The Lover-King

Finding your identity – the Real You – letting God introduce you to Yourself – it all starts with Passion. Your first Passion needs to be for Him. God plays many roles in our lives – by which do you know Him best?

Just as each of us fill many roles – we're a child to our parents, a parent to our children, maybe a sibling, a cousin, an employee, a customer – and different people know us by different roles – so God fills many roles to us. By which do you know Him best? Savior? Redeemer? General? Commander-in-Chief? Judge? King? Healer? Best friend? Confidant? Lover? A combination thereof?

To me, he's my Lover-King. Like in the Song of Songs. Best. Book. Ever. It's all about this King who's all passionate for this woman, and he shows up in the middle of the night and at these goofy times when she's not expecting him, and he invites her to come into a wild and miraculous lifestyle with him. It's mostly from her point-of-view, and she goes through a couple identity crises and some pretty rough spots along the way.

It's written like a play, with two main parts. Most Bibles label the male part “Lover” or some such – that's Jesus – and the female part “Beloved” or something like that – that's you. I highly encourage you to read Song of Songs. We'll go through a lot of it in this blog.

He is so passionate for you it hurts. Think about that today.

“It Costs Too Much To Get Free”

In many ways, this is the most tragic lie of all. And we know the Enemy is desperate when we get to this one. He is pulling out all the stops to keep us from deciding to walk like we believe God's promises. We have reached the point of decision. We are so close, and the Enemy knows that his foothold in our life is almost over – he's out with yesterday's trash if we make this choice.

Anybody can say “I believe” and give lip-service to head-knowledge. But if we really did believe, in our heart, God's promises to us, what He says about our identity and who we are to Him, how would we walk? The excuses go away. We would be willing to live with the consequences.

“I can't stop sleeping with my boyfriend – I'll be lonely.” Then be willing to be lonely. Once you make that choice, Jesus will meet you with such a ferocious passionate love you will never be lonely again. You will realize you were always lonely before, with someone or not, and were just trying to hide it from yourself. You will realize you'd given yourself over to a counterfeit love, and never having experienced real love, couldn't tell the difference. But after your choice and God crashes in, you will never again sell yourself out to a lesser love.

“I can't tithe – I'll lose my house.” Then be willing to lose your house. Accept the consequences of following God. You may or may not actually lose your house, but after you make the choice to follow God anyway, He will teach you (1) how to handle finances, and (2) about His provision. Whether or not you lose your house for a season (and it will only be for a season), He will provide for you in a miraculous way.

You can get saved and keep your sin, for a season. But at some point, Jesus will force a choice. You will know the Holy Spirit is prompting you in your heart to die to something that's been part of you. It's part of a false identity that's deceived you and has kept you from becoming and stepping into who you really are.

You will be stuck until you decide to die to that false part of yourself. If you buy the lie “it costs too much to get free” God will send you round the track again, turning up the heat and making it worse, and then give you another chance to make the right choice. You can go around the track as often as you want, but you won't go forward in life until you choose to really believe God and walk it out. God will have it no other way; your freedom and your true identity mean too much to Him. He loves you too much.

When the Hurt Rules the Head

We are three part beings – body, soul, and spirit. And our soul is composed of our mind, will, and emotions. So often, because of the hurts we've received in this life from other wounded people, our hurt and our wounding take over and we live from our soul instead of from our spirit.

When we live from our soul, either our mind or our emotions are in charge. If our mind is in charge, we think we'll be safe if we have it all figured out. We are in control – nothing happens without a plan, without our pre-approval. We deceive ourselves into thinking we can push down the pain if we're in control. We can become a sterile shell of a person. We look great on the outside and fool everyone else, but inside we're empty.

If our emotions are in charge, we're focused on what will make us happy in this moment, ignoring the long term consequences. We can lose our grasp on cause 'n' effect completely, and get into addictions – food, drugs, alcohol, sex, porn, TV – whatever makes us feel like we feel good at the moment. We know the pain is crouching ready to pounce any moment, but we delay it for just one more.

Too many Christians live out one of these two tragedies. That's not life, that's just existence. But Jesus died and lives so we can have abundant life (John 10:10).

In contrast, when we live from our spirit, our will is in charge. Our spirit is connected to Jesus, who sets the direction for our life. From our will, we choose to believe His promises instead of believing our own fear and pain. Our emotions, like pain sensors in our body, are there to tell us when we're hurting, but they should never set our direction. Our mind is there to devise a good, solid plan for going where our will has chosen to go, but it should never set our direction.

So how about it? Will you ask God to help you live out of your will? Will you choose to believe what God says about you and blow off your fear and the other lies our hurt and the Enemy so realistically impress upon us?

Imprisoned in False Identity

Character Flaws. Addictions. Immorality. This is who the Enemy tells us we are, and we secretly hate ourselves for, while building our public persona around projecting the opposite.

We make inner vows, “I will never be like that”, like our parents or some other person who hurt us. And we become just like that, because we become what we judge (James 2:1). Or “I will always be a failure in this area.” And those inner vows become the bars of our prison. We build our own prison, bar by bar, inner vow by inner vow.

And Jesus wants to dismantle that prison, bar by bar, inner vow by inner vow. He died, and more importantly now lives, to set us free. Free from false identity and the chains that go along with it. Intimacy with our Lover-King brings freedom. Freedom from character flaws, addictions, immorality, and everything else that keeps us bound.

And most importantly, freedom from failure. Or to put it another way, freedom to fail. The person in love with Jesus is free to try and fail, because they know He's already covered it. They've already come to grips with their failure and surrendered it to Him. So they don't have it anymore.

So try. Jump. Take the Leap of Faith. Go after your God-given passion. Live who you really are – the same person in public as in private, loving yourself like Jesus loves you. Read Psalm 139. It's all about your Lover-King's desire for you, and His hand on the life of who you really are.

Worship Breaks Chains

Paul and Silas were in prison (Acts 16). I'd have been googling legal documents and getting my defense prepared for the next day's legal proceedings. But they had the best defense. They worshipped. At midnight, from the innermost, high security cell, with their feet in stocks, they worshipped.

God responded by sending an earthquake, releasing them from their bondage. And they weren't the only ones – the jailer and his entire family got saved and baptized right then in the middle of the night. Wow.

What has you bound? What's preventing you from stepping into that thing you're passionate about that God's called you to? Choose to worship, right here, in the middle of it, with your whole being, and with your lifestyle. God will meet you in that place and not only set you free, but others as well.

Worship breaks the chains.

Worship Breaks Down Walls

In Joshua 6, God gave Joshua a really strange military strategy to take the city of Jericho. See, Jericho had this huge wall that protected it. That wall kept the children of Israel from entering into their destiny, into the calling God had for them.

Rather than siege ramps or battering rams, God's strategy for taking it down was worship. He told Joshua to have the musicians lead the army around the city, with the whole company worshiping, and the wall would come down all by itself. I'm sure Jericho's pagan soldiers on the wall made fun of them and ridiculed them – until the wall fell.

What obstacles face you in your life? Don't say, “I'll be glad when this is over.” Be glad now. Nothing in this world has the power to postpone the joy God the Father has given us, except us ourselves. Choose to worship now, right in the middle of it. Get intimate with Jesus now, in the middle of the pain, and the hurt, and the fear.

Worship from your heart, in the middle of insane circumstances, is a powerful weapon of warfare. It nukes the obstacles in front of you that are preventing you from entering into what God has for you. I encourage you to take some time now, or sometime today on this glorious day that He has made, and worship your Lover-King.

Unless You Give It To Him

Did you know God can't have everything He wants? That's a wild thought. The all-powerful, everywhere, Creator of the Universe God, can't have everything he wants?

That's right. There's something He deeply longs for, with every fiber of His being, that He can't have – unless you give it to Him.

Your heart. Your love. Expressed in worship.

Wow. This thought doesn't need a lot of words to expound on it. It just needs to be thought about. So I'll leave you two, you and Jesus, alone to talk about this and think it through. Then I encourage you to spend some time responding and worshiping your Lover-King.

Take the First Step

Okay, so you're discovering what you're passionate about. You've taken time with the Lord, time alone and unplugged, to search your own heart, and you're discovering that thing that gives you goose bumps of excitement just thinking about it.

Don't worry that it's bigger than you and is totally impossible. God always calls us to something we can't do without Him. It's bigger than us because it's something God wants to do. But He won't just do it – He'll wait for us because He's totally into partnership.

In Song of Songs 2:8, the Beloved (us) says of her Lover (Jesus), “Listen! My lover! Look! Here he comes, leaping across the mountains, bounding over the hills.” (NIV) He's leaping over mountains, doing the miraculous, and He's coming to invite us to join Him!

He says in verse 14, “My dove in the cleft of the rock, in the hiding places on the mountainside, show me your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely.” (NIV) He's seeking us out, calling us to join Him where He lives, leaping across mountains in the miraculous. But we're hiding in the cleft of the rocks. Out of fear. Out of not knowing who we really are to Him. Out of intimidation from the Enemy. From the hurts of this life that have got us stuck in the rat race.

Look in verse 15 at what He says about the impossible obstacles we see that stand between us and our passion He's calling us into: “Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes, that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom.” (NIV) What seem like impossible obstacles to us are just little clever foxes to Him. And He's got a plan to trap them, and that plan is on your heart right now. It's called The First Step.

You're passionate about that thing because He put that passion for it in you. Play a game with me for a moment. If you were to move in that direction, what would the first step be? Yeah, I know, it's totally unrealistic, but just for the sake of argument, suppose you did. What would that first step be?

Take it. Don't be afraid, stop thinking yourself out of it, just take it. Take the first step. Bag yourself a fox today. He'll love it, He's there waiting to help you – and you'll love it to.

It Doesn't Have To Be A Church Thing

In your search for your God-given identity, that thing you're passionate about, know that it doesn't have to be a “church thing.” One of the enemy's greatest deceptions is getting us to think we can only serve God in church. Or in some ministry connected with a church.

Rubbish. Then he'd get the whole rest of the world, and we are so not going to let that happen. We are not going to lock up the truth and life of God behind monastery walls. God wants to redeem every area of human existence.

Is it sailing? Do you love the freedom out on the water? Maybe God has a plan for you in the sailing community. What if you are God's lighthouse?

Maybe it's football or sports. Judging from their halftime shows over the last several years, the NFL has been taken captive by every deception the world has to offer. God wants to redeem the NFL and professional sports in general. Maybe He wants to start with the fans, those who by seeding their time and money into it enable it. What if He's calling you to stand for righteousness both off-the-field in water cooler discussions at work, as well as on-the-field with the kids you coach?

Do you love working on machines or engines – get the right tool, take it apart, there's the problem, fix it – boom, no feeling like it in the world. Heaven knows we need more Christian mechanics. If that's you – your love of engines and all things mechanical – that's a gift from God.

So what are you passionate about? If you can't tell because you're so caught up in the daily rat race, unplug regularly and pound on Heaven's door until God speaks to you. Proverbs 25:2 says, “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search a matter out is the glory of kings.” God loves to hide stuff for us to find – He loves to leave us treasure-hunt notes. He loves to give us the opportunity to be a king or queen – to be royalty – and search the matter out.

So go ahead. Go on the search. It'll be fun, and you might be surprised at what you find.

The Search Is On

Psalm 139 starts out in verse 1, “O Lord, you have searched me and you know me.”

Like I wrote last week (http://www.davewernli.com/2014/06/what-god-puts-effort-into.html), God puts effort into knowing you. And we are supposed to emulate what we see Jesus doing, right? Jesus did what He saw the Father doing (John 5:19 and many other places). We should do what we see Jesus doing.

When's the last time you've put effort into searching and knowing your own heart? When's the last time you've put effort into searching and knowing yourself? Or are we too caught up in the rat race, in the daily grind, to pay attention to the things in your heart that are longing to be expressed?

Try this. Set some time aside, a block of several hours – which you'll have to protect because the world will try to steal it – and get away alone somewhere with the Lord. Totally unplugged. No TV. No laptop. Cell phone off, not just on vibrate, so nothing can distract you. I'm talking off-the-grid for several hours.

In this precious time, just you and Jesus, dialog with the Lord about your own heart. What makes you passionate? What lights your fire? What floats your boat? What subject, when you overhear people at work talking about it, gives you goose bumps? What excites you?

God has a ministry for you connected to that thing. But the first step is to discover what you're passionate about.

Failed But Not A Failure

How do you think of yourself? The most feared label of all is “Failure.” Much of people's self-destructive behavior – abusing drugs, alcohol, porn, TV, etc – is an attempt to medicate, drown, or distract from that label.

In contrast, a Christian, not just a church-goer but someone who burns with desire for Jesus, has come to grips with his or her own failure. They've given it to Jesus, accepted that they need a Savior, and are freed from failure. Freed to pursue that thing that makes their heart leap just thinking about it. And what if they do fail? For them “Failure” no longer holds any fear but has been demoted to “Learning Experience.”

Psalm 139:5 says, “You hem me in, behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me.” (NIV) And again in verse 16, “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” (NIV) It all comes down to what you believe. Who are you going to believe today?

What God Puts Effort Into

I was reading Psalm 139 and in my Bible the first verse was at the bottom of the page. “O Lord, you have searched me and you know me.” I was going to continue but God told me not to turn the page. So I reread that verse several times, trying to get what He was trying to tell me.

I heard Him asking me, “Dave, what does 'search' mean?” I'd never really thought about it. We read and reread these verses and so often just bleem over the individual words, without really thinking about what they mean.

I told Him, “I know the dictionary definition. What are you trying to tell me?”

He asked me, “What do you do when you search for your keys?” I remembered when I had to go somewhere and couldn't find my keys. I put all my effort into finding those keys! My entire being was completely focused on the search, and everything else in life was put on hold until I found them. Then I realized it.

Effort! That's what “search” means. God puts effort into knowing me. Significant effort. Focused, intentional effort. Not in a panic like me looking for my keys, but out of passionate, loving longing.

Did you know God passionately longs for your love? Longs to interact with you? So much so that He, the omni-potent God who can do anything at a word without any effort at all, puts significant effort into knowing you. Why? Because He enjoys you. Think about that today.

God Thinking About You

One of my favorite verses is Psalm 139:17-18: “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you.” (NIV)

I always thought, How cool that the psalmist is so intimate with God that he knows God's thoughts, and a lot of them. I hear God, but I wouldn't say like the sand on the seashore. But God told me that's not what it means – this passage is not about intimacy with Him. “Look at the footnote,” He told me.

“What footnote?” In my Bible, there's a footnote on the third word, to. The footnote says concerning. “How precious concerning me are you thoughts, O God!” That changes the verses crazy! God is thinking about me, and He's doing it a lot. So you could read it this way:

“How precious to me are your thoughts about me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you, because you're still here thinking about me.” While I've been drooling into the pillow for the last 8 hours, God has been with me, wringing His hands in expectation, thinking about all the plans He has for me. “Oh, I can't wait for tomorrow, bringing you one day closer to the plan I have for you.”

What plan does God have for you today?