Our Revelation
If there was one thing to know about me, it is I am not one to just sit and read a book. However, on the rare occasion, I can sit and read an entire book in a day. Almost like binge watching a Netflix show if you ask me! This book, Awakening Pure Worship by Jeff Deyo is a book that I am now beginning my second read through and let me tell you, WOW! Being a worship leader, I live by one golden rule, I like to say it’s worship leader 101: you can never bring a congregation to a place with the Lord where you have never been yourself. As a worship leader, if I want the congregation to be able to experience the intimate hiding place with the Lord, I have to experience it myself. I need to go first, go ahead, and seek out the Lord in the hiding place. Jeff begins to explain this idea of He First. Now, reading my first time through, I didn’t think much of those two words, until my second read through where I began to really comprehend the ultimate love of the Lord that is embodied in, He First. Think about it, we are currently living a life that is being written by the one above all, Jesus Christ. But I want to back up for just a second to the very beginning. He was the first to ever see this world, I mean God CREATED this world! He first started to fight and love those who persecuted him, and one that I am sure you are all familiar with, “We love because HE FIRST loved us.” 1 John 4:19
God has never asked us of anything that He has not already done Himself. Remember when I said we are living a life that is being written? Well before one can read what is written, it has to physically be written. God is writing our stories as we speak and we are following behind by reading and living out that story. Even in our every day lives has he already gone before us. He recklessly loves us so much that he is paving the way for us in our lives.
Before I spoke a word, you were singing over me
You have been so, so good to me
Before I took a breath, you breathed Your life in me
You have been so, so kind to me
Reckless Love by Cory Asbury
Ok, you all knew this was coming! I’m sure the minute I said reckless love, the song began to play in your mind! However, look at the first verse… before. Before we were even born, before we took our first breath, before we said “God I am all in for you”, before we said “God forgive me”, he had already surrounded us, forgave us, welcomed us, and loved us. There is NOTHING that God hasn’t already gone through before you experience it in your own life. Just like my golden rule, the congregation can never experience the hiding place if I haven’t been able to experience it. If I am able to be in the hiding place with the Lord, that feeling shines through the music bridging the gap for the congregation. Just like the death and resurrection of Jesus was the gap between us and eternal life with him.
PC Morgan Elizabeth Photography
One sentence from Jeff’s book says, “He has taken an infinite number of steps towards us as a means of coaxing us to take even a few steps towards him. That He might march us straight into His loving arms.” We were never the first to do anything. In any situation, the end goal is for us to boldly love the Lord. He is going before you in every area of your life. In this time, we are in now, he is going before in your finances, jobs, families, health, and even your spiritual life. He knows exactly what you need in this time. Isn’t it crazy that God knows what we even need BEFORE we even know it ourselves? I don’t know about you, but my mind has a hard time wrapping around that very idea because there is no one out there in the world that can know EXACTLY what we need, other than Jesus Christ himself.
Romans 8: 27-32 “He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good. God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun. So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn't hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn't gladly and freely do for us?”
Take some time and answer the last few questions in Romans 8. We have a God that recklessly loves us, that He has gone before us in protection, victory, and love. No matter what, when we are able to seek the Lord, we are able to shine that light and hope within us and bridge the gap to others who have not experienced that love in their own life. So, what is our revelation you might be asking? And in the wise words of Jeff and his book, our revelation is, “we don’t have to love God but we get to love God. Loving God is honestly less like a command and more like and invitation.”
Friend – I pray that this is just the launch pad into your new found love and relationship with the Lord. I pray that you see the story he is already writing before you. It is a beautiful story, and the most amazing thing is that it is YOUR story! Go into this week with the faith that God has already conquered this next week, month, year, and you are just living the story while walking in the light of the Lord!
