Four years ago I remember sitting in a campus ministry service near the Texas Tech campus in Lubbock, TX. I had taken up a lifestyle of drinking and partying and had lost any sense of purpose for my life. Sitting in that pew one Wednesday night I remember having an internal fight with God. I knew the lifestyle I was living was wrong and I wanted to change but by the end of the service I came to the conclusion that doing this would be too hard and what I was doing now was “too much fun.”
Since then I decided to do the opposite and my life has changed drastically. So why do I find myself having a very similar conversation with God? I should be past things like this right? After all, I attended bible school, worked and interned for a church in the heart of the Bible belt and am currently on an 11 month mission trip.
This started when I began reading possibly the most challenging book of my life a month ago, challenging me to live a life of holiness. Not for self righteousness but to gain a closeness with God that I haven’t had before; something that I want out of this year.
For most of my life I have avoided studying the subject of holiness, assuming that if I did I would end up becoming a Bible-basher yelling at people on the streets to repent. The problem with that is the Bible is very clear about this subject
Work at living a holy life, for those who are not holy will not see the Lord.
-Hebrews 12:14
When reading this I didn’t get a warm fuzzy feeling of encouragement. I knew I had to change some things in my life that honestly, I didn’t want to change. I could no longer simply ignore this because of a lack of revelation. I had an option. I could either accept the challenge that God was giving me to live a life that lines up with His Word or I could deny it. To give a little insight on how I felt in this moment here is a journal entry from that day.
I now know something that I can’t ignore. I have to make a decision. Do I accept the challenge or do I reject what I know is true? I can’t just reject this one thing. I realize that I have to either accept everything from God or I have to reject all of it. It has been a real temptation to do the second of the two. I know that at this point I can’t reject what I already know and have experienced about God but if I reject this I will be forced to. To reject this I will reject His love, grace, power and guidance. To reject this I will be rejecting God Himself. I will reject what He did on the cross for me. When I decided to follow Jesus I decided to accept things like this. I chose to abandon what I thought was good and follow what He KNOWS is good.
I didn’t know that all of those times I had prayed for more of God, to see Him, He was waiting for me live a holy life so He could show me just how great and mighty He is. I realize that as I continue to use God’s grace as an empowerment to overcome my own selfish desires I will begin to see Him more and more. This revelation was an answer to my prayer to see more of Him.
At this moment I feel great anticipation for the future. I know that I had been putting up a wall between me and God because I wasn’t changing in certain areas in my life but that has all changed. I have accepted His challenge and empowerment and I can’t wait to share the ways I see Him.
I also want to extend an invitation to talk more about the subject of holiness if you have any questions or just want to know a little more about my story. If you feel like you should give up certain things in your life but don’t really want to I would love to talk with you about it. This has really been a freeing experience!
