Where God's Word Meets My Mess
I fully believe that true Christians will bear fruit. And that fruit will be obvious to other people, like faithfulness and joy and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). But I don’t believe we are on the deadline that we give ourselves.
I knew God was speaking to me when I had that “little fall.” Although my name is Grace, I’m not very gracious—especially to others. Rather, I’m often haughty…and I fell.
Before I start ranting (mentally or audibly), I need to stop my thoughts and determine an appropriate response. Because every time I think a demeaning or debasing thought, I assume a position on the throne as holier-than-thou.
Jesus is our example in this situation, as He is in every situation. The disciples promised to stay with Him but quickly left Him. He could’ve left, too. He could’ve abandoned His mission. Instead, He watched and prayed. He asked God to be freed from His suffering, but He was also willing to die. What if the disciples had watched and prayed as well?
I know how much you want to destroy your idols, and I know how much you want to keep them. I know how impossible it feels not to worship them. I may set goals, have high ambitions, and desire to change. But I still feel like I’ll always be ruled by my idols. So how do I stop? How do we stop?
No one and nothing is like our God. He wants us to know Him, love Him, and worship Him only. But we can’t do that if we’re worshipping eight different idols—or even one.
We can blame our sin nature or our culture, or we can take responsibility for our actions and realize that we often don’t try to change our priorities. Maybe the reason we don’t have time to read our Bibles, pray, go to church, fellowship, or serve others is because we aren’t making time for those activities. To be honest, I usually don’t make time for these activities either.
God patiently re-teaches me that to live and walk the way He meant, only comes through Jesus and His power. I need a perfect, mighty Savior to come alongside and give strength to change. This lesson comes with difficulty, but my failures teach me to trust God’s strength.
Today, we live in a culture that is filled with garbage—racy movies, crude music, and indecent pictures. Sexy ads and dirty jokes are everywhere around us. Putting this garbage in our heads is becoming normal. And, unfortunately, it is even becoming normal for Christians.
Like every other season of life, you can make this the best or the worst of times. So choose your activities well. Don’t waste a moment. If you do nothing else this summer, learn to lean more on Christ and less on yourself.
I believe that everything in life—especially the Christian’s life—is a balance. There’s a balance between being unwilling to use our gifts from God and being too willing to use them. You know what I mean by “too willing.” Basically, it means having an egotistical, superior attitude. Which category do you fit into?
Your time, whether spent well or poorly, is a sunk cost. Every moment of the past is a sunk cost. We sometimes pay the price for wasting time—even when we don’t mean to waste it.
I simply ignore all logical reasoning when a bowl of cookie dough is before me. Unfortunately, many Christians are the same way. Most of us rarely resist temptation. We give up, give in, suffer the consequences, and do it all over again.
If we don’t even try to deny ourselves, we don’t deserve to have Jesus. Even if we do try to deny ourselves, we don’t deserve Him. However, the main point of this post is simply this: We have to stop acting like we don’t understand basic commands and just do them.
Remember that God wants the best thing for you. Even though it feels good to indulge and have a little “sin party” sometimes, it will just make you want to keep sinning. It’s harder to stop once you’ve started. Keep that in mind when you’re tempted to give into a little rebellion.
