I’ve written and rewritten this blog entry in my mind so many times over the last two weeks, yet haven’t attempted to put actual words on paper until now. I thought I could write about something else until I figured out how to go about this inner wrestling but my heart wouldn’t allow another subject to penetrate my soul. Sometimes that’s just how the Lord works in my life…He doesn’t let me off the hook until I totally relinquish it to Him and wait for Him to speak truth back into my life. Over the course of the last two weeks, He has brought countless scriptures, conversations and even yesterday’s sermon to me and released me to write freely today.
Is My Life Compromised?
With all the New Year resolution talk these past weeks I have felt the Lord continually bombarded me with two words: contentment and identity. These two words so vastly different in themselves, yet they blend together like oil pastels on the canvas of the Christian’s life.
Resolutions, I believe are formed from being dissatisfied with some area of our life or in hopes to add something to our life to feel more complete, more joy, more… something. Striving for better or more in our lives isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I honestly believe, discontentment is wonderful when if forces us to reach beyond ourselves, to perhaps risk. That’s when real growth happens in our lives.
As I think about this, I am asking myself, when was the last time I risked? When was the last time I didn’t hide my faith in the midst of friends or co-workers or even in my church for that matter? My heart aches as I can’t recall. I say I’m not ashamed of my God. I say that I love Him. But do I, if I am trying to resemble the world more than Him? Where do I find my identity?
This brings me back to resolutions and the goals we set for ourselves. Are the goals we’ve made to look more like man or God? Am I more concerned about what I want or what others think than what Jesus thinks? If we resemble man and live up to man’s goals and man’s expectations, we have in a very real sense elevated man to god status. Think about it.
Our Pastor touched on this subject yesterday, when he talked about Peter. Remember how he, Jesus’ best friend and disciple who lived morning, noon and night for three years with Jesus, denied knowing Him; not just once, but three times? Why did he do this? We know he loved Jesus. The answer is simply because he feared man. He was looking for man’s approval, not God’s. With a grievous heart, I wish I could say I have only denied Him three times.
Our identity is to be found in Christ. Our reflection is to mirror Jesus. If we are to live a life of obedience to Christ we will not look like the rest of the world. Are we OK with that? We will live in exile. Are we OK with that? We will feel out of place, perhaps persecuted. Are we OK with that? Beloved, we need to be OK with being holy (set apart, different). I know I will spend my whole live striving to reach this place. I know I will struggle. But I also know my heart leaps at the thought of being more like Jesus. So I risk. I press on.
1 Timothy 6:6 “But godliness with contentment is great gain”. This statement is the key to spiritual growth and personal fulfillment…to seek first his kingdom and his righteousness (Matthew 6:33): Turn to God first for help, to fulfill your thoughts with His desires, to take His character, His pattern.
1 comment:
Put another way, authenticity. We should (I don't - at least not as much as I should) desire to be more Christlike, more conformed to the image of Christ. But do to inborn sin as well as our own fear, we create a two layer persona more often than not: the inner me, seeking to be Christlike (hopefully), and the outer me, which tries to get along in the world without creating too much hassle for myself.
Authenticity is the bringing of the inner out, of making our inside flow out into our outside.
A great deal of my own problems stem from the fact that I probably don't take God serously enough. In order to practice that kind of authenticity, you really have to seek and know God and have a firm grasp on the fact that He is the Truth and that He is enough - that His word will meet our needs, and He honors His promises. That's where the great saints of old and even modern (although it sure seems like there aren't a lot) bring me to task: they are Christ's, and deal with Him as if He is not something external to them but along with them. I re-read this month Corre Ten Boom's Tramp for the Lord. The way she writes and the way she speaks is reflective of what she knows about her God, His sufficiency, and His ability to solve anything. It is simple, straighforward plain - and judging from the impact of her life, effective in the cause of Christ.
As for the Fear of Man: Ed Welch's book When People are Big and God is Small defines the problem as well as I'v read (although, like most christian books, his way to combat it is not as clear as I'd like).
Most people, I think it is safe to say, have not seen an authentic Christian - they've either seen worldly Christians (and more often that not, I put myself in this category) or caricatures of what society defines Christians as being. Authentic Christians - people that can truly demonstrably love the sinner and yet call it sin, that truly reflect the love of God in a way that is different - are rare indeed.
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