Necklace

I'm really excited about this post! I've been taking a Bible study course, along with many women from Rock of Ages church, and it's been getting me to read Scripture a lot more than I do on a regular basis. Already, I've been very blessed by the ways God has spoken to me through verses that almost felt dry, I had them so memorized. It's amazing how He can make anything new, even tired old words that our minds automatically file away as "old news."

Anyway, tonight He made me a necklace. I was thinking back on how afraid I used to be...how my Christian walk, and as a result my whole life, was based on fear until I went to CLBI, because I was under a constant cloud of condemnation. Satan knew that my belief in God wouldn't be shaken, so He lied to me about God's love instead, making me believe with ALL of my heart that God would just as soon strike me with a lightning bolt as let me live. I felt shaky, uncertain, and even so afraid of hell that I couldn't sleep at nights. And then God, through a series of events, broke through my wall of fear until it crumbled away completely one night at a CLBI worship event. I haven't been the same since...my life is no longer defined by fear, and I sense God's love for me every day, everywhere I go. It's a blessing I never even dreamed of experiencing!

So after going through the Bible study questions tonight, I journaled a couple of verses that had stood out to me, and suddenly my head exploded with verse after verse in chronological order of my walk with Christ up until now, and I couldn't write fast enough! I'm not a super Christian who had them memorized word-for-word, but I had enough of a gist of them that I strung them together and it made me think of a special necklace from God for me. (What can I say...I'm a girl, I love jewelry!)

Here are the verses in my necklace!

1 John 4:16-19: "And so we know and rely" (interruption here...isn't "rely" a neat word in this phrase?) "on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment," (another interruption here...wow! Confidence on the day of judgment! That's huge!) "because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love casts out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because God first loved us."

This one applies because I SO lived in fear before...and God's perfect love cast it out, once and for all!

Romans 8: 15-16: "For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, 'Abba, Father.' The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children."

Again, fear is not designed to be part of a real relationship with God...and now, although emotional moments can sometimes throw off my compass, underneath it all I have full confidence of the Spirit testifying with mine that I am God's beloved child!

Ezekiel 36:26: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."

When I think "heart of stone", I generally think of one that is hardened from bitterness and anger. But my heart was definitely a stone before God, as well. It was scared stiff. God alone (I can't take any credit for it) removed that old way of existing from me, and gave me a new way that continues to amaze me, even years after the real change happened! And now I am growing, like flesh, as opposed to the immobility and stagnancy of having a heart of stone.

Isaiah 41: 18: "I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys. I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs."

Once God had given me a heart of flesh, free from fear, the outpouring of His love and presence and joy into my life was unbelievable! This verse is the best metaphor I've ever found for how God took my empty, fearful soul and turned it into something crazily blessed by the love it had longed for all its life!

And finally, Philippians 1:6: "...being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."

That one's fairly self-explanatory and, thankfully, it applies to every single person who lives in relationship with Christ... no matter where you're at, how confident you are of His love for you, or how fearfully you may still be living, He is NOT finished with you...not by a long shot! And He never will be. Even after we leave this earth, we have all of eternity to live in worship and grow closer and closer to Jesus! No matter what happens in life, that is a beautiful and certain hope that we can fall back onto, like the biggest and best bean bag chair ever. God is good!