In my life, I have thought more highly of myself than I ought. (Romans 12:3)
These days, I am finding that as I really pay attention to certain Bible message recordings and LET those seeds sink in, I can see how…far short I fell.
This statement is not meant to heap guilt on myself, or anyone else reading this who can relate! I think it’s just a matter of growth…which God gives in the appointed time. But seeing what’s there, into which we can enter & have our being, compared to how I was…and which I thought was the right place but now I see, was just on the way to the right place! is like turning over a new leaf.
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It may be a case of accepting a new reality. We come to Christ while being engaged in living in the world system, and knowing what we experience as natural life, with all its involvements & entanglements. We have no spiritual discernment, as a rule, it seems.
Then, one day, there is a moment, there is an encounter, and we meet up with Jesus. If we choose him (or rather, agree? with His choosing us, perhaps is a better way to phrase it )(John 15:16), then we are translated into the kingdom of Light. After years or decades of not living in that kingdom, we find ourselves transplanted & beginning a learning and changing process. Everyone’s rate of growth & learning curve is unique to them, but I think for most of us, when all is said & done, it does take some time to come into full bloom. (Or as full a bloom as we can, according to God’s good pleasure.)(Hebrews 13:21)
I am at a place where I am beginning to see the more full extent of the exchange of my mindset for His.
And I think it has more to do with ingesting His Word than it does with any ‘effort’ on our part. To really believe a Scripture may challenge your reality more than you realize. But it’s where the rubber meets the road, and the point of origin of freedom in Christ. It is daring & it is bold, but there comes a point when you cannot back away from it. In a way, it is a form of laying down your ‘life’ in that moment & choosing His reality. It is centering. In those moments, you can feel old things fall away. You can sense your new garment.
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Especially clarifying for me is seeing how damaging to life and liberty in Christ is the application of a confrontive & maybe even angry ‘contending for the faith’. We would see Jesus, and it is good to show Jesus to others, not incite hostility. You may need to look to yourself & your motives, and most especially see Jesus & learn of Him before you launch a campaign against something or someone.
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∗∗(If any of what I’ve just written resonates with you, you may want to listen to the messages that triggered off these realizations for me: “Freedom from Condemning Other People’s Beliefs” & “Healing through the Character of God”, available at http://www.lovinggrace.org.)
