What would it look like if we lived like we knew we didn’t have to sin? What if we could connect with fellow followers of Christ through mutual passion for Christ rather than mutual struggle in sin? What would it look like if we really lived like the Holy Spirit gave us power over sin?
Good news folks, we have every urge from God to live this way. He has already given us everything we need to live a life proclaiming His name without the help of programs or professionals. All we need is knowledge of the Bible and a willingness of spirit. God, through His spirit, has supplied courage, confidence, peace, understanding, passion, forgiveness, love, and vision, along with so many other things, to us. God convicted me last night to stop asking for these things like He hasn’t already supplied them. If we have inviting hearts of these things, we don’t have to spend 24 hours of the day begging from them while we should be out using them to love people well to glorify our Father. He has done the work and with gracious hands handed us everything we need, all we have to do is receive it well and trust in His goodness. At some point, we all have to embrace courage and start on the path God has before us, even if that means leaving the comforts of our classrooms where we are learning of the wonders of God. Grab a backpack, throw your Bible in, and start trekking.
We have every permission from God to stop struggling with sin. How often do we focus on our struggle with sin simply because we feel an obligation to constantly be fighting Satan through this facet? Do we cave into sin so that we don’t appear self-righteousness when we fail to immediately have an answer to the question “What are you struggling with?”? What would it look like if we were so viciously in pursuit of God’s glory that our sin became a distant memory in our rearview mirror of focus?
You don’t have to sin. It doesn’t have any more control over your life than that which you give it. Try focusing on God’s glory, and His grace which He lavishes upon you, and use it for the fuel which ignites your soul. Time is short. We have no time for nonsense.
Try living the equipped life that God has given you.
After posting the original blog, God brought something that has been bothering me for a while to mind: Our constant need for reminders of basic spiritual truths. We hear a sermon on how God loves us, we hear from a friend that God’s grace is sufficient, or we see a quote proclaiming God’s goodness on a social media platform. All these things are inherently positive and good for our minds and souls, but do we act like we are in spiritual infancy at times? Why do we act like we, as Christ’s follows, are hearing that God loves for us is a new revelation every Sunday? See, we have grown so used to our neighbor reminding us “God’s grace is sufficient” every time we stumble, that we completely forget this should be a basic mindset in our Christian walk. We are called to live this out, not pull it off our first aid shelf when something goes wrong. We become so shallow and needy of basic reminders that we cannot get out of spiritual preschool? Is this why we are so unprepared to share God’s love with others because we are still trying to believe it ourselves? Are we reminded because we have poor memory and legitimately forget, or are we comfortable in the spiritual infancy stage and don’t want to grow up and start acting in it? Maybe if we try and focus on phrasing truth in as many ways as possible we can avoid having to go live it out? Why do we need pastor’s to spend whole sermons convincing us that God does indeed love us? Is God’s word not valid? Why do we struggle to believe the One who’s words ARE truth? We are called to a childlike faith. A child takes the words of those they respect (parents or peers) and accepts them as truth, then proceeds to act on that truth. If a parent tells their small child that they love them, the child does not wrestle with these words, but accepts them, and could confidently say that their parent loves them, while fully believing this. If pastors didn’t have to pick an attribute of God to convince (again) or Christian characteristic that we should live out for our Sunday evening, how much more effort could be focused into reaching the lost, or teaching of how
to share your faith (and not just the basic “be bold” stuff). Why do we spend so much time arguing why works are bad and why we only need faith? If we have faith, would we obey God (works)? What would it look like if we studied scripture to find how to reach others rather than finding the “minimum requirements for heaven” page? If we would have more belief, how much more effective could we be to our Father and how much more glory could we bring to him?
I’m not sure, but I’m willing to find out.
