On Seeking Perfection

I am Melanie, and I am letting go of perfection. 

This is a scary thing for two reasons. 1) I am a seeker of perfection and have often driven myself crazy as I strive. 2) Doesn't Jesus call us to be perfect just as He is perfect? 

Yes, he does, but he doesn't call us to work and achieve and beat ourselves up when we fail. He calls us to himself, He draws us near, and the closer we become to His heart, the more in unison our hearts will beat with His. The goal is not the trying, the striving. The goal is to be Holy as I AM is Holy. We can only reach such perfection when we release our efforts and accept the life changing, new-covenant-making, total atonement of the blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. 

He became our once-for-all sacrificial lamb. 

This doesn't mean we give up, stop seeking, or accept our sinful state as part of the deal. Absolutely NOT. By receiving that redemptive blood of Christ over your sinful heart, you have been given new life. We begin to stumble along beside our Master and experience discipleship for all it's worth. We are created to learn from Him, to long to be like Him. 

It all starts with believing in the Lord Jesus and accepting His all-surpassing grace and love into our lives. Then we offer all we have back to him--our love. Jesus will know the truth of our love by our obedience, and our obedience is simply the outpouring of our heart's desire to love Him with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength.  

There is no striving, no achieving involved. Only grace. Only love. Only pursuit of the One who has given us life. We can't know our Lord intimately and not experience His holiness as a part of our life. He commanded us to be perfect, knowing it would be the natural result of a life truly and wholly in love with Him. 

Freedom.

On Striving. and Holiness

Jesus says,

I have loved you with an everlasting love. I have pulled you out of the mire and muck of your sin-laden life. I have redeemed you, dressed you in my purest garment, and written your name in the Book of Life. Never will I forget you or forsake you. 

Look at Israel. She was a nation with the most predictable cycle of sin. I would rescue her. She would serve me. Hard times would come. She would reject me. I would pursue her heart. She would come back to me begging for forgiveness. 

And I never loved her any less. She was my precious child--the one set apart for my purposes. 

You are now a part of my family. I created a new covenant so that you could enter into this beautiful relationship of love and mercy, of worship and holiness. All I ask of you is that you be consecrated unto me--set apart for my sacred use. I will do great things with your life if you let me. 

Love me with all of your heart and the obedience will follow. You will never be able to earn my acceptance, so stop striving. Know my love as yours and float in it, worship me for it, honor me because of it. 

You needn't worry about your eternal destination. If you confess with your mouth I am Lord, and you believe in your heart that my death and resurrection cover the cost of your sin you are saved.  

With an unquenchable passion for me, holiness will be your pursuit.

On the Beauty of a Woman

Jesus says, 

"I created you.

I had a plan and a purpose for you life even before you were a dream in your parents' subconscious. 

You are beautiful. 

You are wonderfully made.

I knit you together, stitch by stitch, placing every limb, every bone, every organ, exactly where I wanted them. 

I make no mistakes. 

When I was forming the land and the sea, 

the birds and the fish, 

the sun, moon, and stars, 

the animals and plants, 

I wanted to save the best for last.

I created man in my image, but I knew it was not good for him to live on his own. 

Though Adam knew no different, I knew he would not be complete without a counterpart. 

Together, the two would more perfectly display my qualities. 

He would be strong. 

She would be sensitive. 

He would rule with power. 

She would reign with grace.

They would fit perfectly together and, in my image and because of the capacity I gave them to love, they would be given the ability to create life. 

And so, I created you. 

As a woman, you came from man, because the two of you were made to be reliant and inseparable.

You were given my image, my glory. 

It is in you that I display my breathtaking beauty. 

You are the crown of creation. 

And only then did I say, 'It is very good.'

Yet you reject the very body I created. 

You look in the mirror and ignore all that is perfect and look only at what you wish to change. 

You see flaws. 

I see unique beauty. 

You complain. 

You believe the lies Satan whispers in your ear, telling you how ugly you are, how you are too fat or too skinny, or how you'd be better if only you had that jean size or that cup size or that hair color. 

And the more you listen to his deceit, the more difficult it becomes for you to hear my gentle voice. 

I weep when I see you degrade yourself. 

I am saddened when you don't trust my Truths. 

I make no mistakes. 

I made you wonderfully--exactly as I intended. 

What right does the creation have to question the wisdom the Creator? 

NONE! 

Believe me when I say I take great delight in you. 

I rejoice over YOU with singing.

Embrace my all surpassing love. 

Know it as yours and float in it." 

And today I offer this prayer for each one who knows the lies all too well. 

"I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 

so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. 

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 

may have power, together with all the saints, 

to grasp how wide 

and long 

and high 

and deep is the love of Christ, 

and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—

that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."

Eph.3:16-19

--Learning to embrace my beauty,

Melanie