A god fashioned life: A life
renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately
reproduces his character in you.
Lately I have been pursuing a
righteous life in God. I had an epiphany… in order to be apart from the world
and look different… I have to actually live apart from the world and look
different. Funny huh? But for some reason it is something I am afraid we do not
take seriously. Instead we spend all of our energy justifying what we are doing
and saying, how far I can push this or that before I believe it offends God. We
even spend time finding the right scripture to convince ourselves that what we
are doing is right. We don’t put him first because it is easier to live for
ourselves we don’t ask for his input because we think we can come up with a
better solution without him. It is easier to let the desires of the flesh reign
in our lives instead of letting the God who created us and SAVED us reign in
our hearts. It is easier to accept our get into heaven card and live the life
we want anyway. But if we are living this way, have we actually truly been
transformed and allowed him to enter out hearts?
There is a battle waging. God
the creator of the universe has authority over everything. He owns everything…
BUT he also gave you a free will. We must understand that because of his Love
for us he wants us to choose him, I mean afterall don’t we all want to be
chosen? I feel that our love is more genuine that way. But because of this
freedom and free will, a battle has begun and the enemy is also raging on, his
entire goal to get you to do his will instead of Gods. This is not a joke, this
is real.
The funny thing about
righteousness in God is it starts from the inside out. You see I think that
before I was trying to do it the opposite way, which led to battling self
righteousness and a constant need of surrender because I would so quickly make
things my own, try to control them and boast in them. The scary part is I did
this all without realizing it.
Lately I have realized that
there are areas in my life that I thought I was free from but in fact they are
just masked, covered up etc. It is easy to not struggle with something if you
remove the temptation or remove the trigger. The other thing we do is decide,
OK YES LORD I desire truly to be this or that, because it is of you… and we
change our behavior, environment and mind set for a short term… but it
eventually fades… and we are right back where we started. I decided that this
was not good enough and it was not the goodness, the freedom, or the
righteousness that Papa desired for me.
This has not been an easy
process. It is painful at times. Back in Romania I prayed and asked God to
remove anything in me that was not of Him, and let me die to myself so that He
could come and manifest in me more and more. Whoa, Bold prayer right!? that was
5 months ago and he has revealed so many things… and it has been painful but
amazing. I have freedom in areas I never had before and it is amazing.
But then, last month in China
as I was reading the word I realized that the righteous, or a life of
righteousness is mentioned over and over and over. I began to ponder, What exactly does this mean? I found that
the answer wasn’t easy for me to accept. I believe that if we live in the
righteousness that the Lord has in us because HE dwells inside of us and has
given us his spirit to lead us into the way everlasting…. we will in fact be
apart from this world, we will be more and more like Him with each new day… all
well and good but what is the catch!? We have to be willing to really die to
ourselves and be open to the Lord changing our desires from the world to Him.
The bitter and hard to admit truth is that the world is so attractive, I like
the idea of not needing God and being able to be in control, It is way easier
to be selfish than selfless and when I examine who I am and the life I live,
although it has flaws, is pretty good.
I must choose to have Faith
and believe that the life God has planned for me far surpasses anything I could
ever plan. I have to desire righteousness as a response to his spirit, not to
look good or have something to boast in. And I have to be willing to let Him
transform me, in his timing and in his perfect way.
So here I am today. Without
asking and inviting God into an open door in my heart, He will not force
himself in. But today I asked him to shine his loving light on the dark shadows
that are hiding and the deep places of my heart. As he reveals them to me I
must confess them, repent and choose God. Without this important step, I will
only carry the burden with me, instead of living in the Grace and Promise of
the Cross. God shines light on things so that they can be transformed into
light… not so that we can feel shameful and hide, not so that we will feel
guilty and NOT so that we can try and fix them ourselves…. wow.
God is actively trying to
produce his character in you. I am confident that if we actively seek Him and
live in intimacy with Him we will not be able to deny his loving and gentle
transformation. He will help us be more like him and be unlike the world. He
wants to use us to change the world, to bring justice to the oppressed, to have
joy despite our circumstances, to have peace in the chaos, to offer hope to the
hopeless, to bring freedom to the captives, to bring life to the dead. To be a
disciple…. means to conform your life to be like the one you follow. Where are
the desires of our heart? Do we truly desire to look like Jesus? Is it easier
to be ourselves and settle for the lives that we can create on our own, without
His glory and goodness in us or do we truly desire to look like Him and be
apart form the world?
hmm… something to think about
thank you for reading my
ramblings,
Rach
