"Everything" by Lifehouse

I need you to watch the video that I have attached. A friend of mine sent it to me a while back, and I find it just incredible. From my perspective I see a girl, adored by her loving creator. He teaches her to dance with freedom, shows her the “abundant” life. She really loves it, she loves him. She dances around in awe and wonderment. She knows true joy.

Then, sin approaches. It is the world knocking at her door. She didn’t really go looking for it. In spite of this beautiful Saviour she dances, what seems like the same dance, with evil. It seduces her first with love, attention, probably sex. She is still dancing, but confused. Then money and power are thrown at her feet. She frantically scampers around to catch the money that has fallen to the floor. She is desperate for it. Then she is introduced to vices, like alcohol… things that make her feel better... but it isn’t enough. Then enticed by beauty yet also condemned, she meets this beautiful woman who I think represents perfection. Alas, all of these other things lead her into darkness. She cuts herself, to numb the pain. Then it seems she is hopeless and bound. She reaches for a way to end it. No more chains.

But, she remembers the dance. The freedom. She desires it above all other things. She turns back to the source of that peace she once felt. But so many things are in her way... so many temptations, sins, disappointments, failures, addictions. But, she is sure. She is desperate for it. So she fights! She suffers. She is beaten and pulled. She wants to turn her back on those things that magnetized her to the darkness. She can not do it herself. Like a hero, he ferociously, defends her. He then takes her place and fights for her. He saves her from their attack. He holds them off with his two hands and in one move he destroys them. He destroys the power they have over her life. She then trusts and relies on the source of that great power... for the power to be free. She is free because he makes her free.

I love how physical this video is. Notice she did not pick up her pink polka dotted monogrammed Bible and walk off into the sunset unscathed in her pretty Sunday dress. She had to FIGHT! It was harsh. It was violent! She must have been bruised in the process. Surely she has some battle scars.

Let me just be honest, because if I am not, I really shouldn’t be doing a blog like this… Lately I have been saddened over the state of my heart. And please don’t believe that is easier for me somehow, to be more vulnerable, than it is for you. This is hard to say. My heart breaks over my condition. I just have a deep struggle with sin that becomes more and more apparent to me the more I understand the truth of grace.

In many ways I am her. Except the end of my video would show me fighting the same fight over and over again. I forget so easily. Everything I have learned, as powerful as it is… I forget. I get comfortable and I forget. I stop fighting and find myself eat up with sin, wandering off again... being beaten and I realize I am not fighting. No, it is Jesus that I love! "Wake up oh sleeper!" FIGHT!!!!!! The coolest thing is, He never stops fighting for me, even as I wander off.

Here is a little bit of one of John Piper's Desiring God blog. It is a real source of encouragement for me as I find myself uglier and uglier...:

Never Let the Gospel Get Smaller from Desiring God Blog

(Author: John Piper)
Here is a simple exhortation that I have been trying to implement in our family:
Seek to see and feel the gospel as bigger as years go by rather than smaller.
Our temptation is to think that the gospel is for beginners and then we go on to greater things. But the real challenge is to see the gospel as the greatest thing—and getting greater all the time.

The Gospel gets bigger when, in your heart and grace gets bigger:

• Christ gets greater
• his death gets more wonderful
• his resurrection gets more astonishing
• the work of the Spirit gets mightier
• the power of the gospel gets more pervasive
• its global extent gets wider
• your own sin gets uglier
• the devil gets more evil
• the gospel's roots in eternity go deeper
• its connections with everything in the Bible and in the world get stronger
• and the magnitude of its celebration in eternity gets louder

So keep this in mind: Never let the gospel get smaller in your heart.