Our great Father, deserving of all reverence and glory, please speak through us as your vessels to encourage each other and to give opportunity for others to commit themselves to you. Will you please let us burn for you daily Father. We ask for joy and the feeling of your presence, that we may not claim the wonders you work as our own, but as grace given from the Father. We long to feel you, to know you, to understand you, and to be with you in this moment. So come, and love on your children. In Jesus name, Amen.
I hate when God asks me to do something I don't want to do. It seems like this is most commonly what he asks of me. I hate when he asks things of me that I'm uncomfortable with doing because I have to sacrifice my pride, my reputation, or just my time. It feels like such a burden when God asks me to talk to someone about Him when I'm on my way to the gym. "But God," I say, "I need to exercise, you'll respect that, won't you?" I'm like a small Child whining to pick up the laundry from my room. "But mom," a small child might say, "I'm playing a video game, you understand, don't you?" This is how my flesh thinks and it frustrates my soul. My flesh says "I'm busy" and my soul screams "Tell them the Gospel!" Which option is the harder one? Or maybe a better question, which option is easier? I'm afraid following the flesh is easier my brothers and sisters.
Unfortunately for believing Christians, we are not called to follow what is easy, we are called to follow what is Holy. What is easy and what is holy are on opposite sides of the same spectrum. It's easy to not talk to people about Christ, it's holy to talk to people about Christ. It's easy to pursue whatever comes your way, it's holy to pursue the calling God has put before you. It's easy to love who you want to love, it's holy to love who God tells you to love. Your welcome to repeat those sentences and replace "holy" with "hard". The two are almost synonymous in our fallen world. However, it's important to understand my dear brothers and sisters that holiness is not difficult for God, it is difficult for us. It is difficult for us only because we live in a fallen world where the very thing we live in (our flesh) has been ruined. What is holy is opposed to the flesh. We are flesh, and God is holy, therefore what we want with our flesh is never what God wants.
Do not tell unbelievers or new believers or old believer alike, that the Christian walk is easy, for that is a lie. The Christian walk is not hard because God makes it hard, but because we have made it hard. It isn't hard because God is holy, it's hard because we are not. The Christian walk is contradictory to our nature not because God is good, but because man is bad. We are flesh, and the flesh cannot overcome flesh, for that is all there is. Therefore, in order for a Christian to be changed, we must be changed by something greater than the flesh; something holy. God has graciously taken this role upon himself and granted us the Holy Spirit to dwell within us and give us a new heart. For he is the only one who could do such a thing.
God will tell you, throughout your Christian walk, to do hard things, and I encourage you with all of myself to do such things. For the reward is much greater when we follow what we were meant to be in the first place: holy. Let us return, by God's grace, to our original selves and be renewed by the love of our great Father, that not only we will enjoy him, but we will enjoy him because we walk according to the commands he gives. God has overcome the world, may we dwell in that security.
"I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world." - John 16:33
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