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"He wants to be our preference." |
SPEAKING THE name “Jesus” is the most intimate thing you can do. It isn’t like saying “couch” or “car” or even your friend, “Karen’s” name. We, the church, toss it around to casually without giving a thought to the man, Jesus, at all. If He were standing next to you, would you say it like you did? Most would clam up. I wouldn’t. He speaks to me. I know His voice; I know His nature. I can tell you things about Him because we’ve spent time together. I get up to talk to Him. He gets all of my time, my personality, my devotion. I adore Him, so when I use His name, it is the most powerful thing I can do because He stands by me.
Truth is, I don’t like to talk. Like at all. I frequently refuse or limit it to a couple words. My family knows this and so they don’t ask me things. But Jesus knows all the thoughts of my heart. He knows everything I’ve ever seen and done. He knows all the events of my life. There are no secrets between us.
You can’t live that way, holding secrets, and use the name of Jesus. If you’re trying to hide parts of yourself from Him or making jokes about it, then you have put distance between you. Here’s the thing. When you’re alone, the only one in the room, and you think that thing you were meditating on is between you and the wallpaper, it wasn’t. God knows. Jesus knows. Now, try to live as if they are with you, actually WITH YOU, every minute, every second, every breath. It’s a bit overwhelming to our independent mindset, but it’s closer to the truth of salvation.
We want God at a distance. We say otherwise, but thinking of Them being “in our hair” in those private moments seems too hard. Yes, we want to use the name of Jesus to “get rid of stuff,” to move the devil around (an inaccurate statement) so we can stay independent. What the devil wants (still inaccurate) is a free ride. My mom says he’d like to crawl up your leg and tag along. Take the extreme example of the Gadarene demoniac. I use him a lot because he can show us so much we overlook. He couldn’t get rid of the unclean spirits which barked in his ear. Every second of every minute of the day, they were talking condemnation, trying to force him to do what the pigs did. Now flip that idea 180 degrees, and it’s God with you and not devils. We say we like that picture until He has a preference that overrides ours.
When my husband or my daughter don’t want to eat what I’m making for supper, I frequently stop making it. I don’t force them to eat what I know they dislike. Shoe on the other foot again, aim watermelon at me, and I’ll throw it at you. Now make this simple example Jesus. Say he refuses to eat spinach. He’s gritting His teeth right now. But you love it, love it, love it. Can you set it down?
“What are you getting at, Suzanne?”
He’s asking for ALL of us, and He’s giving us ALL of Him. He’s asking all of our meals, our entertainment, our church services, our prayer time. He wants to be our preference. We have ten minutes to spare before we leave, so we’ll read that Scripture again. Tomorrow, we have a free evening, we’ll forego the movie and spend time in worship instead. We could go shopping with Myrna this afternoon, but Jesus is nudging us to spend time in prayer. We’ve picked out a sermon to watch tonight but just know it’s not what He wants. We decide to watch it anyway. OR He’s picked out a sermon for us, but we’re avoiding it like watermelon. And I’ll take this one further. We assume we’re supposed to learn something the speaker knows and take it to heart. This could be the case. But sometimes, the example is not what we expect.
How close to Jesus are you? The revelation we receive is because we can be trusted to treasure it. We listen and hear. We don’t speak FOR the Spirit, absent of Him actually speaking, but we speak together WITH Him what He is saying. Or we don’t speak, don’t write, we stay silent even in a listening crowd. If they’re all ears, but what you want to say isn’t Jesus, can you not say it?
LISTEN TO "Preference" by Rachel Morley
“For God did not make us to let us go and be separated from him, but to be his—united to him in love through our Lord Jesus Christ who died to heal and restore us, so that those who are currently alive and those asleep in death will live together with him.” (1 Thessalonians 5:9-10 Remedy)
Image by Rosy / Bad Homburg / Germany from Pixabay
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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com
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