When I am in love with Jesus

When I am in love with Jesus. My world is just right. But I needed reminded daily.

This is the question I keep coming back to. The Holy Spirit prompts me like 20 times a day with " Right now, today, are you in love with me?"

I can't stop thinking about it. No matter how much planning I do, or organizing, I can't seem to straighten anything out in my life. No 3 step, or 10 step programs work. And when I try to find the "core" issue, I don't find it. And when I think I am crazy, and I blow everything out of proportion, I am urged again to think about whether or not I am simply in love with Jesus.

When I am in love with Jesus, everything else falls into place. Dizzy lines are straightened. The 39 step plans pan our perfectly, without having to follow any of my steps. The core issue is discovered. When I am in love with Jesus, I realize that I am not crazy, and that the very things I blow into big deals, are really not that important after all. When I am in love with Jesus.

In John 21, Jesus asks Peter three times, "Do you love me." Yes is is his frustrated response each time. Its the name of my blog, Heather Anne (that's me) Loves Jesus. Yes, I love him. But am I, in love WITH Him, today ... right now?

So often my answer is no. No, I am not being in love with Him right now. John 14:21 says that if we love Him we will follow His commandments. And 1 Corinthians tells me that love does not demand its own way. How often do I demand my own way? Away from him. Away from loving Him?

When I am in love with Jesus, I need nothing else. I know love, because He is love. And I want to love the one who is Love. Right now, Today.

Worth

You asked your father to take the cup, he knew you were strong enough to keep it. You had it in you to bear the shame, the consequences that instead bore my name. Were you thinking of me at the insance a kiss was placed on your cheek? Were you really dreaming of the lowly and the meek?When you were led away in the darkness of night, did you see my face? I am sorry that for me you had to be a disgrace. As the whip slashed your back, and you winced in seizing pain... you chose to keep your head high. I read the story and imagine the sceen... but time after time I just cant help from wondering why. Why did you do it for me? You limped to the cross, bloody and weak. You were swollen and weary yet the scorners urged you to leap. I imagine you thought about leaving and letting it all go, that you played with the idea of quitting. But you... you knew you could not. You knew that it had to be his plan, not yours. You knew that you had to do it for this girl. I am valuable enough. Although I am a sinner, a loser, a confused little girl you hung facing the crowd seeing much more. You looked into my life at all the things I could be, you probably closed your eyes and thought of me. Just me. You took the sins of my life and of every other, you bore them upon yourself and simply took it... because of me. With your last breath, I believe that you were thinking of me.
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I have value because I am HIS. In his infinate wisdom, Christ spent his last days on earth thinking of me. He spent them just as specifically thinking about Sharell, and of my neice Ellanor and President Bush and Hannah Montana. But I dont believe that he saw a "sea of faces", I believed that he visualized me personally... and you. That is how he is. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and that is that.

I can not think less of myself becuase he did not. It does not matter what the world thinks or what other people say... becuase I know that the God of the universe sent his son, to die for me. That is all I need to know.

Silly Life

Life. Its a silly thing really. We get caught up in emotions and relationships and failure. We focus on happiness and feelings and now... but someday now will be gone, nonexistant. Our happiness will be eternal and our feelings will be stronger than physical. We wont get caught up in anything besides Jesus. We wont worry about relationships besides Jesus. We wont fail.

I just see so much worry and stress about little things that dont matter. When we really step back, even the big things dont matter. One thing matters right now: That we have a relationship with Jesus and that we are drawing others into that present Kingdom. Every single thing outside of that will die. We just need to love Jesus. To love others. To love in general.

I think I understand why Paul says it is better to be single (1 Corinthians 7) , cause then we are simply Kingdom focused. Why it is easier for the poor to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Why it is easier when we give our money away, when we dont think about things, when we pray. I think I am beginning to understand the Great Commission in Matthew 28 and the pure simple words of Jesus through all his ministry.

We treat life as such a HUGE deal. And it is I guess, but it is not as they say, it is not all we have. We have eternity, and that is heck of a lot longer than the 80 some years we get on this nasty beautiful earth. I am really beginning to not care what the world says, or what anyone says. I want to and have to do what God asks, that simple.

When I get to heaven it wont matter what books I have read or what food I have tasted. It wont matter how many cool things I have done or even where I have traveled. It even wont matter what I have done in the church or what cool things I have accomplished in the evangelism rhelm. It will only matter what was heartfelt, what drew me closer to Him, what drew others closer to him. It wont matter if I liked every second of what I was doing or if I looked the best or even if I had really cool times with my friends. It just wont matter.

I dont want to let everything go away, or move into the desert and become a John the Baptist type person. I value all I have, but I value the valuable so much more now that I see the true treasure ahead. Everything affects the Kingdom, my friends, my choices, my books. I want them to all be positive influences because my 80 years is not about to be wasted.

To be Excellent in Every way.

How do you tell a girl that she is beautiful and make her believe it? How do you prove that she was not a mistake? How do you convince of beauty?

Through a love letter.

"Then God said, 'Let us make people in our image, to be like ourselves. They will be masters over all life' ... So God created people in his own image. God patterned them after himself, male and female he created them... Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was excellent in every way..." (Genesis 1:26-27, 31)

God created every person. In his image. He patterned them after himself. He is perfect. We are created to be like him. Every person. It doesnt say, some, or most he created all people. But my favorite part, one of my favorite verses in the Bible is what it says in verse 31. He looked over all of it. God didnt just look at Adam and Eve, he looked at every person that was ever to be born, ever to be conceived, ever to be aborted, ever to live... he looked at all of it, every single one and he saw that they were excellent... in every way. He didnt let one slip by. He made sure that every person met the standards, they did then and they do now.

It is so comforting to know that I dont have a single flaw because I am excellent in every way. Every way. There are so many girls especially that I want to show this to. They are excellent in every way.

Love

Last night I was talking with my best friend Heather Potter about love. Such a deep subject. What is it? When I first hear the word the pages of my bible opening to 1 Corinthians 13 automatically jump into my mind. "Love is patient, love is kind. Love is never jealous or boast for or proud or rude..." But this verst just demonstrates how to love. And what love is not. I think there are so many levels of love.

I grew up with the understanding that we are to love all people as Christ loved all. We are to love beyond judments and differences. I do. I find it very easy to love at a moments notice. At first I thought love is what you do for someone... I would do anything for anyone at a moments notice though, like seriously. That is who I am, that is the mindset that has been poured into me from my parents and my church. I am to love. This kind of love seems so simple, so natural.

There is deeper love. There are those that I love in a different area of my heart, those that I would without question I would take a bullet for. This kind of love draws me closer to the love that the father wants. This love can not be extended to every person, we dont have enough strength to give it to all. God blesses us with some to love deeper.

Then there is the love between a man and woman, a husband a wife. This kind of love is the closest love that a person can experience outside of that with the father. This love prepares us for a deeper relationship with the father. It is reserved and secret and strong.

But above all loves, is the love I have for my father, the one who created the world in which I live. With him is a love so deep that not even the most outrageous rebelious act could seperate us from it. He is love and in return gives it and receives it.

When I say "I love you" I mean it... but I think that depending on the relationship those words can be stronger. To a total stranger, a homeless person... I love them, they may be surprised, but I love them. And when I am alone in my room and I tell my maker I love him... It is the same love... but deeper, more intimate. Loving that homeless person is loving him.

Teaching Jonah to love Starbucks

Home, aghhh this is where I want to be. Last year I was discontented, I wanted to be far away from this stuffy place. The world of high class preps, large spenders and fakes. I wanted simplicity and calmness. I received my request - almost to my regret. I do not regret going away, actually quite the contrary - it affects me day in and day out, but I didnt receive the response I thought I wanted...

I thought that going away would make me hate my country more and love the unlovable. I thought I would have a renewed sense of missios and simplicity. But what I have found is that I love this place all the more than in the past. I do love the unlovable - but the ones that live here. I have a renewed sense of missions, of how we are not doing it here. I have simplicity, wraped up in my complex world... what I have learned is all the more what a funny guy God is.

Armenia, if you take a globe and stuck a penil striaght accross from Oregon, you would get Armenia. God had to take me to the absolute farthest place on earth (before coming back around the other direction) to show me that he wants me here. He is calling me to this place, the one country I wanted to run from. Just like Jonah, he ran from God, ran from the very and only locatio in which he was called . So God allowed him to go on a venture, on that would change his life, and when Jonah got there (wherever "there" was) He told Jonah that he wanted him to go to Ninivah. So while I was gone I found out that by Gods grace he let me follow my dream, he called me away for a season to plant me here for my life.

Yes, I still hate the stuffed up people, the expensive coffee drinks and complexity... But something in me LOVES IT HERE. I have talked to missionaries who say "I hate the way this country looks, i dont like that the people are mean, i miss home, i dont like the food... BUT I LOVE IT HERE" That is only by the grace of God. Not many people really want to live in Armenia, but the missionaries I met there... they did cause that is what they were called to. And when we are in the will of God, we will love what we ought ot hate. A good friend of mine Benjamin Zimmer once told me "You know what my favorite smell in all the world is? Homeless People. I just love the smell of homeless people. I know I shouldnt, but there is something in me that just wants to hug them so I can take a big wiff... because that is where I know I should be." Ben was in a place most of us would be uncomftorable with... but he was happy... actually he loved it because it was where God wanted him...

A few weeks back I was driving down the road, I had on new shoes, and nice clothes. My cellphone was on the dashboard, I had a full tank of gas and fast food on the floor and was on my way to the mall. I stopped at the red light and just looked at myself... And I smiled. I love it. And not because it is easy or comftorable or because I have lots of money (cause I dont) I love it because this is what I have always hated. I have a renewed sense of vision but something in me cries out love. I know it is God, becuase I am not here seeking after the "American Dream"... Yet I am living. I ask him every day to show me how to stay simple. How to humble myself and seek his face. How to find him... And I do! I see him everywhere I go. He meets me everywhere I go and I am happy cause I am in him, I am where he wants me to be. This may be the only location and culture I have never wanted to be a part of, but this is what he wants from me. I am not looking to conform to the patterns of this world. I am still me. I still love orphans and airports and new food. I enjoy living out of a suitcase and not having enough clothes to choose from. I love simplicity... but I am in love with home.