I randomly heard a song yesterday. A song I’ve never heard on the radio. It’s never been on a single playlist on my Spotify. Yet, it was brought to me in the seemingly most odd way. But don’t we know, it’s not odd, it’s God!
I dozed off on the couch yesterday afternoon while watching a nature show on Prime. When I woke up, the next show had automatically started playing. How odd that it was a documentary on the power of the Holy Spirit. I had slept through most of the short documentary and I still haven’t gone back to watch it, but this song … this song was all I heard.
Only 3 lines from the chorus, but it grabbed me and won’t let me go. Isn’t that just the power of the Holy Spirit! The song says,
Your love ain’t afraid of my mess
Your love ain’t annoyed with my weakness
Your love ain’t ashamed of my past
You’re lifting me to higher places
Now I don’t know who that’s for, but I know God woke me up again today with this song on my heart to share those words with you today. Listen again, is it you?
God’s love is not afraid of your mess.
God’s love isn’t annoyed with your weakness.
God’s love isn’t ashamed of your past.
No, girl, he’s calling you to higher places.
Will you just receive that? Receive that as if God’s mighty and powerful spirit worked in mysterious and miraculous ways to tell YOU that today.
I don’t know what mess you’re in the middle of, but God says he’s not afraid of it.
Have you ever watched an episode of Hoarders? The professionals organizers march into these disastrous homes, climbing over piles of mess, crawling through tunnels of mess, and they’re not afraid. They’re on a mission. Their mission is to clean up this mess. To make this space livable again.
Whew, and if that isn’t an image of what Jesus does for us. In this season, we have Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes laying in a manger, but let me tell you, that same Jesus shows up with a dumpster in the middle of your mess and says, let’s clean this up.
Jesus wants to make your life livable again. What does that look like? That looks like John 10:10, a life Jesus says is “Real and eternal. More and better life than you have ever dreamed of.”
You’ve been trying to hide your mess. You’ve been convinced Jesus could never want or use a messy life like yours. Well, you’re wrong. You’re dead wrong. He’s not at all afraid of your mess. That baby Jesus came on a mission, and his mission was to save you from your mess!
We all have our own weaknesses. It’s that part of our life that we keep failing in. We start and we stop. We take one step forward, then two steps back. We seem too weak to make that change stick. Gosh, isn’t that just annoying.
Is there anyone listening today who’s coming to the end of another year where you’re annoyed with yourself knowing that once again, you didn’t do what you said you were going to do. You thought you would be better by now, but you’re not. You’re still struggling.
You may be annoyed, but Jesus is not. Jesus knows the power within you. He knows your potential. He knows your future. And he knows this weakness you’ve been struggling with is the perfect place for his divine strength.
Paul writes about his own weakness. He was annoyed with this continual struggle. But then Jesus says to him in 2 Corinthians 12:9, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” So Paul says, “I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”
You have a weakness? You have a continual struggle you battle? That means you have space for the power of Jesus in your life. The simple fact that you can’t do this on your own allows Christ’s power to rest on you. And guess what, Jesus isn’t annoyed about it!
Bring that struggle to him. Talk to him about your frustration with. your own self. Ask for his grace to cover you and his power to fill you.
Now for the real humdinger of this song that so randomly woke me up yesterday. “Your love ain’t ashamed of my past.”
Your past. Yes, yours. That shameful history you can never seem to get away from. That baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes laying there in the manger, he was sent to bare that shame. He was sent to erase your past before it ever even happened.
Remember when Jesus met the woman at the well? The woman with a past. 5 husbands. 5 divorces. Did you know this woman wasn’t likely a sleezy sleep around gal, but she was likely infertile. That was the most common grounds for divorce in that day. She couldn’t have any children. As beautiful as she was, no man would want her when she couldn’t have children. So now, she was just living with a man who wouldn’t even marry her.
And she meets Jesus at the well. But it wasn’t random, it was intentional. John 4 tells us that Jesus left Judea and was going back to Galilee once more. And verse 4 says, “Now he had to go through Samaria.” Isn’t that interesting. Let me assure you, that’s not because it was the popular route from Judea to Galilee. It’s not because anyone wanted to go that way. Everyone else avoided going through Samaria. These were the outcasts. The people who were considered less thans. But Jesus just HAD to go that way.
Have you ever wondered why Jesus HAD to go that way? Well let me tell you … he had to to through Samaria, because he knew there was a particular woman who would be at a well alone that day at noon and she was ashamed of her past. But Jesus wasn’t ashamed of her at all. Just like he’s not ashamed of you.
This encounter at the well with a woman and her shameful past was a display of God’s pure grace. Grace that is sufficient. Grace that covers a thousand wrongs and a thousand more regrets. A thousand hurts and a thousand reasons why you’re never good enough. And this woman with a past knew that Jesus was going to change her future.
The final line of that song I so randomly (yet divinely) heard yesterday says, “You’re calling me to higher places.”
That’s what Jesus was doing for the woman at the well. She ran back to her family and told them about Jesus. She told the entire town about Jesus and led them to him. Oh, what a place of purpose she was now in. What a game changer she became for so many. God called her to higher places.
And you, the girl with a past … Jesus is not ashamed of your past. He came to lift your shame before your life even began. Before your first mistake, he said, “she’s covered. I’ll lift her up. She’s destined for higher places. Her life will be used for my greater purposes. I have a call on her!”
Now, I encourage you to find this song. It’s called Higher Places by Ecclesia.
God, I failed you
So many times I can’t even count
I’ve sinned against you
Before I was saved and still even now
I shouldn’t have Your presence
I shouldn’t have Your love
You could give up and never return
But You don’t
No, You don’t
‘Cause Your love ain’t afraid of my mess
Your love ain’t annoyed with my weakness
Your love ain’t ashamed of my past
‘Cause You’re calling me to, higher places
You’re calling me to, higher places
And You are the rhythm, uh
That leads me to dance these chains off my feet
And You are the fire
That burnt down the prison that once held me, oh
And I shouldn’t have Your presence
And I shouldn’t have Your love
But You sent Your Son to bring back the world
To the heart of God (Merry Christmas!)
‘Cause Your love ain’t afraid of my mess
Your love ain’t annoyed with my weakness
Your love ain’t ashamed of my past
‘Cause You’re calling me to, higher places
You’re calling me to, higher places
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