Christ In You

Do you ever feel the desire to love people, to walk in love and to live a holy life yet you're tired of trying because you know you can't, and you're tired of hearing people tell you how to do it? Even tired of hearing teachers who understand the message of Christ in you telling you how to work it out?

I am.

I want to love, but I can't. I don't know how this works and I don't want you to tell me right now. It's me and Jesus. I don't follow men, their strategies or what they say. I have listened to all the sermons. I know all the theology; all the grace jargon. Now I want the experience, and to have the experience, I have to be free to make stupid choices (over and 0ver) and learn from them. I have to be absolutely free to fall and get hurt. I have to be absolutely free to be immature. In order to learn to walk upright, I must by necessity be free from any and all condemnation. If I am not, then I will weep and mourn over and over for my sin instead of learning to live from Christ, who is my very life.

You see, I have always been one who needs to learn for himself. I have to figure this out myself...I can't let men make rules for me. This has GOT to be real. This has GOT to issue from MY intimacy with God and not someone else having intimacy with Him for me and then teach me what He taught them.

Jesus looked at Peter and said, "You follow ME". We tend to interpret that as though following Jesus would be more burdensome than following a man. Nothing could be further from the truth.
"Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke and learn from Me."

How interesting...I just took notice of Malcolm Smith's voice in the sermon I am listening to as I type this and he said the same thing I just did: "You can't live by what people tell you to do. You have to learn to live from the Christ in YOU."