What an incredible Father we have that does not assert Himself, but allows faith to arise in our hearts. A girl at my church last week said something that stuck with me. She said, "You can not awaken people to love, but you must love them to their awakening." I thought that was such a profound statement, because so often we want to "win" people into the kingdom. What are we winning? What's the competition? Is this about ourselves or about Christ? We must radically love Christ and through that overflow passionately love people. Loving, sacrificing, boldly sharing even when it doesn't look like circumstances are changing. Look @ the stories of Mary & Elisabeth, Mary & Joseph and Jesus. They radically loved the God of all creation and shared that with the world around them. There were times were it seemed that nobody was there to fight on their behalf.

Mary & Elisabeth- When these two women were the only ones who knew what was to be birthed in and through them they hoped in God and His promises. The love that was displayed through their sacrifice ministered to all around them from spoken promise, to impregnation and finally to birth.

Mary & Joseph- These two could have very easily ditched the plan of the Lord and gone to hide in a cave somewhere, but they were not ashamed because the voice of the Lord had spoken to both of them. When people were not there to support them or questioned this young womens character the Lord was there to fight on their behalf. The passionate faith that they walked in caused all to sit back in awe and ultimately it blessed all of creation because they parented the Messiah.

Jesus- Man, I could stay on this forever!!
Philippians 3:5-8 "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

Made himself of no reputation! Don't we strugle with this?!! We want to be noticed, we want to be justified, we want to prove ourselves. Jesus did not feel compelled to "prove" anything. Out of all people who would have the capacity to assert power, authority, fame he made himself nothing and allowed the revelation to rise in peoples hearts. He did not force revelation to come, but he lived in such a way that caused people to question and look beyond themselves. We must look to our creator to find our justification and identity. We must look to our father to realise where we truly do stand and let Christ fall out of us.