Revelation

"Trust the sunrise."

Steadily rising, bleeding orange and scarlet, the sun gently sweeps across the clouds and time clicks forward.  Stretching into the heavens, the sun emerges from hiding to ignite a sky found in slumber, a revelation of unimaginable light.

Lying on the couch and staring up at the ceiling I began thinking through my life this past year.  If some of you are reading this and don't know a ton about my story, my first year at Hope College was one where my life was completely changed in the most incredible of ways.  Jesus became real to me for the first time since I had chosen to accept Him the summer going into my senior year. 

The definition of “revelation” refers to it as "something revealed or disclosed, especially a striking disclosure, as of something not before realized."

A revelation is just this...striking.

It is life changing, ground breaking, earth shattering.  It rocks your world and it transforms.  Thinking through this, I ponder why I am consistently so surprised by the consistent revelations that hit me about Him. He is CHRIST! He is the God of my salvation and the One who has lifted me from death into eternal life here and now and yet I am still shocked, so surprised by the way His love continues to tear down my walls to reveal His heart for me.

This summer I am finding my revelation is Christ.  Hillsong United sings, “This is my revelation: Christ Jesus crucified.” Clear and to the point, it is Christ alone.

Every day that I wake up and my feet hit the floor, I am finding the beautiful consequences of Christ sweeping through my life and bringing me to my knees.  In my weakness, He is glorified. I am changed by a God who is magnified when I honestly bring to light the sin that sits upon my heart.  My old life is being choked out and buried deeper as I find more of this fullness emerging and lighting my flaws to make Himself known.  Silencing the lies held above my head, the voice of Majesty is infusing the breath of new life, given a song of purpose that is unveiled more and more with each passing day.

I am discovering that this life is a consistent battle to maintain clarity on the purest vision of who He is because He has always been there.  It is me and you who loses sight of this in our limited perception

with our vision so easily muddied and blurred.  Having our eyes set on what’s “missing” from our stories, the empty chair beside us, who seems to have overlooked us, how many people we haven’t felt accepted by, the pain this world has rained down on us time after time or the overwhelming fears that claw at us as we strain to keep our eyes ahead.

Yet this is the one Truth that banishes the lies our tarnished and broken souls love to collect in excess. This is the Truth of our God that bends down into the dust to collect our lies like a deck of cards, whipping them into the air to fly in every direction.  In light of His presence, these flimsy lies stand no chance.  With His mighty hands gently placed upon the heaviness of our souls, freedom and life flow freely.  It is in this revelation we find our worth again and again.

Satisfied, redeemed, restored, beloved, worthy, and filled.

These are the truths encased around the heart of our Savior.

These are the truths wrapped inside the revelation of who He is. 

And because of Him, this is who we are now.

But why are they so hard to believe?

Without the revelation and continual recognition of who Christ is, these are empty encouraging words or labels. Tossing them out from a deadened heart simply desiring to be seen as 'good', they mean nothing if not flowing from a heart abiding in Him.

“Revelation” by Third Day sings, “Give me a revelation, show me what to do because I’ve been trying to find my way, I’m nothing without You.”

Looking through these lyrics, I find myself smiling. Crying out from a place of deep emptiness desperate for more than the fleeting, we cry out for the eternal fullness.

Give me more of Jesus: this is what our souls are desperate for.  Not for a boyfriend or girlfriend, more material things, more comfort, more popularity, or to be affirmed by everyone around us.

It is plain and simple.  He is the revelation. 

He is the treasure offered to us that we have the privilege and honor to offer this world on bended knee, the One this world unknowingly hungers to know.

The pained limp you are making along the roadside can end.  The striving can cease. The weight of sin that shifts from one leg to the other can be cast fully upon Him. You can finally find rest.  The person of Christ, in all His fullness, dwells within you. You have taken on the life of Christ. This is the revelation that must continually wreck us on a daily basis.

The fruits of the Spirit have been planted to flourish (Galatians

The mission of the cross has been placed to rest heavily upon your heart to spur you to move out into this world (Matt. 28:19)

The Spirit is upon you to proclaim the freedom found at the foot of the cross (Isaiah ’61)

Living in Him and He in you, this is the fruit that will emerge in fullness.

Standing to rise, it is now that we must shake off the heaviness of our own strained efforts.  It is in this we recognize with clarity the life You have already been offered because of what He has done on the cross.  Planting our feet firmly on the Rock and Redeemer who cannot be moved you will find your eyes on the cross of your Savior who has rescued you not because He needs you, but because He loved you enough to save you from yourself. 

It is out of our revelation of Christ and His undying love for us that our lives can be filled, our deck of lies can be cast into the wind, and we can be found.  In loving response, we can live our lives to the glory of our God who looks upon us as His beloved children.

To testify to who Christ is means acknowledging your life is no longer your own. Galatians  2:20 says, “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.”  Our greatest revelation is Christ Himself and it is in Him we find the ground-breaking Truth that collides with our vain ambition. 

Crashing  into this heart moving in the opposing direction, I find myself at a standstill.  Torn down to be re-built into a dwelling place for the Spirit and to swell with the Spirit of our great God until my very last breath is the flame I have to offer this world. It is the flame being passed to you if you are willing to accept it and raise it high for those around you.

Christ crucified is the constant revelation we must all pray on our knees to have eyes to see.  Christ in all His fullness is here among us. In you and in me, He is here and now. 

Fullness

One step after the other, your legs in slow motion gather and muster the endurance to press off the smooth pavement, launching into the next step towards the benchmark.  Lungs exhale with every pained movement far beyond your comfort zone and quickly the frightening truth that you cannot finish this race grips you. Beating like a drum, this fear pounds in your chest, constricting and winding its way around your heart, bringing you to your knees.  Your eyes fall upon the stilled state of your hands clasped in your lap and defeat washes over every inch of you. The constant movement around you continues to hurdle and blur as tears well behind eyes that sense the weight of desperation for those surrounding you at every angle.

As some of you know, this summer I am a camp counselor.  As some of you also know, I said for the better part of this year that I would never be a camp counselor.  Funny, huh?

My plan was that I would go home, get a normal job, and be living in the good old Glenview, IL for the three and a half months of summer break.  Yet as I sit here typing this, I am in awe. He has done it once again.

As I packed my gigantic suitcase and duffle for Covenant Harbor, I had no idea what the heck I was entering into. Am I qualified to be a camp counselor? Will I fit in somewhere where the people have known each other for five years in community?  What if I fail in decision making and made a mistake applying?  What the heck am I doing!?

And to be honest as I look at these questions, some of them I still do not have the answer to. Some still press on my heart on those days when I find myself doubting. But I have come to see that these insecurities, fears, and doubts that have built upon each other are absolutely nothing in light of the cross.

As I look at the core of the vision for Covenant Harbor this summer, it is about giving kids the fullness of the person of Christ and nothing less than that.  It is not about modifying their behavior, making them "nicer", or shutting down the drama of middle schoolers but consistently handing them the only thing we have to give this world and each other...Jesus.  Colossians 3:1 says, "If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above..." These kids cannot live a life glorifying their King if they have not been given the news of Christ to accept and be raised to new life in Him.

In Him, the treasure of this life is found.
In Him, we find our status shifted from wandering exiles to children of God born with a purpose (Ephesians 2:19-22).

Preaching this day in and day out at camp, I see now that I am not merely preaching this to kids...but to myself.  I have been continuously wrecked by the gospel and I could not be more thankful.
God is consistently striking me with every passing day the dark reality of sin that goes so far beyond lying or being selfish and into the disease the separated me from the presence of God in His holiness and causes Him to hide His face (Isaiah 59:2). This sin is so deeply ingrained in my broken nature that without Christ's sacrifice, I have no connection to the Father...but this is the incredible hope of the gospel. In God's infinite love for His children, He sent Jesus to die on the cross to save us from ourselves because sending a part of His perfect self was the only way to cancel the seemingly permanent record of debt that we owed.

Preaching this to friends since coming home, I find myself standing in awe of Christ.  Taking a nice clean leap backwards, I turn my eyes and lift my face to the beautiful mystery of the cross and what He has done on my behalf.  I have found myself on my knees simply for who He is.  Not for the blessings that have come from His hand but for the brilliant and beautiful treasure of knowing Christ in my life and what that has enabled me to live out in His glorious story.

I have been deeply blessed to be given the fullness of Christ.  As I find Him continuously emerging in my own life, the lives of my friends, and those I encounter, I am struck by His incredible power at work.  And though I have blessed to play a role in His story, this is nothing I could have ever done on my own.  The thing is that I find myself at times believing I can do this life on my own: faith, friends, family, a relationship one day. I think: surely, I know what is best.

Yet this is where I find myself heaving on the ground, legs outrunning my heart, failing to recognize I have a new life now in Christ and His fullness. This is how Satan has left me feeling at times over the past year and even this summer: the oxygen that swells in my lungs to carry me forward into the next step of this life is lost and I am brought to a screeching halt.  What if I preached the gospel more to this girl in my cabin? What if I gave this friend the wrong advice? What if I did more?

Feeling much like the beginning of Psalm 143, I have felt run dry and beaten into the ground.

Psalm 143:4,6 says, "Therefore my spirit faints with me: my heart is appalled...I stretch out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land." 


It is a bit humorous to me at times when I read across the line with the word "appalled". It's as if I am shocked that I ran dry. In my breaking and failures, I am surprisingly shocked when I come to those moments where the reality of my inadequacy hits me full on like a huge semi.

And as my mind then plays over the pain in those times of weakness, my hands are consistently lifted in praise to Him. As people, girls in my cabin, and friends in my life have come to me for counsel and I at times feel overwhelmed, I am learning to cling to the cross and the vine so that the fullness of Christ may shine and emerge in every word that I speak.

He is teaching me to turn to the Fortress of strength in my weakness. I am being broken down and drained of my strength so that my eyes can be widened to the truth that He alone is my hope, my wisdom, my strength, my treasure...the only thing I have to offer in this life.

I have been gently reminded in small and big ways how this life is not a battle to be won.  This new life in Christ is a battle of remembrance for who He is and what He has done.  It is a battle to rid ourselves of the pressing chains that constrict us from living in light of His freedom, to remember that He has already won on the cross.

Colossians 2:9-10 says, "In him, the fullness of deity dwells and you have been filled in him." 

The striving must end.  We must not sprint ahead relying on the faltering strength of faint hearts. We must pick ourselves up from the ground and recognize our failure on our own. We must recognize that the fullness of God is already present in our souls but we must remain connected to Him to pour into this world. We must allow the lies of insecurity, doubt, and shame to be buried with our old lives in light of His glorious presence.

On this day I choose to acknowledge my desperation for Jesus.
I have a deep thirst for the living water of Christ.
I desperately need Him to pour into the empty and broken cup I lift to Him with trembling hands.
I need to be found daily on my knees in thankfulness for the treasure that fills my life with glory and unspeakable hope.

In all that I do, both the comfortable and challenging, the hopeful and the hopeless times, my hands must remain outstretched to the God who has already filled my heart and hands with His fullness. Apart from Christ, I can do absolutely nothing of worth (John 15:5).  The desperation and cries of help rising from the depth of my own soul and the souls around me are not crying out for the healing of Taylor Ely. These cries are being lifted in hopes that the God of the Universe would hear and silence them with the healing they need. And this is where I need to turn to the only One who can replenish my dry bones, my weary spirit, and my heart to minister from a place of strength in Jesus Christ my Redeemer. 


Jesus, You are our fullness.
May our words be only those that You plant for us to speak.
May our hearts remain abiding in Your love.
May our hope be built on nothing less than the Rock that You are.
May we have the eyes to see the treasure that is continually unveiled more and more in our lives in You alone. 
We love You and worship You down on our knees for who You are. 


Christ is all we have to offer this world but in His fullness, He is more than enough.

http://hopecollegeworship.bandcamp.com/track/all-thy-fullness
"All Thy Fullness"