For my cleanse notes of the day, let me say that I was bouncing off the walls today. Usually on my day off, I'm sleepy and honestly kind of lethargic, always looking for a reason not to get up. But today I looked for reasons not to sit down (errands with Jordan, the rain stopping and the bonus TRX class being good ones).
Now onto the stuff.
I wanted this picture to show my herbal tea (cleanser), my Bible (pursuer of Jesus), my journal (thinker and writer), my computer (blogger), guitar (worshiper), and yoga mat (yoga practicer) because of all the identities these things capture.
I love my pastor and think pretty much everything he preaches is inspired, but I have two sermons that I've been mulling over lately.
The first, Remember Jesus Christ, is one I have listened to well over a dozen times, sometimes more than once in a week. For a girl who has this Scripture memorized - not to mention wrote for 31 days on the subject and has the words "Remember Jesus" tattooed on her - that I love this sermon is no surprise. If you listen to one Anchor Church sermon ever, make it this one. Please. It is so basic, and that's what makes it so important and vital to the Christian life. In the beginning, Pastor Andrew shares a story from when he was listening to Bruce Springsteen and he heard the boss say "I want to change my hair my clothes and my face". And Andrew realized that you can change all those things - you can move, you can change your job, you can eat paleo or vegan or whatever - but at the end of the day, you're still you. And Jesus is the only one who can make a dead heart come alive. He transforms your whole mind by renewing it day by day. It doesn't matter how good or bad you are, what matters is that He's chosen you and He's going to bring His work to completion no matter what, because Jesus Christ has made you His and He is faithful because He cannot deny Himself.
The second, God's Program for Change: Jesus was actually preached the week before I first attended Anchor. I've only listened to it once, but I would like to again soon, because of how poignant it was to me. I listened to it right before we started the cleanse in order to center myself. We live in such a strange dichotomy because we are to be in the world and not of it. We are in the flesh, but the Holy Spirit dwells inside of us. We are already saved and not yet redeemed fully. We are in the present and look to the future. The point of the message is that if we rely on anything but God to save us, it's futile. It's dust in the wind, a mist that vanishes at dawn. But for our hope to be built on nothing less but Jesus' blood at righteousness, this is the power that saves, that renews, that transforms.
Which brings me to the constant checks I'm asking myself as I continue to make earthly changes and feel great about them. The biggest question I bring to God in prayer every day has to do with asking Him to check my heart. Is what I'm doing help me see Him and know Him and trust Him and love Him more? So far, I have been so moved by God as Creator in a way that I hadn't been prior to the last year or so. I pour over the creation account and the Lord's directions for Adam and Eve. I see how God has made our bodies so wisely, so profoundly beautifully, so full, so complete. And yes, we bear the effects of the fall, but I also see how creation, while it groans together, it also heals together. I love seeing how treating my body well helps it function better, just one more simple thing that God knew and we rejected, thinking we knew better.
The second that my life as an athlete, as a vegan, as a cleanser, as a lover of natural remedies starts pulling me away from Jesus so that I forget Him like Israel as described in Hosea 2, is the second I need to come back. I want my identity to be so wrapped up in Jesus that everything else is just a side dish that I could give up joyfully if He showed me it was hurting my relationship with Him. I want to be soft to Jesus, so that worship can come naturally and Bible reading can be a joy and talking to Him can be a conversation that never stops.
This afternoon I felt so led to play a song I hadn't played in...months? I didn't even know where the chords were, and yet, my fingers just started playing them. My voice found the words, and I just played. I want this to continue - to be so in step with Jesus, so ready to sing His praise, that it just flows out. I want this always to be my song -
My faith has found a resting place
Not in device or creed
I trust the Everliving One
His wounds for me shall plead
Refrain: I need no other argument/I need no other plea/It is enough that Jesus died/And that He died for me
Enough for me that Jesus saves
This ends my fear and doubt
A sinful soul I come to Him
He'll never cast me out.
Refrain
My heart is leaning on the Word
The written Word of God
Salvation by my Savior's name
Salvation thru His blood
Refrain
My great Physician heals the sick
The lost He came to save
For me His precious blood He shed
For me His life He gave
Refrain
And I want to lean into this promise - I want to breathe it and trust it and live it -
Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and teach his brother, saying 'Know the Lord', for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. Jeremiah 31:31-34
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