We never know what he has in store for us.

I discovered the most beautiful thing. When you are real with people and with jesus about where your heart is, Jesus doesn't leave you there. Earlier today I was talking about how I just wasn't doing so well spiritually and tonight Jesus said,

I dont want you to go to sleep not knowing that I am in love with you for who you are right now, today. If you let me, I will call you Beloved and you will know that you are mine. I have a purpose for you. You are not without a purpose. You are not without work. You matter to me. I have made you a crucial part of my kingdom. You will not be glorified, just as I was not glorified while I was there, but I was able to glorify the father and you are able to glorify me. I have chosen you. You were not my people, and I made you my people. I called you from the farthest corners of the earth, from the depths of Sheol to myself.

Thats what Jesus says to you. Not debatable. Its in the word and the word is truth.

I was just so loved by community tonight and I never expected that is what he had in store for me. And he used all these people to tell me that he loves me and I just think of them and how they are all so spirit led and that God is using them in such sweet ways and that we got to have conversations that drew both of us closer to jesus. Conversations saturated with scripture. I love when someone brings scripture into a conversation. Even if its scripture I know. My mind always tries to say, "I already know that verse/story/parable" and I cast down that thought because all scripture is God breathed and is a double edged sword and God may have something really beautiful and new and fresh or old that I have forgotten to say to me in that scripture. So its a joy to hear it.

And being encouraged makes me thirst to encourage people. Because I see what it does to my heart and I want to see that happen to other peoples hearts as well. If I don't identify myself as Christ's beloved, I cant carry anyone to be his beloved. At least in the way that I can if I do recognize that I am loved. It is when I consume the most grace that I offer the most. When I allow myself to be loved that I can love. If I hadn't been vulnerable and real with Jesus and the blog and myself that I felt really far away from Jesus, I don't think I would have been able to receive this gift tonight. We've got to start bringing our hearts into the light. Thats where real life starts.

Man, Jesus, you are good. You do love me. You do want me to experience full life and you want to speak directly to me through people and speak directly through me to people. You had so much more in mind for today than I did. Let me always be attentive to your plan and the movement of your Spirit because it is right and I am not. What I plant will be uprooted, but what you plant will last forever. It is you, my love, that changes the water into wine. I may fill, I may pour, but it is just water if it is just me. It becomes wine only when you make it wine.