Some Thoughts...

Hello Friends,

The past few months of this study have been so special to me. I love reading all of your thoughts and learning from the things that you are learning, and continuing to grow in fellowship with you all despite being miles apart. That being said, I am terrible at posting my own thoughts out of an unwillingness to be vulnerable with you all, and I am hoping that I can call on each of you to continue to hold me accountable to blogging, to sharing my thoughts and learning to be vulnerable so that God can continue to work in my heart as I engage with the text and share my thoughts with this “cyber small group.”

Lately God and I have been on this journey of self-revelation, looking at the condition of my heart and peeling back the blackened and calloused bits so that He can fully invade every aspect of my being. This has been just a little scary (not a little, a lot) as this process of journeying to a deeper level of intimacy with Christ progresses…I’m not the best with growing with people, let alone the Creator of the universe who already know every aspect of my black heart, and loves me despite that fact. One thing that has been jumping out to me through the pages of D on the E and the book of Revelation itself is that fact that we are marked people. We are either marked with the blood of the lamb or the beast. I’m finding that I long not just to be marked with the blood of the lamb, but to be bathed in it, fully consumed and wrapped up in it, and I fear that people wont see that as I go about my day.

I was comforted however by the words the Darrell (yeah, we’re on a first name basis now) shared a few chapters back. He writes, “People see something different about us. They look at us and yes, see our brokenness, but they also see the lamb and his Father. They see something about the goodness and holiness of the father and something of the sacrificial love of the savior,” (p. 188). Wow. These words jumped off the page for me in that as I interact with people, the Lord is allowing them to see that I am, in fact marked. It has nothing to do with me and my character, but everything to do with Christ and his character working in me and through me. Christ, may the words of my mouth and thoughts in my mind and the condition of my heart reflect you. May my life be one that is worthy of Your calling and Your gospel. May I not lean on my own strength and wisdom, but may I be seen as foolish to the world so that I be relying on Your wisdom and not my own.

On the same page Darrell writes, “To have the name written on oneself is to have a ‘character’ or personality, imprinted into one’s being.” Reading through chapter 20 last night I came across this quotation, which opened my eyes once again to the fact that my life is really not my own. “…name is a way of saying character. In the first century if you knew a person’s name, you knew their ‘character.’ The mark of Jesus Christ is that character of Jesus Christ sealed on us and in us by the Holy Spirit whom he sends to live on us and in us.”

Mind. Blown. Everything that is “me,” my identity, character, name, is not even “me,” but rather the mark of Christ sealed in me by the Holy Spirit who has been sent to live in me. I am not even me, but rather a walking representation of Christ’s name and character. My prayer is this, that I (we) would continue to live out life as marked people, marked with the blood of the lamb, and not my (our) identity in anything other than the lamb Himself; may I (we) not be ashamed of that mark, and may I (we) walk around expecting to be targeted, and be willing to share what that target is, the glorious and hope filled gospel of Christ our King!

Know that I am praying for each and everyone of you!

-Kurty