You know...I get a lot of accusations and doubts thrown at me regarding who I really am in Christ.
One big step for Christian growth is learning to let Jesus be our foundation and not our senses or our feelings. Some days I act completely contrary to who I really am in Jesus Christ. And then the question comes of how I can really have the Spirit of God in me when I do such things or feel such things or think such things? Why would God give His Spirit to me? I don't do anything special or important.
The biggest step of faith is completely ignoring these feelings and doubts and acting as if we are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus not because we feel it, sense it or act like it all the time. No...Faith is the assurance of things not seen. Faith counts it to be so not because it has evidence, but simply because God has promised and God is no man that He should lie. We walk by faith, not by sight. I take this to mean that we also do not walk by feelings, experiences or whatever senses our bodies may have. Let us mix this Gospel with faith! The Lord said blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed!
Faith is, like Malcolm Smith has mentioned, not closing our eyes tightly saying "I believe, I believe, I believe." Faith is a rest and trust in God by keeping your eyes on Him. Faith isn't concerned with itself, but it's object. Those who were commended as having great faith in the Gospels were not conscious of their faith. They were conscious only of Jesus.
So let us fix our eyes on Him and not on ourselves. He will lead us and guide us and teach us. And this process will not be organized. It will be messy.
6 comments:
Really good stuff here!
"Faith is a rest and trust in God by keeping your eyes on Him. Faith isn't concerned with itself, but it's object."
I can relate to how many Christians tend to put their faith in how much or how little faith they think they have, rather than actually putting their faith in Christ. Good reminder here.
"I put my hope on things not seen, His promises are true, He is Faithful......." ~ a line from Hillsong song....anyway, you are right it is messy, today I got all emotional and hated it...yuck, but I know that I know..He is faithful and I believe in Him and His power to do anything, to transform me, I know who I am...I don't always act like I know who I am, but I am the righteousness of God none- the- less.....not only is my flesh learning to catch up to my spiritual status, but the enemy...just rips into me at my weak moments...that's part of the messy stuff...but being aware of it all can help us move out of the mess quicker ......sorry for my babbly response, I think I am tracking with ya here, I enjoyed this post......!!! Grace to ya!
Hey Lydia,
Bless you...I just had a little moment of anger of my own. I was outside watering the bajillions of flowers my mom has outside because shes in a lot of pain and these ignorant cherry tomatoes that you see on tv, where they grow upside down, the stupid things feel down and I was in no mood to hammer these things back into the tree. I don't even like tomatoes! So I'm just whining about it and telling myself how stupid it is for her to have all these flowers and hanging tomatoes. Sometimes I just wanna go home. I'm such a cry baby! LOL
Anyway...I was kicking myself and asking God "Will I ever grow?" But it's not my condemning myself and pulling myself up by my bootstraps that causes growth and maturity. That only furthers my anger. It's the Grace of God that gives me the growth. It's Jesus through and through. Though sometimes I wish He'd hurry it up!
Yeah Matt - I know what you mean, I get impatient too, especially when things have been going so well and I know that the Spirit has been flowing through me and I sense genuine peace and then I go and get all fleshy and soulful....and mess it up, ha....by the way I was listening to Rob Rufus' latest message last night, on the Blood...and thought of this post....you should check it out if you get a chance!!!! Peace!
Amen. Good stuff indeed:-)
Glad you were encouraged, brother. ;)
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