Recognizing God
So we want to be holy?
That has been our prayer for years. Oh, but that thing in our life now – that difficulty, that person, that need – that is the answer to that prayer: to be holy.
How will we respond?
Do we really want to be more like Jesus?
Will we chose to love? I mean truly love – 1 Corinthians 13 love? The kind of love that forces us to die to our self. The kind of love that forces our character to change. The kind of love that isn’t fun.
Will we trust God? I mean really trust Him? Like the people in Hebrews 11 trusted Him? When it’s so dark we can’t see the way forward, will we trust? Be still my soul! Is He really that real to us?
See, many of us really do want to be more like our Jesus, but that disturbance – that irritant – that is our Jesus today. Will we give Him a cup of water with patience and kindness or will we remain ME driven? God doesn’t have to send us to another country to work with orphans to become more like Him. He may, but really He just needs to rock our little world right where we live. And the easy people to love, our friends, our family, yes He is in that too. But the character building ones… oh they are Him. Not that they are a manifestation of Jesus, but just as Jesus said, if you have or haven’t done it to the least of these you have or haven’t done it to Me (Matthew 25:40-45). That is getting down to our core ME: my Christianity.
So who are we really?
Who is looking back at us in the mirror?
Some of us, as we read this blog, are ashamed of who we have been. Maybe we are faced right now with the uncomfortable reality that we really just aren’t as much like Him as we were hoping we were. That too is a blessing from God. That is the kindness of God. The kind of sorrow that leads us to repentance. God never leaves us here. No He wants to use our discomfort to lead us to change. And He has given us the most beloved Holy Spirit to work in us that which is pleasing to God. He can be trusted to finish what He has started.
Respond correctly to Him and grow.
“For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted…” 2 Corinthians 7:10a
“In this [living hope] you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ…” 1 Peter 1:6-7
