Dear one, you need never doubt God's acceptance of you.
His faithfulness and His commitment to you knows no limits. He longs to pour His grace and mercy on your wounded heart. And when you are hurting understand that you can always run to Him and throw yourself at His feet and, bearing your soul, be as truly miserable as you feel - He will not judge you. He will not demand that you pull yourself together. No. He will get down on your level and let you cry it out in His arms until your hurt melts away in His presence and He fills you again with His courage and the strength that comes when you feel so absolutely loved and accepted.
He welcomes and anticipates your needs and wants to be the One you ask for help, no matter how minuscule or great your problems may seem. I have a few friends that I know I can ask for help if I need it and they are happy to give it if they can. But some of my friends are so close to me that if I did not ask them to help when I needed it they would be upset with me for not asking.
God is that kind of friend.
The Lord is truly blessed when He's the One you run to with your pain, or worries. Yes, He is thrilled and happy to be the One you seek after when you are in trouble. Once you've turned to Him His heart is engaged in your need and He cannot possibly turn away. His heart won't let Him. It's simply impossible for Him to do so. He is influenced by the intimacy He's experienced with you. It's His relationship with you that makes it impossible for Him to turn away from you.
Fishing in Poofy Dresses
When I was a little girl my parents lived and worked at a Christian camp in Minnesota and during the time we lived there we had very little. We were so poor that most all our clothing came from donations made to the camp.
In one such batch of donations came an old prom dress from the 50s. It was big, blue and poofy, but that old dress brought me a lot of joy. I wore it anytime I wasn't in school or church. I even slept in it. When I wasn't wearing it I carried it with me. To a girl who had almost nothing, it became a priceless treasure.
As I told you, I took my poofy dress everywhere and one day I brought it with us when my older brother Danny and I went fishing with a group of our friends. I'd played with it by the lake for some time then laid it down on the dock and went back to fishing with my friends. I was busy and not paying attention to it, and when my back was turned the wind picked up the dress and blew it into the lake.
By the time I noticed it, it was quickly sinking into the dark murky brown water. I screamed for help, because I was not a good swimmer. I couldn't go after it myself. And I saw my precious dress sinking out of view down to the bottom of the lake and there was nothing I could do about it.
I turned to my friends for help and they ridiculed my panic, "It's just a stupid dress," they said. And I knew they were right, but it was my stupid dress and it meant a lot to me. None of my friends would help me; they just stood there and watched it sink. I started to cry.
My brother stood there with our friends watching the dress sink, but then turned to me and saw me crying and I saw his head drop. He didn't want to jump into the lake with all his clothes on, in front of his friends and save my dumb old dress, but he loved me. He thought my dress was stupid and he hated that I drug it around everywhere with us, but he loved me. And I was crying.
He heaved a sigh and jumped in the lake. Yes, he swam out and saved that dumb old dress. Just for me. Because he was my brother and he loved me. My tears and my panic influenced him, but it was our relationship that obligated him to help me. And, dear friend that is how God feels about you.
He cares about everything in your life, every situation, good or bad, He wants to be there to walk through it with you. And He will do whatever it takes to defend you. He wants the absolute best for you.
His love for you moves Him to change your situation, there's no greater friend. God has promised He will never leave you or forsake you (Hebrews 13:5), to help you with things that may have no other value than that they concern you.
I Know You by Name
Moses' relationship with God was so profoundly intimate it empowered him with confidence to rely on God for help in any circumstance. God stayed close to Moses his entire life. He comforted him when he felt hurt or when he'd been rejected. God felt it keenly when Moses experienced feelings of inadequacy or when he was afraid. He was familiar with every aspect of Moses' life and loved Him deeply. He was intimately acquainted with Moses and knew Him better than he knew himself.
Though Moses had a heart to rescue his people, he really had no way to grasp the scope of his true purpose on this earth. He was driven into the desert and rebuilt by God's design. God needed a deliverer for His people, but their relationship became much more than that. In God, Moses found much more than his Lord, he found an incredible Friend.
Moses was confident in God's love for him and knew he meant more to Him than a mere servant. And because of their relationship Moses did not shy away from influencing Him to help the people of Israel. When Moses cried out for mercy for them, how could God say no to him, it meant everything to Him that Moses felt he could come directly to Him and boldly ask for His mercy.
Together God and Moses delivered the people of Israel from their captors, but while Moses was walking with Him an equally important event was taking place. A deep friendship was formed between them. Of all the people mentioned in the Bible, Moses is the one the Lord speaks of with great intimacy.
When Aaron and Miriam criticized Moses because of his wife, God was deeply offended by their behavior towards His friend and punished them for it. He spoke to them and said:
"Of all of My house, he is the one I trust. I speak to him face to face, clearly, not in riddles! He sees the Lord as he is. So why were you not afraid to criticize my servant Moses?" Numbers 12:7-8.
Moses' feelings towards God were equally as intimate; their relationship was so profoundly personal that Moses wanted much more to know God than he wanted blessings from Him. In Exodus 33:12-13 NLT, Moses said to God, "You have told me, 'I know you by name, and I look favorably on you.' If it is true that You look favorably on me, let me know Your ways so I may understand You more fully and continue to enjoy Your favor."
Drawing on the relationship they'd built together, Moses asked God a favor. And what, of all that Moses could think to ask, did he want? What he wanted was more of Him; he wanted to know God more fully so he could serve Him better. It is no wonder why God loved him so much.
In Exodus 32, the people of Israel had sinned against God and He was deeply grieved because of their sin, so Moses interceded for them. Their relationship had grown to such a degree that Moses was confident in God's affection for him and used it to help Israel - he used the influence he had with Him to keep God from destroying them.
He spoke to Him and said, "Oh, what a terrible sin these people have committed. They have made gods of gold for themselves. But now, if You will only forgive their sin - but if not, erase my name from the record You have written!" (Exodus 32:31-32 NLT emphasis mine).
Truly, God was influenced by Moses' devotion to Him and to the Israelites, so He agreed to Moses' request and through him a nation was spared. He chose to find his delight, not in leading a nation, but in loving his God. He wanted to do more than serve God, He wanted to know Him and love Him - he built a friendship with Him. That friendship was so dear to God it turned His heart and saved a nation. "Therefore He said that He would destroy them, had not Moses, His chosen one stood in the breach before Him, to turn away His wrath from destroying them" (Psalm 106:23).
Confident in God
God desires to develop relationships with His children - it's His desire.
And He seeks out those who want Him. Those who will relate to Him with childlike faith and trust; my mother was like that.
I don't think I've known anyone who had a relationship with God like she did. From the time I was very small, after everyone went to bed, she would stay up late into the night and worship God. Always with her Bible in her lap, you would find her loving Him and treasuring the time she had with Him; it was their time together.
She enjoyed God and He enjoyed her, you could just tell. But as her daughter it wasn't always easy being a child of a woman who was so close to Him, because God is a "tattletale." I can't tell you how many times, one of us kids would be doing something we shouldn't be and God would tell my mom about it.
I remember one night, it was the night of the big basketball tournament for our High School and I was a cheerleader for the games. My older brother was a wrestler and the wrestlers always drove to the basketball games together and hung out there. My brother was not a Christian in those days, and when he and his friends showed up at the game they were all drunk. When the games ended, I tried to convince my brother not to go with them. I was worried about him riding with people who were so obviously intoxicated. I begged him to go home on the school bus with me, but he refused.
I worried and prayed all the way home that night and when I got home, I ran into the house and found mom in the living room. I ran to her and frantically told her, "Mom! We've got to pray for Dan! He's out with the wrestlers and they're drunk!" She said, in the sweetest calmest voice, "I know, God told me. He'll be all right," she assured me, and smiled her knowing smile. A few minutes later, my brother walked in the door of our house. All was well.
Whenever there was something to worry about, my mom refused to worry, she trusted. She wasn't trusting blindly, she was confident in God because she knew Him.
Knowing Him
Neither Moses nor my Mother are any different than you. What makes their stories unique is they wanted to know Him and experience intimate friendship with Him. And the same intimacy is being offered to you right now. Jesus invites you to share your life with Him, He said, "If you abide in Me the world is yours to rule and reign by My side." Indeed, He said, "If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you" (see John 15:7 NASB)!
As you seek to know Him for who He is and develop a relationship with Him, you will find He'll drench you in His great power and authority to reign with Him as His Bride. You will reign, not in your own strength, but in the power and authority that belongs to you beloved, and you will, like Moses, have authority to influence your heavenly Father to intervene on behalf of those you love.
Your words have great power in the supernatural realm as you abide in Christ. Instead of exhausting yourself screaming at the mountains in your life, you will find that as you join yourself to Christ, you can speak the words in confidence and find your mountain crumbling before you. It is not your words the enemy fears, it is your relationship with Christ that terrifies him. As long as you abide in Him, you have all the power you need.
"As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the Vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me" (John 15:4). The branch is an extension of the Vine and has no purpose apart from being an extension of the Vine - they work together as one. And as you remain in Christ (the Vine) you will experience a natural flow of His power working through you, resulting in much fruit.
As a Christian, it's impossible to produce quality, lasting fruit apart from Christ. The fruit you produce flows directly from Him, because He chooses to flow through you. The quality of the fruit you bear is the evidence of your union with the Vine. That's why relationship with Him needs to be your top priority, even above anything you do for Him.
God loves it when you bear fruit, but the enemy's trick is to get your focus off God and on trying to produce fruit, which will leave you exhausted in your efforts to bear fruit apart from Him. Yet, abiding in Him and His strength, you will stay on course and press through to lasting victory and fruitfulness.
It is so easy to let the cares and concerns of life catch you off guard and eat away at your time spent with Him, but your relationship is a great treasure; it's the sustaining power for everything in your life and must come first. And if you, "seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things [fruit] will be added to you" (Matthew 6:33 emphasis mine).
In any love relationship, time spent with the one you love is the foundation for the passion you feel for each other. Life can seem so urgent, even more pressing then spending time with your Lord. It is a battle to keep Him in His rightful place in your heart, but essential that we fight for the One we love.
Beloved, your hunger to abide in Him daily and your desire to do His will as He asks, will catapult you into your destiny in Him.
Taken from Victoria Boyson's book "His Passionate Pursuit".
Victoria Boyson
Speaking Life Ministries
