Awakening to love - #10 - Awakening to God's Unconditional Love and the Truth of Christ.

Key Scripture – “For God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” – John 3:16

Key Thought – “The truth is that you are deeply loved by God more than you can imagine and beyond your wildest dreams.”

As we open up to the whisper of God, we begin to recognise that very often we are not looking for God; far from it, almost all the time we are so wrapped up in our own world that any consciousness of God is put to the  back of our experience.  The entanglement of everyday life and the pressures of survival fill our minds to the limit and added to this is the temptation of social media. No other generation has given the chance of fame and adoration to so many, so quickly.  We are so often either trapped in our world or captivated by a world which we are trying to create.  However, both options result in one goal and that is for us to feel valued and accepted by the God's of our family, friends and others worship. 

Jesus gave us another picture that whispers to us about the unconditional love of the Father to us.

"If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them wanders away, what will he do?  Won't he leave the ninety-nine others on the hills and go and out to search for the one that is lost? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he will rejoice over it more than the ninety-nine that didn't wander away. In the same way, it is not my heavenly Father's will that even one of these little ones should perish. " Matthew 18 : 12-14.

God has opened his heart to accommodate us, in our pain, our confusion, our fear, our helplessness and our wandering.  He knows our rebellion, he understands our shame and knowing everything about us he takes it all into account. He followed us into our own darkness and it was there where we had run to escape him, we ran straight into his arms.

It is where we are at this present moment , whatever we have done, whatever we have got into that the whisper of God calls us to begin. The Father searches for us, calls to us and pursues us to come back and join the party. Today, is the moment that his unconditional love invites us to access his kindness despite all our actions and shame. In the unbounded spaciousness of God's heart, love is not-judgemental and unconditional.

God's love doesn't not change.  And that which does not change is his true nature. The deeper you go into the unconditional love of God the darkness disappears and the light goes on, the crooked places become straight and the storms become calm. No matter what, He is working for our good. Mostly the canvas of love is formed by the relationships we experience, or the ones portrayed to us in our culture. We learn about love in the melting pot of life and we galvanise love into the good and the bad. But God is reaching out to contact us with the infinite embrace of his passionate love, he looks us straight in the eye and calls us his own.  His whisper is relentless and tender and tells us that we are valued and accepted even when we are lost. Sadly, somewhere in our hearts we find this difficult to believe.

The bare truth is revealed in the life of Jesus when we see him through his eyes of compassion. It means seeing things from His perspective.  Compassion, mercy and goodness, eyes that reach down and meet us in our place of need. Truth is the life of God demonstrated and offered to us in his son.

Truth is the penetrating of this moment with the words of Christ alive in your heart. It happens when you are rooted into the life of Christ. Opening to Christ means letting the truth of all he is change how you think and feel. The more you immerse yourself in his truth the deeper the truth changes your soul. And the closer you get to the truth in Christ to more you understand who you truly are.

The truth is that you are deeply loved by God more than you can imagine and beyond your wildest dreams.  Truth is like a sword that cuts through all our weaknesses, our problems and our issues. In cutting through all that hold us we are free to take risks, free to try new things, free to be fallible and free to be wrong.

The truth is that all Christ has been poured out to us, because in the deep depths of God's unconditional love his truth has been made know and given to us in Christ Jesus.

Awakening to Love - #9 - Embracing the Whisper of God

Key Scripture – “Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he’s the one who will keep you on track”- Proverbs 3:6

Key Thought – “His whisper to our innermost being is his call in us to join with him on his grace adventure and recapture our hearts.”

The good news is that God is reaching out to us to embrace him. His passion is focused on his love for us and to draw us into an intimate relationship with him. His whisper to our innermost being is his call in us to join with him on his grace adventure and recapture our hearts. He tells us that we are his delight, and his voice speaks and  invites us into a new life and a new perspective.

One of the biggest revelation that came to me was when I realised that God was constantly speaking in me. I stood in a shopping line, with my trolley, queuing in the supermarket. People were chatting all around me when an impression came into my mind. "Listen to the conversations around you and I will speak to you through them." So, I took a few minutes to quieten my heart and mind and I listened and I let God speak to me. Conversation after conversation awakened me to the whisper of God.

God's whisper that started off so quiet gradually became louder! So instead of struggling to hear it , I began to hear it in the places I went and in the voices of those around me and as I grew accustomed to it, it became part of my everyday life.

But it was just not that whisper in the midst of a busy life it became the whisper of God calling me through creation. It was a whisper that carried to me through the rustling of leaves in the wind.  It is a whisper that touches my hearts through favourite songs, enjoying the waves crashing onto the beach and the sunset setting the sky on fire on a warm summer's evening.

It is here also that God whispers to us in the pain of life. Through the suffering that we endure God softens our hearts and dissolves the ocean of enmity that rises within us. God calls us through the deepest experiences and rouses a relentless wanting deep within us and sets our hearts on a course to find its creator.

This relentless wanting whispers in us to fully embrace the openness and depth of God's presence. The whisper speaks in our heart to connect His spirit to our spirit.  And so, every time you open your heart to God you tune your heart to his voice and this softens you to your creator.

The interesting thing is, once you start to recognise this whisper is that you face your greatest challenges.  In other words, once you hear it you have got to deal with it. God is not going to give up on you. Once he started he was not going to go back!  Each day is a new opportunity for God to whisper into your life.

And his whisper keeps speaking to us over and over again and softens our hearts little by little until we come into the light of his grace and we embrace his oneness.

Awakening to Love - #8 - The Miracle of God's Mercy and Kindness

Key Scripture – "Because of his great love for us God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive in Christ when we were dead in sin, it is by grace you have been saved.” – Ephesians 2:4

Key Thought – “God's yes to us, his total acceptance of who we were created to be is demonstrated to us in his mercy and kindness."

The secret of God's plan for us is revealed in his promises. Over and over again through the ages he consistently declared his intentions and commitment to us. Through the prophet Jeremiah he told us that he loved us with an everlasting love. The prophet Hosea tells us that God will never give up on us. God says he will never leave us or forsake us and Jesus declared that whoever would come to him would never thirst again.

Paul in his letter to the Ephesian church writes a remarkable declaration describing how God entered time and pursued our hearts.

"Because of his great love for us God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive in Christ when we were dead in sin , it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus. In order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus." - Ephesians 2 : 4-7.

This passage is a rich vein that reveals the miracle of two amazing truths about God which sometimes are overlooked in the bigger picture of God's story.

The first truth shows us the God did something good for us when we were dead in sin. What moved him to do this good thing? It was his great love for us that caused him to help us, for he is described as rich in mercy. Mercy is a truth that shows us the love of God to withhold the punishment we deserve. Mercy is God moved in compassion to reach down and pull up those who have fallen into the ditch of life and are alone in the cold. Mercy is God's unfailing love poured out to us in our time of need and mess.

Over time, our minds become confused and twisted with the lies that surround us and we become locked in the emotions that invade. It is the miracle of mercy that causes God to reach out and provide all we need to give us back his life.

Added to this God has also provided the miracle of his kindness.  For it is because of God's kindness that he shows us his true nature. He hears our cries and responds to our longing.  His kindness opens a doorway into a new restoration of our souls that enriches our lives and freely gives us all the blessings of heaven. Whatever circumstances arrive at your doorstep His kindness has been poured out to restore your soul. It is here in the offer of genuine, guaranteed kindness that you can be assured that whatever path you may take God is totally committed to you and will constantly be drawing you back into his loving embrace. Every dark shadow of trauma or the constant gnaw of a debilitating illness God's kindness reaches out and invites us to come and lie down in green pastures of his overflowing grace.

God's yes to us, his total acceptance of who we were created to be is demonstrated to us in his mercy and kindness.

In the now of the moment we can connect with his unconditional love and let his mercy and love embrace our hearts as we experience the openness of all he is.

It is an amazing thing but the wider you open to let God in, the more meaningful and delightful life becomes. In acceptance, God becomes a kaleidoscope of mercy, kindness and goodness to be enjoyed and a love story written throughout creation.

Conscious awakening to all God is, is the way to navigate our course from captivity to freedom.

Awakening to Love - #7 - Breaking the Lie of Separation

Key Scripture – “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” – John 10:10

Key Thought – “Realising that God wants you is simply a change of heart perspective to a see God as the author of a creation founded in love and desire to be with you.”

We have been born into a lie of separation, to guard, defend and amour ourselves so that we stay safe. We build walls around our hearts to keep ourselves from hurt and withdraw ourselves, so we don't have to deal with those things that we don't like. This separation is ingrained into us that we don't even realise it.

If we want to truly come to know who we are a good place to start is the truth that God has never separated himself from us. It is easy to think that all we see, feel, hear, smell and touch are the sum of our existence but God’s truth is that we are accepted and valued by God and that each of us are wonderfully and beautifully designed and made.

Realising that God has never separated himself from you has the potential to break you free . For God is inviting you to dive into his river of life and experience the perfection of communion with him.

He is awakening you to live in the fullness of your creation.  The truth is that God is pursing you.
That you are the delight of his heart and his desire is to be with you. You are in fact loved greater than you could ever imagine. In the same way he came and showed himself to the first murderer, he comes to you and speaks to you. This may come as an extraordinary revelation that God is searching you out and seeking after you. That he has never withdrawn himself from you and that he is after you. It breaks the power of the lie of separation, the lie of a wall between God and us. We are so bound up with lies and illusions that the ordinary of God's pursuit of us is overshadowed by our feelings of unworthiness.  We need to let go of what we feel and start to believe all God says about us.

Realising that God wants you is simply a change of heart perspective to a see God as the author of a creation founded in love and desire to be with you. Ultimately, it is a vision from the bondage of soul thinking to the liberation of God's unconditional love. We don't have to wait to be good enough or spiritual enough to realise that God has never separated himself from us. The fact is simple, that we separated ourselves from him in our shame.

The freedom that our hearts seek is found in God, in the very moment of his value and acceptance of us.  God is pursing us and calling us with his Holy Spirit in every thought, each feeling and every connection with our heart.

It is embracing the call of a pursuing God that awakens our hearts to who we really are.

Awakening to Love - #6 - God is in the Now.

Key Scripture - “Oh, how can I give you up, Israel?  How can I let you go?” Hosea 11:8

Key Thought – “God's goodness is his story. His story is a work of total commitment, desire and passion.”

Every time we open up ourselves to the love of God we move into the now of time.  And in the now of time the omniscience and omnipotence of the creator meets the compassion and goodness of the Father.

But it is here in the circumstances of the now that we can start to doubt the goodness of the Father and focus instead on his power and knowledge. Somewhere in our souls we start to see God as something else than a heart that overflows with generosity and compassion. Instead of going with the flow of God's love we end up swimming against the tide. Eventually we end up drowning in doubt.

Whenever we move away from the abundance of real love, life clips our wings and dulls our shine. God's love was given to be shared. Shared from his heart of goodness. A manifesting in and to creation that we were created and birthed out of His good pleasure. And every moment is a now moment where his love is giving his goodness to us.

God's goodness is his story. His story is a work of total commitment, desire and passion. It is a story about yourself, about someone else, about the world, about life, about God and above all else it is a story of intimacy beyond our wildest imagination.

When you dig deep into the depths of God's story you will start to discover that it is a rich tapestry of promises. Every promise of God is given in the now and is kept by his unfailing love.  God continually declares this by the way he passionately pursues his people, the children of the promise given to Abraham.  He comes to Israel in the bondage of their adulterous relationships and gives them hope. He hears their cries of anguish under the oppression of their taskmaster and opens up a path to set them free. In the midst of their constant rejection of his love he weeps for them and is consumed with a heart to heal their brokenness.  Instead of judgement and anger, hurt and rejection he offers grace and a solution.

What God gives us is an insight into the ache within his heart.  God's ache is his intention to come and restore us into all he created us to be. He never sees us as products of actions, he never looks at us through the lense of black and white. He removes himself from judging us to be right or wrong or good or bad. Instead he sees us as a prism of light, multi coloured, a bright radiant spectrum of his love. In short, he sees us as we were created to be.

God created us to be whole. He created us with his desire to have perfect communion with us. To enter the perfect relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and to enjoy and celebrate his perfect love. His holiness was birthed into our hearts, his breath birthed our spirit and he placed the pinnacle of his desire in a garden of delight.

It was here in this garden that the first man and woman lived and enjoyed the glory of God. They enjoyed every moment experiencing the unconditional love of their Father. They lived in a complete relationship until a fallen angel spoke a lie into their perfect existence.  This lie was simple as it was destructive, it produced a thought that God did not want them. That to please God they had to do something to make themselves more acceptable.  And it was the lie that entered their heart and planted a seed of separation.  And it was this lie that caused suffering to take root and illness, violence, greed, jealously and selfishness started to run rampant.  For it is our separation from God that is root cause of our death. When we lose connection with the Father who created us, we  forget who we are and become divided in our spirit, soul  and body and become separated from each other.

We fail to see the creator in everyone and everything and we close our hearts and hide away in shame. And in a shame based world, our sight is clouded and we start to see everything from a dim reflection in a mirror.

Breaking the lie of separation requires us to look again at God and start to see the world from his perspective.  To overcome our feeling of shame and accept the reality of his unconditional love.

Awakening to Love - #5 - The Perfect Union for Life.

Key Scripture – “for God is love.” – 1 John 4:8.

Key Thought – “Moments of tenderness and kindness spring from the demonstration of God's desire birthed in our hearts. “

God is a God of relationship.  He is the author of all good things that flow from an intimacy that was so perfect it transcends our wildest imagination.  It is here in the deep fathomless love of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit that we find the centre of the universe, for perfect relationship is the heart of all reality.

Friendship, partnership, laughter, joy and happiness are all part of God's design for our lives. Delight has been woven into the fabric of life. Moments of tenderness and kindness spring from the demonstration of God's desire birthed in our hearts.

The fact is life is full of rich moments that make life worth living. It can be amazing and wonderful in its ability to connect with our souls. There are days when our hearts are captivated by the experiences that enlighten our darkness and change the mundane into adventure. Those captured memories of precious moments where the richness of love and the closeness of acceptance are found in the value of those we treasure and love.

Today's fast living world does little to encourage us to embrace the experiences that surround us. Modern media sells us a dream of a perfect world where we can have anything we want providing we have the resources at our fingertips. And if we don't it sells us the tools to get that which is out of our reach. But deep down inside we know that the things that surround us don't really satisfy us.

For life in all its glory is found complete in the embrace of its designer. Every experience is a chance to connect with the God who formed the universe from nothing. As surely as the sun rises, the sun sets and as surely as the tide flows in, the tide flows out. The everlasting love of God is as relentless and as sure as the universe that we are placed into. And it is here that the mystery of God’s love shines into our world, for God who is complete does not need creation in order to experience love because he is love.

Awakening to Love - #4 - The Call to Embrace Life.

Key Scripture – “Where can I go from your Spirit?  Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.  If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.” – Psalm 139 : 7-10.

Key Thought – “Every interaction we have with every aspect of our life provides an opportunity to experience the power and life of Christ within us and his spirit is guiding our hearts into a realisation of all God has given us.”

God is calling to you in every experience of life.  His whisper is his invitation to come and embrace the fullness and depth of his love. Every moment you breathe offers the promise of deep intimacy with infinite possibilities. It is an invitation to become a new creation in Christ and live in the wonder of eternity in you.

Beyond appearances, beyond the influences that draws our attention, is the God that does not change, the God that is the all in all. The truth of all God is found in the presence of this moment. In this moment he is pursuing you. In this moment he is whispering to you to add nothing and take nothing away.  In his moment he is inviting you into the deepest places in the cosmos and the highest place of eternity.  In this moment of the invite, the Father is offering you life, to come into and enjoy the union you were created for. To come into union with God.

God is the infinite glory, the designer and artist of creation, the One that is the substance and value of everything.  All that exists has been created by love, in love and for love.  Created as a reflection of the perfect love of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The closer we get to experiencing the pure unconditional and unadulterated love of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the closer we get to live in the delight we were created for.

Awakening to Love - #3 - An Ocean Of Love

Key Scripture – “For in Him we live and move and exist” – Acts 17 : 27.

Key Thought – “Choosing Christ is choosing love over fear in every moment and every circumstance and this transforms us from a consciousness of darkness to a consciousness of light.”

How we view God is crucial to what kind of world we live in. The transformation that we need has already happened in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. His once and forever death two thousand years ago has opened up heaven and brought the divine into everyday life. His call to us is to come and receive new life, to let heaven dwell in our hearts.

For God no longer lives far away up in the clouds, waiting till we arrive at Heaven's door before he reveals himself, He is found in the heart of every believer who believes and receives him. God resides in his New Creation.  God resides in every action, every thought, every feeling and every breath of every believer.

Recognising that we are now New Creations in Christ is the truth that animates each moment and brings heaven down to earth.  It heals the feeling of separation in our hearts and heals the oppression of our suffering.

It is from this place of knowing and experiencing the life of Christ alive inside that we can begin to see God at work in everyone and in everything. Slowly this realisation of our new life dispels fear, frees us from our struggle and disperses guilt. Here in a New Creation life we are free to express our new unlimited life and be empowered to manifest our Christ given potential.  For, in him we are filled with the majestic beauty of creation and overflow with the joy of a celebrating Father.

Every detail of life - from the mundane to the wonderful - is an opportunity for you to receive all that Christ has provided for you. Everything we need has been given to us in a rainbow-coloured unconditional love that reaches out into the conflict of our world and lays down its life in peace. It is this love that cherishes our every breath and brings healing and restoration to our body and soul. It is a love that invites us to give instead of taking and it is love that ignites desire and puts to death self-reliance. It is a love that has a passion to change and cries out with a response for action. It is a love that says you are valuable and that you are accepted.  It is a love that says it died for you to bring you new life.

It is a love that shows us that truth is found in sacrifice, that to know truth is to know Christ. This truth speaks into the depths of our innermost feelings and expresses the heart of God and it gives us the courage to drop pretences in order to reveal the tenderness of an open heart. 

The truth found in Christ bridges the gap of our humanness and gives us the perfection of our heavenly father.

The whisper of God to each of us is to dive into love even when fear screams at us to run and hide, to open up our hearts into the midst of chaos and encroaching darkness.  This whisper invites us to live in the vastness of God and let him live and work through every moment of our lives. It is calling you!

God is calling you. You are being invited to join the party and become one with your heavenly father.

This whisper asks us to come and become who we were created to be. This whisper says come and take that step of courage and let love conquer your heart.

Awakening to Love - #2 - The Eternal Story.

Key Scripture – “How precious is your unfailing love, O God! All humanity finds shelter in the shadow of your wings.” – Psalm 36:7.

Key Thought – “The story of our life is the story of the long and passionate pursuit of your heart by the one who knows you the best and loves you the most.”

The belief that we are small and powerless in the face of life is a lie that has kept us asleep for thousands of years.  But God has come to us and is knocking at the door of our hearts and is inviting us to wake up to the full glory given to us in his unconditional love.

We have the opportunity to stop believing that someone or something else has the answer and actually embrace the change we are being offered.  Our future is in our hands. Our future is in the choices we make. Our future is to choose life over death, to choose love over fear.

Every step we take towards the light is an opportunity to bring us closer to the whisperer of love. For each step is a moment by moment journey that draws us on. It is not easy because fear pulls us back.  It is the gentle whisper that draws us on.  It means that God calls us in the present moment, he encourages us to let go of the past and to put on hold our future. But to come and look into his eyes and be captivated by his gaze.

God is that which is bigger than us, the great mystery, the one that is all in all. Our creation is by love, in love and for love. 

God is relationship, intimacy beyond our wildest imagination and deep infinite intimacy. The Trinity is the centre of the universe; perfect relationship is heart of all reality. He is the divine creation of oneness existing before time and acting within time and from him all compassion flows to everything that exists.

God’s creation is the eternal story of passion and desire. The story of pursuit and sacrifice, the story of a cosmic drama with us at the centre. It is this story that calls us to wake up and become who we were created to be in order to transform our lives, our world and our future.  

But also, within this story we are surrounded by towering shadows that stand in our way. Gigantic obstacles that obscures our view and keep us in captivity. These towering Idol’s try to rob us of our value and acceptance. 

They fill us with fear and shame. They focus our attention on what we wear, what we eat and what we drink. They convince us that the thirst and the hunger we feel can only be satisfied when we worship our own self crafted Idols. That the land of milk and honey is a place where we are God and the whisper we hear is answered in self-recognition.  

It is here where we start to see that the emphasis of our lives is routed in the God's and idol’s we serve. And these are built on the foundations of our self-crafted love and truth.
 
Today we live in a man-made world that is built upon what we see, feel, hear, smell and touch. For most of us God is viewed as a distant concept that we call upon in moments of crisis or acts of nature that we cannot explain or reconcile. But also, within this world we find that God is also synonymous with life and that the more we open up to receive every aspect of God's existence in his fullness, the more He explodes with vibrant intimacy.

For God's whisper is to come and have a relationship with him. To enter into an adventure that brings love closer to us and closer to everyone and everything in our lives. For everything we seek is found in the embrace of a Father, who gave himself to us in the incarnation of a son.

For God is manifested in the human form of Jesus.  

Awakening to Love - #1 - Recapture Our Hearts.

Key Scripture – “I have loved you , my people, with an everlasting love. With unfailing love I have drawn you to myself.” – Jeremiah 31:3

Key Thought – “Our deepest desires are formed by passions and stories that reside in our innermost feelings and are kept in chambers locked away opened with the key of love.”

Amidst the chaos that surrounds us we are being given the opportunity for liberation. It is totally natural for each of us to search in everything that is pushed at us to find the connection that our heart’s passion desires.  When we stop looking outside ourselves for something to make us feel better, safer, stronger, richer or happier and instead begin to open up to the whisper that is guiding our hearts. It is this whisper that has the life transforming ability to bring us into perfection in every moment we experience. For this whisper invites us to enter in to the Kingdom of Heaven and let it reign in our lives.

For what we seek is to be part of a story that is far greater and more magnificent than anything we could have imagined.

The truth that is there in front of us and calls out to us, is that each of us were created to be a manifestation of God. It is this realisation that has the power to transform the world.  God created us to be his reflection on earth. He created us to see his divine light shine through the eyes of everyone. A living, breathing demonstration of the love, beauty and glory of himself.

It is almost too much to comprehend and almost impossible to believe. But deep in the purposes of God is the place where we need to see beyond gender, race, class, wealth, job-title or any other label, all boundaries evaporate and you find yourself in the wonder and beauty of the Father's creation.

Each day we stand on the edge of a reality that has the power to transform our world. This whisper of God is calling out to us and inviting us in to come and join the party and come and live in the fullness of God.

It is a soft whisper that is trying to recapture our hearts.