“I want to be in your court,” stated two year old Thomas again flatly. I wasn’t understanding and he was clearly frustrated. His mom and I had taken him to see two sisters, students of mine, play basketball a few weeks before so I assumed he was remembering and wanted to talk about that, but he climbed down from where we were reading in the rocker upstairs, collected another stack of books and climbed back up. I reached for the top book and using both hands, opened the page to start a new story.
My rocker is big enough for him to sit beside me. His continued agitation told me he preferred to be in my lap, but something still wasn’t right. He angled his little body toward the center, blocking my view of the page. “I can’t read the words if I can’t see them, sweet boy,” I cajoled, shifting him toward my non-dominant left. As soon as my arm encircled him, he reached over it so that I held him underneath his left arm. He settled down immediately, ready for another story. He was in my court at last.
Thomas knew exactly what he wanted and he communicated it the best way he knew how. I just didn’t pick up on his body language for trying to interpret his words. Once it was obvious that he wasn’t talking about basketball, I began to look for another explanation. As he cuddled into the crook of my arm to continue reading, I asked, “Is this Lolly’s court?” His smile was all the answer I needed.
The entire incident lasted only a matter of minutes before we came into agreement but in my experience, a simple misunderstanding can cost far more than a few minutes of uncomfortableness in the world of adulting. I love Thomas and I was determined to find out what he needed and accommodate him if it was in my power to do so. You have a Heavenly Father who loves you far more than I am capable of loving my precious grandson and His power is limitless. When was the last time you were in His court?
“Shout with joy to the Lord, all the earth!
Worship the Lord with gladness.
Come before him, singing with joy.
Acknowledge that the Lord is God!
He made us, and we are his.
We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise.
Give thanks to him and praise his name.
For the Lord is good.
His unfailing love continues forever, and his faithfulness continues to each generation.”
Psalms 100:1-5 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/psa.100.1-5.NLT
Thomas said court and I pictured a basketball arena. You may think of something entirely different. The Psalmist pictured the hall of a great king where his loyal subjects could come into his presence to honor him, to seek his counsel, or to celebrate with him. Servants would have attended him and soldiers guarded him.
Our mental images are marked by our own experiences. For instance, we tend to assume someone’s response to our request will be in line with how we’ve been answered before or on with what our own response might be under the circumstances. I shared in a previous entry, Can I Trust You?, how the actions of one person predisposed me to distrust all men. Our perceptions are definitely colored by our experiences, good or bad, but especially when we are uncomfortable.
Instead of introspection, our human tendency is to look outward when confronted by the commands of Scripture. I can quickly think of someone else who is trespassing but I am called to step into the Light of Christ, the living Word of God, so that my own deeds may be seen for what they are; not so that I will live guilt-ridden but so that I can be cleansed of all unrighteousness and begin to walk in the freedom and abundance for which I was made.
“But if we freely admit our sins when his light uncovers them, he will be faithful to forgive us every time.
God is just to forgive us our sins because of Christ, and he will continue to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
1 John 1:9 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/1jn.1.9.TPT
That deeper work is referred to as sanctification. When God says He is making all things new, He includes me and you. We are in desperate need of a makeover but until we recognize this fact, we remain unregenerate. We look in the mirror and see an illusion.
“But don’t just listen to God’s word.
You must do what it says.
Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.
For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror.
You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like.
But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.”
James 1:22-25 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/jas.1.22-25.NLT
To illustrate my point, consider this oft ignored passage from the apostle Paul.
“Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting for those who belong to the Lord.
Husbands, love your wives and never treat them harshly.”
Colossians 3:18-19 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/col.3.18-19.NLT
Right away, the wife begins to think of the shortcomings of her husband while the husband considers the disrespect of his wife. This is human nature, inherent since the Fall. It is only overcome by new life in the Spirit. It also illustrates the danger of taking scripture out of context, of bending it to suit our own purposes. Paul elsewhere expounds on this teaching, his goal always to exalt Christ over culture. God’s purpose is for marriage to reflect the union of Christ and the church, becoming an enticing invitation to the watching world into His glorious Kingdom.
“And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord.
For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church.
He is the Savior of his body, the church.
As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything.
For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church.
He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word.
He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish.
Instead, she will be holy and without fault.
In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies.
For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself.
No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church.
And we are members of his body.
As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.”
This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one.
So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”
Ephesians 5:21-33 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/eph.5.21-33.NLT
“Don’t you wives realize that your husbands might be saved because of you?
And don’t you husbands realize that your wives might be saved because of you?”
1 Corinthians 7:16 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/1co.7.16.NLT
When we read scripture with our eyes on the perfection of God, we will begin to recognize imperfections in self. We are never to compare ourselves to others, only to Christ. Then we will easily see how we fall short of God’s glorious standard. We will learn to accept and appreciate God’s gift of salvation and by the time our gaze turns outward, we will see His image in those around us and yearn for them to know Him with the kind of jealous love that God possesses.
“Does the Scripture mean nothing to you that says, “The Spirit that God breathed into our hearts is a jealous Lover who intensely desires to have more and more of us”?”
James 4:5 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/jas.4.5.TPT
Search the scriptures diligently. By all means, sit under sound teaching and search out Truth but remember your true purpose- to commune with your Creator as His dearly loved child, to seek His good gifts of forgiveness and grace, to find counsel and direction for daily living, and to be made more like His firstborn, Jesus. Find yourself in scripture. Have the hard conversations with God about your hurt, your habits, and your heart. Only in surrender, by humbly seeking God in spirit and in truth, can true freedom and abundance be found in this world and the world to come.
“And have clothed yourselves with the new [spiritual self], which is [ever in the process of being] renewed and remolded into [fuller and more perfect knowledge upon] knowledge after the image (the likeness) of Him Who created it. [Gen. 1:26.]”
Colossians 3:10 AMPC
https://bible.com/bible/8/col.3.10.AMPC
Jesus constantly called the religious leaders and teachers of the Law in His day to account for judging without mercy and for adding to God’s law, setting up unrealistic standards that they weren’t keeping themselves. Rather than hearing Him and recognizing who He was, they continually questioned him, not from a desire to know, but in order to trap Him in some inconsistency.
“As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery.
They put her in front of the crowd.
“Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”
They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger.
They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!”
Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.
When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman.
Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”
“No, Lord,” she said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”
Jesus spoke to the people once more and said, “I am the light of the world.
If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.””
John 8:3-12 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/jhn.8.3-12.NLT
Jesus, being God, confronts sin face to face. I can intercede on behalf of someone else, but I can only confess for myself. The sin of self-righteousness and the sin of adultery both transgress God’s law. Both require confession and repentance, and both find pardon in Christ alone.
““Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. For you will be treated as you treat others.
The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged.
And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own?
How can you think of saying to your friend, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye?
Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.”
Matthew 7:1-5 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/mat.7.1-5.NLT
“If someone claims, “I know God,” but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and is not living in the truth.
But those who obey God’s word truly show how completely they love him.
That is how we know we are living in him.
Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did.
Dear friends, I am not writing a new commandment for you; rather it is an old one you have had from the very beginning.
This old commandment—to love one another—is the same message you heard before.
Yet it is also new.
Jesus lived the truth of this commandment, and you also are living it.
For the darkness is disappearing, and the true light is already shining.”
1 John 2:4-8 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/1jn.2.8.NLT
“Don’t you realize that grace frees you to choose your own master?
But choose carefully, for you surrender yourself to become a servant—bound to the one you choose to obey.
If you choose to love sin, it will become your master, and it will own you and reward you with death.
But if you choose to love and obey God, he will lead you into perfect righteousness.”
Romans 6:16 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/rom.6.16.TPT
“Loving God means keeping his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome.
For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith.
And who can win this battle against the world?
Only those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God.”
1 John 5:3-5 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/1jn.5.5.NLT
The Spirit of God convicts and empowers obedience because He knows the joy that awaits on the other side.
“Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on?
It means we’d better get on with it.
Strip down, start running—and never quit!
No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins.
Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in.
Study how he did it.
Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever.
And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God.
When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through.
That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!”
Hebrews 12:1-3 MSG
https://bible.com/bible/97/heb.12.1-3.MSG
“The instructions of the Lord are perfect, reviving the soul.
The decrees of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple.
The commandments of the Lord are right, bringing joy to the heart.
The commands of the Lord are clear, giving insight for living.
Reverence for the Lord is pure, lasting forever.
The laws of the Lord are true; each one is fair.
They are more desirable than gold, even the finest gold.
They are sweeter than honey, even honey dripping from the comb.
They are a warning to your servant, a great reward for those who obey them.
How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart?
Cleanse me from these hidden faults.
Keep your servant from deliberate sins!
Don’t let them control me.
Then I will be free of guilt and innocent of great sin.”
Psalms 19:7-13 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/psa.19.7-13.NLT
“God, I invite your searching gaze into my heart.
Examine me through and through; find out everything that may be hidden within me.
Put me to the test and sift through all my anxious cares.
See if there is any path of pain I’m walking on, and lead me back to your glorious, everlasting way— the path that brings me back to you.”
Psalms 139:23-24 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/psa.139.23-24.TPT
Do you know the Truth? Do you know Jesus? If you do, He promised His Truth will set you free. To know Him is to love Him. He is the living Word. He is the Way. He is the Truth. He is the Life. He is the perfect Light of Truth that shines upon everyone. Hear His voice. Seek His face. Take Him at his Word.
Cody Carnes TAKE HIM AT HIS WORD https://youtu.be/HDrPjtkowpI?si=FOAXRHW6zR7MZCRu
Brandon Lake MIRACLE CHILD https://youtu.be/ndVay3Obb3k?si=rmzx_A1AGkAES4Gs
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