So What??!!

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God - having a form of godliness but denying its power. 2 Timothy 3:1-4

People love this verse. We always talk about how people in church are hypocrites and everybody wants to look good and holy and like they are somebody in the kingdom while going home to their sin. And it's true. Many of us have clung to religion on a very basic level; quoting the Word we refuse to obey. But there's something even more fundamental that we've missed here. It is one thing to read the words in your Bible and get excited about them; quoting them left, right and centre; but it's quite another to put them into practice.

Now, I'm not talking about the relatively easy stuff like, Do not steal; Give to anyone who asks you; if someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. I know, I know nothing simple about that but well, I'm currently an Accounting student. Following instructions is easy. You show me how to do something and I can regurgitate it over and over and actually believe that I am adding value (no offense to my fellow accountants). It is when you ask an accounting student to get creative and solve airy-fairy non-accounting problems that things get a little tricky. (3000 Word essay?? *blank stare*)

Jesus said that we would lay hands on the sick and they would get healed (Mark 16:18). He said that if we asked God for anything and believed that we had received it; it would be ours (Mark 11:24). He told us that He had overcome the world (John 16:33) and then sent us out there to show the world who He is and make His power known! So where is it?

Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.” John 6:28-29

I was sitting in Quiet Time the other day and I got quite miffed. Okay, so I like to tell my friends how I am learning to be faithful about spending time with God. I go to church and I serve; during praise and worship, I sing and dance, genuinely desiring to praise God and have a relationship with Him. If I don't wake up in time to have the stipulated 60minutes "in prayer" in the morning, the whole day is out of whack and I am now worried that I am not meeting my daily religious quota of Spiritualism 101. If my friends start talking about some great exploit or some great word they got while they were praying for three hours just before they walked in the room, I'm under pressure to say something deep. Wait a minute! So the heck what?

It's not enough anymore for us to fit the mold, prescribing a daily dose of "this is how much time i should spend on the things of God to be considered deep." We have rules upon rules of what it means to love God and how a man/woman "of God" should look or act and which special vocabulary they need to use. We out here playing church while every other day it's business as usual. Man, I'm tired. I'm tired of trying to look good and like i got it all together. I'm tired of praying for God to move in my life and do something radical just so I get up off my knees and live an ordinary life. Now this is a FORM of godliness. The Word of God is rich with His promises. He tells us that by his stripes we are healed (Isaiah 53:5); that we are the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21); that He has given us all things pertaining to life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3); etc but we're walking around like orphans who know nothing about our heritage.

So what if I can boast about how I pray up a storm or comfort myself with thoughts of how faithful I've been in service? While these things are good and beneficial; I think we need to take a step back and ask ourselves if we are truly believing in God or if we are just wanting to get by with enough to give ourselves and those around us the recognition we need to pass ourselves off as Christians while we refuse to walk in the POWER that God has deposited in each of our us through His Spirit. Who is it healing? Who is it helping? Whose life has it changed? Who has felt the love that God has put in your heart? When was the last time you saw this in your prayer life:  ‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’ Jeremiah 33:3 We seem to think of our Almighty God like He's powerless and incapacitated. Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, That it cannot save; Nor His ear heavy, That it cannot hear. Isaiah 59:1. We have to come to a place where we are prepared to allow God to INTERRUPT our lives. Don't leave God in the closet where you found Him and go about your day like you didn't just have an encounter with God.

I want to challenge somebody today to stop living in this politically correct charade. God is real. And God is serious about saving this world; healing it and bringing it back to Him while we're playing church and trying to earn titles and get the recognition of man. God has put something on the inside of you that the world desperately needs. Get on your face before God today and wrestle with Him and refuse to let Him go until He shows up and answers you as opposed to ticking off the 7am-8am prayer slot on your daily planner, feeling good about yourself for the rest of the day.

Then Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of day. Now when He saw that He did not prevail against him, He touched the socket of his hip; and the socket of Jacob’s hip was out of joint as He wrestled with him. And He said, “Let Me go, for the day breaks.”But he said, “I will not let You go unless You bless me!” Genesis 32:24-26

All I know is I was blind and now I see

So they again called the man who was blind, and said to him, "Give God the glory! We know that this man is a sinner."
He answered, "Whether He is a sinner or not I do not know. One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see."
John 9:24-25

What a testimony! This man was born blind. It had never before been heard of that anyone opened the eyes of a man who had been born blind (verse 32). Having been born that way, I imagine the possibility that he could ever receive his sight had never crossed his mind. He was aware of his infirmity but even more painfully aware of the fact that he absolutely had to live with it his whole life.

I am not alien to that state of mind. There was a point in my life when I looked at my situation, I saw my blindness, I was aware of it, but the magnitude of it was so overwhelming I couldn't see how I could ever come back from it. "Can God really fix this?" I thought. "Wouldn't He rather end this life and give me a do-over?"

Having re-committed my life to Jesus, I now understand that indeed I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me (Galatians 2:20). I did end that life and get that do-over after all. But did I magically transform into this person who had it made, with all the right attitudes and all the right habits and thoughts? No! I'm right at the beginning of my transformation by the renewing of my mind (Romans 12:2), something I put off for far too long. There's so much junk that God still has to sort through and I'm living my life today knowing that should I live to see the end of 2012 with it's goals and targets fulfilled, I will have only God to give the glory to.

I want the blind man's testimony! Some people will say, "Give the glory to yourself! You worked hard" or "Give the glory to your parents" or Give the glory to your discipline, focus or will power!" But I know it is not in my nature to be disciplined or focussed. At a point in my life when it is the most important for me to have it together, I don't! It is by the grace of God that I wake up every morning, struggling not to over press the snooze button; and that I go on my knees and cry out to Him to help me just to make it through th day.

Jesus has made the impossible possible. The Lord's hand is not too weak to save me (Isaiah 59:1). Something good can come out of the mess I made. I have already come so far. I may fail to explain my hope, I might not be able to use science or logic to justify it, but no one can dispute my testimony.
When I'm asked some day to give God's glory to anyone other than Him; should I be asked why, by the grace of God, I choose to seek and serve Christ everyday (yes I still have to make that choice daily) and get suggestions to put my hope in something else, I want to say, "Whether He is a sinner or not I do not know. One thing I know: that though I was blind, now I see."