Supporting a Missionary to Tomorrow’s Leaders

I have recently set out to live like a missionary to America’s Future Leaders.

My unpaid, volunteer position at MorningStar University is the Student Life Director and Student Pastor. This means that I spend 50-60 hours a week with students in discipleship, ministry opportunities or administrative tasks to support activities that grow my students at MorningStar University. Though I am pursuing a couple of business ventures to support myself financially, for the most part, I am financially dependent upon supporters (like the Levites of the Old Testament).

If you want to know more about what I do, where my money is going and how much support per month I still need to meet my basic needs, you can email me at princevince13@gmail.com – my personal email address.

The Missions Department at MorningStar Ministries has taken me on as a “missionary revivalist”, so if you want to donate to support me and want your donations to be tax-deductible, you can do so through them. They retain a 10% administrative fee, but 90% goes straight to me. You can donate on their website at http://www.cmmissions.net/donate by clicking on the “Make a Donation” button on top.

*VERY IMPORTANT: if you do not put MY NAME (Vince Corcoran) in the “Purpose” line of the Paypal form, it will go to the general missions fund, and not to me.

You can also support me by cash, check or money order by sending them to:
Vince Corcoran
208 Township Drive
Fort Mill, SC 29715
*This option is not tax-deductible, but 100% of it will go directly into my support account.

Thank you for your heart for this upcoming generation by supporting me in discipleship of its future leaders. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask.

Periodically I will re-post this on this site. In between these posts, you can enjoy excerpts from the books I am working on. One is a devotional book focused on the Names of God in the New Testament, the other is a Dynamic Dictionary of 21st Century Terminology in which I am helping to provide greater understanding about the words we use in Christendom.

Thank you.
Vince Corcoran

The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29)

Most people would look at this Name of God and focus on “the Lamb of God”, they would focus on the Old Testament parallels and sacrifices and probably mention Genesis 22 and the sacrifice replacement for the son of Promise, Isaac and talk about how the same hill that God led Abraham to was Golgotha.  And I am certainly tempted to do so, because those are some awesome revelations and for a couple of years, Genesis 22 was the centerpiece of my studying.  But since other authors have done such a great job of that, I will not echo their revelations.  John is giving us a look into how great this Lamb of God is.  He is not simply “The Lamb of God”, but His identity enables Him to do something that no one else can – take away the sin of the world.

Like a merchant ship at port, the Lamb of God takes up the cargo of the sin of the world and sails away with it.  If He is to take the sin of the world away, then it is necessary that He be able to not only bare the weight of the sin, but also carry it away from and out of the world.  Therefore the nature of the Lamb must be such that He is able to traverse the realms that are outside of the cosmos.  Natural things function best in the realm for which they were designed, outside of their intended context, worldly things cease to have power.  So when the Lamb bares the sin of the world and removes it from its empowered atmosphere, it is rendered useless and impotent.  Echoing off of the Lamb we can hear the words of the prophet “His thoughts and ways are higher than ours”.

What is the cargo that the Lamb has stowed in His vessel?  It is “the sin of the world”. We must define sin so that we can understand what He is removing in order to understand what a glorious thing the Lamb has done for us and how great His heart is towards us.  “Sin” in this verse is the word “hamartia”, which means, “to miss the mark”.  If you grew up in the church like I did, you have heard this definition before.  It is like an archer missing the perfect center of a target.  It is explained to be the imperfections of living carnally.  But we must understand why it would matter that we missed the center of the target.  There is nothing more frustrating than competing against someone who doesn’t understand the purpose of the game or care about the results of the competition.

Hitting the mark ensured that you would receive the prize of victory.  He who can consistently hit the mark for longer than everyone else is the victor and will win the prize.  This is what the Lamb has done for us, He has removed our missed shots and granted us access to His perfect shooting record.  The Expert Marksman has switched target sheets with us and ensured that we win every competition using His shots.  This is why Paul was able to say that He works everything out for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purposes.  No matter how bad we shoot, His scorecard has our names on it.

So the Lamb of God comes from the realms of Eternity, takes on every time, in every place that any person ever did anything even slightly less than perfect anywhere in the universe, bundles all of those failures into one package and removes it from the temporal atmosphere where sin and death have power.  He replaces that package with a Promise of His return and a Helper to show us how to live like the saints we have become.  Truly this Lamb is worthy of beholding and is worthy of imitation.

*Lamb, thank You for setting us up for eternal success.

One whom you do not know (John 1:26)

It is easy to read the Bible narratives and think of how undiscerning Israel was.  But we do the same thing they did when we neglect to discern those around us.  We think we know someone, but many times we are making assumptions based on what we have heard about them or even based on our personal experience of them.  But to truly know someone is to see them, to discern who they are becoming and love them where they are.

The other day I was asked, “Do you know this famous persons?”  Immediately I answered, “Yes” and then caught myself, “Well, I don’t know him personally, but I know who he is.”  But that isn’t even completely true.  It takes years of marriage before many couples feel like they really know each other.  I had a discussion with a friend the other day about how we can know people in a ministry setting or a work setting, but we don’t really know who they are.  We have an idea, but we haven’t truly experienced that person.  An ancient philosopher once said that one can learn much more about someone in one hour of play than in hours of discussion.  The honest reality is that people posture themselves in discussion, but when playing beach volleyball we drop our walls and are who we really are.  It isn’t like we do it intentionally; we just get caught up in things.

When I left home for college, my dad wrote me a letter.  In it he said that I was breaking out of a cocoon.  I had lived in a community that thought they knew who I was and what they could expect from me, but I was about to step out into whoever I wanted to be.  I took this seriously, so the first day of college when asked “what is your name?” I changed my name.  Up until that day, I had always been known as Vincent to family, close friends, teachers and coaches.  But in that moment I said “Vince”, and since that day I have been known as such.

John the apostle uses a word that is rarely translated “know” in this verse.  The word John uses primarily means “to see or perceive”.  It is the same word that he used in the book of the Revelation when he saw something in the visions he had on Patmos Island. John the Baptist wasn’t saying that the people he was talking to had never met Jesus.  Rather, they had not spiritually discerned Him for who He is.

We do this with the people around us all the time.  There are people you live with every day that are much more than you understand.  CS Lewis wrote, “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.”  It is true, no one you have ever spoken to will cease to exist in 1000 years.  Man is immortal, that is great news for some and bad news for others.  But the plain and awesome truth is that everyone you know is an image bearer and a supernatural person that is eternally loved by the most powerful being in existence.  On top of that glaring reality, when you look across the table at meals, each person you see shoveling food into their face is, in fact, an access point for you to encounter Jesus.  We are portals, doors, gateways into the supernatural realms.  Soon we will begin to see, know and relate to each other in this way.

When we begin to see people for who they are becoming, it will be easy to receive what they have to give.  It will become increasingly difficult to criticize people, insult people or allow people to get away with things that will harm them in moving forward in their calling.  Our eyes are being opened up to see, to know, to discern people as they will be and be unoffended by who they currently are.  We will be able to love them easier, enjoy them better and have patience with them in their immaturity – just like Jesus loves us, enjoys us and is patient with us.

*Jesus, grant us the grace to not just know You, but to discern You and Your people.

The only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14)

The Scriptures are so great, it is no wonder that the psalmist says that the unfolding of His Word produces light.  We can sit under individual verses, even phrases or single words and the Spirit of Truth can unfold His Word to us so that we understand Him and His ways – the only thing that He says we can boast in.  Watch how John 1:14 can unfold from the whole verse in context, the single verse, the specific Name used and then a single word used in that Name.

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth…and from His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace…Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.  No one has ever seen God; only God, who is at the Father’s side, He has made Him known.”(John 1:14-18)

This paragraph in the beginning of John’s gospel explains the origins of the benefits we enjoy as recipients of Christ – His glory, grace, truth as well as access and proximity to the Father.  The linchpin verse in this paragraph is verse 14, everything else flows from the truth that the Word became flesh, dwelt among us and we saw the glory of the Son.  The Incarnation is not enough, we must receive His glory or else the benefits are not imparted to us.  So the most important part of the truths in verse 14 for us is that we have seen the glory.  Then it becomes apparent that we must see a specific glory, “the glory of the only begotten from the Father”.  Many men are sons and have glory that we can see, but it is the specific glory of this one Man that holds the key to the benefits mentioned above.  And this Man is special because He is the only son of the Father.  So the crux of this whole paragraph comes down to the Father and who He is.  What are we told about the Father?  This is the nucleus of the power of what we read here.

John is intentional to note that the Father is “full of grace and truth”.  Now, in the unfolding of this passage, we have come to find a five word phrase that steer this passage.  Truly, the most important parts of this phrase are “grace and truth”.  Understanding these two things gives you understanding of the nature of the Father, the origin of the Son and the wellspring of the benefits of having access to Him.  And those are certainly worthy of hours of meditation and study.  However, the thing that jumps out at me when I see this verse is that the Father is “full” of these two essential qualities.  This becomes an even more important word in understanding this passage because this word is used twice, it is tying the whole thought process together in verse 16 where it says “from His fullness we have all received grace upon grace.”

The word that John uses for “full” and “fullness” can be used to describe the furnishings of a home, what makes a house a home – full and complete.  It is almost like the inside of the Father is furnished with grace and truth, and from that safe place the Son was birthed.  We see and receive the glory of that interior castle of the Father’s mansion of Love, and the Son makes known who He is by going to prepare a place for us inside of the house of the Father.  Not the house that the Father lives in, but the house that is the Father.  This sheds light on us being in Him, He in us, the Father being in Him, and He being in the Father.  We have access to the Father through Christ and begin to furnish our lives with that which He furnishes Himself with – grace and truth.

*Father, paint the walls of our lives with the Grace-filled Blood of the Son and grant that our lives be made full of the furnishings of Truth that we be made complete in Him.

The true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man (John 1:9)

When choosing an office, people rarely choose an office that has no natural light if they have the option of natural light.  For about a year and a half I was in an office that was completely enclosed, no light coming in from the outside at all.  During that time, I would find myself getting confused about what time it was.  I lost track of time easily, got tired and distracted easily.  Then we moved offices and we had two windows that let in a little natural light.  Just that little light made all the difference.  We got more done, were happier and felt better about life.  Then I got promoted and got my own office with a window and I was excited.  Just as I was getting used to that office, we moved offices and I ended up with something even worse than our first office with no natural light.  The new office had a window, but it opened up into an interior area in the building that had florescent blue light.  The light was trying to be natural, but it just wasn’t real.

In the same way, Jesus is not just a really good light.  He isn’t even natural light, He is supernatural light.  He is the True Light.  He is the light by which all other light is defined and compared and judged.  The proof that He is the True Light is that He comes into the world.  This means that He is not of the world.  His essential nature is not of the world, He is alien light who has properties and benefits that we are not used to and will not appreciate if we try to naturally evaluate and assess Him.  He is both the True Light and the Word that makes division between soul and spirit.  He is more like x-rays than He is like 60 watt light bulb light.  He penetrates and reveals who we are and what we are made of.

Before you start to get nervous about that, realize that God’s blessing came on the sons of Noah who covered their father’s nakedness, not on the son who exposed him.  God is in the business of covering, not exposing.  It is His delight to be that true love that covers a multitude of sins, having known no sin, He becomes sin.  He takes on flesh, allows His ignorant beloved people persecute Him and tear His flesh open so that the deeds of our flesh will not be held against us.  He leaves so that He can send His Spirit to us so that we can take His place as the new light of the world.  He enlightens us, fills us with Light so that we are sons of Light.

He enlightens every man.  His light in us is the glory that will cover the earth, it is Christ in us that is the hope of glory that Paul spoke of in his letter to the Colossians.  For those who have accepted His free gift of eternal life, also known as friendship with God, His light comes into them and reveals that they are now supernatural temples of righteousness and love.  But for those who are not in the Divine family, His light comes into them and reveals their need for Him.  When God shines in men, the Light is a deliverance when it strikes the darkness that remains in them, both Christians and pagans.

For Christians, the Light reveals idols that we carry, which cast shadows on our souls when His light is present.  Embracing this deliverance is our best option.  This is not a time to hide from His Light, but to bring our idol to Him and allow Him to engulf it with His glorious Light.  If we choose to pull our idols out of the Light, hiding in any place we can find that we are not allowing His Light to reach in our hearts, then we have done like our father Adam did.  We run from the only One who can instantly free us, who is Himself coming closer to us in Love to help us – thus fulfilling His job description as “the Helper”.

*God keep coming from outside of this world as the defining Light to enlighten us, transforming and delivering us from our own idols.

The Word (John 1:1) – Part Two

As we saw previously, there is an emphatic stamp when using “the” before a noun in Scripture.  Consider that Jesus is not “a son of God”, but “the son of God”.  There is a greater specificity when using “the”.  God did not rest on “a seventh day”, He rested on the seventh day”.  Much like the exegetical “law of first mention”, where the first time something is referenced in the Scripture is significant in setting the context by which every mention thereafter can be understood, we can learn a lot about the fine details of the Lord’s craftsmanship by the “filler” words in the Scriptures.

There are certain Scriptures that say things that if we take them for what they say, and realize the implications behind them, our current opinions on how things work would get violently confronted.  John 1:1 is one of the Scriptures which has implications to it that are honestly kind of daunting.  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  This verse first acknowledges that there was a beginning.  That makes sense to us because we think about everything as having a beginning and end, limits where one things starts and another thing ends.  Two objects cannot be in the same place at the same time.  Thirty years ago I did not exist.  Thirty months ago, my brother’s marriage didn’t exist.  Thirty minutes ago, this sentence didn’t exist.  All these things had a beginning.

However, the Word already existed in the beginning.  Let’s say, just for arguments sake, that the Word existed exactly at the beginning of the beginning.  The curious part about this comes when you look at the nature of words.  Words have one purpose, to communicate.  They come from someone and are intended for someone.  So the Word proceeded from a Source that existed prior to the beginning.  This means that the beginning was not really the beginning.  But then, how far back does it go?  The Source had to have a beginning, right?  If you let your mind try to go back and back and back, it can get a little freaky.  Realizing that God has been around for eternity past can trip a breaker in your head.  Think about the wisest person you know.  They are wise because they have either had more birthdays than you or because they have been through more wisdom-giving experiences than you.  It is no wonder, then, that when we read Proverbs 8 about the personification of wisdom it sounds like the description of Jesus.

Out of His nature of Divine Wisdom as the Word, the Communication of God, Jesus was already reaching out to us to tell us Who the Father is and who we are to Him.  He was crucified before the foundations of the World.  His mind was already made up before wood, nails and whips existed.  What do you do with Someone who is in no hurry because a millennium and a day feel the same to Him?  He doesn’t get bored, He doesn’t get surprised or anxious.  And what if this same Person took that eternal nature and stuffed it into us?  What changes when we be content in every circumstance because we have no limitation of time because we have become like God, having His nature and likeness?  I’ll tell you what changes, we become consciously eternal people that have a perspective that produces peace that doesn’t make sense.  We become unoffendable, immoveable, immortal, and confident beyond understanding.  Jesus said we are already clean by the Word He has spoken over us.  Maybe our greatest need is to hear that Word echo out of eternity and into our innermost being.

*Word of God, reverberate within us and shake everything in us that can be shaken so that we can find discover that which will remain and live from there.

The Promise of My Father (Luke 24:49) – Part Two

If the Father was willing to put His Name on the line by promising something, it is probably safe to say that whatever was promised will be fulfilled and that the fulfillment of that promise is worth being a part of.  The First Covenant with Israel was directed towards a specific people group, God’s chosen people – from whom the Messiah would come.  But the New Covenant was open to all people.  Jesus blasted the doors wide open for every son of Adam to become a son of the Last Adam, thus becoming part of the Last human race.  One benefit of the New Covenant is the Indwelling Spirit.  This is not really even a benefit of the New Covenant, it is the New Covenant.

Without the Indwelling Spirit, we are without a transformation agent and therefore can not live free of sin, free in power, empowered by love or superimposed over death.  It is Jesus’ Father who promised us the Spirit.  It is Jesus who made a way for the Spirit to unite with our spirit.  It is the Spirit who is the Seed that supernaturally re-incarnates us.  Before you stop reading because I just said that we are re-incarnated, think about it.  New Age understanding of re-incarnation is that we die and come back with the same spirit and soul, but as a different species.  This is exactly what the Spirit does for us.  We are baptized into His death and we are raised up with Him.  We are resurrected into a new race of men, a race that never existed prior to Jesus.

Just yesterday I was telling a friend of mine that the difficulty in being a New Creation is that I forget to act out of my new nature.  We don’t change physical form and almost nothing changes externally, the immediate change is internal and even deeper than the cellular level, so at first it is hard to live differently.  When I was in college a friend of mine used to say, “It is not hard to be a New Creation, it is hard to stop acting like an Old Creation.”  This is why it is important to be in community with people who are pursuing supernatural life, because in community we provoke each other even when we are not aware of it.  If you compare two runners that run about the same speed on a mile, individually they will run a good mile when they are trying to get a good time.  But if you put them next to each other and tell them to run a mile, even if you do not tell them to beat the other person or get a good time, they will run faster because they will both be trying to do a little better than the other.  Community is an incubator of excellence.

In Luke 24, Jesus told the disciples to wait for the Promise of His Father.  He told them to wait as a group for the Spirit to come upon them.  If He had told them to individually go back to their homes and wait and then come together to discuss it, it is very likely that most of them would get impatient and distracted.  But because there was 119 other people waiting for the same thing, though I’m sure it got awkward and some had doubts, those 120 people experienced something that changed the world.

It is interesting that Jesus called the Spirit the promise of the Father.  It is as though the Spirit was the ultimate result that the Father had intended for us.  He has promised may things, all of which He will do, but this was “the big one”.  It is one thing to be a president of the United States, it is something altogether different to be the President of the United States.  There is a present-tense nature to “the” that highlights the importance of  what “the” is pointing at.

*Jesus, give us a love for the Presence of the Promise that will stir up a hungry addiction to You that will not be quenched or satisfied by anything but Your fulfillment.  Amen.

The Word (John 1:1)

The purpose of a word is to communicate ideas from one person to another.  Aside from a note that you write to yourself, when you write something you intend on having someone read what you wrote and understand an idea that you are trying to communicate.  Rarely does someone communicate an idea that they do not think is understood by those they are communicating to, most of the time communication is meant to convince someone and bring unity between the communicator and the audience.

John’s gospel begins with “In the beginning was the Word…”  From the very beginning, there was a communicator and an audience.  The Communicator spoke and everything was as He said it was.  This is why His words are spirit and truth.  They have power and reality.  There is power in the words He speaks, to give life (Genesis 2), to clean men (John 13) and to revive humanity (John 20).  And though heaven and earth pass away, His words will continue eternally (Mark 13).

As previously stated, the purpose of communicating an idea is to convince one’s audience.  So, then, the crucial question is: what is God communicating through His Son that we need convincing of?  If we can answer this question, we can embrace His purpose and accelerate our effectiveness in fulfilling the purpose for which He sent His Word.

The Lord spoke through Isaiah the prophet saying that that His Word would not leave His lips without accomplishing the purpose for which it was spoken.  In the previous verse (Isaiah 55:10), He compares the rain to the word He speaks.  The purpose, He says, of rain is to water the earth, cause growth, provide means for a harvest and nutrition for those who would benefit from the harvest.  Likewise, is the purpose of the Word.  He came to bring inject us with living water so that we grow into His likeness again, release a harvest of souls and be fed by His Presence.  We see at the beginning of chapter 55 that the Lord really is trying to convince us of something when He says “Listen carefully to me…listen so that you may live…”  He knows us well enough to realize that unless we are told to pay attention, we might miss it all together.

So what is He communicating that we need to be convinced of?  We know Jesus’ purpose and thus the intended results of this communication, but what is it that His life is  saying?  Simply put, freedom is free.  He implores the poor to come and buy without money.  He says that the terms of His covenant are already set and everything is taken care of.  He declares that He has already glorified His people.  He prophesies that His people will go out with joy and be led forth by peace – with hill-top happiness and arboreal applause, no less.

The problem is that we don’t believe it.  We think that we have to earn blessings.  We believe that His Covenant is still being written, when really His Covenant is a Person who is alive to prove that He wasn’t joking when He set us free – He is guarding our salvation.  We have it in our minds that glorification is a concept of a future event when it is a reality that has already come to pass.  And for some reason we still need to be convinced that joy and peace are truly part of life as a Christian.

The ridiculous decision that we are faced with is whether or not to accept what He has laid in front of us.  The benefits are so great, the alternative is so bleak, and the stipulations are so simple.  The only thing we have to do to receive His mercy is to call it “mine”.  What would happen if we actually believed His Word?

*Lord, I believe, help me with my unbelief in the Word You spoke and are speaking.

The Promise of My Father (Luke 24:49)

Even when you know that someone is trustworthy, waiting for something is a trial.  The disciples had been with Jesus for as long as three years or so.  They had seen Him tell off the Pharisees, ruin funerals, open blind eyes, heal deaf ears, un-cripple people, tell intimate details of people’s lives that He could not have known – not to mention He came back from being dead.  As far as they were concerned, He was worth trusting.  Not only had He done all of these things, but He had done them with conviction, saying what He believed and felt convincingly.  So when He says that His Father has promised something, I’m sure they had great expectations.

He instructed them to go and wait in Jerusalem, the very place that had just been the epicenter of the controversy about Him, for power to wrap itself around them.  The interesting thing about how He gave these instructions was the timing cues.  He said “I am sending the Promise of My Father…” Then He goes on to tell them what to do in response to what He said He was doing at that moment.  This is yet another example of how Jesus was living in two places at once, which is also our inheritance to walk in.

Jesus, from His place with the Father in Heaven, was at the moment He was talking with His friends simultaneously sending the Promise of His Father upon them.  He says that they would be clothed with power from on high, indicating the location of the source of the Promise.  So if He was the Sender of the Promise, then He must be doing it from where it was coming from.  The power of knowing where you are changes your perspective and empowers your words.  We have been removed from the kingdom of darkness and transferred into the Kingdom of Light, seated in the heavenlies with Him.

The incredible reality of the life of one born from above is that we are here and there at the same time.  So when we pray, we are there with Him and we can release things from there, rather than begging Him to send it down to us from where He is.

Some think that the Holy Spirit just “isn’t for them” or that the gifts of the Spirit are not something that is for today.  Jesus identified the Spirit as that which the Father Himself had promised to send.  If the Father was willing to put His trustworthiness on the line for this, I would venture to say that it is a sure thing.  He wants us to have the Spirit and He wants us to trust Him that He will accomplish everything that He has promised.  And He is a good Father who gives good gifts, so there must be something that we really want, really need or both in the Gift of the Spirit that He has promised.  Let us eagerly desire the fulfillment of the Promise of the Father.

*Father, we trust Your goodness and we desire the filling of the promises You have made.  Jesus, thank You for sending Your Spirit from on high and for plucking us up into the very place that You sent Him from.  We love You.

He who was going to redeem Israel (Luke 24:21)

Someone gave me a book a few years ago written by a Jewish man.  His main purpose in the book, whether stated or not, I don’t remember, was to help young Jews not become Christians.  He explained why Jews are not Christians, why Jews should not convert to Christianity and laid out the differences between Christian and Jewish understandings of the Messiah.

He said that the Jewish Messiah was going to come and set the Jewish people free from the oppression they are in politically at the hands of their enemies.  But he said that the mission of the Christian Messiah was “just to set humanity free from its bondage to sin”.  Just.  Option 1: the Messiah sets free God’s chosen people and leaves the rest of the race of men to burn.  Option 2: the Messiah opens the doors of freedom to the entire race of men.  Which would you choose?

Now, before you call me anti-Semitic, you should know that I am Jewish.  Not in a “we are now all part of the Israel of God” way, but in the “my mother was Jewish, her mother was Jewish and her mother was Jewish” kind of way.  And I’m not making fun of this guy who wrote this book.  I think he did a great job of showing that Christianity is a better option, not only in the section I mentioned above, but throughout the book.  His points made Christianity look much more appealing to me, I think I got saved again at least once while reading.

It is true, the Lord committed Himself to redeeming Israel, but He is just one of those guys who does more than is required of Him.  Paul put it well when he wrote that He does “exceedingly, abundantly beyond all we could ever ask or think”.  Call it over-achieving, call it excellence, call it whatever you want, I’m just glad He didn’t just stop with one people group.  It seems to me that it is more like Him in His character as I know Him to search for any way possible to bless whoever He can in whatever way He can.

He has a greater vision than us.  He thinks bigger.  He loves larger.  He believes in us more than we do in ourselves or each other.  He waits longer for the perfect moment to spring up and ambush us with blessings we cannot contain.  He invests more in us than we think we can handle.  He trusts us more than we think we are worthy of.  He knows us deeper.  He understands us better.  He is more creative than we can imagine.  He is more kind.  He is never worried about what is going to happen.  He is your biggest fan.  He does it right but doesn’t freak out when things don’t go the right way.  He can do anything, except remember what you did wrong.  He is not irritable.  He can handle anything you can dish out.  He is very patient.  He is love.

Sure, He was going to redeem Israel, but then He figured “Why stop there?”  Just like in Mark 6, when He walked on water, His intention was to go past the little boat of scared disciples and beat them to the other side.  But He saw that they needed Him, so He stopped by to help out by stopping to contrary winds.  And when He was about to go to the Father as our Great High Priest to sacrifice His Blood to complete the necessary atonement, He stopped to comfort Mary in the garden.  He is still a big proponent of redeeming Israel, setting them free political oppression, but He won’t stop there.  His sights are set slightly higher than that.

*Redeemer, give us Your heart so that we live like You live.