God is looking for laid down lovers; a people who are willing to go anywhere, do anything, lay down their very lives if necessary to follow Him. His heart has been waiting for a group of people completely sold out; people who look more into His eternal face than at the temporary fixes this world has to offer. His heart yearns for a people who say “yes” whatever the cost. He laid down everything: His rights, His godly attributes of omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence to be with us. He emptied Himself and became obedient to the point of death… a most gruesome death, hanging on a cross after being betrayed and abandoned and beaten and mocked and scourged and for the first and last time in history, separated from His Father, the very essence of Himself.
He calls out: Who will go for Us? Who is willing to lay down whatever it takes to pierce and expose the darkness of this world for what it is?
His heart yearns for you to know Him. His heart yearns to give you every bit of your inheritance. He waits. Who will go? Who will say “yes” to Him? This generation has a call like none before it. Sin has increased and become so easily accessible. The truth has become twisted and His heart aches as He watches those He gave everything for, give everything to idols and sin and relationships whose ends lead to destruction; maybe not eternal destruction, but a destruction of the soul because sin will take its toll.
He paid so great a price; He gave it all and He is asking you to do the same. Not because He has some longing to control you, but because He knows the greatest life that exists for you is the one where you are so woven into His heart you don’t even need to question the next step, you naturally move in unison with Him.
Let Him love you. Let Him have His way. Listen to His heart and how it is calling you; wooing you. Recognize the deceptions that lay all around you that lead to nothingness. Their reward is temporary and ultimately meaningless. But when you delight in Him, He will give you the desires of your heart because when you delight in Him… He becomes the desire of your heart for He is the desire of the nations.
He calls you by name. He knows you more than anyone on this earth will ever know you. He knows the plans that He has for you and they are to prosper you and give you a hope and a future. His thoughts of you are more than all the sands on all the seashores. The very hairs of your head are numbered. Why does He even tell us that? Because He wants us to know His nearness; He wants us to realize His intimacy and His unfailing love.
The enemy also has a plan for your life… it is to kill, steal and destroy and he will use every scheme and plan to keep you from realizing your calling. He will distract you with good things and good people. He will offer you water from so many sources, but none of them will quench your thirst. You will need to go again and again and all the while He waits. Jesus waits to give you living water so you will never thirst again.
His longing is for you and whether you know it or not and whether you choose to submit to it or not, your longing is for Him. He is looking for laid down lovers… those who will follow Him anywhere, through anything. Will you say “yes” to the call He has on your life. Will you say “yes” to lay down everything for the Pearl of great price? He is the Treasure. Nothing else will satisfy. Nothing else will quench your soul.
He did not come and give His life a ransom for many so that we could go to church on Sunday. He came to seek and save those who were lost; those who were perishing. He came to restore you back to your original purpose. Then as He died and we were crucified with Him and He was buried and we were buried with Him and He was raised and we were raised with Him and seated with Him in heavenly places, He said “Go into all the world and tell them the good news of what I have done”.
We live in a world that is dying. Look around at the faces of the people. What do you see? Despair, darkness, distrust, disorder, loneliness, hurt, selfishness, protection, people rushing around and going nowhere. There is such a deception among men. Don Finto recently spoke of God’s people allowing life to take them along instead of them taking up their lives with direction and purpose. Are you being driven along by the world and busyness and by what you think you need… or are you truly loving God and loving others?
I see a picture of someone standing in the surf of the sea and being tossed about. Their knees are getting bloodied by the sand and shells beneath the surface of the water. This is what happens when life takes us. But Jesus walked on water; He commanded the sea to be still and it became perfectly calm. We can let the sea take authority over us and over our lives and we can live with it drawing us in and out, sweeping us under with the current, or we can walk on the water in Him. Laid down lovers live in the authority that walks on water. We may not do it perfectly, but we press on to take hold of That which took hold of us.
His desire burns for you. This generation has been set apart for such a time as this. He will not take away your choice. He will not force your hand… if that was His will from the beginning there would be no Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden. From eternity, He has wanted your love which cannot be love without choice. He who is Love is wooing you and calling you. Will you say “yes”?
God, make us a people who will follow you anywhere. We long to live in the place where we know You as Savior, Lord and Life. Lord, we want more of You at any cost, we’ll pay any price.