February 11th is coming up quickly… and the start of the Undivided Purpose Project.

I’ve been listening to God more and more about what He wants from the year of this project. He’s been hammering home the concept of “Audience Of One”.

Let’s see if I can summarize this concept for you…

So, God basically wants me to create all the content for this project, the videos, blog posts, and podcasts, as if I was instructing one single person. One person. As if one person was going to be the only one to ever see any of it. Now this concept isn’t foreign… people write songs all the time with the “Audience of One” focus but the “One” for them is God. Perhaps for my project it should be written as: “Audience of one” since capitalizing the one makes its focus the Lord… and my focus is to be teaching a single person all God has taught me. The Undivided Purpose Project is for one person, a single individual. But can I do this? Do I even know how? Even this I am writing for people, multiple people. My audience when I write these books is many people not just one person. So, it’s a shift in everything for me. Can I do it? Certainly, with the help of the Holy Spirit… I get that and all… but still it’s a challenge… and probably going to be a constant struggle not to be speaking to everyone and only speak to the “one”.

And as I’m writing this God is speaking to my heart and He’s reminding me that He wrote His Word, the Bible, the Word of God specifically for me. And He wrote it specifically for you. He had each one of us in mind as He inspired both the history of the world and the inspiration of the scriptures. Can we ever really grasp or appreciate what God has done for us? Can I?

I am always amazed in my daily life when God does these little things just to say He loves me and is thinking of me. He will put something in my path, our secrets, our inside jokes, if you will, just to remind me that He is thinking of me. He does it all the time. Can’t get much more personal than that! Right?!

But do I really appreciate that the God of all Creation takes time to have a personal and intimate relationship with me. I am the “one” He is focused on. And you are the “one” He is focused on. His Word says so… over and over again. Let it all sink in for a moment.

God loves you so much that He created the world, the universe, everything that exists. He loves you so much that He had you in His mind before time was time. And at just the right and perfect moment He created you, formed you in your mother’s womb. He breathed the breath of life into your lungs. That’s how much He loves you. He did all this to have a relationship with you. You are His “audience of one”.

If there is one thing He has shown me over the course of my lifetime is that He is jealous for my affections, attentions, focus, and time. It’s the “why” behind everything He has asked of me since He broke into my world and rescued me from myself.

As I sit here listening to God, He keeps telling me that there is someone that’s going to read this that needs to know that they are His “audience of one”, the apple of His eye, His beloved, His precious child.

Have you ever just let God love you?

Yesterday I went for a long walk. I was struggling… God was walking with me. I certainly didn’t deserve His presence at that time. He was talking to me… and I kept thinking that I didn’t deserve His presence at that moment. He kept talking and pursuing me. So, picture this in your mind… me walking on a trail out in nature… feeling ashamed and heavy… unworthy… all that… and Jesus is walking behind me… following me… He just wouldn’t leave me alone. He said, “You are still carrying around that works mentality.” I knew what He was talking about. That transactional love mentality I learned as a child… it’s a horrible thing to carry… to believe… that I’m only worthy of love when I am perfect.

It’s crazy… but I get it now. Oh, that verse about God… let me just put it here so I don’t misquote it:

“For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all [Jew and Gentile alike].” – Romans 11:32 AMP

I am far from perfect… but I am being perfected.

Every time I fall I return to God. That is what it means to be a righteous person. I certainly don’t sin so I can be forgiven, but I do make mistakes… and every single time… well, after wallowing in my shame and self-pity for a while, return to God.

God’s love for me isn’t conditional on my perfection, if it was He wouldn’t love me. And it’s because He loves me when I’m not perfect that I trust His love for me.

I feel like I’m not explaining this well, but I trust God will get the message across to you.

There is this memory He keeps bringing to my mind and He wants me to share it again… I don’t want to. But I’ll obey… cause it’s important.

Long ago I was just living for myself. I was at a place where people go to just sin. It wasn’t a crowded place… it was early morning probably around 2am or 3am. So, I’m sitting in this place, this evil place, and I’m waiting for people to show up. Then all of a sudden Jesus is standing right there in the room with me. It’s super awkward right?! Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords is in this unholy place. I just kind of looked away. He said, “You shouldn’t be here.” I replied, “You shouldn’t be here.” It was the love in His voice that I remember most. We talked more. It was a dark time in my life and I’ve since been forgiven and such. But it was the fact that Jesus came to that place to encounter me.

He is just wrecking me with His love right now at 4:27am as I sit here in my recliner remembering that moment. Why does He love me so much with all I’ve done?!

My rescue still blows my mind. I’ll never understand God’s path for my life. It makes no sense. Most people’s testimonies are like: “I was in a dark place, and I cried out for Jesus and He saved me.” Certainly not everyone’s story but a lot. But my rescue came when I wasn’t calling out to Him. I wasn’t seeking Him. I was broken beyond reckoning. I had just had the worst night of my life and God rushed into my world and said, “Enough of this.” And rescued me.

Where does my devotion come from? Where does my “great faith” come from? Certainly not from within myself. God loves me. So, I love Him. Where else would I go? I’ve been out there… it brought only death. God has the Word of Life and I want life.

Are you at the place in your life where God is on the throne? It’s so easy to just live in this world, to go with the flow, and all that… but then you’re just missing out on having the most amazing relationship with your Creator. I’ve been in a lot of “relationships” in my life. Family. Friends. Lovers. And NONE of them compared to God.

God has had me alone with Him A LOT since He rescued me. He insists that I am His. I belong to Him. And He fiercely guards our relationship. I am absolutely certain I did nothing to deserve His love or the way He shows that love every day to me. And not in “spiritual unseen ways” either, although He certainly shows His love to my unseen spirit. He literally does things in the natural, physical world every day to remind me of His love for me. He loved me first. He died for me while I was still a sinner. He placed me in the world at exactly the right moment: in the perfect second, the perfect minute, the perfect hour, the perfect day, and the perfect year. He placed me in the perfect family, with the perfect parents, the perfect siblings, the perfect place in the world. He knew what I would encounter. He knew what I would go through. He knew what I would love to do. He knew my personality and how that personality would be shaped by the life I would encounter, and I lived out my days. He chose the moments that He broke in and encountered me. I look back over my life and I see how He drew me to Himself. It’s the most beautiful love story I know.

It’s funny cause I am sitting here, and I feel how much He longs for me to be home with Him. I can feel that feeling from His heart. He’s not impatient with it certainly but it’s a longing of His. That’s crazy right? God longs for me to be with Him where He is. He knows I have a few things left to finish here. I have to finish the good works He planned for me. Those being gifts He has given me. He knows we are together now.

As my time winds down and the difficult things I still must face loom on the horizon, God is preparing me to face them with Him by my side. He’s getting me ready. He’s preparing me for what’s next. It’s His way.

You may think, “This guy has a death wish.” And certainly, I long to be in heaven… but I will obey what God has asked of me and finish the good works He’s given me to do. I have my assignments. I am to finish this book series. I am to spend a year instructing my “audience of one” to write books through the Undivided Purpose Project. I will be faithful to complete these things not in my own strength but in His. But the story of my life is drawing to a close. God has always told me ahead of time what’s coming. Just read these books and you’ll see that clearly. It’s time for me to pass on what He’s taught me. Time for me to pass on the torch, the baton.

I’m excited… I’ve got my eyes on the finish line and I’m running towards it.