Jesus is it! He is central! He is LIFE- He is our breath, our heartbeat, our everything.

I dont know if you've been around someone who can't breathe- they struggle, they fight to get relief from the lack of oxygen, they work ten times harder than a person without the breathing problem and if there is no intervention, they continue to work too hard. It's a deadly cycle where they can get more and more exhausted as every breath becomes harder and harder. the lack of oxygen may even make them act a little crazy! it they are left to their own ends, they will eventually pass out. They need HELP! They are desperate! Eventually the person would stop breathing or pass out. They would stop fighting because they couldn't do it anymore. All energy and resources they had would have run out and their only hope is assistance from an outside source. They need something external to breathe life in- a machine or another human- but whatever source it is... it took giving up and maybe even a little pain and fright to get to this point. And then when it is most needed- at the edge of perishing- oxygen from a good reliable source is breathed in and it becomes life to the once suffocating victim. They couldn't live without it, but they just needed someone to breathe FOR them. Past that the analogy doesn't keep because hopefully the person would be revived and off the ventilator and on their own again.

I like to consider myself a ventilated person- this life is not my own but that of Jesus. Without him I do not have the energy to live... in fact, it's impossible. Satan may sometimes have me fooled that life can be lived without Jesus, but the reality of that is there is NO LIFE apart from Him! Reality is HIM! Eternity is now and forever (and the past for that matter) in Jesus. Whatever not done in faith will not last but be burned. Real life, real satisfaction is him. Jesus is IT! HE is your deepest need! more than a meal, more than exercise, more that money, HE IS IT!
JESUS is your LOVE (Dear Jesus, be love to me, love me through me love others through me because I am dead apart from you, be love)
JESUS is your JOY (Dear Jesus, You are alive in me and Make me alive in your Joy. You ARE my joy! )
Jesus IS your PEACE (Dear One who made peace between me and Father- Reign in my heart because you ARE the definition of Peace)
He is your patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control. He is all these things and all these things are a PERSON!
LOVE is a PERSON, alive in you, and His name is Jesus!

Tap into the PERSON that lives His life in and through you!
HE IS IT!

I received this awesome story from my precious friend (yeah, white house Rambo!) from Blue Like Jazz:


"A guy I know named Alan went around the country asking ministry leaders questions. He went to successful churches and asked the pastors what they were doing, why what they were doing was working. It sounded very boring except for one visit he made to a man named Bill Bright, the president of a big ministry. Alan said he was a big man, full of life, who listened without shifting his eyes. Alan asked a few questions. I don't know what they were, but as a final question he asked Dr. Bright what Jesus meant to him. Alan said Dr. Bright could not answer the question. He said Dr. Bright just started to cry. He sat there in his big chair behing his big desk and wept.
When Alan told me that story I wondered what it was like to love Jesus that way. I wondered, quite honestly, if that Bill Bright guy was just nuts or if he really knew Jesus in a personal way, so well that he would cry at the very mention of His name. I knew then that I would like to know Jesus like that, with my heart, not just my head. I felt like that would be the key to something."

How awesome would it be to know Jesus in that way? Lost without Him. He IS our direction and purpose.
Depressed without Him. He IS our JOY.
Nothing withough Him. He IS our EVERYTHING!

You hopefully know how it is to deeply care about someone...If not I pray that you will begin to invest in the lives of your friends and or family and come to see what I am talking about:

heart friends:
ones that have seen you laid bare- ones that you literally have shared your heart with and feel that they have a piece of you and you have a piece of them. I was in a small group about 5 years ago with people that I have a type of bond with like no other- it was so ordained by father as we were not only sharing the same passion but it felt like we were even on the same page- on the same narrow rocky road together. We watched the Lord breathe life into us in such a refreshing way.

well, we had a small reunion of this group (plus some new additions!- aren't the beautiful!?) this past weekend at the encounter retreat... One of the many ways to describe that small group would be "united"- our hearts beat for Jesus in sync with each other and we cant really put to words exactly what happened that year but we knew Jesus was there in a unique way ... There is no doubt that we tasted and saw that the Lord is good. I think it's an earthly example of exactly what God does when He unites himself with us. When he gives us a new heart and places a new spirit within us and we share that "God-heart" with others there is a spiritual bond created. Ezekiel 36:26-27 talks about how He removes our heart of stone and replaces it with a heart of flesh. He gives us a new heart and put a new Spirit in us. He actually puts HIS Spirit in us and moves us to follow His decrees and be careful to keep his laws because of this new nature. No wonder we are all in sync when we are all abiding in the Lord and going hard after Him. This heart is a gift but it's also His heart... Like a heart transplant... It was once someone else's, but now it's mine...But it's someone else's...But it's MINE! And it's the driving power force of my life blood. Or shall we say His life blood... Oh I want to welcome the flow of His life through me otherwise I am dry and lifeless.

I asked the Lord to reveal a little more about how He thinks of me and how he pursues me and here's where it ties in and he was faithful to answer:
Knowing what it feels like to "share hearts" with some or like my dear dear friend prayed to "see my heart in another body" and feel that strongly tied to someone, imagine how our Abba feels tied to us!!!! When your "heart friend" is in the room you don't play around aimlessly but you do spend your precious time with them while you have the chance... knowing that HE lives in me and is hearing all my most intimate thoughts. There's no way any other human could know me that well!

you know all my thoughts
you see through my ways
and still you come to me...

and He sees me as a valuable possession- HIS heart of hearts- not just because He calls me that and not just because we wants to woo me but literally because we carry around in us His spirit-I would venture to say His heart a part of Him that UNITES us to Him ... His desires become ours and His thoughts and His ways become more ours as we are sanctified and as we are changed from glory to glory. And like we heard from Matt this weekend, we want to be nestled into His chest, hearing His heartbeat (think Charlie Hall: suddenly I feel your heart in mine...Sweep me away!) It's in us... The question is will we rest in what we hear Him saying, believe it, and live like it's true to us.

and I'll sing a love song to you, and I'll sing a love song to you! and my life is a love song...

I cannot deny the love of my Savior! If I feel this strongly about my 'heart friends" I cant imagine how the God of the universe feels about His children, whom he formed for His pleasure and then bought back by His own blood, and not only that but gave himself up for you and me placing HIS very Spirit inside us.

wow! Is he connected to us in an intimate way? Oh yeah. We share hearts- we are united- we are part of the intimacy that always was and is and is to come. That is a degree of pursuit that I can only hope to fully understand until the good work is finished on the day of Christ Jesus (Phil 1:6). You, my friend, are His Heart of Hearts. He thinks well of you. He does not see you by what you do but as a new creation, thanks to the finished work of the cross. It's finished. Live in the grace that He's given you. Yes, it's too good to be true so it's ok to walk around stunned, but pick that jaw up and dance to the new song with that heartbeat that is His. He is IN you... Your Hope of Glory.

If you find yourself doubting that this could possible be true, well, that's the nature of the gospel. If you think there's no way you could hear the heart of God, tell Satan to get behind you while to rest in the arms of your Abba. He's here and asks nothing of you but faith- if you just trust it opens the door to experience a world like no other. Life in Christ.

i leave you with some awesome lyrics by the coolest girl band ever:

i need You to love me, and I...

I won't keep my heart from you this time

and I'll stop this pretending that I can somehow deserve what I already have

i need you to love me...

I challenge you and me to stop what were doing and let Him love... that's who He is: Love! That's His nature and that's what He will do for all eternity. let Him break down the walls and bring light to the dark parts of your heart - let Him transform it because you already have His heart! Stop trying to earn/deserve this incredible give and just receive it. It's yours in Christ.