Be Still part 2
We always want to change the outside. Clean it up. Make it look better. Calm the storm. But in reality, the only way we can affect the outside is by getting right on the inside. In order to calm the storm, we must be still and know that HE is God. In order to change the outside we have to understand that HE arleady changed it. That's what the cross was. The cross was Jesus (God in the flesh, love in a body) remaking the world in His image. Letting the light of the world shine so that we could see clearly. So that we could stop trying so hard to change everything and everybody. Including ourselves. Because this idea that "God loves you just the way you are, only He loves you too much to leave you that way," quite frankly, is offensive to me. Love doesn't demand its (HIS) own way. Love doesn't try to change us. What love does is love burns away everything that isn't really us. Love is the consuming fire that consumes everything except itself (HIMSELF). Jesus is the gardener, right? He is the One who cut away the dead branches. And I use the past tense because even though sometimes it feels like a very painful pruning process... everything that needed to happen happened 2,000 years ago. Stop me if I've already said this but, that's what the cross was. Jesus presented us to Himself as a bride without spot, wrinkle, or any such thing. He did everything that needed to be done. That's why He cried out, "It is finished." Because, well, the work was finished. And the bummer part is, the more we try to change things (people, ourselves) on the outside, the more frustrated we get. I'm telling you: Behavior modification does not, will not, and cannot result in real, lasting change. Because at the day of the day we are who we are. Or, really, we are who we believe we are. That's why its so important that we understand that Jesus took away the sin (unbelief) of the world. He destroyed the power of sin. The power of the lie that said you have to do in order to be. The lie that said, "If you eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you'll be like God." Because we were already like God. Made in His image. The problem was that we didn't know what that image was. We didn't know who we really were because we didn't know who God really was. Then Jesus came. To show us the Father. To show us our true selves. To finish the work in order to let us rest. So we could stop running around like chickens with our heads cut off... and be still. So we could calm the storm OUTSIDE by calming the storm INSIDE. And I say "we" but of course I mean He. We live Jesus' abundant, everlasting, eternal, Resurrection Life by letting HIM live it in us, and through us, and as us. It was Jesus who was able to rebuke the wind and the waves. And it is Jesus who is able to calm our minds and our hearts (the same thing, remember? The mind of Christ and the heart of God). So "be still" isn't about something we DO. Its about someONE we be. Not someone we TRY to be. But someone we KNOW we be. That's the key to this whole thing: knowing and believing. Receiving and releasing. Knowing what's inside. Believing its in there. Receiving the love of God and releasing it to those we come into contact with! That's how we change what's outside--by letting what's inside come out!