The Voices In My Head

"What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?" - Matthew 16:26

I know most of the time we usually view this verse as: You can gain the whole world, its knowledge and wealth, but it can't buy your way into heaven. You will lose your soul if you're only seeking what the world can give you. Which I fully agree with. But also, how detrimental can it be, in the context of gaining the whole world, even for one who's chosen Jesus Christ, to get caught up in seeking man's praise instead of God's. If you're only doing Christian things because you want people to think you are holy, instead of being in response to God's goodness, then you've lost a pretty big part of what it actually means to be a Christian. Like I said in my last post "Religion & Relationship", there's a difference between living a religion and living a relationship. You could have the whole Bible memorized, but what's the use if it's just head knowledge. What's the point if you haven't moved what made sense in your head into your heart and acted upon it? To only know facts about God is not really knowing Him at all. Christianity is never just lived on the outside, it's lived from the inside out.

You may have gained tons of Christian-looking things, but when it comes down to it, you came about them in the wrong way.

We deplete the strength of our souls when building on sand a faith of outward appearance.

"For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God." - Romans 2:28-29
On your own, you cannot change the shape of your heart. The Heart Creator is the only One who can shape the heart. You might be able to say the right words and do the right things when everyone is looking, but they mean nothing. Change on the outside is pointless without change on the inside first. Real change on the outside only comes from change on the inside.

When we fear man above God, we only strive to look holy. Our holiness is hollow.

But when we fear God above man, we seek to find our image, our purpose, our self worth in Him. We live from the heart and our holiness is legitimate. We live out of what Christ has called us and changed us to be. We can continue to embrace the life, that by His death, He offers us.

So may our lives not be ones of seeking man's approval, seeking to look holy in their eyes, building a false Christianity. For we will fall short and end up losing ourselves in the process.

May we seek to find our identity in Christ, the One who has called us by name, who sees us as His sons and daughters. May we seek affirmation from the One who's counts highest above all else, the One who has died to set us free from the captivity of thinking that we need to be more than we are, that we're not good enough. Jesus Christ loves us for who we are right now. We were made righteous by the shed blood of our Savior. "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." - 2nd Corinthians 5:21

We are who He says we are far beyond what man thinks. His voice matters most. When a person hears the affirmation of God, their lives change.

So may we learn to quiet ourselves so that we can cut through the distracting voices that are so loud, the distractions that tell us that we aren't meeting society's standards, that we don't have enough and aren't good enough. This is the lie from hell that deceives our hearts, pulling us into the hopelessness of trying to please man. Living this way only leaves us broken.

We are His creation! So let us fully embrace the truth that the Creator of love, the One who spoke the earth into existence, the One who created us to be in relationship with Him, loves us with all He's got. We won't need anything else because we'll be able to rest in a peace that passes all understanding knowing that the God of the universe is holding us so very close to His chest, never letting us go.

Galatians 2:20 - "Christ's life is my example. I identify myself completely with Him. indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important than I appear righteousness before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to even impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not "mine", but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I am not going to go back on that"