Purposeful Choice

 Your life is a journey you must travel with a deep consciousness of God. It cost God plenty to get you out of that dead-end, empty-headed life you grew up in. He paid with Christ’s sacred blood, you know. He died like an unblemished, sacrificial lamb. And this was no afterthought. Even though it has only lately—at the end of the ages—become public knowledge, God always knew he was going to do this for you. It’s because of this sacrificed Messiah, whom God then raised from the dead and glorified, that you trust God, that you know you have a future in God. (I Peter 1:18-19)

A journey that must be traveled - that is a pretty doggone good description of our life with Christ. The empty-headed life put us smack-dab in the middle of sin, compromise of all sorts, and some pretty unwise decisions. In Christ, we leave behind that dead-end life we 'grew up in'. Our sin nature has been with us since conception - our new nature in Christ has been with us since we said yes to Jesus. Now it is time to live like our new nature demands.

A deep consciousness of God isn't accidental - it is cultivated. How do we cultivate it? We need to approach our life in Christ with 'intentionality'. In other words, we need to make every effort to leave behind our old way of making decisions, because we relied heavily upon our own reason or experience as the sole basis for those decisions. Our emotions played a huge part in how we made them. We have 'learned behaviors' we likely call habits thaat need to be laid aside - replaced with much better 'habits' that will help us take this journey.

What are those new habits? Most will tell you to pray, read your bible, spend time at church, listen to good music that fills your spirit, and get to know other believers who will support you in this journey. Those are all spot on instructions for how we form new habits in Christ. Yet, the greatest 'habit' we can develop is an awareness of who Jesus is and how he works in our lives. We might do this by times in study of the Word, but sometimes we just see him at work in others. 

Time in worship is also very important. We need to focus our attention on new things. We need to get our eyes off of ourselves so much and put them on Jesus. How do we do this? I have found that when I enter into worship, my heart automatically looks toward him. I don't focus so much on 'me', 'me', 'me', but see his goodness and grace in my life, celebrating what he has done and is continuing to do. We don't cultivate this new life in Christ by accident - it is a purposeful choice to serve him daily, choosing to live by a new set of standards and then making the most of every opportunity to give him glory and honor in both our words and our deeds. Just saying...