Show me what’s breaking your heart, even if it messes me up
I don’t want to know You in part, I want to know You REALLY know You!
I don’t know about you but i feel like this is where I’ve been living lately.
I think something we all have to fight (especially those of us who have been trying to follow Jesus for a long time) is a surface relationship with Christ. Now, I don’t think that anyone “sets out” to have a surface relationship with Christ, but I do think over time, if we are not careful, our walk with Christ can become just that.
That is a really scary thought.
It seems so hard sometimes to make our walk with Christ real and deep and vulnerable because we are so conditioned to accept this physical world that we are a part of for such a short time as our reality.
Our faith becomes routine, it becomes a part of our life that we try to tailor to fit the way we live for the 80 or 90 years we are on this earth. It makes us feel good….until it doesn’t.
Towards the end of his letter to the Philippians, Paul wages war with religion, and surface faith. He talks about his religious upbringing, and how he was so convinced that his faith was more about what he did for God, rather than what God has done for Him. Lord forgive me for the times I have thought and am tempted to think this way.
Read what Paul writes here, it is pretty aggressive but appropriate for a religious climate that breeds a surface level faith… Paul says….
2-6 Steer clear of the barking dogs, those religious busybodies, all bark and no bite. All they’re interested in is appearances—knife-happy circumcisers, I call them. The real believers are the ones the Spirit of God leads to work away at this ministry, filling the air with Christ’s praise as we do it. We couldn’t carry this off by our own efforts, and we know it—even though we can list what many might think are impressive credentials. You know my pedigree: a legitimate birth, circumcised on the eighth day; an Israelite from the elite tribe of Benjamin; a strict and devout adherent to God’s law; a fiery defender of the purity of my religion, even to the point of persecuting the church; a meticulous observer of everything set down in God’s law Book.
7-9 The very credentials these people are waving around as something special, I’m tearing up and throwing out with the trash—along with everything else I used to take credit for. And why? Because of Christ. Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung. I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him. I didn’t want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ—God’s righteousness.
10-11 I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power, be a partner in his suffering, and go all the way with him to death itself. If there was any way to get in on the resurrection from the dead, I wanted to do it.
This week we are going to be singing a new song that talks about just this…. giving up a surface relationship and really taking God at his word, really living like his resurrection power is real and powerful. This weekend we will cry out to God together for Him to renew our minds and challenge the way we view Him and how he loves, and works, and moves, and gives us our being.
It takes a lot of effort and energy to keep up a surface relationship. It’s my prayer that as the Father shows us more and more of who He is, that we will respond like Paul did and say, “It’s nothing I did or could ever do, but It’s everything He did and is continuing to do!”
The song is called “Deep Dive” and It goes like this…
God, I’m cavin’ in to Your beckoning
I can sense the call of Your Spirit
It’s a still small voice, but I hear it
Lead me in Your ways, breathe upon my faith
There’s a place where there are no limits
And You won’t relent ’til I’m in it
You don’t want a surface relationship
You want more than this
Take me on a deep dive, deep dive into Your heart
Show me every detail, unveil all that You are
All that You are
Come and show us
Every part of Your heart
We sing this
Into the unknown, Father, come and show
That Your Spirit’s never been hiding
It’s the faithful ones that keep finding
Oh, I don’t want a surface relationship
I want more than this
Take me on a deep dive, deep dive into Your heart
Show me every detail, unveil all that You are
Take me on a deep dive, deep dive into Your heart
Show me every detail, unveil all that You are
All that You are, yes
All that You are, all that You are
Oh, new hearts and new depths
Show me what’s breaking Your heart
Even if it messes me up
’Cause I don’t wanna know You in part
I wanna know You, really know You
Don’t wanna reach the end of my life
Knowing there was more I could find
Oh, I don’t wanna know You in part
I wanna know You, really know you!
Pretty powerful stuff huh? Take a listen to it here and let’s worship together this weekend and tell the creator of the universe that we really want to know Him! I don’t think he will disappoint 