My God is so faithful…
I pray all the time that He will reveal Himself to me and that He will speak to me…
And tonight He spoke to me again…He answers my prayers…
But to be honest…sometimes I wish He would just keep his mouth quiet and let me be…because sometimes He tells me things that I don’t want to hear…because He wants me to change…He wants to transform me…to be more like Him…
Which is another one of my prayers…to look like Jesus more and more everyday…at the end of the day, I want to be more like Him then I was when I woke up…I want people to see Him when they look at me…
Because it is ALL about Jesus…
So to look like Jesus…that sounds good…I say it all the time…but sometimes I wonder if I fully mean that…
Because I know I would love to look like Jesus when He is walking around preaching, bringing good news, restoring sight, bringing people back from the dead, casting out demons, healing bodies…that stuff is great.
Heck yeah…I want to be that guy…
But when it comes to the Jesus that was unfairly treated, abused, beaten, bloody, suffering, carrying his cross, and then hanging on the cross…I seem to shy away from that…
And I find myself asking the question, “Do I really want to look like Jesus?”
So tonight I found myself in a little situation where I am being treated unfairly…I was upset…ticked actually…so I was trying to fight for my rights…justifying myself…thinking I am actually important…
In the middle of being upset, dinner time came,so I grabbed my plate and then went and stewed on my issue while I ate…realizing that I was ticked, I started praying about it…and I felt like I should grab the Bible, so I did…
Because it is God’s word and He speaks to us through His living word…
So I opened my Bible praying that God would speak to me…and maybe help me justify my thoughts…or speak to me that I am right…and that the others are wrong…I wanted God to pat me on the back and make me feel better…
I opened up to Luke 17:1-3—Things that cause people to stumble are bound to come, but woe to anyone through whom they come. It would be better for you to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around your neck than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble. So watch yourselves.
This speaks directly to the situation that I am in…
Then I flipped the page and read the two stories in Luke 18:1-14…and they too spoke into my situation…
I was hoping that God would have my back, but He wanted to tell me I am not perfect and that I need to change still…that He wants to mold me some more…
My situation isn’t important…but the message I learned tonight is…
For a while now, I have been fighting for my rights…and I get upset when others try to get involved with what I think I am entitled to…
I started to think about Jesus…and what He did…I tried to think of when He fought for His rights…and stood up for what He was entitled to…
But the problem is…I can’t find it…and I actually find that He did the opposite…He gave up all rights…when He was being persecuted, He could have argued His point and since He was sinless, would have been the one person that could have argued His point and been right…
But He didn’t…
He was willingly beaten, abused, and bloodied…then He picked up His cross…He suffered…He died…
He let go of all his rights…
That doesn’t make any sense to me…it is a mystery to me…it even seems crazy in a way…
But that is because it isn’t supposed to make sense to this world…His kingdom is not of this world and it is a mystery…it didn’t make sense to people back then…they thought He was crazy…that is why they killed Him…because He was crazy…crazy for us…
I want this mystery to be revealed to me…I want to understand this love…it is beautiful to me…I want to look like this…I want to look like Jesus…
Which means I have to want to look like all of Jesus…I can’t kinda want to look like Jesus…because that is being half in and half out…or the Bible refers to it as being lukewarm and God doesn’t think very highly of this…in Revelation 3:16 the Bible says because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth…I have to be all in or not…I can’t just pick and choose what is easy for me…I can’t just pick the easy stuff that makes me feel good and doesn’t require me to be changed or transformed…If I want it, I have to want it all…the love, grace, mercy, peace, eternal life…and also the change and transformation and I have to be willing to take a beating when it isn’t fair and know that there will be suffering…
And that means that sometimes when I read the Bible…it will push me to do things that are hard…things that will cause me to have to pick up my cross and suffer…
That is what the Bible is supposed to do…speak to you…give you hope…show you a different way of life…a way that will ask you to submit to God and His way…which will challenge you…but WILL transform you in the process…God’s love is supposed to transform you…the cross, if you accept it or if you even try to understand it, will transform your life…it has to…that is what it is supposed to do…His living word is supposed to speak to you…straight to your heart…and it will often ask you to let go of this world and what makes sense, put all your trust in Him, then to submit, pick up your cross, and suffer for Him…
John 33:16—I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.
Which is why in James 1, it says to Consider that pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds.
He has over come all the suffering…and if we can embrace our suffering, find joy, and persevere…there is blessing in the end…life…eternal life.
Wow…and here I stand fighting this…doing the opposite of this…the opposite of what Jesus did…I spend so much time fighting for my rights…
Why do I miss this so often…there has to be a reason that He says things like…
“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” in Luke 9:23.
“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for another.” in John 15:12-13.
“For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.” in Matthew 16:25.
God reveal to us why you say this…it must be important…Holy Spirit speak…
I really believe that if I want to look like Jesus…sometimes I have to suffer…
1 Peter 2:11-25–Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires which wage war against you soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority; whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of the foolish. Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves. Show proper respect to everyone, love your fellow believers, fear God, honor the emperor.
Slaves, in reverent fear of God submit yourselves to your masters, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh. For it is commendable if you bear up under the pain of unjust suffering because you are conscious of God. But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.
“He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.”
When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
We can’t forget that this is what Jesus looked like…
Do I really want to be like Jesus?
Do I really want to look like Jesus?
Yes…
God help me…
God I need you now…I don’t know what to do…I feel lost…I have been brought up in a place that tells me that I am entitled to my rights…and to fight for my rights…but you modeled something different…you let go of your rights…you suffered…for us…all of us…just because your kingdom works in a different way…by the way of love…and your love changed the world…I want to be like you…I want to be able to let go of my rights…I need to be able to let go of my rights…because it isn’t about me…I am not important…it is about you, and I want people to see you in me…God I can’t change the hearts of men, but you can…help us all to see you…God I pray that you would change our hearts, because we desperately need it…more than we know…God break out hearts for you…give us a hunger for you…God speak to us…God you answer my prayers over and over…and I thank you…I love that you answer me in a way that brings transformation in my life and my heart…but God I ask for more than that…I ask that you would open all of our hearts…helps us to learn to submit and let go of our rights…God…I find it so interesting that we represent you with a cross…a symbol of how you suffered for us…for how much you love us…I wear one around my neck everyday, and I don’t really think much about it…it is easy for me to just put a cross on my neck and think I am doing this right…In Ephesians 5:1, you call us to imitate you…not just put a cross on my neck and call myself a Christian…you ask us to give up our rights, even if we are right or justified…and you ask us to do it just because…because it isn’t about being right…it is about life…about you…about your kingdom…and you modeled it for me…God help me walk this…I feel weak…but you say in your word (2 Corinthians 12:9-10) “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in you weakness.”God I ask for you grace to be able to do this…your direction…I pray that you will be able to move…may your power change all of our hearts…God I want to be more like you…teach me to let go…to submit…let me be an example…use me God…God strip me of my pride…humble me…You must become greater, I must become less…
And if you are reading this…I would love it you would keep me in your prayers…pray that I will have the heart of God…so that I will be able to act out of love…not to prove my point…pray that I would see others the way God sees them…pray that I won’t be bitter towards people…that I would come under them in love…pray that I would have grace for others…and that I would embrace them…because I honestly don’t want to right now…pray that God would give me strength to persevere and finish the race that is before me…
