Skip to main content

Handle life properly

Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ, and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in. (C. S. Lewis)

We all have those moments when we are thinking about what WE want. We get lonely and desire the closeness of another. We feel anger over things that bug us and want revenge. We have messed things up so badly and see no way out, but desire it so greatly. We find ourselves in the pit and want a ladder to climb our way out. We look all around for any other answer, but we know the one and only answer to each of these issues is Christ Jesus. We seek answers, but we don't go to the one who knows the answer ever before we pose the question.

I love to do God’s will so far as my new nature is concerned; but there is something else deep within me, in my lower nature, that is at war with my mind and wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. In my mind I want to be God’s willing servant, but instead I find myself still enslaved to sin. So you see how it is: my new life tells me to do right, but the old nature that is still inside me loves to sin. Oh, what a terrible predicament I’m in! Who will free me from my slavery to this deadly lower nature? Thank God! It has been done by Jesus Christ our Lord. He has set me free. (Romans 7:22-25)

We know that reality of the 'war' within - the one that pits self against Jesus. 'Self' demands its own way - Christ is right there asking for us to just look to him for his way. We don't realize that we are slaves to our 'self' nature - the thing that poses demands and demands over and over again. Our mind can be the greatest place of our struggle - thinking one thing but knowing another. Yup, we KNOW the right thing to do, but we struggle with doing it because our minds want something else entirely. All because WE think it will be better.

Looking to Christ when we are struggling with this walk with him may not be the easiest thing for us to do, but the more we look to him, the less our 'self' will demand its own way. We all have questions about how to live this Christian life, so ask them. There is no room for doubts within us, but they exist - be bold to share them with Christ. There is no room for unforgiveness within us, but it exists - only Christ can help us let go of that hurt and pain that leads to that desire to hold onto the bitterness. God doesn't want us to be unthinking - he wants us to bring our thoughts to him so he can rightly order them.

Doubts handled properly can become a stronger faith. Refusal to hold onto what only becomes a cancerous growth within us actually helps us to become more loving. We don't get to these points in life without Christ. WE want to be free, but WE don't move from the place where we are bound. It is only as WE get up, turn around, look squarely into the Word of God, listen to the voice of Christ, and take step after step that we can be free. We doubt we will ever be free but let me assure you of this - without taking the first step forward, we will always be bound. Just sayin!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What did obedience cost Mary and Joseph?

As we have looked at the birth of Christ, we have considered the fact he was born of a virgin, with an earthly father so willing to honor God with his life that he married a woman who was already pregnant.  In that day and time, a very taboo thing.  We also saw how the mother of Christ was chosen by God and given the dramatic news that she would carry the Son of God.  Imagine her awe, but also see her tremendous amount of fear as she would have received this announcement, knowing all she knew about the time in which she lived about how a woman out of wedlock showing up pregnant would be treated.  We also explored the lowly birth of Jesus in a stable of sorts, surrounded by animals, visited by shepherds, and then honored by magi from afar.  The announcement of his birth was by angels - start to finish.  Mary heard from an angel (a messenger from God), while Joseph was set at ease by a messenger from God on another occasion - assuring him the thing he was about to do in marrying Mary wa

A brilliant display indeed

Love from the center of who you are ; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply ; practice playing second fiddle. Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. (Romans 12:9-12) Integrity and Intensity don't seem to fit together all that well, but they are uniquely interwoven traits which actually complement each other. "Love from the center of who you are; don't fake it." God asks for us to have some intensity (fervor) in how we love (from the center of who we are), but he also expects us to have integrity in our love as he asks us to be real in our love (don't fake it). They are indeed integral to each other. At first, we may only think of integrity as honesty - some adherence to a moral code within. I believe there is a little more to integrity than meets the eye. In the most literal sense,

Do me a favor

If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care—then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand. (Philippians 2:1-4) Has God's love made ANY difference in your life? What is that difference? Most of us will likely say that our lives were changed for the good, while others will say there was a dramatic change. Some left behind lifestyles marked by all manner of outward sin - like drug addiction, alcoholism, prostitution, or even thievery. There are many that will admit the things they left behind were just a bit subtler - what we can call inward sin - things like jealousy,