Living FOR, not just with

You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. This is my command: Love each other. (John 15:16-17)

Choice - to select from a number of possibilities - usually because you know something about what it is you are choosing. I choose one of a couple of brands of toilet tissue because I know the quality of those brands. I sometimes see other choices that may cost a little less, but I don't choose them because I have no clue as to their quality. I choose one brand of dish detergent because I have observed what it does when I make a sudsy water to wash my pots and pans. We make all kinds of choices each and every day, some of them pretty much a matter of 'routine' in our lives. There are choices we make consciously and others we make subconsciously, something we might not even realize we are doing. How is it we choose to serve Christ today? Is it a conscious or subconscious decision? Is it purposeful or by rote? If we truly love him as he has loved us, I daresay a relationship that is 'rote' or 'routine' is not really a relationship at all!

Paul put it this way in his letter to the Philippian church: "To me, living means living FOR Christ...but if I live, I can do more and more fruitful work for Christ." (1:21) Christ's command to his disciples those many years ago still stands today. We are to be 'grafted into' his family, taking care of one another, loving one another as he first loved us. A relationship is established in his 'choosing' us, but it is our responsibility to keep the relationship fresh and vital by actually engaging with him each and every day - consciously. When you first start a relationship, you make very conscious decisions to get to know each other, what the other person likes, how they relate to you when they are happy, tired, sad, or hungry. You are learning 'about' them, but does that learning ever truly end? Not if you want it to be a vital and lasting relationship!

Jesus asks us to learn who he really is - yes, learn about him, but we must also learn things we can only know by spending time WITH him. We can know a whole lot 'about' Jesus and totally miss out on the joy of actually getting to spend time in his presence. We call that being a 'churchgoer' - one who merely warms the pew with their presence, but totally misses that Christ's presence is right there beside them. When we really want to grow in relationship with Christ, we soon discover we want to see certain fruit develop within our lives. The fruit we might desire is gentleness of spirit, kindness of heart, wisdom to speak words of hope and comfort. We only develop fruit through attachment to the vine. We only remain attached and vital when we take that time at his feet developing the relationship. Just sayin!

What is your life message?

Did you ever stop to consider why it is the devil comes down so hard on you to convince you who you 'used to be' when you finally begin to believe just who you are in Christ Jesus? He isn't going to be happy when we figure out we are new creations and no longer who we 'used to be', but will use every opportunity to convince us who we were is really what we still are. Where we grow up, who we are surrounded with as we grow up, what we face in the way of encouragement or negative feedback - all these things make up who we believe ourselves to be and what we believe we are 'worth'. We could have been told we are really 'nothing', but God declares us to be 'everything' - but it can take us a long time to realize this. Inadequate, worthless, shameful, insecure - do these words ring true for any of you? They are the words we often hear in our moments of personal doubt and frustration. When we feel inadequate, we oftentimes over-compensate by trying hard to impress someone in our lives - living for the approval of people instead of living from the approval of God. God chose each of us to be part of his family - each of us are given gifts - even when we don't believe what we 'possess' is any form of a 'gift'. 

Because of this decision we don’t evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don’t look at him that way anymore. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life emerges! Look at it! All this comes from the God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other. God put the world square with himself through the Messiah, giving the world a fresh start by offering forgiveness of sins. God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We’re Christ’s representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God’s work of making things right between them. We’re speaking for Christ himself now: Become friends with God; he’s already a friend with you. (2 Corinthians 5:17-20)

We all have a life message - we are called to live out that message. When we start to live like who we are now in Christ, the devil will be there to tell us who we are NOT. He will remind us of every place in our lives where we fall short of the glory of God in our lives. The devil comes to steal, kill and destroy - those are his three actions in this earth. Steal our joy and hope. Kill our desires and beliefs. Destroy our faith and freedom. Why? He doesn't want us to ever believe we are 'anything' in Christ. He wants us to live out of the discouragement of our hurts - the hurts of the past. He wants us to live in the shame of our past choices - because as long as we do, we are bound to our past and will never enjoy the freedom of our present path in Christ Jesus. If you have had to hit bottom before you ever looked up to find your freedom in Christ, don't let your enemy pull you back into that pit again - you never belonged there in the first place! You don't belong there now!

The enemy of our souls wants us to think we are 'nothing', but God declares us to be 'everything'. Let that sink in a bit - 'everything' is the farthest thing from 'nothing'. He wants us to live out of our hurt - but God wants us to live of our extreme HOPE - the hope we have in Christ Jesus. We are dead to sin - alive in Christ. As such we are alive - new in Christ Jesus - all things old are gone and all things are made new. We are called to better things that our past may have us believing, but when we let go of those 'limiting lies' of our past, we begin to realize just how free we are live in the newness we are called into - no longer bound by the brokenness of our past. Don't live out of the hurts of your past - let God take who you are today (in him) and use it to begin to live out the good works he has prepared in advance for you to do. You may not think that is possible, all because of your past, but IN CHRIST JESUS, all things are possible - even to see yourself as he sees you. No longer seeing yourself as your past declares about you - but seeing yourself as he sees you. Perfect, whole, beautiful, and full of grace. Just sayin!