing or communicating divine truth. In a Bible dictionary Heather had, its definition was laying bear, making naked. Jesus wants to reveal Himself to us; everything about Him; where He's going and what He's doing. He is not ashamed and has no flaws, so He stands before us completely naked revealing everything about Himself in character, desires, and just who He is.

Now what we discovered last night may have a lot of you thinking we're crazy and out of our minds. You may ask how can we believe such things, but I tell you it was ALL of the Lord. As we were talking and God was revealing things to us, we didn't know how we were coming to the conclusions we had and yet everything made sense. It was obvious God was there directing our thoughts and words and prayers; the room was intensely hot with His presence. So let me shock you for a sec - there is no plan.

What does that mean? It means there's no plan; no a,b,c,d to follow. Christians tend to stress that we need to follow the plan God has for us. In our minds a plan means you go from point a to point b and so on. We have this view that there's this twisty tiny path to walk on with no leeway on either side. But guess what? THERE IS NO PLAN!!!!! So many times God asks you what you want to do. Yes, there are times in life where He will tell you you need to do such-and-such. But for the majority of the time, He is not concerned about what you do. Heather described it well. Life is a playground with God. There are boundaries (His commandments and laws) that we need to stay within to protect us from harm, but there is an immense amount of space that we have the freedom to move around however we want. Each persons playground is different because our desires and needs are different. Don't think of a playground as a small park that you take kids to. No, think of it as an enormous field where God has placed every toy you could ever want. And HE JUST WANTS TO PLAY WITH YOU. If you want to go on the seesaw, go on the seesaw. If you want to slide, go on the slide. Swing if that's what you want to do. He just wants to be with you in everything. God is lovesick over you and just wants to be close to you.

We don't have a plan, but we do have a mission and a purpose.Our mission and purpose in life is to LOVE AND BE LOVED. The greatest commandment - "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength" - is the first part of our mission and purpose. Without His love we cannot love others. And the second greatest commandment - "Love your neighbor as yourself' - is the second part of our mission and purpose. All He wants us to do is love Him, grow closer to Him, glorify Him in everything, and receive the love He has for us. What freedom we have in this. Bloom where you are, play with Him, and enjoy His love.

Our humanly idea of what a plan is generates a fear of what happens when we step off the narrow path.Well since we no longer have to worry about the visual of a twisty narrow path, the fear of what happens when you step off the narrow lane changes as well. Psalm 89:14 says that the foundation of God's throne is righteousness and justice. We focus so much on the justice that we forget the righteousness. And here comes the second biggest revelation of the night - THE JUDGMENT IS NOT NOW! We are not supposed to pray for judgment until the Tribulation begins. There is no judgment now; God has no judgment for us now. Yes He does have anger, but He is slow to anger and it only lasts a moment before His love for us takes over. Anger is different than judgment, though. Right now is His righteousness and love, which will never end but doesn't include judgment yet. We have this view that if we stumble or take one step out of His boundaries that God will and does condemn and judge us. But God has no condemnation for us. We expect judgment and condemnation therefore we see it in everything. If you expect judgment, you will see judgment in everything and you will judge yourself. If you expect condemnation, you see condemnation in everything and condemn yourself. If you expect to be compared to others, you see everything as a comparison to you and you will compare yourself to everything. So it stands to reason that if you expect love, not only will you receive love abounding but you will see love in everything, you will give love to others, and you will love yourself. Brothers and sister I adjure you to have high expectations of love and mercy and grace from your Heavenly Father. In truth that's what He has for you, so expect it. Expect great things and do not let the fear of disappointment stand in your way.

God does not push us to come back to Him if we take a step out of His boundary. Instead, He is crying over us. He sees the harm we put ourselves into and because He loves us so much, He hates to see us hurt by the devil. So He reaches out His hand to us, yearning for us to come back to Him to love and safety. We  make the decision to stay with God or leave His safety. We decide how far our relationship with Him goes. He has ultimate power and can make us do anything He wants, but He doesn't. He wants us to chose to love Him and desire to be with Him and grow in Him. He loves us so much and if He forces us to love Him and be with Him, it's no longer true love; it's manipulation. God seeks to love, not manipulate. That's why we have free will. Walk in the freedom of Christ knowing your purpose and mission in life. Run after Him because He wants you!

There are so many other things that were revealed to us about God's love last night. So many incredible things. I would write it all down here, but this post is long. Ask God to reveal Himself to you and He will because I know He wants to be closer to you.