Wrestling
Over the last several days, I’ve been wrestling with two essential issues:
1. The need for full, utter consecration to the Lord, and His will and purposes.
2. The desperate need to be truly abiding in Christ and manifesting His life and nature.
Oh, it’s so easy to think and say I’m consecrated to Him, but if I truly examine my ways and how I spend so much of my time and energy, it becomes apparent it’s far from a full consecration, like we see in the life of Paul, for instance.
I’m also becomming more aware just how much and often I manifest my own fallen nature, rather than Jesus.
To be a genuine disciple, I’m seeing just how essential those two elements are.
(The real heart of this blog starts on my homepage. Please go to it at HOME, and read as much as you’re willing. I believe these are the major issues the Body of Christ has to face in this day and age)
All I can say is that the closer I get to God, and the more sold out for Him I become, the more I realise how pitifully little I realistically have to offer!
If I were to give my life today and remain condemned to hell for all eternity, He would still be worthy of the sacrifice. But as it is, He lays down His life for me, and then smiles in my face when all I can do is seem to get it wrong. How great a God do I serve?!!
Wow, you just spoke my heart in this post.
There are times that I take a spiritual inventory and am truly ashamed of what I see. I then go before the throne and humble myself and beg forgiveness.
I agree with HeartCry above. The closer I draw to God and the more I learn of Him, the more of His holiness I see. The more of His holiness I see, the more I see that my righteousness is NOTHING. If it weren’t for the substitutionary atonement, I couldn’t stand before Him at all, for I stand there in the righteousness of His Son, Jesus Christ. What a gift!
John and Chrystal,
Thanks for your input and insights. You make good points.
Let us also not forget that He intends to see His own righteousness wrought in us, as painful and trying as that may be for us.
It’s quite awesome to know that nothing depends on us at all. We’d fail before we’d even put on our running shoes, never mind leaving the starting blocks.
The bravest and most wonderful thing we can do, is ask God to show us, us, as He sees us, to ask Him to shine His light upon our lives and hearts, to look into His mirror, then wait upon Him. It will come and it is never pretty, It is usually quite disgusting, in fact as Chrystal has said, we end up before His throne on our knees.
If we shy away from what God shows us, we lose out on many blessings, because we will never bring whatever it is He has brought into the open, before Him, ask forgiveness and grow.
I am often disgusted with myself at what God shows me I am like. HE wants me to see. I might feel revolted by the reflection, but I am not defeated, because it is His love that says, “Yes you belong down there on your knees at the foot of my throne, but because of My Son Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross, you are forgiven and you are beloved.” Then He picks me up, dusts me off, takes my hand and walks on with me. Me and my Father.
This is to be our walk. We grow in front of His mirror and in the valleys, where God forms our character, not on the mountain tops. Character forming is painful. Dying to self is painful. God will form His Son in us. What a joy to know!
The flow of thoughts and ideas here is very challenging. It’s good to be in dialogue with people whom God is really working on and opening things up to, even if we are far apart in the physical realm.