crosses and crowns

Matt NOT being on the road all the time has opened some sweet and sacred places. Of course, it means Sunday evenings I get to dive in to his weekly preaching, right now from the riches of Romans. But it also means Wednesday mornings at 7 am he gathers with 30 men in their 60's, 70's and 80's and gets to walk with them through the word. It means that last night, about 30 of us got to imagine-study our way through Revelation 4...and I was so enriched by that passage and the illumination that comes from a gifted teacher who has studied The Living and Powerful Word in depth that I came out with a priceless perspective on my life, from heaven-side. 

It meant this morning, I gathered with 8 other women at 5:20 am in our pajamas with coffee while he answered questions on the baptism of the Holy Spirit and on the things we can know for sure, even in the middle of some dealing with mental illness and heavy heavy burdens. It means tomorrow sitting with 50 people from our church together to watch Sound of Hope and ask how the Lord is calling each and every one of us to a more abandoned embodiment of HIS love : one that is patient and kind, not arrogant or insistent, not irritable or resentful, that rejoices with the truth, bearing all things, hoping in all things, never failing.

If you ask me these days how pastor's life is treating us, I'd say one thing: It sure has been sanctifying. It may be the most ongoing, day-to-day sanctifying job of our lives. Praise the Lord!

End of the day : 

Is He truly who He says He is? 

Do we truly believe it, like, stake our lives on it, and do we then Trust Him?

Are we truly following Him to the point of looking like Him, sounding like Him, thinking like Him, walking like Him, and loving like Him? Every time? Every season? Every circumstance?

The places we have been unsure....He is working on. The places we have believed but never been tested, He is testing. And I'm just downright more determined than ever, even if it kills us!, to study Him, trust Him, and look like Him.

All the hard work in our lives, friends, it will be sanctifying if we insist upon it. 

By the time we got to Revelation 4:10 last night, the part about the elders casing their crowns before the throne, you could feel the Holy hanging in the room.  

We get so caught up with our crowns. 

Most of the time, we get caught up wanting them on earth. If I'm being faithful, where is my reward? If I'm doing the right thing, why is there so much pain and dirt? Where's the gold and glimmer?  If our brothers and sisters in Haiti are so seeking the Lord, why are they struggling so and so? If I'm loving my enemies and bearing the burdens of my neighbor, why all the pain? 

Sometimes, we get caught up trying to earn them in heaven.  I want the reward. I'm Martha-ing in the kitchen, earning my way. I'm doing all the things for Him, bedazzling my future crown.

But do you know what? 

Jesus' followers were waiting for Him to pick up HIS earthly crown, and were so confused and even frustrated to see Him picking up a cross instead. They wanted to follow in the footsteps of a king, and instead the footprints were bloody and led to death.

We want those crowns on earth, when what He's promised us and LED us in CROSSES.

Unbearably heavy torture devices, resulting in death and injustice. 

It's CROSSES church. It's crosses now. 

Our love is to be taking up our crosses, laboring after Jesus, not our will but His, not our path but His, not the world's glory, but His.

If you're frustrated or hurt by or confused by the crosses in your life, look beside you to the One we are following and labor ON, his shoulder bearing with us the burden, love heavy in our hearts and joy not from gold and glint, but from people looking straight through us and seeing JESUS.

But Revelation doesn't give us any image of dragging our crosses to His throne. 

It's gonna be crowns, dear ones...and after ALL THAT, crosses for crowns, you know what our biggest, most sacred, life-time waiting, breath-taking HONOR is going to be?

Casting those crowns before the throne. 

What joy and weight floods my heart, even imagining. Trading in my rugged crosses for a crown, approaching His throne, and the joy of casting it at His unspeakable, unimaginable, unshakable feet. 

I mean.

Sign me up. 

Sign me up for THAT. Sign me up a crown to bow at Him. Sign me up for the crosses that lead me there. Sign me up for the Savior that made it ALL possible in and through the cross, always and eternal in a crown. 

What joy that the most "lay yourself down" job/season of our lives is also the one that officially includes almost daily Bible study, teaching and corporate prayer. It is the food needed for the work! 

Those crosses you are carrying, dear ones, those will be your crowns! He is WITH YOU, carry on. Lay down your rights, your comforts, your preferences, your pride, your days, your dreams. 

We're following a cross-carrier. But we're not finishing there. We're following Him after to crowns, and then the unspeakable joy...to lay at His Holy, Holy, Holy feet. 

The throne of God will be there, and his servants will worship him. We will see his face, his name will be on our foreheads, and the night will be no more. The Lord God will be our light...and we will reign with Him forever and ever. 

Revelation 22