I know that I am not the only Christian who has felt the internal battle for my heart. I feel pulled in two different directions. I want to appease my "natural self" but long to be obedient to Christ. The 2 just can't work together. I know this is kind of a goofy video (my mom told me about it), but this is often how I feel....
Aww Snap!
...like there are 2 different Sarahs going in 2 different directions and getting nowhere except for falling flat on my face. I have been reading excerpts from C.S. Lewis who says this...
Christ says, "Give me All. I don't want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work. I want you. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it."
Such powerful words that make so much sense on paper (or on blog), but not so much sense put into my life. I love that God wants to kill my natural self. I heard it described as "using your natural self as a starting point for God to build on top of....like you've made Christ an addition to yourself." That is not giving all of me to Christ. I should allow God to kill my old self isntead of fighting him. I should allow him to give me that new life...to make me a new creation.
"The contrast between God's way of doing things and our way is never more acute than in this area of human change and transformation. We focus on specific actions; God focuses on us. We work from the outside in; God works from the inside out. We try; God transforms." -Richard J. Foster
However it does come with costs...this discipleship. Luke 14:25-33 speaks of this. It has already cost me some things, like friendships, approval, comfort, financial comfort, time. But there are some costs, some areas that I haven't given to him. I may have given back to him through some of my actions, but I have not given him my selfish or empty motives, my worry, or my autonomy in those actions.
"Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple...none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions." ~Luke14:25-33
2 comments:
I love C.S. Lewis...smart man. I couldn't get through "Mere Christianity" yet though.
Sometimes lately, I feel like my heart just wants to give up and give in. Not to any horrible destructive sin; just the sin of ordinary. To just finally start living an "ordinary" life like others are. And then there's days when my heart fights magnificently for the hope that we are called to something more, that there is something more out there in this crazy world that God made us for. Something worth fighting for. Something worth looking crazy for. Anyway, these two Mary's have been quite having it out lately. They need all of Sarah to shed some light for her. :) love ya!
You got an award!
Post a Comment