Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free...

Hello dear blogging friends,

Well I'm here at the Master's College. The Lord is good! It's been a crazy first three weeks or so.  Adjusting to living away from home for the first time, meeting new people, figuring out what church to call "home", going to classes, and attempting to stay on top of homework.  God has been very gracious to me though, He's been teaching me so much, I'm a blessed girl. 

One over arching thing He has really been teaching me from His Word, through conversations with people I have met, and in sermons the last couple weeks is the depth of His love.  Dear friends, it may seem like an odd thing to some of you who have maybe walked with the Lord for a long time, but I have realized that in my short almost 3 years of being a Christian I have scarcely really stopped to think about the dept of God's love.  Yes, I thought about it during the first moments when the Spirit enlightened my eyes, and God saved me, and I thought about it in the weeks, and maybe few months after that.  However, as time went on I stopped thinking about it on a regular basis.  I did not realize the effect of this "forgetting" had done to my soul until this summer.  God first started to reveal it to me during the Resolved conference in June when C.J. Mahaney preached a sermon from Jude, and the topic was on God's love, and how when we doubt God's love for us, it grieves Him more than anything else.  That was when God first began to remind me to focus on His deep love. 

So now, in these first few weeks at Master's that has been the huge thing God has been teaching me, and working in my heart.  I realized that I do not understand God's love, and that I do so often struggle with believing that God really does love me.  I try to base everything off myself and my performance for Him, because I want to be independent, and I want to be able to boast in my own stregnth.  I'm a prideful girl.  I have confessed this sin to the Lord, asked for forgiveness, and asked for Him to transform this area of my life.  Because I know that without the power of His Spirit and without a total dependence of Him I won't be able to change.  I do know that in Philippians it says to work out my salvation with fear and trembling, BUT it says right afterward that it is God who works in me both to will and work for His good pleasure.  So, with so much dependence on His grace, and His Spirit I have been reading Ephesians, specifically focusing on Chapters 1-3, as well as 1 Peter, and specifically asking that God would remind me of the depth of His love, and help me to believe it with all my heart! I know that the depth of His love is displayed in the gospel, so along with that I've been reading a book that my RA here so graciously lent me called "Because He loves me", and in it the author says we must remind ourselves of the gospel in our daily lives.  Remind ourselves of Christ incarnation, His sinless life, His death, His resurrection, and the fact that He now reigns and is coming back for His own! So my dear friends, by His grace I've been reminding myself of that as often as I can, but I still struggle! So please if you think of it be praying for me. 

How or why would I doubt or struggle so much with God's love for me, when He before the foundation of the world purposed to love me, and save me, and CRUSH His Son pouring out the wrath that I deserved on Him on the cross.  Why I would doubt His love I do not know! My faith is weak! And it frustrates me greatly! I'm thankful to the Lord though because I know He is at work, I'm clinging to His promise in Philippians 1:6 that He will bring to completion the work that He has begun.  I have to admit that I so often find myself relating well with Paul when he says in Romans "Oh wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" I can totally relate to that, but the glorious thing is the following verses;

^"25Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin

¹There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus"

(Romans 7:24-25, 8:1)

If you think of it please do be praying for me as I struggle in this area.  I no longer want to grieve the Lord by so often doubting His love for me, when it is so obviously displayed in the gospel! Also, please do pray for wisdom and guidance for me as to which church to make my "home" church while hear at school.  There are two that I'm so very torn between right now! One of which I'm more inclined to than the other, but I'm also still torn, and don't want to make hasty decision.  I'm so thankful God gives wisdom and guidance when we ask for it, because I definitely need it!

Blessings my dear friends.  Here are some verses that have left me amazed lately;

^"14For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, ¹⁵from whom every family^[c] in heaven and on earth is named, ¹⁶that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, ¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, ¹⁹and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."

- Ephesians 3:14-19

" ³ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, ⁵who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. ⁶In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, ⁷so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. ⁸ Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, ⁹obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls."

- 1 Peter 1:3-9

^"23Thus says the LORD: "Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, ²⁴but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.""

-Jeremiah 9:23-24

May God bless you, and may you know His love for you.

For His glory,

Willa