My whole life I've lived in my small town, Lutheran church, no expectations, religious bubble. I grew up grumbling every Sunday morning when my parents forced me to get out of bed and go to church. I sat through each service physically present, saying the words of the prayers and the songs like I was reciting memorized and brainwashed facts on a school test. I knew God was good. I knew he loved me. I knew he had some sort of plan for my life, and that if I showed up to church every Sunday morning I would be forgiven of my sins. Over the years, going to church and praying before meals started to become a routine full of empty traditions that eventually filled my heart with meaningless emotion that soon made me numb to all God was REALLY trying to do in my life.
Sound familiar?
You see, our impact and our perspective depends on where we come from. Read that again and soak it in….. Our impact and our perspective depends on where we come from. I grew up in the Lutheran church where we sang hymns, listened to the pastor preach, and went through the traditional routine of each service. Just being honest here, but If God was 'supposedly' supposed to be present in church, It sure didn't feel like it. That's because I didn't let him be present. I put God in a box of who I thought he was, what he was capable of, and what he wanted to do with my life.
Our impact and our perspective depends on where we come from…. Not just for who we think God is, but for ALL perspectives of life. You believe what you grew up in. You believe with what you are surrounded in. You believe in what your comfortable with. Your perceptions are based off of our worldview, the limitations of our experience, and our personality or temperament. Am I right?
Putting God in a box, and living in our own religious bubble is like "Attractive Christianity." It's safe. It comfortable. But it's not real. It doesn't attract people to pick up their cross and follow Jesus. Our Christianity has brought us up to be blinded from Jesus.
Which world do you live in? Is the IDEA of God there, but not present in your life? Or are you letting him be actively involved in your life?
We SAY we are letting God actively be involved in our life, but we ACTUALLY live with him absent in our lives. The Lord wants us to see the world through his eyes, and not our own eyes. Pretty powerful huh?
Almost all of my life I have not been discipled through the Lord, but through my my own perspective of who I thought he was.
Friends, If this is the standard of American Churches, we are in trouble.
As I grow up and start to discover who I am and the desires of my heart, I know that there is no time for that. Absolutely none. Friends, there is no time in this short life to be comfortable with who God is. If I understood him, could touch him, and truly know who he was…. He wouldn't be God. He's bigger than what we think. He's capable of more than what we believe.
Here is the start of my story of redemption…… God is slowly breaking down the barriers and the walls that I've built in my heart. He's removing the box that I've put him in, and I'm starting to see him through a fresh new pair of eyes. He's pealing back the blinders of the lens I've seen him in all my life…. a lens that limited him, and often led to me doubting if he even existed.
Your comfort zone is NOT discernment. You will be destroyed if you rely on your comfort zone. Giving up control will deliver you. The blood of Jesus is sufficient for every sin.
Let your prayer go something like this friends,
Father, Do everything you want to do IN me, so that you might want to do whatever you want THROUGH me. Your word says, blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God. I pray that I would see you in your complete and divine fullness. Remove the emptiness in my heart and take down the walls of the box I have put you in. You are bigger and more capable of anything that I give you credit for. Give me eyes to see you completely and fill my heart with nothing but you. Thanks for being you, God. Thanks for rocking my world.
Amen.
Now go. Sit with God. Ask him to rock your world and take you out of your comfort zone. Yes, that's scary. But remember, you start living when you start living outside of your comfort zone. He's bigger than the uneasiness of whats outside of your comfort zone. He's got you…..hold onto his hand and walk alongside him as you walk outside of the bubble you've been living in for way to long.
