To God Be the Glory Forever and Ever Amen.
I've been asked why I blog, I've been asked why the name 'Inside and Overneath', and I've been asked what keeps me going.
It's not numbers.
It's not that I feel like this famous guy because I own a website who has people reading from all over the world.
It's not because of anything I do.
But because of what God does.
I live BECAUSE of Jesus, not because He will somehow make my life better, but because He is better than life!
I have learned the difference between living for someone or something, and living because of them or it.
If you were to ask me last year what I am doing with my life... I wouldn't have an answer, I might have said I live for Christ... if it was a church friend, or another Christian. I may have said, 'I live for an audience of One'.
But I've learned the difference.
Because there is a difference.
However small.
God never asks us to change our life to live FOR Him.
Jesus simply said, 'Follow me.'
Jesus said, 'Pick up your cross.'
Paul talked about our new life IN Christ.
As if we can only live, after we've accepted we're already dead... that this life is gone. The only breath we still have in us is because and by Christ. Our new life we're living has to be so closely intertwined with Christ... that we are living IN Him, BY Him, and... Because of Him.
As small of a difference as it may be... I think it settles in our brains... and it can grow into an attitude that isn't healthy.
The freedom we gained with Christ:
"You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love." -Gal. 5:13
...I believe gives us a better life than to be living for something.
When you live for something... it's as if you are trying to impress. You're living to constantly need approval. And you become a slave to that feeling of doing the right thing... rather than just living in it's presence.
This is the kind of attitude that leads us into idolatry if it's not wholly on God.
This is the attitude we sometimes have to fight when we are dating someone.
Or when our job takes control of us.
And some of us need to be broken down and humbled:
God doesn't need you.
God isn't impressed with anything you do, because if it's anything good... it came from Him to begin with.
"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows."-James 1:17
"All of us have become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
and like the wind our sins sweep us away." -Isaiah 64:6
"As it is written:
“There is no one righteous, not even one;" -Romans 3:10
"The irony is that while God doesn’t need us but still wants us, we desperately need God but don’t really want Him most of the time." -Francis Chan
But if we really begin to think about it... our life isn't our own. Our life is given to us because of grace.
Every breath we take is because God is patient enough to hold back His wrath... and because, "Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given." -John 1:16
His grace is enough. And it pours out and overlaps upon itself.
I live only because of that amazing grace.
Therefore, I live only because of the One who gives me that grace.
I'm not trying to impress God. I'm being impressed by Him everyday.
I'm not living for God. I'm living because of Him.
I have no choice in the matter... my life is in His hands. And I would want it no other way.
My name is Nathan, people call me Nate. I'm in love with Jesus Christ. I want to be remembered as being obsessed, and so that makes me a Christian who is striving to finish the race strong.
I created this blog at first just to share my poetry, but it's grown into my ramblings and thoughts on God's nature, character, and all surpassing love.
I want my life to constantly revolve around Jesus, to be entirely focused on Him, on His love, His Grace, and His will. I want my life to be characterized as others seeing Jesus truly live in and through me, my actions, my thoughts, my passions, and my desires. It's a want, a cry of desperation.
"And so, this changes things. This means that it doesn’t matter how much Scripture and philosophy I know, what matters is what I do with it. Ironically, having a lot of information about Jesus can often be the very thing that keeps me from Him. I delude myself into thinking that Jesus is nothing more than a fact on a page. An idea to comprehend, a moral to ascribe to. And believe me, He’s much more than that. He is our life, our breath, and the pulse within our veins. He is before, behind, and all around. Over. Underneath. Inside. In between.
I've never heard it said better.
And I want to KNOW Him this way. As bread and wine. As flesh and blood. As a lover, a wife, as the life within. I’m tired of my knowledge turning to arrogance. I’m tired of information turning to superiority. I want to encounter Him, and have that encounter change the way I see the world." -Mike Donehey, Tenth Avenue North
It's what I desperately want.
And I want the same for you.
Don’t you?
It's something I will be working at, striving for ALL of my life, and I know there will be times that I fall flat on my face, times that I seem like I've fallen from Grace, the times that I can't see past the next minute, the times that I just don't get it. The times that I doubt Him and when I can't feel, the times that I question is this for real? The times that I'm broken, the times that I mend, the times I hate Him, the times that I bend.
All of those times that I know I'll sin, I'll be what held Jesus to that cross, I'll be that spit that came out of the soldiers mouth and landed on my Savior. I'll be the man that took the first swing at the hammer that drove the first nail through His flesh. But I know that in spite of that, His love is over. It's underneath. It's inside. It's in between. And I'm free from condemnation through His love.
I'll constantly be working toward the goal, striving for perfection, but... "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!" -Gal. 2:20-21
This is what keeps me going. This is what I want my life, my blog, and my legacy to be about.
Because God is more than life.
He's Inside.
He's Overneath.
And even more...
He loves us.
