Over the weekend I came face to face with a very uncomfortable truth: I’m hardly willing to be inconvenienced for Jesus, much less to die for Him.
The scenario by which I came to realize this about myself is
hardly relevant. Although, God’s process of revelation to me was quite
elaborate and poetically executed. But the point was made and I cannot deny
that this is true.
I want to die to myself. I believe that it’s essential to my
walk with Christ. I understand that without my death to self, Jesus cannot live
within me. Yet the sad thing is, I have not been practicing this in my daily
life. I have placed my own personal comfort above the needs of others.
So, what now? I know that I am not the Christian I thought I
was. I have seen my face in the mirror and I recognize my own hypocrisy, but
what can I do about this?
It’s tempting to think that what I need to do is to become
more spiritual. I should read my Bible more, or pray more often, or go and
serve the poor more often, or maybe fast for a few meals. That should fix the
problem, right?
Wrong. I know this because I’ve done all of that before.
Yes, this has happened to me more than once. I’ve fallen short, missed an
opportunity to be salt and light and flat-out blown it over and over again. In
those cases I responded by doing more stuff for God, or trying to become more
spiritual than I was before. All that it ever accomplished was to make me feel
better about failing my Lord and helping me to re-apply the illusion to
convince myself that everything was alright. But it wasn’t, and it isn’t.
Here is the truth: I am commanded to lay down my life and
surrender everything to Jesus. I want to do that, but the process is difficult
for me. I need to constantly surrender my life to Jesus every single day. Some
days I accomplish this, other days I fail miserably.
This realization is God’s gift to me. He’s showing me the
truth so that, together, He and I can nail yet another part of my flesh to the
cross.
Jesus is trying to invade this space. I need to get out of
his way and let him live and breathe in me. The process is ongoing. It involves
a constant, daily surrender to Him.
Listen. Surrender. Repeat.
-kg
1 comment:
I ran into a quote from C.S. Lewis just yesterday: "Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as if nothing had yet been done."
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