Increasing Dimensions of Father's Love

When we leave the world of religious performance, deciding that this world does not contain the truth nor the love we long for then we dive into the world of intimacy.  Intimacy (in-to-me-see) requires that we be known and we be willing to expose areas of our heart and life that we may have long been hiding.  An area that Father has recently revealed to me is self-hatred which is the underlying issue of a critical spirit.  I found that I have a critical spirit, which more easily sees the issues, problems, and faults in others because I see the faults deep within myself.  I grew up with the experience of acceptance being a rare reality to experience and only when you did things right.  Needless to say I didn't always do things right and if I didn't I lived in fear that I would do things wrong.  I did what those who experience the weight of the Law often do, they give up and just begin to hide.

As we recently talked in a Leader's Lunch about the coming Revival, I was struck by the reality that Revival is a direct assault on religious performance.  People in the Body can maintain a certain religious performance standard, until all of the sudden you have groups of people coming into the church who don't fit the standard.  We believe we want Revival and thus new people born into the Kingdom but they will not fit our accepted standard.  What if you have people in church who are actively engaged in a homosexual lifestyle, others who are doing drugs, and still others who are involved in occult type practises?  These people have all recently come to Jesus.  I realize that I have dreamed more of Revival, then faced the reality of what it would be like for me personally and for others.

Unfortunately, I have a very active inner Pharisee or church police that tends to raise objections to behavior that I believe is not acceptable.  In my heart I know that these people are accepted by Jesus because of His grace just like I am but truthfully I have looked for acceptance by fitting into the religious culture at times.  This is where self-hatred for how I don't fit or ways that I am not acceptable is hidden underneath.  I would like to contend, that the ways we believe we are not acceptable are ways we don't measure up to the Law of God or more likely the Law in our own minds.  We are not focusing on the New Creation I am "in Christ" but the Old nature which is dead and buried.  Could it be that bringing in new people (even "sinners") that don't measure up to the religious standard is a great way for Father to get the Body cleansed of her religious mindsets of judgments, criticism, performance, and self-hatred.

If we can love ourselves because Jesus loves the most unacceptable parts of us, then we will love our neighbor.  Jesus said it, "Love your neighbor as yourself."  Meaning that I will love my neighbor with the same quality of love I have towards the worst parts of myself.

Accepted in the Beloved,
Bret