Over Taken

I remember the days when I was absolutely smitten with my husband, those early days when my every thought was punctuated with him. When I rose in the morning my first thoughts turned to him, and my mind would whirl all day long with pieces of the moments we shared. I was head over heels with him. Over taken with a love for this man, a love I had never known before. If I asked you if you knew such a time in your own life, you could most likely echo back to me your own remembrances of being smitten. We know those feelings well. A love that transforms us, it causes us to be filled with happiness and brings a skip to our step.

I want to talk about a different love, a love so perfect and complete, a love that never disappoints our pushes us away. This is the love of Jesus. I have been over taken by it. It has become like a consuming fire in my very spirit.
I remember as a child of about 8 years old asking Jesus into my heart. I can still picture sitting in a room in my old church, with a couple of other young girls saying the words of the prayer. I lived years with Jesus as my Savior. I did my best to follow the example set by other older woman. I tried my hardest to change my behavior. Usually failing, and failing badly. I walked around holding a sign that said “Christian”, but I was not over taken.

There is no behavior modification plan I could put in place that would fill my heart. It took being in a place where I could do nothing myself to fix my brokenness, hearing about Jesus that loved me so completely even though I couldn't fix what was wrong, and believing that God was who He said he was before I bent the knee, both literally and figuratively. As I was studying a Beth Moore bible Study on “believing God” that’s when it happened. I climbed out of my chair and hit my knees. I asked him to fill me, to reveal himself to me. Just like those first few months after meeting my husband, that feeling of being smitten over came me. A love that had not let me go as a young child, was now alive and active in my being. I hungered for time with Him. I found myself having a love for His word, I would dig and search out a morsel of truth at a time. I wanted to know Him, to see Him for who He was.

Submitting my empty behavioral modification plan to him was one of the hardest things I have ever done. I had to stop believing that I was in control and could handle my own sanctification process. That all consuming love became the catalyst of turning it all over to Him. Off the throne; daily became my prayer. Jesus was no longer a part of my life, He was and is my life.

1 Peter 1: 18 – 23
18For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, 19but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. 20He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. 21Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.
22Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart.[b] 23For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.

I am so very thankful that Jesus has over taken me, that His love has redeemed me from an empty life. When you and I try in our own strengthen to change, it is a lie and it is empty. He longs to fill us with His complete love, a love that will over take us. When we try to live a ‘godly’ life with out being over taken by the Spirit of God and filled with Him. We live a lie, produced by self. Submitting to the work of the Spirit is the only thing that can produce a life worthy of the name Christian. Time to drop the sign and live in the Spirit. Be over taken by Him.