Instructing and encouraging you to live your life as a disciple of Jesus
What is it God wants to do in your life? God says, “This is what I have for you; come and see!” But we respond, “Oh no Lord; not me!” Why is our faith so weak that we cannot believe that God can do whatever He wants to accomplish in our lives? Why is our vision so small that we can only dream of what is possible through our own strength? Paul said in Philippians 4:13 that he could do all things through the strength of Christ. All things! He didn’t say some things or easy things, but all things.
One of my favorite Christian authors is Calvin Miller. I’ve recently been reading his excellent little book entitled, “The Disciplined Life”. One of the things he said that really struck me was, “The difference between what God wants for us and what we ultimately become rests in how we break the thrall of those appetites that chain us to selfish lifestyles and selfish life goals.” My studies this past year have convinced me that selfishness is at the heart of all sin. Perhaps this is not a revelation to you and might even seem rather obvious. But how often do we look at our lives and consider ourselves selfish? Until we come to that realization, I submit we are all living in delusion.
My parents have a German Shepherd named Gabe that is absolutely petrified of thunderstorms. Recently when dog-sitting for them, I found myself cradling him while lying on the floor of a closet. I’ve never seen a dog shake so badly in all my life. The fear is irrational of course. No matter how loud the thunder, it can never injure Gabe. No matter how hard it rains, the water cannot reach into the upstairs closet where Gabe is trying to seek comfort. Even if the winds begin to howl and rattle the house, my arms are wrapped around him, protecting him against whatever will come. Despite all of this Gabe still shakes uncontrollably. It reminded me of how fearful we tend to be despite having the arms of the all powerful God wrapped around us.
There’s a wise adage that says, “What has your attention has you”. So the question is really obvious; what has your attention today? If our focus is anywhere other than on Jesus Christ, we are captured by something other than Him. Satan is a master of distraction. Since the dawn of time he has been parading a feast of temptation before our eyes (Genesis 3:1-6). He doesn’t care if you ever go his way; he’s content to just keep your eyes off of Jesus. We make it too easy for him.
These days it seems to be the rage to write articles espousing the “The 3 Keys to This” or the “7 Steps to That”. Everyone seems to be looking for a quick fix or at least some concrete guidance to getting to where they want to be. It made me ponder what I might consider to be the keys to following Christ. If I could boil it all down to a few concepts, what would they be? As I mulled it over, I kept coming back to a single thought: think less about yourself. Perhaps following Jesus really is that simple.