Hi you!
Do you know who Robert Murray M’Cheyne is?
If you do - congratulations! If you don’t, don’t look him up - I did that for us both. Robert Murray M’Cheyne lived and preached in the 1800s at St. Peter’s in Dundee UK. And record has it that M’Cheyne’s heart was constantly drawn toward churches who were spiritually dead. He desperately wanted Holy Spirit level revival for those congregations.
Now here’s why I mention this man. Robert Murray M’Cheyne isn’t of great importance to most of us. And he wasn’t of great importance to me until I heard someone speak his words over me.
“If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet distance makes no difference. He is praying for me.”
Those words have been planted in my brain for the past six weeks. Have you ever thought about how Jesus prays for you? How Jesus ACTIVELY talks to God on your behalf? Side-by-side and in one another they converse about you. Go read John 17. There we get a glimpse of how the conversation goes.
“Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.” (verse 11)
“My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.” (verse 15)
“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.” (verse 24)
Jesus asked for protection over us. He asked for the protection that can ONLY come from the Father and the power of His name.
Jesus asked that we be one! One body. One being knit together in the way that Jesus is with God. And Jesus’s desire for us to be one was so deep that he gave his life to unite us to the Father eternally and to unite us to one another in love.
Jesus asked that we be with him. AND HE SAID WANT. Jesus cried, “God PLEASE let these I love be with me! Let them see my glory! Let them see YOUR glory! Only because you love me!”
I’m a firm believer that whatever sits on the throne of your heart is what you worship, what you express love to. And as Christ-followers, we want to and are called to worship God. Let me be honest, it’s been real easy to let fear sit on my heart recently. Fear that I’m bad. Fear that I’m hurtful. Fear that I’m unsafe. Fear that I’m wrong. Fear that I’m letting God down. Fear. Fear. Fear. ME. ME. ME.
WHILE CHRIST IS PRAYING FOR ME IN THE NEXT ROOM. RIGHT THERE. IN THE NEXT ROOM. He is praying for me. And Christ is praying for you! I want that to consume my heart. I want it to consume all of us. Can you imagine how we would speak and act and love and work if we did not fear a million enemies? Or if we heard Christ’s words and passion and emotion while he prayed for us?
I’m praying you and I can listen to Christ pray for us. I’m praying it brings us to our knees in joyful worship. I’m praying we experience what it’s like to not fear a million enemies.
“Yet distance makes no difference. He is praying for me.”
xoxo
Martha Anne