If you were to look around right now would you see God in everything about you? Would you look at the items in the room, or the trees in your backyard and say “God, how magnificent you are!”, or would you struggle to find him? Seeing God in every aspect of our lives, and in every scene, thing, or occurrence that makes us feel alive, takes spiritual training.
If we live according to the commandments, are we owed righteousness and everlasting life? How can we be so bold as to feel this way after Jesus walked into a vile pit of sin and human debasement, suffered, took on sin, died, and was raised again... all for us in our undeserving state. God created and loved us first, he chose us in love before the creation of the world, and knew us while we were yet in our mother’s womb. How is it we might feel that something we do would entitle us, or hold God accountable in some way?
Has Jesus changed your life? Has He altered the very essence of who you once were, or do you put Him on like a change of clothes each day to cover up the nakedness of sin that still exists underneath? Many portray one thing publicly, and then retreat into a private world that is quite different... is this us? Are there things we hide beneath our veneer of faith?
When God speaks do we answer straightway? When God says “Come” do we immediately go to Him? When Jesus says “Go do...” are we willing to drop whatever we are presently doing and go? By our very nature we are procrastinators, some of us more than others, but all of us have some degree of this trait in us. However, when God reaches out to us He expects action and not excuses, and for us to obey exactly as He has instructed. Are we obedient children of God?
Do you look back at your life of faith with regret? Do you look down and feel like a failure because you weren’t a Billy Graham, or haven’t made some great theological impact? This happens to pastors, missionaries, and church workers, quite often. But how about those of us who are lay people, the everyday Christians and parishioners? Do we think that we have let Jesus down because we haven’t been able to contribute a huge amount of money to the church, sit on the board, or head up a committee? Well let’s stop right there!! We are viewing our worth through worldly eyes.
Do you have routine habits of faith? Are you made proficient in your faith by setting aside certain times each day to regularly read, pray, or just contemplate God, and Jesus? If not, and you are just depending on random thoughts, or going to church once or twice a week, then you are missing out on a wonderful growing relationship.
What bubbles up from within you during prayer? Do you ever begin to pray and then hear yourself as if from some faraway place; speaking in a language of groans and utterances that you can’t translate into words, but feel perfectly conversant in within your heart? Our spirit, and the Holy Spirit that resides within us will speak together in a dialect known only in heaven if we give them rein to do so.
Who will we come into contact with today? Will there be some chance happening in our life that isn’t quite as chance as it might seem, and that the Lord will orchestrate for His purposes, and glory? There are many intercessions that occur during what we think are less than significant meetings and encounters, and in those brief moments when we witness someone’s need or struggle, our minds often wander to God as we think such prayerful things as “Oh God.”, or “Jesus!”. Have you ever considered these instant utterances to be moments of prayerful intercession?
How deep is our faith in Jesus Christ? Have we believed all our lives that Jesus is the Son of God, and yet never been intimate with Him? Have we walked down the aisle weeping and confessing that He is the Lord of our lives, and then continued along with the reins of our lives held tight in our hands? Maybe we spend a lot of time trying to make ourselves righteous by doing those things Jesus taught, but do them without ever having met our living Savior. In faith, true faith, we are meant to allow Him to transform us by making us righteous, and holy.
When we talk with a friend about Jesus in a public place do we speak in hushed tones? When someone asks us about Jesus in a crowded room do we whisper in their ear, or just nod our head to affirm our belief? If so, let me tell a couple of true stories, and quote some scripture, that might change our behavior.
How often do we sin, then confess and ask for forgiveness only to find purity before falling back once again into that selfsame sin? How many battles must we fight with an adversary before they are at last declared defeated? Do we ask God to heal the wounds of sin, but neglect to ask that He fight them for us?
Do you have a plan for your life? Have you set everything before you and determined what pieces of the puzzle go where, and started the process of fitting them perfectly together? If so, there is probably a nice spot for God, another for Jesus, and oh yes, let’s not forget the Holy Spirit, but is that really how our life is formed, and our faith is shaped?
Do we go about rationalizing our own actions while claiming to be a servant of God and follower of Jesus? Do we use the good nature of God as an excuse for disobedience? If so, then we need to re-evaluate our faith. God may not be forcing us to do His will, but that doesn’t diminish it in the least.
We have been purchased with the very blood of Jesus, and have come to know Him. We have been baptized in water, and then again in the Holy Spirit as it was poured over, and into, us... borne on the sweet breath of Christ Himself. Yet still we can find the allure of sin to be too great. How can this possibly be?
Are You Facing trials in your life right now? Does it feel like God has abandoned you and let the world have its way with you? Well praise God for where you are right now because in your misery He is expanding the beam of our faith. It is in such times that our faith isn’t tested... it is stretched as we reach desperately for His hand. The disciples of Jesus had just failed... they had been unable to cast a devil out of a child. They were feeling sorry for themselves and with their faces drooping, they asked Jesus why they hadn’t succeeded, and He said it was because of their unbelief. They were about to be stretched.