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I'm
Above That
By Jerri Phillips
I'm a sports fan. However, I am not a
rabid sports fan. While I enjoy
basketball (especially Tourney Time), I
can't tell you who the players are. If I
watch hockey, I can tell you which teams
win with their thugs (oh,
sorry-enforcers), and I even know some of
the enforcers' names, but I don't know
anyone's stats. I really enjoy going to
baseball games at the stadium, but so
many players have been swapped out that I
only know a few of them now. Still, I
enjoy watching the games. However, my
football enjoyment took a jolt yesterday
when Troy Aikman was put on waivers.
Again, I am not a rabid fan.
Now, you need to understand that in
football in Texas is as much a religion
as basketball is in Indiana. People have
been killed over football games, and
those were at the high school level. We
take our pigskin quite seriously, and
Texas Stadium is its own temple with the
Cowboys serving as priests, and anyone
who messes with our religion just might
find himself on the wrong side of the
media altar being served up as a heretic.
And that is where Jerry Jones finds
himself these days.
Now, it is bad enough that he fired Tom
Landry the first rattle out of the box.
We don't take too kindly to people
messing with our icons down here, and
Jerry found himself sitting in the
equivalent of a deep freeze when it came
to fan reaction to him. Then, he brought
in Deon Sanders, the enemy, and when we
started liking him, he let him go. Who is
the enemy again? There were others.
Woodson, Stepnoski, and so on. Favorites
of the fans; enemies to the team as a
whole. Now, Troy is the latest sacrifice
on the altar of salary caps. Oh, Jerry,
do you have any clue what you have done?
One fan put it simply. "I‚ll
never watch the Cowboys again."
Several people voiced similar opinions.
How could they do such a thing,
especially to Troy?! What horrible,
unfeeling capitalists who are only out to
win games and care nothing for the
players!
Well, part of that is true. Are they
capitalists out to win games and make
money? Of course they are. Are they
unfeeling? Some are, maybe, but others,
well, it‚s a business, and if you
don't contribute, if you aren't a winner,
it is time to go. Nothing personal.
That's just how business works.
That is how business works everywhere.
Think about it for a minute. If you are
in sales and don't sell much, you'll lose
your job. If you are not contributing to
the company, you won't stay there long.
Some of you may be disagreeing. Some of
you may be thinking about that
receptionist that doesn't know the phone
from the pencil sharpener that she keeps
using to sharpen her mechanical pencils.
She doesn't contribute anything, but they
don't fire her. No, sirree. They just
keep letting her sit there driving you
nuts with her ineptitude. Don't you wish
they would just fire her and make your
life easier?
If you answered in the affirmative, then
count yourself with the Jerry Joneses of
the world. You've just put business
first, or maybe if we were more precise,
you've just put self first. After all,
isn't that what business is about?
Profit? Status? Self?
If we are honest, we all fall into this
mentality. It is a philosophy that
society ascribes to wholly. The mentality
is preached throughout the media, in
literature, in our very homes. There is
no place to turn where we are not
bombarded with the sermons stating that
wealth equals worth. And if you look at
it through the world's eyes and through
its thinking processes, it makes a lot of
sense - to virtually everyone except God.
In Isaiah 55:6-9, the Lord says,
"Seek the LORD while he may be
found; call on him while he is near. 7
Let the wicked forsake his way and the
evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to
the LORD, and he will have mercy on him,
and to our God, for he will FREELY PARDON
(capitalization mine). 'For my thoughts
are not your thoughts, neither are your
ways my ways'" declares the LORD.
'As the heavens are higher than the
earth, so are my ways higher than your
ways and my thoughts than your
thoughts.'" In other words, the idea
of worth being earned by our performance
is a human thing, not a God thing, and
personally, I'll take the God thing.
A few weeks ago, I was having a marvelous
conversation with one of my most beloved
friends and sisters in the Lord. She said
that she had been struggling with
self-worth and esteem until she began to
think about God's love. She shared that
she found great joy in the passage that
states that while we were yet sinners
Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).
"Imagine," she said, "if
God loved me that much when I was so
horrible, just think how much more He
loves me now that I don't walk in that
lifestyle anymore."
"None," I interjected. Her
silence expressed her stunned thoughts.
"He doesn't love you anymore now
than He did then. God is perfect. In Him
is fullness and completeness,
correct?" Mmhum. "Does that
fullness and completeness ever change or
waiver?" No. "Then His love for
you is no more full or complete now than
it was before your salvation. He loves
you the same. His love is not increased
or decreased by how you act or what you
do. God's love is perfect all the time.
You don't earn it, and you can't lose it.
It's just that now you can receive and
realize that love. The relationship has
changed, not the love."
Sadly, that is a realization that very
few people enjoy the fullness of knowing.
However, it is such a life-transforming
truth that in the third chapter of
Ephesians, Paul said that he prayed
specifically for the believers to
comprehend it. "I pray that out of
his glorious riches he may strengthen you
with power through his Spirit in your
inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell
in your hearts through faith. And I pray
that you, being rooted and established in
love, 18 may have power, together with
all the saints, to grasp how wide and
long and high and deep is the love of
Christ, 19 and to know this love that
surpasses knowledge--that you may be
filled to the measure of all the fullness
of God."
There are some huge things to see here,
and oddly enough, I'm going to start in
the middle.
Being a math teacher, I was fascinated
and perplexed by the redundant
measurements given in these verses. Three
of the measures made sense. Width
multiplied by depth multiplied by height
gives volume. Volume is the amount of
space occupied by a three-dimensional
object as measured in cubic units. Volume
encompasses space. In other words, Paul
was saying that he wanted us all to
realize how encompassing the love of God
is.
That leaves us with one dimension unused.
What about how long the love of Christ
is? What is this fourth dimension Paul
tosses in to our equation? In the
scientific community, time is considered
to be the fourth dimension. Perhaps Paul
was praying for all of us to understand,
comprehend to our core the extent of time
that the all-encompassing love of Christ
will last.
Why is it important for us to understand
that? So that we can experience God's
fullness! I've heard it argued that we
don't have to fully understand God's love
for us in order to be saved. Well, maybe
that is true. In fact, I tend to agree
with it, but you know what? I want to be
more than saved and in "by the skin
of my teeth" , per se. I want to
know the fullness of God. I want all He
has to offer, and according to Paul,
until I understand His love, I won't have
what I want (verse 19).
Now, I'm one who wants to understand the
"why" of it all. And as I have
studied this and meditated on it,
I‚ve asked for insights because all
understanding and wisdom are from God
(Proverbs 2:6). So, I asked why knowing
the awesomeness of God's love is so
important, and I think there are a few
answers.
First, we have to understand God's
character to know His love, and that
takes intense relationship with Him.
Second, in order to comprehend great
love, I must have very little self, which
allows the power of God to work through
me. Granted, it has a lot to do with less
of me and more of Him, and that can
create an atmosphere that lends itself to
performance issues.
And that brings us to my last thought.
When we begin to comprehend the
greatness, encompassment of God's love,
we realize that it is not a commodity to
be bought and sold on the spiritual stock
market. Our value is not dependent on how
profitable our day was in the kingdom.
"Well, I memorized six chapters, won
two for Christ, delivered twenty meals to
shut-ins, led the Bible study at the
retirement home, and prayed for seven
solid hours. God loves me," as
compared to, "I screamed at the
kids. I called the guy in the car in
front of me stupid. When my husband got
home, the food was burnt, and the clothes
were sopping wet in the washer because I
forgot to put them in the dryer so we
were late for Bible study, which I had
not prepared for because I was too busy
trying to teach Joey how to color without
eating the crayons to actually read
anything myself. My Bible has stains from
Cary's kool-aid, and I had a spit up
stain on my blouse from the baby. Most of
my prayer time was spent asking for grace
to make it through the day without
bursting into tears. I'm lousy. How can
God love a mess like me?" Because He
is God, and that is what He does.
When we begin to fathom the extreme
completion of the love the Father has for
us, we no longer beat ourselves up for
our failures. We are able to confess and
continue with confidence that the Lord is
still with us. The mood swings that come
from performance-based worth stop. We
begin to understand that we have not
failed God. We have stumbled in our walk,
but He is glad to forgive us because He
wants to lavish His love on us. And all
those places along the way that we look
back on with bitterness as they scream
out our ineptitude and humanity become
altars of thanksgiving for the grace that
pours from the throne freely from a
Father who loves His children even when
they scrape their spiritual knees.
Of course, there is one more reason it is
important to comprehend God's love. When
we realize that we cannot earn God's
love, we stop trying to do His job. We
quit trying to fix ourselves. We stop
trying to perfect our actions and
attitudes. We no longer have to carry the
burden of correcting our sinful flesh.
Instead, we can fall at the throne and
receive the mercy and grace that He loves
to wash over us in a deluge of freedom
and joy. We can stop trying to impress
Him and receive the strength He affords.
It is in our weakness we are made strong
by Him (2 Corinthians 12:10). We will
never know the fullness of the Lord if we
continue trying to impress Him by doing
His job out of a compulsion for earning
His love. Only through understanding the
freedom of God's love can we become free
in it.
So, how do we come to have this wondrous
knowledge and understanding? Let's step
back to the beginning of the passage.
Look at verses 16 and 17. Paul prays that
we will be strengthened with power
through the Spirit in our inner man so
that Christ will dwell in our hearts
through faith. Big thing to notice. We
are not earning this. We are not
achieving this. The Spirit is the vessel
and imparter of the power that leads us
to faith in Christ, thus, reconciling us
to the Father through the blood of the
Son. Simply stated, the only way to know
the immensity of God's love is through
salvation in Christ. If you do not know
Christ as your Savior, you will never
know the fullness of God. You can't
because you cannot know someone with whom
you do not have an intimate relationship.
Now, you may be thinking, "I am
saved. I do love God, but I still don't
feel very loved." If that is you, I
am very sorry. That is a hurtful and
often lonely place to find yourself. I've
been there, and I know the anguish that
can come from feeling unloved or
unlovable even to God. I have great news,
though. The Lord wants you to know His
love. He desires to express it to you,
and He has expressed it to you in the
Word (the Bible). You know when He says
that He loved the world so much that He
gave His Only Son? What He is saying is
that He loved you so very much that He
gave His Only Son for you. He says,
"While Peggy was yet a sinner, I
loved her so much that I chose to die for
her." "While Ralph was a
workaholic and a lousy husband, my heart
desired to lavish blessings on him."
God is telling you specifically,
"You are my child, and I love you.
Nothing can make me love you any more or
any less. Rest secure in my love because
it is real and it is complete, and it is
for you."
When I doubted how much God loved me, I
began to pray. I asked, more like
pleaded, that He would make His love
clear to me. I would read verses about
God's love, interjecting my names where
it referred to the generalized
population, praying that the Lord would
make the truth travel beyond my head to
my heart, that the deepest part of me
would comprehend it. While it may not be
what you want to hear, it took some time.
Some strongholds had to come down, and
some wounds had to be healed, but now, I
can honestly tell you that I have no
doubt of God's love for me. I won't say I
comprehend all of it, but I am secure,
and oh, my gracious! The joy is more than
I ever knew existed.
And you know what? You can have the
same thing, and God wants to give it to
you. Maybe it'll be instantaneous. Maybe
it will be a process. God treats all of
us as individuals, so I can't tell you
how He'll present you with your answer or
when. However, I know HE WILL! How can I
be so sure? I know because God isn't a
capitalist that is more interested in
renown than the people on His team. In
fact, His renown and magnetism come from
how well He treats people on His team. If
you are one of those people, He has great
things planned for you, and He is working
at this very moment to impart them to
you.
As you seek the treasures the Father is
holding out to you, doubts will arise.
Questions may come. People will question
the truth you are holding to. Don't let
any of them shake you. Keep holding to
the truth and praying for it to become
part of your identity. The Lord will
answer your prayers. And please remember,
when others love you because of your
performance, God doesn't. He is above
that. He loves you because He is God, and
that doesn't change no matter what you
do.
Father, I ask that your Spirit work
mightily in the hearts of your children
that they may know how high and long and
wide and deep your love is. I pray that
you will break down all strongholds that
prevent them from hearing your truth and
making it their identity. I pray that you
would heal all hurts and wounds that keep
people from opening themselves up to
receive the greatness that is your love
and acceptance, and, Lord, for those who
are feeling like it is hopeless, they are
too far gone or you are not listening, I
pray that you would send something that
would boom in their hearts and minds to
resonate the absoluteness of your love. I
thank you for your answers to these
petitions. I praise you for you are
worthy. You are God, and I love you!
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