Softening

“This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe.”

John 1:7

Referring to John himself, John said that “he came for a witness…” (NKJV) or he came to “bear witness” (KJ).

The Strongest Strongs Concordance shows in this verse that the word

Witness

is really the combination of the two words in the KJ - “bear witness”

#3140 The word is martyreo - and means “to testify”.

 

Through John’s life people saw The Light. Through that testimony.

Have you ever seen a child clean their room where they take everything and push it to the side and make an aisle to get to their bed, dresser, closet, etc, and they say to you, “It’s clean”? That is how we are with the Lord. We are cleaned up enough to function better, sometimes just enough, and then we consider the rest “clean”.

So much repenting is called for in the walk we have with Love Himself. We are drawn to want more love, to need more care, to depend more expensively on Him. Expensive because it costs us to change. It might cost us how we live in front of others, not just what we do or do not do anymore... And it may cost us relationships, or respect, or judgement from others…

Much of what I have been experiencing in my walk with God is Him separating truth from lies about my very life. It is often like my very well being depends on a lie that is exposed by Him, to be let go of by me. And since my life has had levels of disappointment, even to the point where I have been perceived as a disappointment, that separation to live as God has me to live has not been simple.

But I have a good Shepherd Who leads and Who is faithful to His cause in me. (His cause is Love.)

Yes, I have had to disappoint some people because of my sense and understanding of what I have been translated into: Light. So Darkness is not my bag anymore, it is not what I carry. Light has come: the Light of Jesus’ love and His encouragement for me to be joyously released in heart to walk with GREAT peace and contentment: His judgements for me. And anything that is not “of” that Light has lost it’s appeal, it’s savor, it’s draw on my heart.

I say these things by faith as well as by experience. I am big on using faith words that prophecy truth over myself. ...That’s another blog for another day.

Back to Martyreo -

To bear witness has a characteristic depicted in John the Baptist’s life, in John 1:7:

The word says that “through” John many received The Light. “Through” him they received.

There was more here than just a guy dunking people and explaining who he was not. John had something transparent about him, something “more” was happening here than John.

We can easily see in this verse the word for martyr. And if we are reading the bible, we might correrlate Paul’s admonishment with this, that we become living sacrifices. We are to follow the One Who sacrificed all for us, and be like Jesus to also sacrifice… However, we need to put together in our hearts the understanding - That God put upon Jesus the worries, sorrows, pains, and difficulties of this life, all manner of suffering mankind has ever had and will ever have - So that we can be released from the curse, and brought into abundant life.

For in following Jesus, we follow Him through death of the cross INTO Life. There is a glory before us, a promise, a truth that overshadows death even as Jesus’ Life cannot be held by death.

Jesus became the curse. There’s only one curse and that is sin and it’s rewards, it’s paycheck, it’s results in our flesh. He became sin who knew no sin, for us (2 Corinthians 5:21, or rather, God made Jesus sin for us... ), so that - we might become His righteousness. This is not something we can reason out. It is because He said it is. God said this is how HE worked it, and this is how He workds in us when we receive Him as our Savior. We are saved from the curse and all sin and its outworkings / its demanding flow through us. We are saved in our heart of hearts. And HE translates us... from the power of darkness to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. (Collosians 1:12,13).

WE are moved from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of Light of His Dear Son, Jesus Christ. We are supernaturally afforded a new dwelling place: in Jesus. We are brought into the relationship that God has with Jesus. We are brought out of the order of the kingdom of darkness, from the depths of chaos, from the chasms of death, from the sure-fire wantonness of this life, from despicable habits and unholy alliances -- INTO God’s very heart.  

His very heart of hearts is Jesus, the sacrificial Lamb, sent to die for the purpose of making me and you utterly and undeniably FREE.

We are bought with a precious price, His blood. And we are covenanted with before we had anything to offer that covenant, before we knew it even existed, which for sure does not rest on our doings. It is a covenant of love that we have to accept. We accept what is, as God says IT IS, when we accept Jesus.

That is faith. To give up what you think and say and can produce in your own efforts and reasoning, and give up to His thoughts, HIs provision for you. His great and insurmountable love for you. Yes, You cannot get over it! You cannot avoid it! Once you have a glimmer of His love, you are sold, touched, bothered, and bugged by Love to come - take your place - in Jesus to have your life and heart, and in love you suffer the changes love makes on you.

Your heart softens. You become interested in Who Jesus is and whyyy God would do such a wonderful thing for you, to save you, little you with all your participations in sin.

Why would He bother with you? What kind of love can this be???

This is the calling: love. God’s love. This is the way: love, His love. This is the home He has made for you: love, deep love. This is the food He has for you: love, satisfying love. This is the new heart He has for you: love, sacrificial love.

The call is to “be”, to be alive, to exist, to have form and movement in response to HIs love.

And yet the call will take you and me to the cross. The cross of my will first, my indiscretions and missed opportunities to see and do and follow what is right. My will has to yield to His will. This means I have to hear and to participate in relating to my Father and allow for new thoughts, His thoughts, ideas and patterns to over ride mine, thoughts make me new inside. His heart being written on mine. His moving in me mending me and changing me. His will always asking me first… “May I?” For He is gracious. And I am compelled to say “yes”, by His love.

We need all of God. We need Him completely. We were the lost ones, the mixed up ones, the ones that have suffered terrorism and torment and have been cast aside by the curse, pushed out of where we belonged by sin, moved from a high and holy place of walking with God Himself. There is no part of darkness within or without us that can possibly be worth choosing over God’s great love. And this He says to all of us, “choose”. And this He spends His time on, seeking us because He loves us and wants us back, wholly and fully, without reservation.

I pray you will soften your heart and seek Him and refuse your own way, and choose Jesus as the Holy Spirit reveals Him to you. That you will be utterly undone and transformed by His Love, the Only True Love and the Only Way to live - Life Eternal.