Wow these two months have flown by! God has done so much in me throughout this time at home, I am so thankful. It has not been easy by any means and the Lord has certainly stretched me, but I know He is just preparing me for what is to come.
I know it has not sunk in yet that I will be gone for a year and it probably will not sink in till I am gone for a little while. This Christmas has been an amazing time with my family, but it has also been a hard time because we are all very close and being gone for a year will be very hard at times. I am very excited about leaving, but I am pretty nervous and a little scared to be honest. I know the Holy Spirit is going before us though and I know my life will never be the same after this journey.
The Lord has shown me many things in this season of my life, but one that has been most prominent has been the fact that Christ lives in me! I have read several books these last couple months that have been focusing on this subject. One is called The Saving Life of Christ by Major W. Ian Thomas and another one is called Spiritual Discernment by Watchman Nee. The Lord has used both of these books in preparing me for this next season.
I believe as Christians we sometimes miss the whole point of Salvation and the Lord was showing me that I have been missing it. What the Lord has shown me through His Word and through these books is that Christ had not died just to save me from hell and one day get me to Heaven, but that I might become available to Him for Him to live His life through me. It was such a revelation I believe we get so busy thinking about how we are saved from hell when we accept Christ that we forget the most important part of Salvation that Christ lives in us, and wants to live through us! Its nothing new for us to learn its just discovering what we already have… Christ in us the Hope of Glory!….A quote by Major W. Ian Thomas that really spoke to me on this was that
“In other words, the fact that you are a preacher, the fact that you are a missionary, that fact that you are a Christian worker, that fact that you are a witnessing Christian, does not make you spiritual, nor your activity righteous no matter how deep your sense of dedication, or the sacrifice involved. As far as God is concerned, Christ is the preacher, Christ is the missionary, Christ is the Christian worker, Christ is the witnessing Christian. Only what He is, and what He does, is righteousness and what He is and what He does is only released through you by your unrelenting attitude of dependence. This is called faith.”
I know the Lord will make this realization so much more real in this next season of my life. To live is Christ
