Oh God, Why do I wander from You? From Your Unfailing and Undeserved Love? I go searching for other things, but I know in the deepest part of me that You are all that is Good, and beyond that, You are Best. Reign over me and reign in me, Lord. God, I desire for your Word and your Love to be engraved on my heart, just like my name is engraved on your hand. I want to be faithful and glorifying to You. Please, Lord, help me be these things. God, I want you to have my heart. I want it to be so wrapped up in You. Teach me, Lord, and I pray that I am teachable and moldable. Release me from my old ways and guide me along the path of righteousness.
God is teaching me:
that no part of me is good but Him in me.
that He is the Redeemer and the only one who can save me.
the difference between doing something or acting like something, and being something.
I want to be and not act. To be faithful and not act faithful.
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2 comments:
amen.
im glad youre back.
Hey, I read this today and wrote out some thoughts. here they are.
Why do we rummage aimlessly through this world in search of love, purpose, for joy, intimacy, pleasure, for life, when we have it and know it? When He who is love lives in us? How is it possible that we should degenerate to our old ways? We so flippantly abandon the hope that we know, but for what? Nothing in this world will satisfy the deepest longings of our hearts, and even the best things in it point to something better. We have tasted the firstfruits of the spirit, so why do we so often return to slop? Will it ever satisfy? We have been reborn, and with it we’re given this new hunger which all the world would never satiate. Even as we are, having been saved, we long for more, what is not yet seen. We long to be freed from our sin, from our sinful nature and our broken bodies. As Paul said, we do not understand what we do, for what we want to do, we do not do, and what we hate, we do. This is sin at work in us. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the spirit is life and peace. Through Christ we have already received forgiveness and salvation, but we are not yet free from our tendency to sin. For that we wait in eager expectation. “Sin has been subdued by Grace, but we expect it to be utterly exterminated” – Spurgeon. We have our hope set on things unseen. We long to be perfected and refined, and the price of this perfection is death. Christ has paid it, and invites us to follow Him. I feel that I am just beginning to learn what it means to die. To understand Paul’s words when he said “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” I am beginning to see why our present suffering is necessary. Why we have been subjected to frustration and are in bondage to decay, why it is we face death all day long. We share in Christ’s sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. The more we know suffering the more we become like Christ. The more we know sorrow the more we are able to sympathize with the “man of sorrows”. We are perfected through the trials of this life, through becoming like Christ, in all of his ways. Christ was but no means free from the temptation to sin, in fact all things on earth were offered to him and he stood strong. How insignificant are the things that tempt us! As we become more like him, we are made more and more aware of our sinfulness, and we begin to recognize things as sin which we once excused. Also, as we become more aware of our sin, our longing to be free of it grows. My eyes are continually opened as I am shown that no part of me is good apart from Him. That anything good in me or that is done through me is Him alone, not myself. I am made more constantly aware of my need for salvation as the depth of my iniquity is made clearer. As we become aware of our need, our hunger grows, and our longings swell. It is then that we develop an increased capacity to receive the blessings and provision, the faith and hope that God is already pouring down upon us. It is then that we become more like Christ, it is then that we are able to die to ourselves so that Christ may live in us. After all, "I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me." "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." "For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you." (Gal 2.20 , Phil 1.21 , 2 Cor 4.11,12)
God, I want unshakable faith. I am learning that to gain this, I must be shaken. I want to know your hope, and love and joy, and I am learning that to know the fullest joy means knowing the deepest sorrows. To have the strongest and most genuine hope and trust and faith, I must be led through the darkest valleys and the fiercest storms. Lead me Lord. I will follow. Give me a righteous dissatisfaction and an insatiable hunger, and teach me to seek you alone for sustenance.
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