What do I despise????

Thank goodness for the IHOP, and the faithful people who show up and keep pushing. I am looking forward to more and more of my heart opening up and being able to stay connected and hungry so I can be counted among these nameless and faceless ones.

Getting the I got something stuck in the back of my mind, kind of like how you get something stuck in one of your back teeth, during either a worship with the word set, or someones faithful prayer.

Hebrews 12:2 (NIV)
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

The part for me here is SCORNING

Other versions use slightly different words:

DESPISING (Darby Young (a favorite of mine), NAS,
DISREGARDING (NRSV)

This is just stuck in me. Scorning, Despising, Disregarding are all active. It isn't an afterthought. The way Holy Spirit is showing my heart about it is

Hold on a second. I just started crying as I wrote that. God is actually showing me something important to Him, about Himself, and helping me receive it, because He knows I wont even pay attention to Him without His help...

anyway...

God is showing this to me in a way like a picture. I see a bunch of people who have collectively decided that the epitome of shame is to be judged, found guilty, publicly ridiculed, hung naked, and suffer for whatever they judged you for, until you slowly suffocate under tremendous nerve damaged induced pain.

These people, whether knowingly or not, would look at someone on a cross, and feel revolted. Not at the death itself, but what must have put someone there. The death on a cross is bad enough, but if you are one of those people, you must be someone to be scorned, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, etc...

The cross is a symbol as much as an execution method. Out of all the other ways to kill, this exposed more of the suffering and agony to the public than anything due to its very nature... long, tortuous, elevated (literally), in the open area (not in a cell)...

And the picture I get is EVERYONE with a sneer on their face. Mention the cross, and int hat culture, its the full measure of everything people turn away from, and cant stand to look at.

And Jesus walks in, and basically says "All that shame and disgust you associate with what you think this represents is NOTHING TO ME. It isn't just nothing, I DESPISE ALL THE SHAME you associate with this. I TOTALLY DISREGARD your assessment of this, and what it represents. My response to your conclusions is SCORN. It is NOTHING, INSIGNIFICANT. Not only do I not follow your thinking, I am OPPOSED TO IT. It is STUPID THINKING, worthy of SCORN".

Not only does Jesus have totally different values about what we consider worthy of SHAME, He is ACTIVE about it. HE is opposed to it, to the point that the same look and attitude on the faces and in the hearts of people towards HIM, was similar to how HE felt about the SHAME they were projecting on Him.

God HATES shame. He disregards it, scorns it, despises it. Not the people, but definitely the shame.

Now I stop and think, and ask you to think.... What is the object of your shame? Someone Else's behavior? Your own? You yourself?

God doesn't hate you, but He hates the shame in your thinking. He is opposed to it to the extent He will willingly disregard it. The Cross wasn't just a demonstration of Gods heart, it was a flaunting (to principalities and powers even) of Gods disregard about what we place value and shame on.

The only pictures I have are someone with an attitude, flipping someone else off. It is a total disregard of the other thing. I cannot say God is a mocking person etc... but I know of no other way to picture it. God isn't arrogant etc.. but He simply doesn't give a RIP about what you think is shameful. He doesn't play by your rules, and He doesn't ascribe to your values. He loves you so much, but don't confuse the fact that He think like you.

Anyhow, this isn't developed enough, and I'm struggling. I cannot help but think about this, and ask you again... what do you despise? What do you disregard? For me, it is me. I walk around with a sense of shame about myself. Internally, externally, it doesn't matter. Shame is like a molecule floating around looking for other molecules to bond with, and attach itself too. And there are too many things in me that are waiting for it to connect.

But Jesus (and therefore Holy Spirit and Father) hates shame. He doesn't participate in that. He looks at me, and sees His joy. He looks at the Father and sees ultimate joy in obedience and being a blessing to Abba. And in light of that, the shame people attach to their own conclusions is silly to the point of being scorned and disregarded.

I guess as He helps me see joy in Him, and His heart, what people (including myself) attach shame too will not only seem silly, I will oppose it to the point of sacrifice.