Who Do You Believe In?

Do you ever just sit down at the computer and not know why but know there IS purpose in it? That there is something inside of you that needs to come out and the only way it’s going to happen is through your fingers on a keyboard?  Now is one of those moments.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how most of what I think about issues in life and faith and love have been influenced by the things, people, and places around me and that I have come in contact with throughout my short 34 years.  This is why the verse in scripture about renewing our minds daily is so important (Romans 12:2).  The influences in our lives, even if they are the best representation of who Christ was while on the earth, are still just a shadow of what Kingdom living can be if Holy Spirit is not invited in to bring clarity as well as our own personal revelations.  I think sometimes, we as Christians, settle for our forefather’s revelations and even revivals they have experienced.  We hear the stories about things that have happened to OTHER people but we don’t truly seek out Papa’s face on a daily basis to the point of seeing His will done in our own lives, our own realities, our own relationships.  We “phone it in” when it comes to even praying for ourselves or others as well as sitting down and taking a scripture and pouring over its revelation for us IN THAT MOMENT because we’ve “read or heard it 100 times.” 

Why have we become such a lazy generation who chooses to feed on yesterdays’ manna?  What is it about really digging into the Word that is off-putting to us and leads us to shy away from that one-on-one time with the best manual to life that there is out there?  Are we afraid of what we will find if we start to look deeper than our topsoil faith?  Are we scared of who we will see when we truly allow the mirror of scripture to be held up to our true selves, what’s really underneath the masks we wear?

I think Truth is something that we have been taught to fear at times because sometimes the truth hurts.  The thing is…..it’s supposed to.  There’s always purpose in the process and pain on the way to Papa’s Promises.  Why did Jesus have to die on the cross? I mean I feel like we know the Christianese answer to that question…..to be the sacrifice of sin for all mankind. But why the cross? Why allow Himself to be brutally beaten to a pulp so that He was unrecognizable?  Why 39 lashes before the actual act of the cross? We see Jesus literally walking out the process and pain and agony on the way to the ultimate sacrifice but do we see Him sway or even complain? 

No. And He definitely had ample opportunity to do so as the Son of God.

But He was showing us an example on His way to the Promise of Salvation. There was pain in that process, but, as He was enduring that pain, He was fulfilling every prophecy and promise ever given about Him.  He held onto what was to come because He KNEW His Father wouldn’t fail Him and believed that Papa was and is who He says He is.

So, back to my original thought, how many of us are leaning on our own understanding which has been influenced by so many things around us, instead of leaning into the One who gives us peace that passes that understanding through working out our own salvation (Philippians 2:12)? How many of you are ready for some of that peace today?