Living Life for Christ Alone

  When suffering grows long… Pretense is cast away and the true colors of our faith are revealed. Questions surface, doubts speak, and endurance wears thin.  This is when we are purified by fire. How will we answer the questions?  How will we fight the doubts?  How will we keep going through the suffering when the endurance all but disappears?  The answer is simple. So simple in fact, that we easily overlook it.  We can’t. Our own resources are not enough to pull us through. And when we finally embrace that fact, we open ourselves up to One greater than our weakness.  He steps amid the rubble of our broken lives, sees the crushed self-will, the shredded self-confidence, the sense that all control is lost, and finds us in a place where He can do something with us.  For before the long season of suffering began, though we thought we had built up something He could use, He saw how we were trying to mix self in with His power. And He also saw the grea...

"A mirror?" She questioned. "You want to show me a mirror?" "Yes, but not just any mirror," He said. He motioned for her to look in the mirror, so she did. It was the same reflection she saw every other time she looked into a mirror, but this time, she looked with the Spirit of Christ alongside her.  "There are many ways you can look at yourself," He spoke gently to her. Peering in, she realized it was true.  Suddenly, she was seeing herself as she imagined others saw her. Some of what she saw made her gasp in horror.  "I did not know I looked like that to them," She thought, "Must I always be conscious of this?" "Ah, but that is not all there is," He said. "Look deeper."  She looked again, but nothing had changed. She shook her head. "I'm not sure how to look deeper."  He reached out and touched a veil that seemed to cover over her face. It was the veil that covered everything about her that ...

I sat in the back seat of whatever car I was in at the time, looking out the window, deep in thought.  Something was stirring in me. I can't explain it. You probably wouldn't understand unless you, too have had a similar experience.  The thoughts were heavy ones. Ones of death, of heaven and hell, of lost souls all around me headed in the wrong direction. I watched as cars passed us, seeing the faces inside, deeply bothered that I did not know the state of their souls.  "God, show me what You see when You see those people out there," I prayed silently.  My heart grew heavier. Tears of anguish have fallen since.  This is no petty issue I am talking about. God's heart towards others is much bigger than we assume.   The past ten or so years since this prayer have been a slow opening of my eyes in answer to it. He's wanted me to see, really see... He wants you to see too.  Since then, I thought I was called to the mission field "out there," but God se...

"By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us...." (1 John 3:16) We do not know love any other way.  Until Jesus laid down His life for us, heavenly love wasn't tangible.  Most could only guess what God meant when He told His people He loved them.  But now, He proved His love, like a Lover pursuing a bride, setting aside His glory, giving up His very life, for the world. His love was on full display the whole time He lived here.  It wasn't just that ultimate act on the cross that revealed it.  It was seen in His every response to the world around Him.  It was made visible in His mission -the will of His Father- that defined every action He did.  Laying down His life was laying down not only the physical life He had on this earth, it was also laying down His time, His resources, His comfort, His sleep, His ease, His thoughts, desires and emotions....  And the disciples watched as He did so, floored every time God lowered Himself to se...

I had something else I was working on writing (which hopefully I will finish next week), but in lieu of my birthday, I thought I would write a little something to honor the One who created me, pursued me, and won my heart and life over to Himself.  I was singing "All I have is Christ" this morning and it got me thinking about my personal story and the many ways God has stepped in to turn the course of my life forever towards Him.  // "I once was lost in darkest night, yet thought I knew the way," the song begins.    // From the outside, you wouldn't have thought me to be very lost. I was a very good child. I was pretty good about learning from other's mistakes and making better choices than they did.  I knew how to obey the rules, too. And growing up in a Christian family and in church, one would have thought me a good Christian.  But I was quiet. No one knew my thoughts, because I didn't voice them.  People only knew some  of the good desires I h...

"What do I do?" I wondered as we drove home. The sun was setting far below the horizon, and streetlights flickered in the onset of darkness. I tried confessing whatever sin I knew to confess in silent prayer, but it didn't fix what was actually bothering me: I felt like such a huge mess.  My emotions had been all over the place.  I felt so much shame, fear, doubt... How had I gotten here? I wasn't sure... Besides, what good would it do to know? I couldn't fix it. I had spent many hours trying. It seemed that the more I tried, the messier it got. And it felt as though the very fabric of who I was had been torn apart. The Spirit within me nudged me to bring the mess to God.  "God, here is my mess... I bring it to You. Can you fix it?" I prayed silently, looking out the window into the dark night. Suddenly, I saw in my mind's eye the nail-pierced hands of Jesus. "I already did," His answer broke through my doubts and fears.  And then He looked...