Enough Add-On Religion – Muliplication Of His Love – UNITE Link-Up

Subtract and multiply. My heart wakes with this notion Easter morning, after He whispers to my spirit, “Whatever dies, lives.”

And my conscious, slowly rising, heeds, wrestles with the thought of what we have been taught in some religions. “Live…THEN die.”

And in some places of worship we can learn this type of, “Add-on religion.” We get, we gain, we add-to us, all His goodness.

But, what happened to the notion of man going to a cross? Giving up, sacrificing….new life COSTING something?

Most of my childhood, well-intended people taught me, we can have God and yet remain the same. Nothing about us has to change. All we have to do is tack on, add on, gain from the death and resurrection of Jesus.

But, my life changed, the day I picked up Oswald’s Chamber’s, “My Utmost for His Highest“, and the Bible simutaniously.

It was then I realized, sacrificing opens the doorway to redemption, suffering can lead to beauty, brokenness can live alongside victory when we offer them both to God.

Not all hardships are a sign that God has cursed us. Troubles and trials build strength of character, integrity and humility.

And I pity the person I used to be, despising my own brokenness, fighting and strived for perfection, worried and wearied with this lying notion of my old belief system.

I see her at the tomb. Mary Magdeline. Weeping because the one she loves left her….Or so it seemed.

Her transformation became evident for all to see. Prostitute. Sinner. Plagued with lies and demons…Yet, Jesus delivered her.

And now she loved Him fully, wholey, completey, and only…

He was all her eyes could see.

And can’t you just imagine? The one you love more than anything, here, on the face of this earth, having a spear placed in their side. Mocked, taunted, and bright blood flowing down their face with a crown of thorns placed painful to their head?

And yet, the cross of death? It had no sting. The pain and brokenness, the horrifying crucifiction wasn’t the end of all she’d seen.

Quiet. Still. Waiting. The multiplying victory was ready to spring forth.

And I wonder, do we hate suffering…because somewhere along the way, we felt forced to be perfect, were told or believed, we needed to be our own saviors?

Were we deceived into thinking, if we just strive harder, we can be better, or somehow will ourself to be a good-enough person?

Have we forgotten, there is a Savior who takes away the weight of sin and death? He’s the victory we seek….The sollace for our every tear and scar we have?

She waits. Giving it all to Him. He touches her miraculously. She subtracted the men, the sin, the lust….and abandons her life fully unto Him.

And yet, the waiting. That seperation between the death of ourselves and the resurrection of His coming.

How so many struggle to reconcile, the waiting….

Yet, it is in the waiting, we can become experts at filling the void, race in to relieve our own pain, mistakenly believing….we can do this life alone?

In that pause between death and life, at the tomb of our hardships, at the Passover before the cross of our affliction and the vision of our risen Savior…

We can stop trusting what our eyes haven’t seen, stop believing in His promises, stop leaning on the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world?

Won’t we run to the cross, subtract ourselves and let Him multiply good things in and through us?

The desperate and most needy always find Him.

This morning, before the sun woke up, the light of the moon shown through the moving clouds, glimpses of light streaming into my room.

I feel Him call, like Mary, standing on the side of the tomb, wondering where her Jesus is.  Aching with desperation for the One she loves the most.

There, my Savior reminds me, I don’t need to run to some gravesight, look behind some stone, stay at the cross of my own guilt and pain…

I look to the light, speak audibly in prayer to the One who came and gave me new life and hope.

And yet, all true discipleship requires the subtracted life.

A life so in love with the One who died to give His life, that they take up their crosses and follow Him.

We give, but then He multiplies back to us His goodness, over and over again.

I stand at His tomb and wait. Hearing His voice. Replying with grace and humility, His light rising like the noonday sun.

His hands reach out, showing me His scars, holding this one that has no strength, apart from the God who set her free.

There, He fills me with refreshment and strength. His beauty and resurrected body lives. No grave could ever hold my King.

He longs to give good gifts to His children. Will we open up our hands in a posture of receiving, letting go, giving Him everything…

So we can receive the bounty and beautiful multiplication of His love?

** Each Tuesday, we are gathering here for a link-up called, “UNITE the Bloggersphere”. This isn’t some exclusive club, YOU are welcome to join us! This is how it works….