So Loved...

How do we really know that God loves us?

Have you asked Him?

This weekend we witness how much love has been poured out on our behalf...

This weekend the tragedy of Friday, the silence of Saturday and the awakening of Sunday should erupt in joyful jubilation as we remember just how much we are loved. Oh yes, we are so loved...


So why not right now stop…take a knee and ask…Ask the Spirit to speak to your heart. Ask Him to destroy, remove, crush any obstacles that are hindering you from hearing the voice of the Crucified King as He hangs there on that rugged tree. Ask the Spirit to touch the eyes of your heart…

“Then He touched their eyes, saying, ‘According to your faith be it done to you.’ And their eyes were opened” (Matt 9.29-30).

We will only see when we are blinded by grace. When we turn to the cross so as to embrace the silence, the surrender, the solitude, the strength, the beauty of this weekend. 


In our embrace of His heart, that was drained for us on that cross, we lose the dead weight of selfishness so as to gain the greatness of Savior. And when we are engulfed in the greatness of Savior we realize the greatness of ourselves.

We realize that to be in His image is to be extraordinary, it is to be the deed and truth of love. For when we recognize the staggering reality of this weekend, we realize the truth of how much we are so loved...

So go ahead, ask Jesus how much He loves you. Ask the Spirit to open your heart so you might truly see. And when you open the eyes of your heart, you will find the divine hand of love stretched out so that it might embrace your heart and softly whisper, 

“My child for this I have waited, for this I came. To receive you into my arms, broken, lifeless, dead to self so that I might cover you in My love, fill you with the Holy Spirit and raise you up into our divine heart so that now you might finally realize you are so loved.”

Who am I

Today we are experiencing an identity crisis... On so many different levels... Yet the question that faces each of us might not be the most obvious one...

We want to believe the essential question of identity is the one asked by Mr. Vernon (Breakfast Club), when he required the fab 5 to write an essay addressing the question "Who am I?" And indeed, who we think we are is important, but not the most essential question...

Jesus, not Vernon, gives to us the essential question of identity when He asks, "Who do you say I am?"

And so how do you respond...

Truth is, who you say Jesus is answers who you think you are. For when you answer who Jesus is you answer the question of identity.

To say Jesus is insignificant or simply a nice guy or great teacher is to say that identity rests within the realm of the human. That is, that identity is based solely on what you do, and who you believe you are. It is an identity self-created, self-supported and independent of all outside forces; it is a worldly identity based on us and nothing supernatural. 

But to say Jesus is the Alpha and Omega, the Creator of all things, The Christ is to acknowledge that identity is realized only through the supernatural. That is, to fully recognize Jesus' divine reality is to fully recognize the fullness of our human reality. For when speaking of identity in Christ we are not speaking of a loss of identity; quite the opposite. Identity in Christ is the awakening of identity. To be identified in Christ ultimately means to be conformed to Him. Yes, identity in Christ is conformity to Christ. 

To be identified by Christ is to be conformed to His way, truth and life, in and through the Holy Spirit. To be identified with Christ is to be wedded to His mission. That is, “yes” to Christ is "yes" to being stretched to our breakthrough... A breaking through to His transformative movement. Saying YES to Jesus is saying yes to being immersed in the revelation of His radical love. A love that ignites the heart so as to saturate it in the mystery of our home-coming—the final return home, into the heart of the One who is love…

So question is, have you found your identity by answering the question of "Who do you say I am?"